Chicago Convention is in full boil and bubble. Strong opposition to Seward, but he will be nominated at last. That wily old Thurlow Weed, the most adroit of wire-pullers, seldom fails when he takes hold of a case in earnest. General Dix is to be Fowler’s successor in the post office. Butterworth of the assay office will decline the appointment.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, p. 27
Thy Nose, O W. H. Seward, is out of joint! The Chicago Convention nominates Lincoln and Hamlin. They will be beat, unless the South perpetrate some special act of idiocy, arrogance, or brutality before next fall.
Lincoln will be strong in the Western states. He is unknown here. The Tribune and other papers commend him to popular favor as having had but six months’ schooling in his whole life; and because he cut a great many rails, and worked on a flatboat in early youth; all which is somehow presumptive evidence of his statesmanship. The watchword of the campaign is already indicated. It is to be "Honest Abe’’ (our candidate being a namesake of the Father of the Faithful). Mass-meetings and conventions and committees are to become enthusiastic and vociferous whenever an orator says Abe. But that monosyllable does not seem to me likely to prove a word of power. "Honest Abe’’ sounds less efficient than "Fremont and Jessie,’’ and that failed four years ago.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, p. 28
Seward’s special friends grumble at Lincoln’s nomination, but seem disposed to support it in good faith. It looks to me as if Honest Abe were going to run well. The Democrats must patch up their domestic difficulties, and select a strong and available candidate, or they will be beat.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, p. 30
As in the mediæval epoch, and some time thereafter, anatomists and physiologists experimented on the living villeins, that is, on peasantry, serfs, and called this process experientia in anima vili, so this naïve administration experiments in civil and in military matters on the people's life-blood.
McClellan, stirred up by the fools and peacocks around him, has sent to the War Department a project of a showy uniform for himself and his staff. It would be to laugh at, if it were not insane. McClellan very likely read not what he signed.
The army is in sufficient rig and organization to take the field; but nevertheless McClellan has not yet made a single movement imperatively prescribed by the simplest tactics, and by the simplest common sense, when the enemy is in front. Not a single serious reconnoissance to ascertain the real force of the enemy, to pierce through the curtain behind which the rebels hide their real forces. It must be conceded to the rebel generals that they show great skill in humbugging us. Whenever we try to make a step we are met by a seemingly strong force (tenfold increased by rumors spread by the secessionists among us, and gulped by our stupidity), which makes us suppose a deep front, and a still deeper body behind. And there is the humbug, I am sure. If, on such an extensive line as the rebels occupy, the main body should correspond to what they show in front, then the rebel force must muster several hundreds of thousands. Such large numbers they have not, and I am sure that four-fifths of their whole force constitutes their vanguard, and behind it the main body is chaff. The rebels treat us as if we were children.
McClellan fortifies Washington; Fremont, St. Louis; Anderson asks for engineers to fortify some spots in Kentucky. This is all a defensive warfare, and not so will the rebel region be conquered. We lose time, and time serves the rebels, as it increases their moral force. Every day of their existence shows their intrinsic vitality.
The theory of starving the rebels out is got up by imbeciles, wholly ignorant of such matters; wholly ignorant of human nature; wholly ignorant of the degree of energy, and of abnegation, which criminals can display when firmly decided upon their purpose. This absurdity comes from the celebrated anaconda Mississippi-Atlantic strategy.
Oh! When in Poland, in 1831, the military chiefs concentrated all the forces in the fortifications of Warsaw, all was gone. Oh for a dashing general, for a dashing purpose, in the councils of the White House! The constitutional advisers are deaf to the voice of the people, who know more about it than do all the departments and the military wiseacres. The people look up to find as big brains and hearts as are theirs, and hitherto the people have looked up in vain. The radical senators, as a King, a Trumbull, a Wade, Wilson, Chandler, Hale, etc., the true Republicans in the last session of Congress — further, men as Wadsworth and the like, are the true exponents of the character, of the clear insight, of the soundness of the people.
McClellan, and even the administration, seem not to realize that pure military considerations cannot fulfil the imperative demands of the political situation.
October 6th. — I met McClellan; had with him a protracted conversation, and could look well into him. I do not attach any value to physiognomies, and consider phrenology, craniology, and their kindred, to be rather humbugs; but, nevertheless, I was struck with the soft, insignificant inexpressiveness of his eyes and features. My enthusiasm for him, my faith, is wholly extinct. All that he said to me and to others present was altogether unmilitary and inexperienced. It made me sick at heart to hear him, and to think that he is to decide over the destinies and the blood of the people. And he already an idol, incensed, worshipped, before he did anything whatever. McClellan may have individual courage, so has almost every animal; but he has not the decision and the courage of a military leader and captain. He has no real confidence in the troops; has scarcely any idea how battles are fought; has no confidence in and no notion of the use of the bayonet. I told him that, notwithstanding his opinion, I would take his worst brigade of infantry, and after a fortnight's drill challenge and whip any of the best rebel brigades.
Some time ago it was reported that McClellan considered this war had become a duel of artillery. Fools wondered and applauded. I then protested against putting such an absurdity in McClellan's mouth; now I must believe it. To be sure, every battle is in part a duel of artillery, but ends or is decided by charges of infantry or cavalry. Cannonading alone never constituted and decided a battle. No position can be taken by cannonading alone, and shells alone do not always force an enemy to abandon a position. Napoleon, an artillerist par excellence, considered campaigns and battles to be something more than duels of artillery. The great battle of Borodino, and all others, were decided when batteries were stormed and taken. Eylau was a battle of charges by cavalry and by infantry, besides a terrible cannonading, etc., etc. McClellan spoke with pride of the fortifications of Washington, and pointed to one of the forts as having a greater profile than had the world-renowned Malakoff. What a confusion of notions, what a misappreciation of relative conditions!
I cannot express my sad, mournful feelings, during this conversation with McClellan. We spoke about the necessity of dividing his large army into corps. McClellan took from the table an Army Almanac, and pointed to the names of generals to whom he intended to give the command of corps. He feels the urgency of the case, and said that Gen. Scott prevented him from doing it; but as soon as he, McClellan, shall be free to act, the division will be made. So General Scott is everywhere to defend senile routine against progress, and the experience of modern times.
The rebels deserve, to the end of time, many curses from outraged humanity. By their treason they forced upon the free institutions of the North the necessity of curtailing personal liberty and other rights; to make use of depotism for the sake of selfdefence.
