"&- i (KAJcns- Jid^i^rL.h^^_^ry\y^ ■ \1 ?■--> ---^ Class [^ 4-15 Book. Rli:FL:i" i>^^ OF jfHOLTi TO CERTAIN CALUMNIES OF JACOB THOMPSON •*->^ (Tm Is ^ 'M:^ ffe-^->^ ^.->w<*i» Wash ington, Or-AV/^r smsi.^^ To the Editor : Sir: I thank you sincerely for tLe privilege courteously accorded me of vindicating myself, through your columns, from certain scurrilous charges made in a repoj-ted " inter- view," by Jacob Thompson, Secretary of the Interior under President Buchanan's administration, and which appeared in the I'liiladelphia Press of the seventeenth ultimo, having been copied from the Mempliis Appeal. It is with extreme reluctance that I venture to obtrude any private wrong I may liave sutlered on the notice of the public, well knowing that it cannot be reasonably expected to feel any special concern in my personal affairs; but while this is so, it is not to 1h' forgotten that all honorable men love the truth, ow' it ;i lidniage wiiicli they gladly pay, and, sympathize with its ^'liaiupicuiship under all circumstances, as essentially the championship of their own cause and in- terests. It is tliis wliicli emboldens me to ask a dispassion- ate consideration of the statements which I am abi^it to submit. It is clear that tliis '• interview,"' though ostensibly foi- an- other object, was really sought to give Afr. Thoinjison an oj). portunity of vomiting forth upon me fetid calumnies, long since buried out of the sight of honest men. His rage, pent up for some twenty-two years, seems almost insanely joyful in the cliance for slanderous vitui)erati()n at last aiforded him. For this assault he has liad no }>rovocation whatever. I was doing nothing, saving nothing that could give him the slightest annoyance or disturbance. The se<[uel will show how I incurred the hatred which has evidently been stinging his bosom much more than my own. Pie says I ••' went from Mississip[)i to Wasiiington," — there- ' by intimating that, coming from a State which he repre- sented in the Cabinet, I owed him a certain measure of al- legiance, which, in his view, aggravated my subsequent in- subordination, Xow, the lad is, that I left Mississippi finally in 1842, and thereafter made my home in Kentucky, my native State, until the spring of 1857, when my resi- dence was transferred to Washington. 1 was not the con- stituent of Mr. Thompson, nor his acquaintance; w^e were entire strangers to each other, until we met here. It is a time-honored maxim of the law, and " worthy of all acceptation," that a witness, who testifies falsely in one thing, is to be believed in nove. Let us keep this wise rule in view as we proceed. He says further, speaking of me: " He hung about the courts for months and months — a briefless lawyer. I was disposed to do something for him, and told him one day I wanted a Commissioner of Patents, and thought he could fill the position with satisfaction, and added that if he would say he wanted the place, I would try and get it for him. He said he was doing nothing, and would l)eg]ad to get the i)Osition. I talked with the President about it, and found he had selected a friend from Pennsyl- vania, but I pressed Holt strongly upon him. By sheer persistence the l*resident's Pennsylvania friend was dropped, and Holt was ajtpointed." It will be observed that Mr. Thompson dominates every scene in which he appears, bestriding it like a Colossus, after the too prevalent fashion of the " interviewed" of our day, who so magnify tlieir own proportions and so dwarf surrounding persons and things as to sorely try public credu- lity and public patience as well. Tliis paradeful story was doubtless designed to give us a glini])se of his temporary exal- tation and of my alleged humility and dependence, tlius im- parting a touchingly-patronizing and compassionate air to the support whicli he claims to have giveii to my ap})oint- ment. How this pleasing fabric will dissolve in the light of the facts must now appear. I gave up wholly the prac- tice of the law some fifteen j-ears before I came to Wash- ington, and in coming here liad no thought whatever of resuming it, nor did I do so, or attempt to do so, I opened no office ; solicited uo professional business; would have ac- cepted none had it been offered me. I entered neither the clerks' offices nor the court rooms of the district, but lived inde[)endently on the eiirnings of former years, as I had a right to do. How, then, could I have beeu a " briefless lawyer hanging about the courts from month to month?" Let us i\ot forget the sound maxim of law above quoted. This office had no attractions for me, though some of my friends desired that I should flU it, and, happily, its duties proved more agreeable than I had anticipated they would be. I have always felt satisfied that it was bestowed upon me through the recommendations of a southern senator, then friendly, and whose relations both to the President and Mr. Thompson were such as to secure a favorable considera- tion of his wishes. Having held the office of Commissioner of Patents for some eighteen months, I was, on the death of Postmaster- General Brown, appointed his successor. Let us hear what Mr. Thompson has to say in regard to this appointment. These are his words : ^'At a Cabinet meeting some time afterwards. President Buchanan said he felt that in ap[)ointing the successor of Postmaster-General Brown, he must select a man altogether different in his disposition. 