Recollections of the Civil War. Charles A. Dana
might communicate with them in safety; and if it was not done, I should take care to afford no other opportunity for such practices.
The fact is that the agents of the Associated Press and a gang around the Federal Capitol appear to be organized for the purpose of magnifying their idol.
And if such men as those who composed the railroad convention in this city do not rebuke such a practice as that perpetrated in this instance, they can not be conferred with in future.
You will of course see the propriety of my not noticing the matter and thereby giving it importance beyond the contempt it inspires. I think you are well enough acquainted with me to judge in future the value of any such statement.
I notice the Herald telegraphic reporter announces that I had a second attack of illness on Friday and could not attend the department. I was in the department, or in the Cabinet, from nine in the morning until nine at night, and never enjoyed more perfect health than on that day and at present.
For your kind solicitude accept my thanks. I shall not needlessly impair my means of usefulness.
Yours truly, Edwin M. Stanton.
C. A. Dana, Esq.
P.S.—Was it not a funny sight to see a certain military hero in the telegraph office at Washington last Sunday organizing victory, and by sublime military combinations capturing Fort Donelson six hours after Grant and Smith had taken it sword in hand and had victorious possession! It would be a picture worthy of Punch.
Thus, when the newspapers announced my unexpected retirement from the Tribune, I was not unknown to either the President or the Secretary of War.
To Mr. Stanton's letter asking me to go into the service of the War Department, I replied that I would attempt anything he wanted me to do, and in May he wrote me that I was to be appointed on a commission to audit unsettled claims against the quartermaster's department at Cairo, Ill. I was directed to be in Cairo on June 17th. My formal appointment, which I did not receive until after I reached Cairo, read thus:
War Department,
Washington City, D.C., June 16, 1862.
Sir: By direction of the President, a commission has been appointed, consisting of Messrs. George S. Boutwell, Stephen T. Logan, and yourself, to examine and report upon all unsettled claims against the War Department, at Cairo, Ill., that may have originated prior to the first day of April, 1862.
Messrs. Boutwell and Logan have been requested to meet with you at Cairo on the eighteenth day of June instant, in order that the commission may be organized on that day and enter immediately upon the discharge of its duties.
You will be allowed a compensation of eight dollars per day and mileage.
Mr. Thomas Means, who has been appointed solicitor for the Government, has been directed to meet you at Cairo on the eighteenth instant, and will act, under the direction of the commission, in the investigation of such claims as may be presented.
Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War.
Hon. Charles A. Dana, of New York,
Cairo, Ill.
On reaching Cairo on the appointed day, I found my associates, Judge Logan, of Springfield, Ill., one of Mr. Lincoln's friends, and Mr. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, afterward Governor of his State, Secretary of the Treasury, and a United States senator. We organized on the 18th, as directed. Two days after we met Judge Logan was compelled by illness to resign from the commission, and Shelby M. Cullom, now United States senator from Illinois, was appointed in his place.
The main Union armies had by this time advanced far to the front, but Cairo was still an important military depot, almost an outpost, in command of General William K. Strong, whom I had known well in New York as a politician. There was a large number of troops stationed in the town, and from there the armies on the Mississippi River, in Missouri, and in Kentucky, got all their supplies and munitions of war. The quartermaster's department at Cairo had been organized hastily, and the demands upon it had increased rapidly. Much of the business had been done by green volunteer officers who did not understand the technical duties of making out military requisitions and returns. The result was that the accounts were in great confusion, and hysterical newspapers were charging the department with fraud and corruption. The War Department decided to make a full investigation of all disbursements at Cairo from the beginning. Little actual cash had thus far been paid out upon contracts, and it was not too late to correct overcharges and straighten out the system. The matter could not be settled by any ordinary means, and the commission went there as a kind of supreme authority, accepting or rejecting claims and paying them as we thought fit after examining the evidence.
Sixteen hundred and ninety-six claims, amounting to $599,219.36, were examined by us. Of those approved and certified for payment the amount was $451,105.80. Of the claims rejected, a considerable portion were for losses suffered in the active operations of the army, either through departure from discipline on the part of soldiers, or from requisitions made by officers who failed to give receipts and certificates to the persons concerned, who were thus unable to support their claims by sufficient evidence. Many claims of this description were also presented by men whose loyalty to the Government was impeached by credible witnesses. In rejecting these the commission set forth the disloyalty of the claimants, in the certificates written on the face of their accounts. Other accounts, whose rightfulness was established, were rejected on proof of disloyalty. The commission regarded complicity in the rebellion as barring all claims against the United States.
A question of some interest was raised by the claim of the trustees of the Cairo city property to be paid for the use by the Government wharf boats of the paved portion of the levee which protected the town against the Ohio River. We were unable to see the matter in the light presented by the trustees. Our judgment was that the Government ought not to pay for the use of necessary landing places on these rivers or elsewhere during the exigencies of the war, and we so certified upon the face of the claims. A similar principle guided our decision upon several claims for the rent of vacant lots in Cairo, which had been used by the military authorities for the erection of temporary barracks or stables. We determined that for these no rent ought, under the circumstances, to be allowed, but we suggested that in justice to the owners this temporary occupation should be terminated as soon as possible by the sale and removal of the buildings.
A very small percentage of the claims were rejected because of fraud. In almost every case it was possible to suppose that the apparent fraud was accident. My observation throughout the war was the same. I do not believe that so much business could be transacted with a closer adherence to the line of honesty. That there were frauds is a matter of course, because men, and even some women, are wicked, but frauds were the exception.
Our commission finished its labors at Cairo on July 31, 1862, and I went at once to Washington with the report, placing it in the hands of Mr. Stanton on August 5th. It was never printed, and the manuscript is still in the files of the War Department.
There was a great deal of curiosity among officers in Washington about the result of our investigation, and all the time that I was in the city I was being questioned on the subject. It was natural enough that they should have felt interested in our report. The charges of fraud and corruption against officers and contractors had become so reckless and general that the mere sight of a man in conference with a high official led to the suspicion and often the charge that he was conspiring to rob the Government. That in this case, where the charges seemed so well based, so small a percentage of corruption had been proved was a source of solid satisfaction to every one in the War Department.
All the leisure that I had while in Cairo I spent in horseback riding up and down the river banks and in visiting the adjacent military posts. My longest and most interesting trip was on the Fourth of July, when I went down the Mississippi to attend a big celebration at Memphis. I remember it particularly because it was there that I first met General Grant. The officers stationed in the city gave a dinner that day, to which I was invited. At the table I was