The enemy concentrates and shortens his lines, and McClellan dares not even tread on the enemy's heels. Instead of forcing the enemy to do what we want, and upturn his schemes, McClellan seemingly does the bidding of Beauregard. We advance as much as Beauregard allows us to do. New tactics, to be sure, but at any rate not Napoleonic.
The fighting in the West and some small successes here are obtained by rough levies; and those imbecile, regular martinets surrounding McClellan still nurse his distrust in the volunteers. All the wealth, energy, intellect of the country, is concentrated in the hands of McClellan, and he uses it to throw up entrenchments. The partisans of McClellan point to his highly scientific preparations his science. He may have some little of it, but half-science is worse than thorough ignorance. Oh! for one dare-devil in the Lyon, or in the old-fashioned Yankee style. McClellan is neither a Napoleon, nor a Cabrera, nor a Garibaldi.
Mason and Slidell escaped to Havana on their way to Europe, as commissioners of the rebels. According to all international definitions, we have the full right to seize them in any neutral vessel, they being political contrabands of war going on a publicly avowed errand hostile to their true government. Mason and Slidell are not common passengers, nor are they political refugees invoking the protection of any neutral flag. They are travelling commissioners of war, of bloodshed and rebellion; and it is all the same in whatever seaport they embark. And if the vessel conveying them goes from America to Europe, or vice versa, Mr. Seward can let them be seized when they have left Havana, provided he finds it expedient.
We lose time, and time is all in favor of the rebels. Every
day consolidates their existence — so to speak, crystallizes them. Further —
many so-called Union men in the South, who, at the start, opposed secession, by
and by will get accustomed to it. Secession daily takes deeper root, and
will so by degrees
become un fait accompli. Mr. Adams, in his official
relations with the English government, speaks of the rebel pirates as of lawful
privateers. Mr. Seward admonished him for it. Bravo!
It is so difficult, not to say impossible, to meet an American who concatenates a long series of effects and causes, or who understands that to explain an isolated fact or phenomenon the chain must be ascended and a general law invoked. Could they do it, various bunglings would be avoided, and much of the people's sacrifices husbanded, instead of being squandered, as it is done now.
Fremont going overboard! His fall will be the triumph of the pro-slavery party, headed by the New York Herald, and supported by military old fogies, by martinets, and by double and triple political and intellectual know-nothings. Pity that Fremont had no brilliant military capacity. Then his fall could not have taken place.
Mr. Seward is too much ruled by his imagination, and too hastily discounts the future. But imagination ruins a statesman. Mr. Seward must lose credit at home and abroad for having prophesied, and having his prophecies end in smoke. When Hatteras was taken (Gen. Scott protested against the expedition), Mr. S. assured me that it was the beginning of the end. A diplomat here made the observation that no minister of a European parliamentary government could remain in power after having been continually contradicted by facts.
Now, Mr. Seward devised these collateral missions to Europe. He very little knows the habit and temper of European cabinets if he believes that such collateral confidential agents can do any good. The European cabinets distrust such irresponsible agents, who, in their turn, weaken the influence and the standing of the genuine diplomatic agents. Mr. S., early in the year, boasted to abolish, even in Europe, the system of passports, and soon afterwards introduced it at home. So his imagination carries him to overhaul the world. He proposes to European powers a united expedition to Japan, and we cannot prevent at home the running of the blockade, and are ourselves blockaded on the Potomac. All such schemes are offsprings of an ambitious imagination. But the worst is, that every such outburst of his imagination Mr. Seward at once transforms into a dogma, and spreads it with all his might. I pity him when I look towards the end of his political career. He writes well, and has put down the insolent English dispatch concerning the habeas corpus and the arrests of dubious, if not treacherous, Englishmen. Perhaps Seward imagines himself to be a Cardinal Richelieu, with Lincoln for Louis XIII. (provided he knows as much history), or may be he has the ambition to be considered a Talleyrand or Metternich of diplomacy. But if any, he has some very, very faint similarity with Alberoni. He easily outwits here men around him; most are politicians as he; but he never can outwit the statesmen of Europe. Besides, diplomacy, above all that of great powers, is conceived largely and carried on a grand scale; the present diplomacy has outgrown what is commonly called (but fallaciously) Talleyrandism and Metternichism.
McClellan and the party which fears to make a bold advance on the enemy make so much fuss about the country being cut up and wooded; it proves only that they have no brains and no fertility of expedients. This country is not more cut up than is the Caucasus, and the woods are no great, endless, primitive forests. They are rather groves. In the Caucasus the Russians continually attack great and dense forests; they fire in them several round shots, then grape, and then storm them with the bayonet; and the Circassians are no worse soldiers than are the Southrons.
European papers talk much of mediation, of a peaceful arrangement, of compromise. By intuition of the future the Northern people know very well the utter impossibility of such an arrangement. A peace could not stand; any such peace will establish the military superiority of the arrogant, reckless, piratical South. The South would teem with hundreds of thousands of men ready for any piratical, fillibustering raid, enterprise, or excursion, of which the free States north and west would become the principal theatres. Such a marauding community as the South would become, in case of success, will be unexampled in history. The Cylician pirates, the Barbary robbers, nay, the Tartars of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, were virtuous and civilized in comparison with what would be an independent, man-stealing, and man-whipping Southern agglomeration of lawless men. The free States could have no security, even if all the thus called gentlemen and men of honor were to sign a treaty or a compromise. The Southern pestilential influence would poison not only the North, but this whole hemisphere. The history of the past has nothing to be compared with organized, legal piracy, as would become the thus-called Southern chivalry on land and on sea; and soon European maritime powers would be obliged to make costly expeditions for the sake of extirpating, crushing, uprooting the nest of pirates, which then will embrace about twelve millions, — every Southern gentleman being a pirate at heart.
This is what the Northern people know by experience and by intuition, and what makes the people so uneasy about the inertia of the administration.
Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, Gen. Scott, and other great men, are soured against the people and public opinion for distrusting, or rather for criticising their little display of statesmanlike activity. How unjust! As a general rule, of all human sentiments, confidence is the most scrutinizing one. If confidence is bestowed, it wants to perfectly know the why. But from the outset of this war the American people gave and give to everybody full, unsuspecting confidence, without asking the why, without even scrutinizing the actions which were to justify the claim.
Up to this day Secesh is the positive pole; the Union is the negative, — it is the blow recipient. When, oh, when will come the opposite? When will we deal blows? Not under McClellan, I suspect.
SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp. 104-114
Senator Doolittle
took tea with me. He wished me to go with him to the President, where some
friends were to assemble to consider and decide in relation to the proposed
call for a national convention. Senator Cowan, Browning,1 Randall,2
and three other persons whom I did not know, but who seemed attachés of Randall,
and who, I understood, belonged to the National Union Johnson Club, composed
the sitting. The call, which had been modified in slight respects, still
omitted any allusion to the Constitutional changes, the really important
question before the country. This I thought a great and radical defect, and
Cowan and Browning concurred with me, as did McCulloch. Randall, who is
flattered and used by Seward, opposed this, and his principal reason was that
he would leave something for the convention to do. I asked why the convention
was called, if not on this great issue which stood prominent beyond any other.
"Well," he said, "it would hasten the calling of the State
Legislatures to pass upon it." That, I told him, if properly used might be
made to weaken them and strengthen us, we would demand an expression of popular
sentiment through the instrumentality of an election, and thereby expose the
recent hasty action which was intended to stifle public opinion.
Much of the
conversation between eight and eleven o'clock was on this point, during which I
became satisfied that Randall was prompted by Seward and unwittingly used for
party purposes of Weed and Seward. The President evidently was with me in his
convictions but forbore taking an active part. My impressions are that Seward
has, in his way, indicated objections to making the Constitutional question a
part of the call; that it would prevent Raymond and others from uniting in the
movement. Finally, Browning and then McCulloch and Cowan yielded. They probably
saw, as I did, that it was a foregone conclusion, was predetermined, that the
meeting had been cunningly contrived and pushed by Randall.
Doolittle stated his
purpose of having the members of the Cabinet sign the call. Both McCulloch and
myself had doubts of its expediency and effect. The President, without
expressing an opinion, showed that he concurred in Doolittle's suggestion.
McCulloch asked if
Seward would put his name to it, and two or three undertook to vouch for him. I
expressed my readiness to unite in what would be best for the Administration
and the cause. If it was to have official significance, a proclamation I
thought best. Seward, I am satisfied, would not sign it if the Constitutional
point was presented, and I doubt if he will under any circumstances.
Something was said
respecting Thurlow Weed, and the President remarked that Weed would be here
to-morrow, but he knew Weed approved this movement and would sign the call. All
this pained me. Seward and Weed are manifestly controlling the whole thing in
an underhand way; they have possession of the President and are using the
Administration for themselves and party rather than the President and country.
They have eviscerated the call and will dissect and, I fear, destroy the effect
of this move. Randall is a man of lax political morality, and I think his
influence with the President is not always in the right direction. Seward knows
his influence and intimacy in that quarter and has captured him, probably
without R.'s being aware of it. The President finds that R. agrees with Seward,
and it carries him in that direction. While R. means to reflect the President's
wishes, he is really the tool of Seward and Weed, and is doing harm to the
cause and to the President himself. But this matter cannot be corrected and
will, I fear, prove ruinous.
I left soon after
eleven and came home, desponding and unhappy. The cause is in bad and over-cunning
if not treacherous hands, I fear. The proposed convention has no basis of
principles. It will be denounced as a mere union with Rebels.
_______________
1 O. H. Browning, who shortly succeeded Harlan
as Secretary of the Interior.
2 A. W. Randall, soon to succeed Dennison as
Postmaster-General.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 533-5
When I went to
Cabinet-meeting only Seward was there with the President. I was prompt to time;
Seward was in advance. Directly on entering, the President handed me a message
which he had prepared, with an accompanying letter from Seward, relative to the
proposed Constitutional changes which Congress had requested him to forward to
the State Executives. The whole was very well done. As Seward had sent off
authenticated copies to the Governors, the ready, officious act was very well
gotten over by a declaration in the message that it was a ministerial act which
was not to be understood as giving the sanction of the Executive or of the
Cabinet to the proceeding.
I made a
complimentary remark on the message, with my regret that there had not been
more time and consideration in sending off copies to the States. Seward was
annoyed by the remark and said he had followed the precedent of 1865, but the
President was, I saw, not at all displeased with my criticism.
Subsequently, when
all the Cabinet were present except Stanton and Speed, the message and papers
were read. McCulloch expressed his approval of the message and said he should
have been glad to have had it more full and explicit. In this I concurred.
Dennison took
exception, which served to show that he had been consulted by the Radicals and
had advised or consented to the course previously adopted. He and Seward each
made some remarks, and Dennison showed much indignation because Seward had used
the word "trick" on the part of Congress in sending this resolution
to the President. Seward disclaimed the word and denied he had used it. I was
not aware he had done so.
Dennison proceeded
to say that Bingham had introduced, or been the means of introducing, the
resolution; had consulted with him; that his object was pure; that he approved
it; that although the proposed Amendment was not in the precise shape he
wished, he, nevertheless, gave it his support; that it had been approved by the
Republicans of Ohio, and were he at home in October, he should vote for
candidates who favored it.
I assured him that
therein he and I differed, for that I would not vote for the Amendment, nor
knowingly vote for any man who supported it.
Seward said he had
no doubt that the Republicans of the Auburn district would oppose it very
generally, and that if he was at home in November he expected to vote for men
who would oppose it.
I took higher
ground. I cared not what parties favored or what parties opposed it, my
convictions and opinions were in my own keeping, and I would vote for no man of
any party who favored that Amendment.
Dennison said that
with the explanations of Mr. Seward he took no exceptions, but he expected to
act with the Union Party of Ohio.
Harlan said he
thought the views of each would be reconciled. I doubted if we were a unit.
Party seemed to have a stronger hold than country.
When the others had
left, the President told McCulloch and myself that he had struck from the
message the concurrence of his Cabinet. This I regretted, but he said
Dennison's assent, even with his explanation, was not full and gave him an
opportunity to evade, if convenient hereafter; he, therefore, chose to stand uncommitted,
or trammeled by others. Before sending off the message, which he had done while
we were there, he had erased the words referred to.
Dennison has
evidently been tampered with and has made up his mind to go with his party,
though aware that the party organization is being committed against measures of
the Administration. He certainly does not yet anticipate leaving the Cabinet on
that account, but will soon come to it. How the President is to get along with
such a Cabinet I do not see. McCulloch spoke of it and said there were four in
opposition. "Yes," said the President, "from what we now see of
Dennison, and if we count Stanton after his patched-up speech; but it is
uncertain where he wishes to place himself." There is no uncertainty on
the part of any but the President. Speed and Harlan should, from a sense of
propriety and decent self-respect, resign. This the President has repeated to
me many times. Why he should cling to Stanton, who is working insidiously
against him, and to Seward, who works with and shields Stanton, either doing
more against him than the two feeble men of whom he speaks so freely, I do not
understand. Stanton he knows is not in accord with him, though he does not avow
it, and if Seward is presumably friendly, the fact that all the influence which
he can exercise is dumb or hostile is notorious.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 535-8
The President sent
me a note this A.M. to call upon him this evening at eight. Although under the
doctor's care and ordered to remain perfectly quiet, I rode over at the time.
