"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.'

He

He

"I opened negotiations through S. L. M. Barlow, McClellan's next friend. Mr. Barlow called. I told him the scheme to bring McClellan forward. approved of it, and agreed to see the General. 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.

"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

doubted if he had kept it, but Miss Harriet Weed, his faithful daughter and invaluable secretary, going in search of it, returned in an hour, bringing it from an upper room. It ran as follows:

(Private)

MY DEAR SIR:

OAKLANDS, N. J., June 13, 1863.

Your kind note is received.

For what I cannot doubt that you would consider good reasons, I have determined to decline the compliment of presiding over the proposed meeting of Monday next.

I fully concur with you in the conviction that an honorable peace is not now possible, and that the war must be prosecuted to save the Union and the Government, at whatever cost of time and treasure and blood.

I am clear, also, in the conclusion that the policy governing the conduct of the war should be one looking not only to military success, but also to ultimate re-union, and that it should consequently be such as to preserve the rights of all Union-loving citizens, wherever they may be, as far as compatible with military security. My views as to the prosecution of the war remain, substantially, as they have been from the beginning of the contest; these views I have made known officially.