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in knowing that you filled a highly responsible and honorable post under the government — a post for which you seemed to have special qualifications. ...
It is to be noted that the trustees of the
Tribune association, in accepting
Dana's resignation as managing editor, assured him by a formal resolution, dated March 28, 1862, of “their keen sense of his many noble and endearing qualities, . . . of his conscientious devotion to the duties of his post for so many years, . . . that he still holds the highest place in their esteem and affection, . . . and that his salary would be continued for six months longer.”
This was followed by letters of mingled friendship, gratitude, and regret from a number of the contributors and employees, whom he had befriended, and who had served with him in the work of building up the great newspaper with which they had all been connected so long.
But gratifying as they must have been to
Dana's feelings, they produced no change in his course, nor, so far as can now be ascertained, did they inflame his resentment against those who had joined in his deposition.
He was too much of a philosopher for that.
Apparently without ill-feeling against any one, he went to
Washington shortly afterwards, and in reply to a letter from
Robert Carter, he wrote from there, April 18, 1862, as follows:
... I have no idea that I shall ever go back to the Tribune in any manner.
I have sold all my interest in the property, and shall be slow to connect myself again with any establishment where there are twenty masters.... Tomorrow I expect to go out to Manassas on horseback with a small escort and one or two generals. ...
Many letters from
Dana to this gentleman, who was for several years the regular correspondent of the
Tribune at