Doolittle called and went with me. Seward soon came in, followed by McCulloch,
Cowan, Browning, and Randall. We went into the library, where the proposed call
for a national convention was finished up. Seward, who, with Weed and Raymond,
drew up or arranged this call which Doolittle fathers, now suggested two or
three verbal alterations, most of which were adopted. It is intended that these
"suggestions" shall cover up Weed's tracks.
In all that was said
and done Seward fully agreed. He intends to keep within the movement, which has
become a New York scheme, in order to control it. His belief is that the
Republicans, of New York at least, will respond promptly to the call and make
the President's cause, which he means shall be his and the old Whigs', their
own. How this is to be done, and the course of the Senators and Representatives
of that State be sustained by the Administration, he does not disclose. The
Democrats, who in their way are the chief supporters of the President's
measures, are snubbed. I perceive Seward is satisfied with both the President's
and his and Weed's positions. The President, I think, is aware of this
discrepancy, yet tries to believe all is right.
Seward remarked that
McCulloch and myself had been uneasy because there had not been an earlier
demonstration made and the President's policy distinctly stated, but he had
been satisfied it was best to delay. I said that by the delay many of our
friends had got committed against us, particularly on those Constitutional
changes, — men whom we could by a plain, frank course have kept with us. He
said they would come right, but we must give Congress an opportunity to show
its hand. They had had seven months and had done nothing that they were
satisfied with themselves. We have done nothing which it was our duty to have
done, and are we and sound principles benefited by the Seward policy of delay?
Throughout the
preliminary proceeding of this call there was a disinclination to make the
proposed Constitutional changes an issue, yet it is the real question. This
shirking from an open, honest course I can trace chiefly to Seward, though others
have become complicated with him. Even the President himself has incautiously
and without sufficient consideration used some expression in relation to the
basis of representation which embarrasses him; and so of Doolittle and some
others. Seward's confidants are fully committed, and hence he and they cannot
act freely; consequently the great and important question is omitted in the
call, which should have made the invasion of organic law prominent above all
other points. He also, whilst conforming to the President's policy, strives to
preserve Stanton as an ally, who intrigues with the Radicals.
This movement is an
important one, and it has annoyed and pained me that there should have been a
sacrifice of principle to gratify any one. If it proves a failure, which I do
not mean to anticipate, it will be mainly attributable to the intrigues by
which Seward and Weed have been brought into it and finally controlled or
shaped proceedings. The intrigue has been cunningly and artfully managed by
them. They have mainly shaped the call, although it is in all respects not what
they wished. The President, I think, flatters himself that he has arranged to
bring them in, whereas the truth is, he would have found it difficult to keep
them out. Their aim and purpose are to remain with the old Republican
organization, of which the Radicals, or old Whigs, have possession, but which,
by the assistance of the President's patronage and the hocus-pocus of New York
politics, Seward and Weed will work into their own schemes in that State. I am
apprehensive that this movement in the cause of the Administration will by
their intrigues and deceptions be made secondary to their purpose.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 538-40
For two or three
days I have been prostrated by a severe attack of indigestion, yet against the
remonstrance of Dr. H. I went to the President's Saturday evening. What took
place and subsequent reflection while prostrated on my lounge have disquieted
and greatly disturbed me. It is a lost opportunity. The President fails to
comprehend the true condition of affairs and the schemes of prominent men
around him, or hesitates to grapple with them. In either case he is deceived
and fatally wrong. He must, and evidently expects to, rely on the Democrats to
overcome the Radicals who are conspiring against him and the Constitution. But
the Democrats have no confidence in Seward and will not fellowship with him.
Seward knows that, if the President does not. This call for a national Union
convention which has been gotten up is perverted into a Seward call; the party
is to be Seward's party, and it cannot, therefore, be Democratic. The President
is, consequently, purchasing or retaining Seward and his followers at too high
a price, too great a sacrifice. Enough Republicans may rally with this call to
defeat the Radicals, but cannot themselves become a formidable and distinct
power. If, however, the movement defeats the reckless plans of the Radicals, it
will accomplish a great good. I have my doubts if the flimsy expedient will do
much good.
Our President has
been too forbearing, has wasted his strength and opportunities, and without
some thorough changes will find himself, I apprehend, the victim of his own
yielding policy in this regard. I do not see how it is possible to sustain
himself with Seward on his shoulders.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 540-1
We had not a
protracted Cabinet meeting nor any specially interesting topic. I had thought
the subject of the call for the convention, which appeared in this morning's
paper, might be alluded to either before or after the business session, but it
was as studiously avoided as if we had been in a Quaker meeting. There is no
free interchange nor concurrence of views. Stanton is insincere, more false
than Seward, who relies on expedients. Blair tells me he likes the call and
thinks it will be effective. This inspires me with more confidence, for I had
doubted whether he and men of his traits and views would acquiesce in it,
particularly in its omissions. He does not apprehend the difficulty from Seward
and Weed which has troubled me, for he says the President will cast Seward off
and Stanton also. I had long seen that this was a necessity, but continued
delay has disheartened expectation. Whether Blair has any fact to authorize his
assertion, I know not. I can suppose it certain as an alternative. Stanton is
unfaithful and acting secretly with the Radicals. He has gone. Either Seward
must be discarded or the people will discard both him and the President. The
latter does not realize that he is the victim of a double game, adapted to New
York intrigues.
The papers state
that the Senate of Connecticut adopted the Constitutional Amendment at midnight
yesterday. This does not surprise me, yet had the President showed his hand
earlier, the result might have been different in that State. But Seward, Weed,
Raymond, and company are satisfied with this Radical Amendment. The latter
voted for it. Weed has given it a quasi indorsement, and I do
not remember to have heard Seward say a word against it. He hastened off a
notice to Connecticut and the other States as the Radicals wished, without
consulting the President or any member of the Cabinet. There has not been in
Connecticut, or elsewhere, any deliberate, enlightened, intelligent, or
comprehensive discussion of this measure, but a paltry, narrow, superficial
talk or rant, all of the shallowest and meanest partisan character.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 541-2
I understand that
the Democratic Members of Congress have concluded to unite in the movement for
the national convention of the 14th of August. I had some doubts whether they
would readily come into it. Old party organizations and associations are
strong. The Democratic papers have hesitated, and the New York World opposed
the movement.
