Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, January 3, 1865

Much engaged. The two days have brought an amount of business which it is difficult to dispose of in a single day. But three of us at the Cabinet meeting. Various little matters talked up.

Old Mr. Blair was lingering in an adjoining room during the latter part of our sitting. Rumor has said that he and his son Montgomery had gone on a peace mission, and that Davis had invited them to Richmond. Nothing has been said to me on the subject, yet I am inclined to believe there has been a demonstration sufficient for the rumor. They have, for some purpose, been to the front, their absence has been longer than was contemplated, but I am not confident that any results have been obtained.

Simeon Draper, Collector of Customs at New York, called on me a few days since, stating that he had been appointed cotton agent by the Secretary of the Treasury, to proceed to Savannah and dispose of the captured cotton recently taken by Sherman. Draper called to get from me a letter of introduction to Rear-Admiral Dahlgren, as he would be likely to be thrown in Dahlgren's company. Of course, I could not refuse. But the idea of sending such a man on such a mission, when he has more than any one honest man can do to discharge his duties as a collector faithfully, sickened me. Fessenden certainly knows as little of men as Chase. This mission of Draper will be a swindle, I can scarcely doubt. A ring will be formed for the purchase of the cotton, regardless of public or private rights.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 219-20

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, September 22, 1864

Senator Harris called on me. He is jubilant over Sheridan's success, but much disturbed by the miserable intrigues of Weed and Seward in the city of New York. Says he has told the President frankly of his error, that he has only given a little vitality to Weed, whose influence has dwindled to nothing, and would have entirely perished but for the help which the President has given him. This he is aware has been effected through Seward, who is a part of Weed. The removal of Andrews as Naval Officer, the appointment of Wakeman to his place, causing Wakeman to leave the post-office, into which they have thrust Kelly, an old fiddler for Seward in other years, is a Weed operation. Seward carried it out.

Blair tells me that Weed is manœuvring for a change of Cabinet, and Morgan so writes me. He has for that reason, B. says, set his curs and hounds barking at my heels and is trying to prejudice the President against me. Not unlikely, but I can go into no counter-intrigues. If the President were to surrender himself into such hands, which I do not believe, — he would be unworthy his position. He has yielded more than his own good sense would have prompted him already. For several months there has been a pretended difference between Seward and Weed; for a much longer period there has been an ostensible hostility between Weed and Sim Draper. I have never for a moment believed in the reality of these differences; but I am apprehensive the President is in a measure, or to some extent, deceived by them. He gives himself — too much, I sometimes think — into the keeping of Seward, who is not always truthful, not sensitively scrupulous, but a schemer, while Weed, his second part, and of vastly more vigor of mind, is reckless and direct, persistent and tortuous, avaricious of late, and always corrupt. We have never been intimate. I do not respect him, and he well knows it. Yet I have never treated him with disrespect, nor given him cause of enmity, except by avoiding intimacy and by declining to yield to improper schemes of himself and his friends. On one occasion, at an early period of the Administration, Mr. Seward volunteered to say that he always acted in concert with Weed, that “Seward's Weed and Weed's Seward.” If, as Blair supposes, Weed is operating against me, Seward probably is also, and yet I have seen no evidence of it, - certainly none recently.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 154-5

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, September 5, 1864

Mr. Blair returned this morning from Concord. He had, I have little doubt, been sent for, partly to see and influence me. I am not sufficiently ductile for Mr. Raymond, Chairman of the National Executive Committee, who desires to make each navy yard a party machine. The party politicians of King's County wish to make the Brooklyn Navy Yard control their county and State elections, and this not by argument, persuasion, conviction, personal effort on their part, but by the arbitrary and despotic exercise of power on the part of the Secretary of the Navy. I told Blair I could not be instrumental in any such abuse, and read to him Admiral Paulding's letter. I should have read it to Raymond, had he possessed the manliness to call on me. But he says I am unapproachable, a wall that he cannot penetrate or get over. E. B. Washburne is in this business; so are Usher and others. They want me to do a mean thing, and think it would benefit the party, — a most egregious error, were I so weak as to listen to them. The wrong which they would perpetrate would never make a single convert, control a single vote, but it would create enmities, intensify hatred, increase opposition. They would remove any man who is not openly with us and of our party organization, would employ no doubtful or lukewarm men in the yard, whatever may be their qualifications or ability in their trade. But removing them would not get us their vote, and instead of being lukewarm or doubtful they would be active electioneers against us, exciting sympathy for themselves and hatred towards the Administration for its persecution of mechanics and laborers for independent opinions.

Blair like a man of sense, has a right appreciation of things, as Paulding's letter satisfied him. Whether it will Raymond and Washburne is another question, about which I care not two straws; only for their importuning the President, would not give the old Whig Party a moment's attention. His good sense and sagacity are against such exercise or abuse of power and patronage, as I heard him once remark. It is an extreme of partyism such as is practiced in New York.

Blair informed me that Simeon Draper is appointed Collector of New York, and the evening papers confirm the fact. I also learn from Blair that Chase opposed the appointment of Preston King, saying he was not possessed of sufficient ability for the place. Gracious heaven! A man who, if in a legal point of view not the equal, is the superior of Chase in administrative ability, better qualified in some respects to fill any administrative position in the government than Mr. Chase! And in saying this I do not mean to deny intellectual talents and attainments to the Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Fessenden also excepted to King, but not for the reasons assigned by Mr. Chase. It is because Mr. King is too obstinate! He is, indeed, immovable in maintaining what he believes to be right, but open always to argument and conviction. If the opposition of Fessenden is not dictated by Chase, he has fallen greatly in my estimation, and I am in any event prepared to see the Treasury Department fall away under such management. The selection of Sim Draper with his vicious party antecedents is abominable. I am told, however, that prominent merchants advised it. This shows how little attention should be paid in such matters to those who traffic. I have no confidence in Draper. I look upon him as corrupt, and his appointment will beget distrust in the Administration. I so expressed myself to Mr. Blair, although he had acquiesced in the selection, — not from choice, but to prevent the place from being conferred upon another.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 136-8