'Brown was a good officer,' said he, ' but he was too good a man ; the department has suffered on account of his kindheartedness, and we must find a man who has no heart.' Several of the members suggested names, and finally I said, ' Mr. President, I have a man who exactl}' fills your description. He has not a friend in the whole world that I know of, and he has no heart, no soul. I mean my Commissioner of Patents, Holt.' " There was a general laugh, and I explained that I had no desire, whatever, to push Holt, but suggested him as a man who would fill the President's ideal of what the new Post- master should be. The appoint nient hung fire for several weeks, and finally, the President said to me that he believed that my man Holt would make the best Postmaster-General after all. So he was appointed." It would a[»pear from this that Mr. Thompson then knew little of my friends ; he knows far less of them now, and there is no lamentation for tliis on their account or on my own. If his coarse, billino-sgate asper'sions upon myself were intended as wit, then it can onl}- be said that they approached it no nearer tlian the oxlialations of the sewer approach the fragrance of the flower garden. But the whole of this scene, as presented, is grotesquely absurd and incredible. l*resi- dent Buchanan was, at nil times and everywhere, a courtly gentleman ; and his character for dignity and staiiiless in- tegrity was never compromised throughout a long and event- ful life. That he could have tolerated such a scene, much less been a participant in it — such indecency of utterance and such idiocy of suggestion — in a cabinet council over which he was jiresiding, is inconceiva))le ; and to hold that he could, is simply to insult the meiuory of a statesman and patriot to whom the country owes a large debt of justice, and of gratitude as well, which, when the passions of the war shall have Ijeen wholly hushed, the future will gladly recog- nize. The slurring remarks upon Tostmaster-General Brown — as though he had !)een weak, and so, incompetent — were put into the President's moutli to prepare the way for the op- probrious observations upon myself, which Mr. Thompson claims to have promptly made. Now, from the National In- felMgrvcer, a well-known and reliable journal then published in Washington, we learn that the President had his last in- terview with the Postmaster-General at 11 o'clock on the night of the seventh of March, 1859, and that while standing at the bedside and about to take his leave, the Postmaster- General said to him : " I have endeavored faithfully to dis- charge all ni}^ duties." To which the President replied that his effort had been successful, and that the whole country would attest, ''io hisjidelity as a public officer, and the success that had attended his administration of the department.''' With- in ten hours thereafter the Postmaster-General was no more. Does any man believe that, after the utterence of these em- phatic and solemn words, the President was capable of turn- ing around and saying to his Cabinet that the Postoffice De- partment had " suffered" from Postmaster-General Browi>'s administration of it ? But I now purpose to show that this Cabinet meeting, with its imputed vileness of speech — in- spired by the venom of a Cobra — Wcis a fabrication in the whole and in all its parts, Mr. TJionipson says " the appointment hung lire for several weeks," which is necessarily an averment that "several weeks" .elapsed after this pretended Cabinet meeting before my appointment was made — the oljject of tliis being to dis- parage me as far as }»()ssible by conveying the impression that the President hesitated thus long before he could bring himself to confer the office upon me. This statement is im- portant to be noted, since it will prove a light to guide us to the truth we are seeking. It is only in the field of vague generalities that the triumj»hs of fabricators are achieved. They come speedily to grief when they allow themselves to be specific, and Mr. Thompson's fate will not be different, in this respect, from that of the class to which he belongs. By yielding to the temptation to defame me, and so saying that this long period intervened between the Cabinet meeting and my appointment, he unwittingly has supplied a means, at once easy and sure, of exposing the deception which he is at- tempting to impose upon the public, i It a[»[)ears from the National Intelligencer of the ninth of March, 1859, that Postmaster-General Brown died on the day preceding at about 9 o'clock in the morning, from a severe attack of pneumonia, and in the same journal of