This opposition of
the World is agreeable to Weed and company, and was intended
by the New York Times, which was prompted by Weed
and Seward, to foreshadow the convention and to assume that it was the Union
Convention or Union Party Convention.
Senators Doolittle,
Nesmith, Buckalew, and Harris and myself met in Colonel Cooper's room this
evening, casually and accidentally. Most of the conversation was on the
convention and the condition of parties. Harris is something of a trimmer, and,
I perceive, a good deal embarrassed how to act, yet not prepared to take
anti-Radical ground. Doolittle tried to persuade him that his true course
was to go forward with the new movement, and, among other things, said that it
was the movement which would ultimately prevail, — we should not succeed this
fall but that the next election we should be successful. Of course such an
admission would make such a calculating politician as Harris stick to the
Radicals, for the next fall elections will be decisive of the Senatorial
contest in New York. He will, therefore, under Doolittle's admission, go with
the Radicals as the most likely way to secure his return to the
Senate, — of which, however, there is not the remotest probability. He will be
disappointed.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 542-3
Not much of special
interest in the Cabinet. Seward read dispatches to Washburn, the poor Minister
at the poor Government of Paraguay, expressing expectation that he had ere this
reached his destination, assisted by Acting Rear-Admiral Godon. The course of
Washburn has been inexcusably wrong, and the State Department scarcely less so.
He has wasted time and opportunities at Montevideo, when he should have been at
his post, if we are to have a Minister at Paraguay, and is now asking, and the
State Department is conceding, too much in order that he may get there.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 543
Had a long talk this
afternoon with the President on the condition of affairs and especially in
regard to the proposed national convention. He does not like the composition of
the Cabinet, yet does not, in my opinion, perceive the most questionable feature
in it. Harlan and Speed, he does not conceal from me, are in the way. The
course and position of Dennison do not suit him. Dennison, like others, has
been drawn into the Radical circle against his better judgment, is committed to
the Republican Party, and is appointing extreme Radicals to the local
post-offices, carrying out the views of the Radical Members and strengthening
them by displacing friends of the President. In this I do not think D. intends
antagonism to the President, although it is that and nothing else. But he does
not permit himself to believe that the President and the Party, which is now a
mere machine of Thad Stevens, are not identical.
Seward knows the distinction
and yet contrives to persuade the President to acquiesce, while favoring the
Radicals. It is curious, but by no means pleasant, to witness this proceeding.
The President, usually sagacious, seems not to discern the management and
ultimate purpose of the Secretary of State, who is prompted by Stanton, one of
the Radical chiefs. Stanton has an assumed frankness, but his coarse manner
covers a good deal of subtle duplicity. Seward never differs with the
President. If he has taken an opposite view from or with others, or before the
President's opinion is known, it disappears forever when the sentiments of the
latter are ascertained. His knowledge and estimate of men are weak and
erroneous in the extreme.
The President
understands the political dexterity of Seward and yet does not apprehend that
it may ever operate adverse to himself, nor does Seward intend to antagonize
his chief. Some recent proceedings, connected with the schemes of the Radicals,
are to me inexplicable, and in our talk I so informed the President. I could
not understand how all the Republican Members from New York, a considerable
portion of whom are under the influence of Seward and Weed, should vote
steadily with the Radicals and against him, if Seward and Weed are his true
friends.
The New York Times,
Raymond's paper controlled by Weed, declared that the President and Radicals
were pretty much reconciled on the Constitutional changes, and by this
representation multitudes were entrapped into the measure. Seward, hastily and
without consulting the President, hastened to send certified copies of the
Amendment by the first mail to the State Executives. These and other things I
alluded to as very singular, and that I could hardly reconcile them to sincere
and honest friendship. The President was puzzled; said it was strange.
I told him I could
account for these proceedings readily, if it were to build up and sustain the
Weed and Seward party in New York, but it certainly was not strengthening the
Administration.
Raymond and Seward
knew of the movements for the convention, and the Times in
advance spoke of it as a move to unite the Republican Party while it would
certainly injure the Administration. The effect was, when the call appeared, to
cause distrust among Democrats, and to repel the World, the Herald,
etc. It looks like design or stupidity. I knew they were not fools.
My efforts to
incorporate with the call a clause adverting to the proposed Constitutional
changes which made a convention advisable were resisted and defeated by the
tools of Seward, because it would be agreeable to the Democrats and opposed to
the Radicals. His friends were committed on that subject. They had adopted it
and were, therefore, antagonistic to Johnson, yet they succeeded through the
assistance of Radicals who care little for principles.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 543-5
WILL McClellan
display unity in conception, and vigor in execution? That is the question. He
seems very energetic and active in organizing the army; but he ought to take
the field very soon. He ought to leave Washington, and have his headquarters in
the camp among the soldiers. The life in the tent will inspire him. It alone
inspired Frederick II and Napoleon. Too much organization may become as
mischievous as the no organization under Scott. Time, time is everything. The
levies will fight well; may only McClellan not be carried away by the notion
and the attempt to create what is called a perfect army on European pattern.
Such an attempt would be ruinous to the cause. It is altogether impossible to
create such an army on the European model, and no necessity exists for it. The rebel
army is no European one. Civil wars have altogether different military
exigencies, and the great tactics for a civil war are wholly different from the
tactics, etc., needed in a regular war. Napoleon differently fought the
Vendeans, and differently the Austrians, and the other coalesced armies. May
only McClellan not become intoxicated before he puts the cup to his lips.
Fremont disavowed by
Lincoln and the administration. This looks bad. I have no considerable
confidence in Fremont's high capacities, and believe that his head is turned a
little; but in this question he was right in principle, and right in legality.
A commander of an army operating separately has the exercise of full powers of
war.
The Blairs are not
to be accused; I read the letter from F. Blair to his brother. It is the letter
of a patriot, but not of an intriguer. Fremont establishes an absurd rule
concerning the breach of military discipline, and shows by it his ignorance and
narrow-mindedness. So Fremont, and other bungling martinets, assert that nobody
has the right to criticise the actions of his commander.
Fremont is ignorant
of history, and those around him who put in his head such absurd notions are a
pack of mean and servile spit-lickers. An officer ought to obey orders without
hesitation, and if he does not he is to be court-martialed and shot. But it is
perfectly allowable to criticise them; it is in human nature—it was, is, and
will be done in all armies; see in Curtius and other historians of Alexander of
Macedon. It was continually done under Napoleon. In Russia, in 1812, the
criticism made by almost all the officers forced Alexander I. to leave the
army, and to put Kutousoff over Barclay. In the last Italian campaign Austrian
officers criticised loudly Giulay, their commander, etc., etc.
