A rumor is prevalent and very generally believed that the French mission has been offered Bennett of the New York Herald. I discredit it. On one or two occasions this mission has been alluded to in Cabinet, but the name of B. was never mentioned or alluded to. There are sometimes strange and unaccountable appointments made, but this would be more disreputable that that of J. P. Hale. Not that B. has not more fitness and higher qualifications than H., but the latter has position from his state. I think B. with his bad reputation an honester & better man than Hale.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 —
December 31, 1866, p. 258; William E. Gienapp & Erica L. Gienapp,
Editors, The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, Lincolns Secretary of
the Navy, p. 603-5
