Congressman Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, March 22, 1866

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 22, 1866.

MY DARLING:— I am happy in getting yours of the 18th this morning. Mr. Blow of St. Louis had a small fuss with Green Clay Smith. Smith found Blow kissing Mrs. Smith! Bad again. Queen Esther still pretty, talks louder than ever and too much and too fast for a public dining-hall.

A. J. [the President] is now being tried by another test—the Civil Rights Bill. If he signs it he gets into the bosom of the family again. If not, more worry.

Affectionately, ever your

R. B. HAYES.

MRS. HAYES.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 20-1

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, March 1, 1865

Judge J. T. Hale called on me to say he had had a conversation with the President and had learned from him that I had his confidence and that he intended no change in the Navy Department. He said a great pressure had been made upon him to change. I have no doubt of it, and I have at no time believed he would be controlled by it. At no time have I given the subject serious thought.

Mr. Eads and Mr. Blow inform me that Brandagee in his speech, while expressing opposition to me for not favoring New London for a navy yard, vindicated my honesty and obstinacy, which Blaine or some one impugned. Blaine is a speculating Member of Congress, connected, I am told, with Simon Cameron in some of his projects, and is specially spiteful towards the Navy Department. I do not know him, even by sight, though he has once or twice called on me. Some one has told me he had a difficulty with Fox. If so, the latter never informed me, and when I questioned him he could not recollect it.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 250