Conspiracy to
destroy Fremont on account of his slave proclamation. The conspirators are the
Missouri slave-holders: Senator Brodhead, old Bates, Scott, McClellan, and
their staffs. Some jealousy against him in the Cabinet, but Seward rather on
Fremont's side.
McClellan makes his
father-in-law, a man of very secondary capacity, the chief of
the staff of the army. It seems that McClellan ignores what a highly
responsible position it is, and what a special and transcendent capacity must
be that of a chief of the staff—the more so when of an army of several hundreds
of thousands. I do not look for a Berthier, a Gneisenau, a Diebitsch, or
Gortschakoff, but a Marcy will not do.
Colonel Lebedeef,
from the staff of the Emperor Alexander II., and professor in the School of the
Staff at St. Petersburg, saw here everything, spoke with our generals, and his
conclusion is that in military capacity McDowell is by far superior to
McClellan. Strange, if true, and foreboding no good.
Mr. Lincoln begins
to call a demagogue any one who does not admire all the doings of his
administration. Are we already so far?
McClellan under
fatal influences of the rampant pro-slavery men, and of partisans of the South,
as is a Barlow. All the former associations of McClellan have been of the worst
kind—Breckinridgians. But perhaps he will throw them off. He is young, and the
elevation of his position, his standing before the civilized world, will
inspire and purify him, I hope. Nay, I ardently wish he may go to the camp, to
the camp.
McClellan published
a slave-catching order. Oh that he may discard those bad men around him!
Struggles with evils, above all with domestic, internal evils, absorb a great
part of every nation's life. Such struggles constitute its development, are the
landmarks of its progress and decline.
The like struggles
deserve more the attention of the observer, the philosopher, than all kinds of
external wars. And, besides, most of such external wars result from the
internal condition of a nation. At any rate, their success or unsuccess almost
wholly depends upon its capacity to overcome internal evils. A nation even
under a despotic rule may overcome and repel an invasion, as long as the
struggle against the internal evils has not broken the harmony between the
ruler and the nation. Here the internal evil has torn a part of the
constitutional structure; may only the necessary harmony between this high-minded
people and the representative of the transient constitutional formula not be
destroyed. The people move onward, the formula vacillates, and seems to fear to
make any bold step.
If the cause of the
freemen of the North succumbs, then humanity is humiliated. This high-spirited
exclamation belongs to Tassara, the Minister from Spain. Not the diplomat, but
the nobly inspired man uttered it.
But for the
authoritative influence of General Scott, and the absence of any foresight and
energy on the part of the administration, the rebels would be almost wholly
without military leaders, without naval officers. The Johnsons, Magruders,
Tatnalls, Buchanans, ought to have been arrested for treason the moment they
announced their intention to resign.
Mr. Seward has many
excellent personal qualities, besides his unquestionable eminent capacity for
business and argument; but why is he neutralizing so much good in him by the
passion to be all in all, to meddle with everything, to play the knowing one in
military affairs, he being in all such matters as innocent as a lamb? It is not
a field on which Seward's hazarded generalizations can be of any earthly use;
but they must confuse all.
Seward is free from
that coarse, semi-barbarous know-nothingism which rules paramount, not the
genuine people, but the would-be something, the half-civilized gentlemen.
Above all, know-nothingism pervades all around Scott, who is himself its grand
master, and it nestles there par excellence in more than
one way. It is, however, to be seen how far this pure American—Scott military
wisdom is something real, transcendent. Up to this day, the pure Americanism,
West Point schoolboy's conceit, have not produced much. The defences of
Washington, so much clarioned as being the product of a high conception and of
engineering skill,—these defences are very questionable when appreciated by a
genuine military eye. A Russian officer of the military engineers, one who was
in the Crimea and at Sebastopol, after having surveyed these defences here,
told me that the Russian soldiers who defended Sebastopol, and who learned what
ought to be defences, would prefer to fight outside than inside of the
Washington forts, bastions, defences, etc., etc., etc.
Doubtless many
foreigners coming to this country are not much, but the greatest number are
soldiers who saw service and fire, and could be of some use at the side of
Scott's West Point greenness and presumption.
If we are worsted,
then the fate of the men of faith in principles will be that of Sisyphus, and
the coming generation for half a century will have uphill work.
If not McClellan
himself, some intriguers around him already dream, nay, even attempt to form a
pure military, that is, a reckless, unprincipled, unpatriotic party. These men
foment the irritation between the arrogance of the thus-called regular army,
and the pure abnegation of the volunteers. Oh, for battles! Oh, for battles!
Fremont wished at
once to attack Fort Pillow and the city of Memphis. It was a bold move, but the
concerted civil and military wisdom grouped around the President opposed
this truly great military conception.
Mr. Lincoln is pulled
in all directions. His intentions are excellent, and he would have made an
excellent President for quiet times. But this civil war imperatively demands a
man of foresight, of prompt decision, of Jacksonian will and energy. These
qualities may be latent in Lincoln, but do not yet come to daylight. Mr.
Lincoln has no experience of men and events, and no knowledge of the past.
Seward's influence over Lincoln may be explained by the fact that Lincoln
considers Seward as the alpha and omega of every kind of knowledge and
information.
I still hope,
perhaps against hope, that if Lincoln is what the masses believe him to be, a
strong mind, then all may come out well. Strong minds, lifted by events into
elevated regions, expand more and more; their "mind's eye" pierces
through clouds, and even through rocks; they become inspired, and inspiration
compensates the deficiency or want of information acquired by studies. Weak
minds, when transported into higher regions, become confused and dizzy. Which
of the two will be Mr. Lincoln's fate?
The administration
hesitates to give to the struggle a character of emancipation; but the people
hesitate not, and take Fremont to their heart.
As the concrete
humanity, so single nations have epochs of gestation, and epochs of normal
activity, of growth, of full life, of manhood. Americans are now in the
stage of manhood.
Col. Romanoff, of
the Russian military engineer corps, who was in the Crimean war, saw here the
men and the army, saw and conversed with the generals. Col. R. is of opinion
that McDowell is by far superior to McClellan, and would make a better
commander.
It is said that
McClellan refuses to move until he has an army of 300,000 men and 600 guns. Has
he not studied Napoleon's wars? Napoleon scarcely ever had half such a number
in hand; and when at Wagram, where he had about 180,000 men, himself in the
centre, Davoust and Massena on the flanks, nevertheless the handling of such a
mass was too heavy even for his, Napoleon's, genius.