Thursday the tenth of March, I find this editorial paragraph : " Hon. Joseph Holt, for some time past Commissioner of Patents, wan geMerda// nominated by the President, and forth with unanimously confirmed by the Senate, to the vacant office of Postmaster-General. This is admitted on all hands and in all respects to be an excellent appointment." The National Intelligencer of the eleventh of March gives a detailed account of the funeral services of Postmaster- 8 General Brown, which are represented to have taken place at the White House the day before, and from the account I make the following extract : "About 12 o'clock tlie President of the United States, ac- comi)anied by Secretaries Cass, Floyd, Tousey, Cobb, Black, and the new Postmaster-General, Holt, entered the room througli the rece[)tion parlors, and took their seats near the clergy. The Rev. Dr. Hall, of the G-Street Episcopal Church, and the Rev. I. G. Grauberry, the ofliciating clergy- men, then took their position at a small table in front of the coffin." It is evident, then, from contemporary and unquestionable testimony, that Postmaster-General Brown having died on the eighth of March, I was on the ninth nominated by the President to succeed him, and at once unanimously con- firmed ; that on the tenth I attended his funeral services with the other mend^ers of the Cabinet, and that, finally, as the record shows, on the fourteenth of March, with my com- mission in my hand, 1 went to the department, was quali- fied, and entered u})on my duties as Postmaster-General. What reception is due from the public to a man capable, in the interests of the foulest defamation, of thus mislead- ing them? I look in vain, for even the shred of a circum- stance that can hide the hideous nakedness of the falsifica- tion of history, which this simple narrative brings to light. The case, then, stands thus : It is proved that I was appointed onthe ninth of March, and that the Postmaster-General died only one day before (the eighth). Mr. Thompson says the Cabinet meeting in which Postmaster-General Brown's death being recognized, the question of his successor was considered , was held " several weeks " before my appointment, and .so necessarily, the same " several weeks,'' less a single day, before the Postmaster-General actually died ! Could anything be added to the completeness of this exposure ? * Should he, "Tbe iutense g'uiltiuess of this calumuy can be jueasurecl only by keeping con- stantly in mind that its utterance professes to be prompterl, not by opinion, nor yet by mfoiniMtion derived fi"om nt\wxti.h\\{ from li.v liiiii Ixlorc tlio Militjry ('(iiiiiiiission -bciii controvci'tcd or attruiptiil to I'l' 1 (iiitn'>V( rtcd li.v niiy I'vidoiici' rbat lias roiiii' I o my not ice ; nor was its tnitlifuliicssal all calUil in .iiuMioti in his imoscciU ioir lor iicijiuy and t^iihonia- t.ifHi of ]tcriiiry--lli(sr otViMiscs lia\ iiiic Ixcn iDiiiiuitlfd Idiui iifirr llir triiil brlnrr. fhe Mi/iUu-i/ ('niiniiisxiiiii, (iiid in iiroirrdiiii/s Iniriii;/ iii> rchili'iii to if While, tlicro- I'orf, it is inii' ihal tliis niau " was put on liial for jxijiiry." it is o(iually trtu'tlial hr was not cliai -cd with ha\in^- coinniitted vcijiify wlicn tostilyini;' aiiainst Mr. Tlioiiipsoii JRfoic the Militar^- Coiimiissioii. Tlu' ( ;ovcruiutMit was in possession of no information tlien, nor hasit any now. on winch to base sucli a eliaise. 11 comb, Beverly Tucker, W. C. Cleary, and Harrington. I have frequently met these pei^sons since the summer of 18(34, at Niagara Falls, at Toronto, St. Catherine's, and at ATon- treal. Thompson passed by several othei- names, one of which was Carson. Clay passed by the name of Hope, also Tracy, and another was T, E. Lacy. "In a conversation Iliad with Jacob Thompson in the summer of 18(34, he said he had his friends (confederates) all over the northern states, who were ready and willing to go any length to serve the cause of the South ; and he added that he could at any time have the tyrant Lincoln, and any other of his advisers that he chose, put out of his way ; he would hav^e but to jioint out the man that he considered in his way, and his friends, as he termed them, would put him out of it, and not let him know anything about it if neces- sary ; and that they would not consider it a crime when done for the South. " Shortly after Mr. Thompson told me what he was able to do, I repeated the conversation to Mr. Clay, who said : ' That is so ; we are all devoted to our cause, and ready to go any lengths — to do anything under the sun to serve our cause.' '' In January of this year I saw Jacob Thompson in Mon- treal several times. In one of these conversations he said a proposition had been made to him to rid the world of the tyrant Lincoln, Stanton, Grant, and others. The men who had made the proposition, he sa,id,,he knew were bold,' dar- ing men, and able to execute anything they would under- take, without regard to the cost. He said he was in favor OF THE PROPOSITION, but had determined to