John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[186] money were saved or recovered for the Treasury, but for obvious reasons these transactions were concealed from the public as far as possible. Whether daily records were kept, or what has become of them, I have no means of knowing, but in certain cases which came under my personal observation while in charge of the Cavalry Bureau, and to which I may refer more fully hereafter, Dana gave the authority and support of his office, and by the vigor and promptitude of his action in spite of powerful political influence brought a number of negligent and fraudulent contractors to the punishment prescribed by law.

The Tribune editorial and the accompanying letter called forth a reply from Stanton, dated January 24, 1862¹ in which he stated that the facts mentioned were new to him, that he feared they were true, and that they would be speedily corrected. Two days before he had written a letter which he did not send, expressing his thanks for the encouraging editorial, stating his position and purposes, and giving some of the circumstances of his unexpected appointment. He added that the Tribune's mission was as plain as his own, that he was not dismayed nor disheartened, that by God's blessing they should prevail, and that a deep, earnest feeling was growing up around him-that they had no jokes or trivialities, and that all were now in dead earnest. He concluded with the declaration that the army should move, and fight or run away, that “while men are striving nobly in the West, the champagne and oysters on the Potomac must stop.”

Dana with many others thought that Fremont, the first Republican candidate for the presidency, had been prevented by political intrigue from having a fair trial as a