The country is—to
use an Americanism—in a pretty fix, if this McClellan turns out to be a
mistake. I hope for the best. 600 guns! But 100 guns in a line cover a mile.
What will he do with 600? Lose them in forests, marshes, and bad roads; whence
it is unhappily a fact that McClellan read only a little of military history,
misunderstood what he read, and now attempts to realize hallucinations, as a
boy attempts to imitate the exploits of an Orlando. It is dreadful to think of
it. I prefer to trust his assertion that, once organized, he soon, very soon,
will deal heavy and quick blows to the rebels.
I saw some
manœuvrings, and am astonished that no artillery is distributed among the
regiments of infantry. When the rank and file see the guns on their side, the
soldiers consider them as a part of themselves and of the regiment; they fight
better in the company of guns; they stand by them and defend them as they
defend their colors. Such a distribution of guns would strengthen the body of
the volunteers. But it seems that McClellan has no confidence in the volunteers.
Were this true, it would denote a small, very small mind. Let us hope it is not
so. One of his generals—a martinet of the first class—told me that McClellan
waits for the organization of the regulars, to have them for
the defence of the guns. If so, it is sheer nonsense. These narrow-minded West
Point martinets will become the ruin of McClellan.
McClellan could now
take the field. Oh, why has he established his headquarters in the city, among
flunkeys, wiseacres, and spit-lickers? Were he among the troops, he would be
already in Manassas. The people are uneasy and fretting about this inaction,
and the people see what is right and necessary.
Gen. Banks, a true
and devoted patriot, is sacrificed by the stupidity of what they call here the
staff of the great army, but which collectively, with its chief, is only a mass
of conceit and ignorance few, as General Williams, excepted. Banks is in the
face of the enemy, and has no cavalry and no artillery; and here are immense
reviews to amuse women and fools.
Mr. Mercier, the
French Minister, visited a considerable part of the free States, and his
opinions are now more clear and firm; above all, he is very friendly to
our side. He is sagacious and good.
Missouri is in great
confusion—three parts of it lost. Fremont is not to be accused of all the
mischief, but, from effect to cause, the accusation ascends to General Scott.
Gen. Scott insisted
to have Gen. Harney appointed to the command of Missouri, and hated Lyon. If,
even after Harney's recall, Lyon had been appointed, Lyon would be alive and
Missouri safe. But hatred, anxiety of rank, and stupidity, united their
efforts, and prevailed. Oh American people! to depend upon such inveterate
blunderers!
Were McClellan in
the camp, he would have no flatterers, no antechambers filled with flunkeys;
but the rebels would not so easily get news of his plans as they did in the
affair on Munson's Hill.
The Orleans are
here. I warned the government against admitting the Count de Paris, saying that
it would be a deliberate breach of good comity towards Louis
Napoleon, and towards the Bonapartes, who prove to be our friends; I told that
no European government would commit itself in such a manner, not even if
connected by ties of blood with the Orleans. At the start, Mr. Seward heeded a
little my advice, but finally he could not resist the vanity to display
untimely spread-eagleism, and the Orleans are in our service. Brave boys! It is
a noble, generous, high-minded, if not an altogether wise, action.
If a mind is not nobly
inspired and strong, then the exercise of power makes it crotchety and
dissimulative in contact with men.
To my disgust, I witness
this all around me.
The American people,
its institutions, the Union—all have lost their virginity, their political
innocence. A revolution in the institutions, in the mode of life, in notions
begun—it is going on, will grow and mature, either for good or evil. Civil war,
this most terrible but most maturing passion, has put an end to the boyhood and
to the youth of the American people. Whatever may be the end, one thing is sure
that the substance and the form will be modified; nay, perhaps, both wholly
changed. A new generation of citizens will grow and come out from this smoke of
the civil war.
The Potomac closed
by the rebels! Mischief and shame! Natural fruits of the dilatory war policy—Scott's
fault. Months ago the navy wished to prevent it, to shell out the rebels, to
keep our troops in the principal positions. Scott opposed; and still he has
almost paramount influence. McClellan complains against Scott, and Lincoln and
Seward flatter McClellan, but look up to Scott as to a supernatural military
wisdom. Oh, poor nation!
In Europe clouds
gather over Mexico. Whatever it eventually may come to, I suggested to Mr.
Seward to lay aside the Monroe doctrine, not to meddle for or against Mexico,
but to earnestly protest against any eventual European interference in the
internal condition of the political institutions of Mexico.
Continual secondary,
international complications, naturally growing out from the maritime question;
so with the Dutch cheesemongers, with Spain, with England - all easily to be
settled; they generate fuss and trouble, but will make no fire.
Gen. Scott's
partisans complain that McClellan is very disrespectful in his dealings with
Gen. Scott. I wonder not.. McClellan is probably hampered by the narrow routine
notions of Scott. McClellan feels that Scott prevents energetic and prompt
action; that he, McClellan, in every step is obliged to fight Gen. Scott's
inertia; and McClellan grows impatient, and shows it to Scott.
SOURCE: Adam
Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp. 92-103
Senator Doolittle
brought me last evening the rough draft of a proposed call for a national Union
convention which he had prepared. Some of the points were well put, but there
was too much restriction, too much fear that we should have men we did not care
to fellowship with, although we might agree on present issues. To this I
excepted, but my strongest point was the omission to meet and present the real
issue, our objections to the proposed change of the
Constitution which has passed the two houses of Congress.
"What,"
said I, "are the reasons for calling a convention at this time? Is it not
because the faction in Congress, assisted by schemers out of Congress, have
concocted a scheme under party excitement and by party machinery to change the
Constitution in important particulars, and that by a snap judgment Governor
Curtin has addressed a circular letter to the Governors of the several States,
inviting an immediate convening of the State legislatures to adopt the proposed
change, before the people can have an opportunity to express an opinion? An
alarm should be sounded, warning the people of the movements that are
being made to alter the organic law, and insidiously change the government."
These and other
suggestions I saw made an impression on Doolittle, but still he hesitated and
was embarrassed. Pressing him on this point, he admitted he wanted Raymond to
sign the call, he being Chairman of the National Republican Committee, and
Doolittle wanted others of that committee also to sign it. This I thought of
less importance than to have a proper call; certainly I would not suppress the
great essential for such a trimming, unreliable man as Raymond. As I urged the
matter, he admitted that Raymond had seen the call and approved it; further
that the President had read it, and I have no doubt that Seward had also seen
it, although that was not distinctly stated. The call, if not the convention
itself, is, I think, perverted to an intrigue in behalf of the old Whig Party,
on which Weed and Seward rely.