defer his answer until he had consulted with his government at Richmond, and he was then only waiting their approval. He added that he thought it would be a blessing to the people, both north and south, to have these men killed. * * * " I have been in Canada since the assassination. A few days after I met Beverly Tucker at Montreal. He said a great deal about the wrougs that the South had received at the hands of Mr. Lincoln, and that he deserved his death, and it was a pity he did not meet with it long ago. He said it was too bad that the boys had not been allowed to act when they wanted to. The 'boys' was an ex}>ression ap plied to the Confederate soldiers and others in their employ who engaged in raids, and who were employed to assassi- nate the President. 12 " I related a portion of the conversation I had had with Mr. Thompson to Mr. W. 0. Cleary, who is a sort of confidential secretary to Mr. Tljompson, and he tohl nie that Booth was one of the parties to whom Thompson had reference ; and he said in regard to the assassination, that it was too bad that the whole work had not been done ; by which I nnderstood him to mean that they intended to assassinate a greater num- ber than they succeeded in killing. Cleary remarked, when speaking of his regret that the wliole work had not been done, ' They had better look out ; we are not done yet.' And he added that they would never be conquered — ^would never give up. "Cleary said tiiat Booth had been there, visiting Thomp- son twice in the winter ; he thought the last time was in December. He had also been there in the summer. " Thompson told me that Cleary was posted upon all liis af- fairs, and that if I sought him (Thompson) at any time and he was away, I might state my business to Mr. Cleary and it would be all the same ; that I could have perfect confidence in him, and that he was a very cloae-moutlied man. * * " During my stay in Canada I was in the service of the United States government, seeking to acquire informa- tion in regard to the plans and purposes of the rebels who were assembled there. To do this most effectually I adopted the name of flames Thompson, ar.d, leading them to suppose this was my correct name, I adopted some other name at any hotel at which I might be stopping I was entrusted with dispatches from these confederates to take to Rich- mond. I carried some to Gordonville, with instructions to send them from there I received a reply to these dispatches, which I carried back to Canada, bringing them through Washington, and making them known to the United States government. I took no dispatches from the rebel govern- ment to their agents in Canada without first delivering them to the authorities in Washington. * * * " I frequently heard the subject of raids upon our frontier and the burning of cities spoken of by Thompson, Clay, Cleary, Tucker, and Sanders. Mr. Clement C. Clay was one of the prime movers in the matter before the raids were started. They received his direct indorsement. He represented himself to me as being a sort of representative of their war department at Richmond. The men I have reference to, more especially Mr, Clay and Mr. Thompson, represented that they were acting under the sanction of 13 their government, and as having full power to act with ref- erence to that : that lhey had full power to do anything that they deemed expedient and foi- the henelit of their cause. "I was in Canada when arrangements wei-e made to tire the city of New York. I left Canada to bring the news to Washington ten days before the attempt was made. It or- iginated in Canada, and had tlie full sanction of these men." If this evidence has ever been confuted, in whole or in part, it is unknown to me. This witness has never been tried for perjury or accused of that crime in any legal proceeding ; nor so for as I know or believe, lias his character for veracity been questioned in any judicial injury. He stood before the Militar}' Commission, and stands now unimpeaclied. The public has probably long since determined the weight to which his statements are entitled. It is surprising that in the zeal with which he has pursued and branded " the fellow " Conover " the perjurer," Mr. Thompson should have totally lost sight of Richard Montgomery, with whose tes- timony he must be familiar, since it was published so long- ago. The otlier witness (Conover), also a stranger to me, was brought to the notice of the government by a gentlemen of New York,who represented him as having been a foi-mer cor- respondent of the Tribune^ and as altogethr reliable. His evi- dence was more distinctly criminative of Mr. Thompson than that of Montgomery, but because of subsequent events, yet to be stated, I forbear to quote it. Now, both these witnesses were summoned, attended, and gave their testimony in the usual way, and received tlie compensation allowed by law for such services, and any averment or insinuation that they were bribed or received any money or other consideration from me or by my authority for the