This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
“
[768]
where it goes, you see where I stand.
I make no threats, but I do tell you if gold goes to 300 on election morning I shall know it, and I shall know also where both you and your gold are.”
“General,” said he, “have you talked with any of these other men as you have with me?”
“When I have talked with them,” said I, “they will put the same question to me, and I shall not answer it in their case.
What you want to know of me is whether you can go on and deal with your gold in selling it without their knowing what you know.
I think you had better sell your gold.
There is no reason why it should go up, because to-morrow will be almost a holiday, and there will be no gold wanted for shipment until Saturday, so that you have an opportunity to take care of yourself if you choose to, or to throw yourself in my face and in that of the government if you choose to. I hope, sir, you will determine this matter wisely for yourself, because your interests and mine lie together.”
“I think, General,” said he, “I will sell all my gold right off.”
“I think that would be wisdom, and I will approve of it; but I would advise you to sell it to be delivered day after to-morrow.”
We shook hands and parted, and although I have seen the gentleman since I have never spoken to him on this subject.
I made my report of the condition of affairs to the Secretary of War on the afternoon of the 7th.1
Gold did not go higher to any appreciable extent on the morning of election.
The price increased toward night and it went for a spurt on Wednesday morning, after it was known that Lincoln was elected, to 260, but immediately receded and never went so high again.
On Monday, the 7th, I received a letter from Hon. Simon Cameron from Pennsylvania, asking what time I could see him, and where we could meet.
The only intimation of his business was the statement contained in his letter that Stanton, the Secretary of War, was going on the march, and that I should flank him.2
I replied the next day that I would be in New York City certainly until Wednesday, and would be glad to see him at my headquarters.3
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.