I proposed that we
should go and see Mr. McCulloch. It was raining intensely hard, but he at once
accorded. He had been to Silver Spring and submitted the document to Mr. Blair
and his son, who, he said, approved it.
Mr. McCulloch was
not at home, and we parted, but the paper which D. presented, the convention,
and the aspect of affairs gave me infinite concern. There is no doubt that
Seward and Stanton have a personal understanding to act together. Stanton is in
concert with the Radicals, and, at the same time, Seward is prompting
Doolittle. The public is ripe for a convention, but this call is an artful
contrivance to weaken it. The President is being subordinated by the
intriguers, and the design is obviously to weaken the Administration and give
the Radical Party the ascendant. Seward, beguiled by Stanton, expects to
control the convention by the aid of Weed and Raymond. The fruition of seven
months' intrigue means that and nothing else. They intend to rule the
President, and I fear he will let them.
I stopped early this
morning at Judge Blair's and inquired what he thought of the call. He said he
had not been in any mood or mind to think of anything, having been without
sleep the previous night, but it had appeared to him to have a too narrow
basis. I then told him my view and the conversation Doolittle and myself had.
Blair most earnestly agreed with me, said my views corresponded with his own,
and promised to see the President if he could.
I called on McCulloch,
who agreed to come to my house this evening and go with me to the President.
When he called, I detailed the conversation with Doolittle, told him of my
apprehensions, and dwelt emphatically on the subject of the Constitutional
changes as the true basis of action, and our sounding the bugle-note of warning
to arouse the people. My earnestness and the facts excited him, and we went to
the President.
We spent an hour in
a free and unrestricted conversation with the President. McCulloch, full of the
views which I had urged, advised that the President should at once issue a
proclamation after the manner of Jackson in regard to nullification, appealing
to the people.
I inquired of the
President if he had seen Doolittle since Sunday, and told him what I thought of
the proposed form of call, and that the just alarm on the proposed change of
the Constitution ought not on any account to be omitted. The people ought not
to be deluded and cheated by trash. He concurred with me. I inquired if he had
noticed that important omission in the proposed call. He did not answer direct,
but said the call was too much in detail.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 529-31
After current
business at the Cabinet was closed, I inquired of Seward if it was true that he
had sent out a special official certificate of the Constitutional Amendment to
Governor Hawley of Connecticut. I saw notice to this effect in the papers.
Seward said yes, and his manner indicated that he wished I had not put to him
the question.
Stanton at this
moment, without any design perhaps, drew off the President's attention and they
went to one of the windows, conversing audibly. In the mean time Seward and
myself got into an animated conversation on the subject of these proposed
changes, or, as they are called, amendments of the Constitution. I thought the
President should pass upon them. At all events, that they should not have been
sent out officially by the Secretary of State, obviously to be used for
electioneering purposes, without the knowledge of the President. McCulloch
agreed with me most decidedly. Seward said that had not always been the
practice. Dennison made some undecisive remarks, evincing indifference. But all
this time Stanton and the President were engaged on other matters, and as the
President himself had proposed last evening to bring up this subject in
Cabinet, I was surprised that he remained away during the conversation, the
purport of which he must have known. I became painfully impressed with the apprehension
that Seward had an influence which he should not have, and that under that
influence the President did not care to be engaged in our conversation.
On leaving the
council chamber I went into the Secretary's room adjoining. McCulloch was
already there, and we had a free talk with Colonel Cooper, the Private
Secretary of the President and his special confidant in relation to public
matters, about the necessity there was for prompt and decisive action on the
part of the President. Colonel C. fully agreed with us.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 531-2
Went with G. W.
Blunt to see the President this morning. Blunt wants to be Naval Officer and
has been a true and earnest friend of the Navy Department during the War and
boldly met our opponents when friends were needed. Of course I feel a personal
regard for him and have two or three times told the President that, personally,
Blunt was my choice. If other than personal consideration governed I had
nothing to say.
After Blunt left,
the President and myself had a little conversation. I expressed my apprehension
that there were some persons acting in bad faith with him. Some men of position
were declaring that he and Congress were assimilating and especially on the
Constitutional change. He interrupted me to repeat what he said to McCulloch
and me,—that he was opposed to them and opposed to any change while any portion
of the States were excluded. I assured him I well knew his views, but that
others near and who professed to speak for him held out other opinions. I
instanced the New York Times, the well-known organ
of a particular set, which was constantly giving out that the President and
Congress were almost agreed, and that the Republican Party must and would be
united. The fact that every Republican Representative had voted for the
changes, that the State Department had hastened off authenticated copies to the
State Executives before submitting to him, the idea promulgated that special
sessions of the legislatures in the States were to be called to immediately
ratify the amendments, or innovations, showed concert and energy of action in a
particular direction, but that it was not on the road which he was traveling.
He answered by
referring to yesterday's conversation with Seward; said he had sent early
yesterday morning to stop action at the State Department, but found the
circulars had been sent off. He seemed not aware that there was design in this
hasty, surreptitious movement.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 532-3
Walked up to the
camp of the 98th at Meridian Hill with Julia after dinner. Saw
all our officer friends there. Called upon Col Dutton who is sick at the
old Comodore Porter Mansion. He appeared quite sick and was as I thought very
uncomfortable. I invited him down to our house where he could have quiet and
rest for a few days. He declined. Said he would be “all right” in a day or two.
Mr Seward was at the camp of the 103rd German Regt nearby.
We got home before dark, pretty tired.
SOURCE: Horatio Nelson
Taft, The Diary of
Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11, 1862,
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C.
At 9 A. M. left Chicago on my way home, and arrived at midnight, having been delayed several hours on the way. Gov Selden1 of New York, who was one of the delegates to the Convention, came down the road as far as Batavia. He introduced himself to me, and thanked me, on behalf of the New York delegation, for my speech of yesterday.
1 Henry R. Selden, 1805-1885. Lieutenant governor of New York from 1850 to 1858.
SOURCE: The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, Vol. 1, p. 408
I had a pleasant
little dinner of nine people here yesterday-Enfields, Mrs. Sartoris, Lady
Adelaide Cadogan, Henry Loch, Robert Meade, Bertie Mitford, and Robert Bourke.
The latter was very amusing with his account of his late American tour, and
particularly of his interview with Seward, whom he describes as a dry,
irritable little personage, not to say blackguard. Bourke is much in favour of
the Confederates. He saw a large portion of their army—very fine men, well
drilled, but badly accoutred.
SOURCE: Alice
Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville:
1857-1861, p. 415
1 Wilson was then president of the
Massachusetts Senate.
SOURCE: Edward L.
Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 272