purpose of controlling or in any manner atfecting the testimony given by them is as utterly false as malignant. In July, after the trial, Conover addressed a written com- munication ro me from New York, ol which the following is the opening paragraph : 14 New York, July 36, 1865. Brig. Gen. Holt. — Dear Sir: Believing that lean procure witnesses and documentary evidence sufficient to convict Jeff. Davis and C. C. Cla}- of complicity in the assassination of the President, and that I can also find and secure John H. Surratt, I beg leave to tender the government, tli rough jou, my services for these purposes. It will not escape notice that no allusion is made to Mr. Thompson. He then proceeded to set out in detail what he thought could be proved by the witnesses he i)roposed to produce. On the Second of August following, another letter to the same effect, but more urgent, was received from him, and after a conference with the Secretary of War, with his full api)roval, the proposal was accepted, and Conover entered upon the fulfillment of his engagement. Some six or seven months were occupied in this, and after all the witnesses produced by him — none of whom were known to me — had been examined, and their depositions filed in tlie Bureau of Military Justice, Conover, under the supervision of the Sec- retary of War, was allowed a compensation, which, with what he had previously received, was deemed just, and no more, for his services — such sums as were required for the attendance of the witnesses themselves having been before paid out from time to time. C^onover himself gave no dejtosi- tion. In this there was no departure from the course habit- ually pursued by all the departments of the government. It was to this compensation that Mr. Thompson, with his cus- tomarj' looseness and recklessness of speech, alludes when he says that it was proven on Conover's " trial that large sums of money had been given the perjurer by Holt, my enemy," though no proof is offered to this effect ; nor have I ever heard before, nor have I now any reason to believe, that the matter was alluded to on that trial. But be this as it may, ,,* there could have been no truthful representation on^ubject (\'- ^ at all different from what I have made. At this time nothing had occurred to excite the sliglitest suspicion of Conover's integrity in all that he had done, or 15 in the credibility of his witnetsses. Some time afterward, two ot these witnesses, conscience stricken, came and con- fessed that they had sworn falsely, having been suborned to do so bj Conover. Inrestigation satisfied me that tbey w ere sincere in their avowals, and without delay appropriate action was taken. A prosecution was set on f«x>t agtiinst Conover, and he was convicted and sent to the penitentiary for perjury and subornation of perjury, and on the margin of all the repiorts made by me on the dejK)sitions of the wit- nesses he had produced, an indorsement was made stating that the depositions were withdrawn and had been discred- ited. What more could have been done '. The antidote was in this manner brought in direct contact with the poison, and so destroying it at once and for all time to come. For tuuately this most guilty deception was discovered so soon that neither the reputation nor the sensibilities of anybody had suffered by the temporary credit given to it. I had acted, in receiving and reporting ufon the dep>ositions of these witnesses, in a strictly judicial capacity, and was no more respionsilble for their perjury than is a judge for the jier- jury of a witness, committed in a trial before him. It is worth mentioning that, of all these p)erjured witnesses, but two spoke of Mr. Thompson in connection with the assassination plot, and they testified to nothing they knew, but to some thing they had heard. Xow, although even p>erjarers do not lie always and iu all things, yet it may be and is un hesitatingly conceded that it would be unsafe to credit as a basis of action Couover's testimony before the Military Com- mission, and this, not because of its improbability — for it was strongly corroborated by Montgomery, who is unim- peached — but because of the pei-sonal infamy in which he afterwards involved himself. Still, it remains for a thought- ful and discriminatiug p)ublic to determine how far the clear and incisive testimony of Richard Montgomery can be im- paired in its force by denunciations, however well deserved, of another witness with whom he had no connection what- ever. 16 It has not been my purpose in this paper to accuse Mr. Thompson, in regard to his conduct in Canada, preferring to leave this to the events of the past, under such interpretation as loyal and candid men may give them. My leading purpose has been to vindicate myself from a charge as wicked and un- provoked as ever fell from human lips. Some seventeen years ago, in an elaborate publication, I defended myself triumphantly from the rebel criminations of my official con- duct in connection with Conover and his witnesses, which