The scandals concerning army contracts enabled the Abolitionists to secure the transfer of Simon Cameron from the War Department to the Russian Mission, and the appointment of Edwin M. Stanton in his place. It should not be forgotten that Mr. Cameron is entitled to great credit for the energy and skill with which he managed the War Office from March, 1861, until February, 1862. He laid the foundation of that military organization which eventually, under the leadership of Grant and Sherman, crushed the Rebellion and restored the Union. One of the regiments which came to Washington from New York, the Seventy-ninth Highlanders, becoming wretchedly disorganized, he detailed his brother, Colonel James Cameron, to command it. This settled all differences, the Scotchmen remembering the proverb that "The Camerons of Lochiel never proved false to a friend or a foe." In a few weeks, however, Colonel Cameron was killed at the Battle of Bull Run while bravely leading his men against the enemy. The weight of this great calamity fell upon Secretary Cameron at a time when the utmost powers of his mind were being exerted to save Washington from capture. For a brief period it crushed him, but the dangers then surrounding the national cause were too numerous and too threatening to admit of anything but redoubled exertions to avert them. Summoning, therefore, all his fortitude and energy, he for the moment suppressed his intense grief and recommenced his labors. New armies were organized as if by magic, and Washington was saved.
Mr. Stanton's strong will was relied upon by the Abolitionists for the control of General McClellan, who had given some indications of his willingness to restore the Union "as it was," with slavery legalized and protected. While "Little Mac" had become the idol of the rank and file of the Army of the Potomac, which he had thoroughly organized and equipped, he had also provoked the opposition of those in his rear from whom he should have received encouragement and support. Naturally cautious, he hesitated about moving when he knew that if successful he would immediately be crippled by the withdrawal of a portion of his command. A prominent politician, more outspoken than some of them around him, is quoted by General Custer as having said: "It is not on our books that McClellan should take Richmond."
Mr. Stanton had witnessed so much treason while he was a member of Buchanan's Cabinet, that he determined to know exactly what was done by every officer of the army, and one of his first acts was to have news sent over the wires pass through the War Department. Every wire in the country was "tapped" and its contents made a matter of record. Every telegram sent by President Lincoln or the members of his Cabinet to the generals in the field, or received by them from those generals, was put on record at Washington, as were all cipher despatches, deciphered by General Eckert. On one occasion a despatch from General Rufus Ingalls to Senator Nesmith puzzled every one at the War Department except Quartermaster-General Meigs, who was positive that it was Bohemian. Finally an officer who had served on the Pacific coast recognized it as "Chinook," a compound of the English, Chinese, and Indian languages used by the whites in trading with the Chinook Indians. The despatch was a harmless request from General Ingalls to his old friend "Nes." to come and witness an impeding engagement.
A detective system of espionage had been organized by Mr. Seward for the protection of the United States Government against the adherents of the Confederate cause. The reports made by this corps of detectives to the Department of State showed the daring acts of the Southern sympathizers, several of whom were ladies of wealth and fashion. How they watched and waited at official doors till they had bagged the important secret of state they wanted; how they stole military maps from the War Department; how they took copies of official documents; how they smuggled the news of the Government's strength in the linings of honest-looking coats; and how they hid army secrets in the meshes of unsuspected crinoline—all these became familiar facts, almost ceasing to excite remark or surprise. The head of this branch of the service was General Lafayette S. Baker.
Of this band of active and useful plotters, who were constantly engaged playing into the hands of the Confederates under the very shadow of the Capitol, some of the women of Washington were the busiest. The intriguing nature of these dames appears to have found especial delight in forwarding the schemes of the leaders in the movement to overthrow the Washington Government. It mattered not that most of them owed all they possessed of fortune and position to that Federal Government, and to the patronage which, directly or indirectly, they had received from it. This very fact lent a spice of daring to the deed, while an irresistible attraction was furnished in the fact that they were plotting the ruin of a Government which had fallen into the hands of that Northern majority whom, with all the lofty scorn of "patrician" blood, they despised and detested.
Mrs. Rose O. H. Greenhow was the most adroit of the Confederate emissaries. The sister of Mrs. Cutts, mother of Mrs. Douglas, and the widow of a clerk in the State Department, who had written a valuable work on Oregon, her social position gave her remarkable facilities for obtaining information. Just before the battle of Bull Run she contrived to convey to the enemy news obtained from a New England Senator with regard to the intended movements of the Federals. This communication, in her own opinion, decided the battle. In return she received this despatch from the Confederate Adjutant-General: "Our President and our General direct me to thank you. We rely upon you for further information. The Confederacy owes you a debt."
Mrs. Greenhow's house was finally used as a prison for female spies. The windows looking on the street were boarded up, and a special military guard occupied tents pitched in the garden. Mrs. Greenhow and her pretty daughter Rose were the presiding deities. Then there was Mrs. Phillips, daughter of J. C. Levy, of Charleston, S. C., where she married Philip Phillips, who afterward removed to Mobile and was elected thence to the Thirty-third Congress. Declining a re-election, he remained at Washington City, where he had a lucrative practice before the Supreme Court. Mrs. Phillips, although the mother of nine children, found time to obtain and transmit information to General Beauregard, and after having been closely guarded for awhile, she was permitted to go South on her parole and that of her father, that she would not give "aid or comfort to the enemy."
Mrs. Baxley, Mrs. Hasler, Miss Lilly A. Mackel, Mrs. Levy, and other lady prisoners had all been more or less prominent in Southern society at Washington, and had made trips over the underground railroad between Alexandria and Richmond. Also an English lady, Mrs. Ellena Low, who had been arrested at Boston, with her son, who had crossed the ocean bearing a commission in the Confederate army. Miss E. M. Poole, alias Stewart, had been very successful in carrying contraband information and funds between the two camps, and when arrested the last time there were found concealed on her person seven thousand five hundred dollars of unexpended funds.
Another devoted friend of the Confederates, who resided just outside of the Union lines in Virginia, managed to fascinate General Stoughton, a young West Point cavalry officer, and one evening while he was enjoying her society, during a serenade by a regimental band, he, with his band and orderlies, was surprised and captured, and they were sent as prisoners-of-war to Richmond. "I do not mind losing the brigadier," said Mr. Lincoln, in talking about the capture, "for they are easily made, but there were some twenty horses taken, and they cost one hundred and twenty-five dollars apiece."
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SimonCameron
SIMON CAMERON was born at Waynesborough, Pennsylvania, March 3d,
1799; learned the art of printing; was Secretary of War under
President Lincoln, in 1861, resigning when appointed Minister
Plenipotentiary to Russia, in 1862; was United States Senator from
Pennsylvania, 1845-1849, 1857-1861, and 1867-1877, when he resigned,
and was succeeded by his son.