talk about the by-gone times in which he bore a distinguished part. His tall form reclined upon a lounge wheeled in front of a hearth blazing with cannel coal. As I casually mentioned General McClellan in the conversation, he raised himself on his elbow and said, “He might have been President as well as not." Responding to my expression of surprise and interest, he went on :

"I'll tell you what led up to it. About the middle of December, 1862, Seward telegraphed me to come to Washington. It had happened before that I had been summoned in the same way. I took it as a matter of course and caught the first train South. I got to Washington, and, after breakfast, went straight to the State Department. Mr. Seward was waiting for me. He took me right over to the White House, saying, 'The President wants

to see you.'

"We found the President deeply depressed and distressed. I had never seen him in such a mood. 'Everything goes wrong,' he broke out. The rebel armies hold their own; Grant is wandering around in Mississippi; Burnside manages to keep ahead of Lee; Seymour has carried New York, and, if his party carries and holds many of the Northern States, we shall have to give up the fight, for we can never conquer three-quarters of our countrymen, scattered in front, flank, and rear. What shall we do?'

"I suggested that we could continue to wait, and that the man capable of leading our splendid armies would come in time.

"That's what I've been saying,' said Seward, who didn't believe, even then, that the war was going to be a long one.

"Mr. Lincoln did not seem to heed the remark, but he said:

"Governor Seymour could do more for our cause than any other man living. He has been elected Governor of our largest State. If he would come to the front he could control his partisans, and give a new impetus to the war. I have sent for you, Mr. Weed, to ask you to go to Governor Seymour and tell him what I say. Tell him, now is his time. Tell him, I do not wish to be President again, and that the leader of the other party, provided it is in favor of a vigorous war against the rebellion, should have my place. Entreat him to give the true ring to his annual message; and if he will, as he easily can, place himself at the head of a great Union party, I will gladly stand aside and help to put him in the Executive Chair. All we want is to have the rebellion put down.'

"I was not greatly surprised, for I knew before that such was the President's view. I had before heard him say, 'If there is a man who can push our armies forward one mile further or one hour faster

than I can, he is the man that ought to be in my place.'

"I visited Governor Seymour at Albany, and delivered my commission from Lincoln. It was received most favorably. Seymour's feeling was always right, but his head was generally wrong. When I left him it was understood that his message to the Legislature would breathe an earnest Union spirit, praising the soldiers and calling for more, and omitting the usual criticisms of the President. I forwarded this expectation to Lincoln.

"Judge of my disappointment and chagrin when Seymour's message came out a document calculated to aid the enemy. It demanded that the war should be prosecuted on constitutional grounds' -as if any war ever was or ever could be—and denounced the administration for the arbitrary arrest of Vallandigham and the enforcement of the draft.

"This attempt to enlist the leader of the Democratic party having failed, Lincoln authorized me to make the same overture to McClellan.

"Tell the General,' he said, 'that we have no wish to injure or humiliate him; that we wish only for the success of our armies; that if he will come forward and put himself at the head of a UnionDemocratic party, and, through that means, push forward the Union cause, I will gladly step aside and do all I can to secure his election in 1864.'

"I opened negotiations through S. L. M. Barlow, McClellan's next friend. Mr. Barlow called. I told him the scheme to bring McClellan forward. He approved of it, and agreed to see the General. He shortly afterward told me he had seen him and secured his acquiescence; 'for,' he added, Mac is eager to do all he can do to put down the rebellion.' I suggested a great Union-Democratic meeting in Union Square, at which McClellan should preside and set forth his policy, and this was agreed to by both Mr. Barlow and McClellan. At the suggestion of Mr. Barlow, I drew up some memoranda of principles which it seemed to me desirable to set forth on that occasion, and these Mr. Barlow agreed to deliver to McClellan. The time set for the mass meeting was Monday, June 16th. Once more there seemed a promise of breaking the Northern hostility and ending the war, by organizing a great independent Union party under McClellan. But this hope failed us, too. For, on the very eve of the meeting, I received a formal letter from McClellan declining to preside, without giving reasons. If he had presided at that war-meeting, and had persistently followed it up, nothing but death could have kept him from being elected President of the United States in 1864."

This narrative, continues Mr. Croffut, seemed to me so extraordinary that I called on General McClel

C

lan, who resided on Gramercy Park, and told him the story, with the purpose of ascertaining why he did not preside at the meeting after agreeing to do so.

"You amaze me!" he said. "No such events ever occurred. Mr. Weed is a good old man, and he has forgotten. Mr. Lincoln never offered me the Presidency in any contingency. I never declined to preside at a war-meeting. How could I, when I was a Union soldier, and the only criticism I ever made on the Administration was that it did not push the armies fast enough? There never was a time when I would have refused to preside at any meeting that could help the Union cause. I remember nothing about any such memoranda, and am sure I never wrote to Thurlow Weed in my life."

I asked the General if no such overture was ever made by Mr. Weed.

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Not as I remember," he said. "I recollect his once speaking to me about the desirableness of taking the leadership of a War-Democratic party, but I do not remember the purport of this proposition."

At General McClellan's suggestion I called on Mr. Barlow, who also had forgotten all about it.

Returning to Mr. Weed's, I asked if he could find the letter received from General McClellan, in which he declined to preside at a war-meeting. He