were then beating as a storm upon me. These conflicts, with their issues, have passed into history, and Mr. Thomp. son greatly mistakes if he supposes the judgment of that history is to be reversed or modified by the invectives of to- day, however audacious and vindictive thc}^ may be. But it is proper that I should give the origin of the hatred which Mr. Thompson has so long borne me, and which has just found so unworth}- an expression. After it had l^een de- termined and announced m the Cabinet that Fort Sumter should be reenforced, it was arranged by Gen. Scott and my- self that this should be attempted by the Star of the West, which, with all the precautions i)ossible, was dispatched from N^ew York for this purpose. Mr. Thompson, being still a member of the Cabinet, with all the obligations of honor and of loyalty imposed by his position resting upon him, tele- graphed to Charleston that this vessel was coming and its object. In consequence, when it arrived at Charleston har- bor, the rel)el batteries opened on it, and it was driven hack. Up to this time our relations had been friendly — certainly so, on my part — but this act separated me from him at once and forever. Having resigned his seat in the Cabinet and returned to Mississippi, he addressed to the people of that State the following language : ^''As I was icriting my resignation^ I sent a dispatch to Judge Longstreet that the Star of the West was coming with reenforcements. The troops were thus pnt on their ijiiard^ and when the Star of the West arrived she received a warm welcome from booming cannon^ and soon beat a retreat. I was 17 rejoiced that the vessel was not sunk, but I was the more rejoiced that the concealed tricky first conceived by Gen. Scott and adopted by Secretary Holt, but countermanded by the President when too late, proved a failure." " his was his exultant cry over a stab given to his country at the very moment he was enjoying its confidence, and was clothed with its honors. In his late " interview " he again frankly avows this criminal act, but thinks that he should be excused from blame because others had the same informa- tion, and might have communicated it to the enemy — but did not, doubtless from a sense of duty— a specimen of logic so unique as to be worth remembering. The terra " concealed trick '' imported and was intended to import all possible un- fairness and dishonor on the part of Gren. Scott and myself. Although that grand old soldier certainly needed no defense at my hands, yet it was due to the responsible action which we had jointly taken that it should be rescued from the ob_ loquy sought to be heaped upon it. To this end I addressed a letter to the editors of the Naitonal InteUigencer, which ap- peared in that journal on the fifth of March, 1861, setting forth the circumstances under which the Star of the West had been dispatched, and, in doing so, utterly demolished Mr. Thompson's calumnious accusation, and so placed his dis- loyal conduct in its true light before the country. This was the beginning of a relentless hostility on his part, which — judging from its present vigor — has been carefully nursed through the long years which have followed. Mr. Buch- anan, after reading this letter the morning it appeared said to me, " Your letter is severe, but just." This was the judgment of one who had complete personal knowledge of all the facts on which my defense and the arraignment of Mr. Thompson's action were based. Subsequently, I ad- dressed another letter as the former— and which was a re- joinder to Mr. Thompson's reply to my first — in which the position he occupied was characcerized in these words: " It remains, therefore, undenied and undeniable, as a part of the history of the times, that the late Secretary of the 18 Interior, while jet a member of the Cabinet, dispatched in- tellio;ence which reached, and must have been intended to reach, those in open arms aii^ainst the government of the United States, and that upon this information the Star of the West was fired upon and expelled from Charleston har- bor, thus defeating the expedition for the relief of Fort Sum- ter, and jeopardizing the lives of all engaged in it. It is further part of the record thus made by the Secretary him- self that in this result, secured by his own act, ' he re- joiced.' " These words were true then, and they are true now, and history will not fail to make a like record of Mr. Thomp- son in a book of remembrance which will not perish ; and to this will be surely ailded a branding condemnation, so long as the sentiment of loyalty to our country — which, next to the worship of the living God, is the noblest spring of human action — is respected among men. It gave me no pleasure to write these letters. On the contrary, it was painful to be obliged to speak in appropriate terms of an act of official treachery unparalleled in our history, and which I felt to be a humiliation for our country and times, and if these letters pierced the joints of Mr. Thompson's armor, as doubtless