I was at that time detained in Washington to decide whether I would go abroad to make purchases of certain supplies for the Quartermaster’s Department, and sailed a few days after the last conversation with Colonel McCook.
I made contracts in Paris, and, about the middle of November, I went down to Havre to expedite my first shipment, and there met with Mr. Thurlow Weed and his party, just arrived. I had some previous acquaintance with him, and during my stay abroad had frequent occasion to see him.
I closed up my business in Paris on the 28th January, 1862, on which day it was telegraphed from Ireland that “Frederick P. Stanton” was appointed to the War Department in Washington.
Going over to London the next day, I called on Mr. Weed, then there, and the mails not yet to hand. He was under the impression the new Secretary was the former Governor of Kansas. But when it was corrected I called again, and found him very desirous of information about Mr. Edwin M. Stanton’s previous life and character, which I gave him, including, of course, the cabinet scene, as told me by Colonel McCook, then fresh in my recollection. But Mr. Weed did not speak of writing it out for publication, and I really regretted to find it, in his own practical adaptation for the newspaper, in the Observer, on the Sunday morning following. I took care to address copies to Mr. Stanton, Colonel McCook, General Meigs, and others.
Early in March following, I was in Washington, settling my accounts, and, by Mr. Stanton’s invitation, called at his house. After tea, he led me into his library, when at once he asked: “Who furnished Thurlow Weed with the statements in the Observer which you sent me?”[me?”]
I then fully detailed how it all came about, and of Colonel McCook’s being in Washington when I left, and giving me the particulars of the cabinet scene, etc. Mr. Stanton reflected for some minutes, when he said: “McCook should not have talked of such matters; and, in his way, he has exaggerated what did occur; but” pausing again, he continued, “I have not time now to be watching and correcting what may be told of last winter’s troubles in Mr. Buchanan’s cabinet, in which I was an unwilling member; besides, many of my old Democratic friends now turn the cold shoulder to me in the changed relations which duty to my country has laid upon me.”
I was, indeed, glad that the statement seemed to have attracted but little attention, and hoped it would pass out of remembrance.
But when Vice President Wilson reproduced it in the Atlantic Monthly, and was answered by Judge Black, I thought it my duty to write to Colonel McCook, reminding him of the occasion on which he told me of the cabinet affair, as I told its outlines to Mr. Weed, etc., and asking his (Colonel McCook’s) permission to correct much which had been added to his original narrative; but I had no reply from him; and not long after he died—suddenly, poor fellow.
I had not then personal acquaintance with Judge J. S. Black, but had opportunity to explain to a friend in York what I knew of the matter, and he mentioned what I had told him to the Judge.
I met the latter at Cape May, in 1876, and had a long conversation about the reported scene, which, he said, would be fully explained in, I understood him, a publication he had in preparation.