Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume One).djvu/347

Rh army if he should again be superseded. I then said that emancipation seemed the only way out of our troubles. He said in reply:

“Must we not wait for something that looks like a victory? Would not a proclamation now appear as brutum fulmen?”—the only Latin I ever heard from the President.

In Gorham’s Life of Stanton, it appears that the Cabinet advised against the restoration of McClellan, and that a vigorous protest was signed by three members, which, however, was not presented.

During the autumn and winter of 1862-3, I was in the habit of calling at the War Office for news, when I left the Treasury—usually between nine and eleven o’clock. Not infrequently I met Mr. Lincoln on the way or at the department. When the weather was cold he wore a gray shawl, muffled closely around his neck and shoulders. There was great anxiety for General Grant in 1863, when he was engaged in the movement across the Mississippi. At that time I went to the War Office daily. One evening I met the President in front of the Executive Mansion, on his way back from the War Department. I said:

“Any news, Mr. President?”

“Come in and I will tell you!”

I knew from the tones of his voice that he had good news. He read the dispatch, and then by the maps he followed the course that Grant had taken. The news he had received was from Grant himself. From the 4th of March, 1861, I had not seen Mr. Lincoln as cheerful as he was when he read the dispatch, and traced the campaign on the map. He felt, evidently, that the end was approaching—although it was nearly two years away.

As I had been elected to the House of Representatives in November, 1862, I resigned my office of commissioner of internal revenue March 3, 1863. Mr. Chase was very un-