they did, he should remember always, amid the ranklings of his resentment, that they were but the rebound of a sliaft which had come from his own quiver. Mr. Thompson speaks bitterly of me as his " enemy," and possibly has been led to believe that I, in common with the loyal people of the North, have been led into unfriendliness toward him because of his distinguished military services during the Rebellion. This is a delusion on his part which I hasten to correct. The only history of those services which has reached the North is that given by General Grant in his testimony before the Military Commission which tried the assassins of the President. I copy it from the record of the trial as follows : "I met Jacob Thompson, formerly Secretary of the Interior under President Buchanan's administration, when the army 19 was lying opposite Vicksbnrg, at what is called Milliken's Bend and Young's Point. A little boat was discovered coming up near the opposite shore, apparently surreptitiously, and trying to avoid detection. A little tug was sent out from the navy to pick it up. When they got to it they found a little white flag sticking out of the stern of the row boat, and Jacob Thompson in it. They brought him to Admiral Porter's flugshi[i, and I was sent for to meet him. I do not re- collect the ostensible business he had. There seemed to be nothing at all important in the visit, but he pretended to be under a flag of truce, and he had, therefore, to be allowed to go back again. That was in January or February of, 63, and it was the first flag of truce we had through, lie professed to be in the Military service of the rebels, and said that he had been offered a commission — anything that he wanted; but knowing that he was not a military man, he preferred hav- ing something more like a civil appointment, and he had, therefore, taken the place of Inspector-General, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, in the rebel service.^')^ The heart of the country has been found large enough and magnanimous enough to forgive these services against its flag, but of course, they were too brilliant to be forgotten. I cannot close this communication without bearing em- / phatic testimony to the loyalty of President Buchanan throughout the troubled and trying scenes which marked the last months of his administration. With measureless responsibilities oppressing him; badgered by traitors and by the department of the government which owed him sympathy and a loyal support ; and, standing, as he did, on the brink of a great national calamity, the imminence of which was awing all hearts, he was often cast down, but never.uufaithful to his duties. Amid the blinding rancor of party strife he was constantly misunderstood and constantly -Should there be rtiscovered in this sketch an unusually laiRe measure of litUe-iiGs&, it must be ascribed to Gen'l Grant's scrupulous accuracy as a historian. But as the phrenziod and sanguinary heat of the Rebellion must, after the lapse of so many years, be cooled in Mr. Thompson's bosom, he should now congratulate himself on seeing his war record, passing tlius quietly down to posterity, in terms so simple and harmless, instead of being written in the birid light of the burning cities of the North whose destruction by the torch had— as Mdiitgoiaerj-sweaTS— his "full sanction "and the " full sanction " as well, of the otlicr rebel heroes named who were fighting our flag from the safe soil of Canada, instead of upon the perilous battlefields of the South. 20 misrepresented. He was not an aggressive man, nor at all given to violent forms of speech or of action. He shrunk from the contemplation of civil war and the bloodshed it would in- volve, and sought to postpone it to the last possible moment.* But in all this there was no taint of disloyalty. While, however, uniformly gentle and suave in his modes, he was not the less firm in view of the ends to be finally attained. And yet it was this very gentleness and suavity — the result, in part, perhaps, of his peculiar temperament, but yet more, it may be, of the training inseparable from his diplomatic career — which often misled men, who paused not to reflect that iron hands are sometimes found in silken gloves. J. HOLT. 'Tliiit the lirst Kho( iu tbe Rebellion cauic troiu t iie cueiiiy, was due wholly to this policy of pi'ocrastiijjttion, then so seveily censured; aud yet it was this first shot, and tlie fart thai li was tired not from. Iiiit upon Foil Siiiiipter. and the tlagfioatiug over It. ttiar intlaiiu-d imd uiiit<'d the country, aud uavc lo I in- national patriotism a fervor aud ivsistlcss iiii)it'tuswhlcli carried our aruues aud pcoph' in triiinipli and glory tlirongli tin- war. Had that first shot come from tin- liatteries of -umpter, the iien e i)ai't.\' jiassions tlien raging would lia\'e lieeii swift to denounce tlie ad- miuisti'atiou as making war upon the Soutli, and fatal ilisseusious among ourselves might have ensued. Could, therefore, the short-sighted cari)ers of that