John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[171] Greeley and himself were not personal, but temperamental, not a matter of habit, but of character. He felt that they were radical and irreconcilable, and recognizing Greeley's prior, though far from controlling interest,¹ chose rather to submit than to resist.

No one who knew the men can read this narrative or the Tribune for the period under consideration without reaching the conclusion that while Dana may have been dismissed primarily for publishing and reiterating the cry of “Forward to Richmond,” which Greeley formally repudiated immediately after the battle of Bull Run, the real reason was that Dana was too aggressive, too positive, too self-confident, and too active to travel longer in harmony with Greeley. Their divergent natures, not less than their divergent opinions about the war, had brought them to the parting of the ways. It was doubtless better for both that they should separate, and this view of it was set forth later in a personal letter which Oliver Johnson, one of the board of managers, wrote to Dana on May 27, 1865. In this letter he says:

... Well, I have been reminded of this “little story” a hundred times in the last three years, in reflecting upon the part I took in terminating your connection with the Tribune. If I had felt then as I did not long afterwards, I should not have done it. In other words, if I had known then what I know now as to Mr. Greeley's state of mind in relation to the war, I would sooner have let him go off, as he threatened to do, than sought your removal to retain him.

I don't suppose that this confession is of any particular consequence in any way, but as the Quakers say, I feel “best satisfied” to make it. No feeling of personal hostility to you having actuated me in what I did (for I was under obligation to you for many acts of kindness), I have felt great pleasure