Perley's reminiscences of sixty years in the national metropolis, v. 1-2

by Benjamin Perley Poore

The Democrats, having secured possession of the House of Representatives, organized upward of fifty committees of investigation, which cast their drag-nets over every branch of the administration, hoping to find some evidence of corruption in which the President had shared; but he most searching investigation failed to connect the name or fame of General Grant with any of this traditional "picking and stealing." Witnesses were summoned by the score, reams of paper were covered with short-hand notes of testimony, and some of the committees traveled far and wide in search of the evidence they desired. They found nothing, but they reminded Massachusetts men of old Captain Starbuck, of Nantucket, a philosophical old sea-dog, who never permitted bad luck to dampen his faith or his good spirits. Returning home from a three years' whaling voyage, with an empty hold, he was boarded by the pilot, an old acquaintance, who asked:

"Waal, Cap'n Starbuck, how many bar'ls? Had a good v'yage?"

"Not 'zackly," responded the Captain, "I haint got a bar'l of ile aboard, but I'll tell ye, I've had a mighty good sail."

Just as they were about to give up in despair, a jealous woman revealed the fact that Caleb P. Marsh, of New York, had received the appointment of post-trader at Fort Sill through the endeavors of his wife with the wife of the Secretary of War, General Belknap. Marsh made a contract with the trader already there, permitting him to continue, in consideration of twelve thousand dollars of the annual profits, divided in quarterly installments. The money thus received was divided with the Secretary of War for two years by remittances to Mrs. Belknap, but subsequently a reduced amount of six thousand dollars a year, agreed on with the post-trader, was similarly divided by remittances direct to the Secretary.

When General Belknap was transplanted from a revenue collector's office in Iowa to the Department of War, he brought his wife with him to Washington, and they occupied the house just before vacated by Secretary Seward. Other Cabinet officers gave parties, and so did the Belknaps, but they had been too liberal with their invitations, especially to the young officers just fresh from army life, and there was a great deal of disorder, with accompanying damage to curtains, carpets, and furnishings. The result was that the Belknaps were either obliged to retire from society and inhabit a cheap boarding-house, or replenish the family coffers. Alas! the tempting Marsh appeared on the stage, and the temptation could not be resisted. Mrs. Belknap died not long afterward, but her sister, the widow of Colonel Bowers, of the Confederate service, inherited her "spoils of war," was a mother to her child, and in due time became the wife of her husband.

In the interval of time required by decorum Mrs. Bowers traveled in Europe, accompanied by Mrs. Marsh and escorted by George H. Pendleton, of Ohio. Returning home, Mrs. Bowers was married to General Belknap on the 11th of December, 1875, Mr. Pendleton giving the bride away. A handsomer or an apparently happier couple never came to Washington in their honeymoon, and they were at once recognized among the leaders of society. Her dresses and jewels were among the favorite themes of the industrious lady journalists who get up marvelous accounts of Washington entertainment, and they were worthy of comment. I well remember having seen her one night wearing one of Worth's dresses, of alternate stripes of white satin embroidered with ivy leaves, and green satin embroidered with golden ears of wheat, with a sweeping train of green satin bordered with a heavy embroidered garland of ivy and wheat. A cluster of these in gold and emerald was in her black hair, and she wore a full set of large emeralds, set in Etruscan gold. The costume was faultless, and fitted to adorn the queenlike woman.

No one who had seen Mrs. Belknap wondered at the fascination she exercised over her husband, or thought it strange that he who seemed so sternly scrupulous about the expenditure of public money, should have sacrificed his reputation that she might be known as the best- dressed woman in Washington society. Perhaps, too, it was remembered that he had brought from the camp one of its legacies. Few post commanders refused the original delicacies for the mess-table at head-quarters from the post sutler who desired to keep on the right side of those in authority. Why, then, could not the Secretary of War permit his wife to receive a douceur from one of those cormorants, who always grow rich, and who may without harm be made to lay down a fraction of their extortionate gains?

Mrs. Lincoln, it was well known, had accepted a shawl worth one thousand dollars from A. T. Stewart when he was supplying large amounts of clothing and blankets to the arms, and she had also been liberally remembered by those who had sold a steamer at an exorbitant price to the Government. General Grant had been the recipient of many presents, and the epoch had been styled by Charles Sumner one of "gift enterprises."

General Belknap had promptly resigned, but it became politically necessary that he should be impeached. He had as his counsel three able lawyers whose personal appearance was very dissimilar. Ex- Senator Carpenter, who was leading counsel, was a man of very elegant presence, though his short neck and high shoulders made it impossible for him to be classed as a handsome man. His fine head, with abundant iron-gray hair, tossed carelessly back from his forehead, his keen eyes and expressive mouth, shaded by a black moustache, made up a very noticeable portrait, and his voice was so musical and penetrating that it lent a charm to the merest trifle that he uttered. Judge Jeremiah S. Black was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a clean-shaven, rugged face, a bright-brown wig, and a sharp pair of eyes that flashed from under snow-white brows, which made the brown wig seem still more brown. He chewed tobacco constantly, and the restless motion of his jaws, combined with the equally restless motion of his eyes made his a remarkable countenance. Montgomery Blair was a plain-looking man, as "lean as a racer," and evidently as eager for the work before him, though his manner was very quiet, and his bearing had none of the keen intentness that characterized his associates. The trio carried General Belknap safely through his troubles. The evidence was very remarkable and gave a curious picture of "Vanity Fair." The bargain made by Marsh with the first wife; the huckstering and business matters growing out of it, talked about and discussed over her coffin; the marriage of the Secretary soon after with the sister of the then dead wife; the frequent and enormous sums paid by Marsh to him; the ominous hints whispered about the mysterious interviews at the Arlington; the hurried exposure; the frantic efforts to avoid it; the malignant gratification shown by the Marshses, "we built the foundation on which they grew; we'll hurl them from it into a quicksand from which they will never emerge;" the admissions of guilt made by the unhappy Secretary at a moment when, as it had been suggested, he was contemplating suicide; the imprisonment in his own house; their style of living; the fact of their appearance at a large dinner- party at the Freeman Mansion, adjoining the Arlington, where, the very day after the testimony of the Marshes had been taken, their haggard looks and nervous manner excited general comment, which was not entirely silenced by their early departure on the plea of indisposition; the first effort of manliness on the part of the fallen Secretary, begging that the women might be spared, and he alone be allowed to assume the responsibility; his appearance one day at a Cabinet meeting and the next day held as a prisoner in the dock of the police court, waiting for five long hours the appearance of friends to bail him out;—all these presented elements of such a character as to give the case a singular and sad peculiarity which we look for in vain in that of any other known to our records of criminal jurisprudence. Nor was all this palliated in any way by the conduct and manner of the alleged criminal. He saw the point and smiled sympathetically at every effort of his counsel to be witty and amusing, while another party at home claimed sympathy from her friends by the strange announcement that "it was such a shame that the politicians should be allowed to prosecute such a man as General B. in such a manner; the President ought to interfere and prevent it."

The "Whisky Ring" was the creation of Cornelius Wendell and other noted Washington lobbyists. It became necessary to raise money at the time of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and the revenue officers, having been called on to contribute, conceived the idea of making the distillers pay a percentage on their ill-gotten gains. Secretary Bristow's efforts to break up these fraudulent and unlawful transactions showed the immensity of the combination of capital and ingenuity employed in cheating the Government. The weekly payments to the Ring amounted to millions, and for some years some of the participants pocketed four or five hundred dollars a week as their share.