The Life Of Walter Q. Gresham
CHAPTER 9
INDIANA PREPARES FOR WAR FIRST SESSION OP INDIANA LEGISLATURE —
RESOLUTIONS ON THE STATE AND THE UNION — GRESHAM REPRESENTS THE
"TRAITOR" HEFFRON IN KENTUCKY COURTS — PEACE CONFERENCE — WENDELL
PHILLIPS'S SPEECH — ABOLITIONISTS WOULD NOT COMPROMISE — GRESHAM
CHAIRMAN MILITARY COMMITTEE OP THE HOUSE, AND COLONEL ON GOVERNOR'S
STAFF — CRITTENDEN RESOLUTIONS — GRESHAM'S BREACH WITH GOVERNOR MORTON
— SPECIAL SESSION OF INDIANA LEGISLATURE — GRESHAM PUTS THROUGH BILL
VESTING APPOINTMENT OF FIELD AND LINE OFFICERS OF REGIMENTS IN HANDS OF
GOVERNOR.
When the Indiana
legislature assembled on the 10th of January, Horace Heffron, the
Democratic member from Harrison and Washington counties, who was the
Democratic caucus candidate for speaker, attempted, as the House
organized, to have it adopt a resolution that no man should be elected
speaker, or to any other office under the legislature, who was not in
favor of amending the Constitution of the United States on the line of
the Crittenden Resolutions.
The
great work of that legislature was to place Indiana right on the
question of secession, and so to amend or revise the military law of
the State as to enable it properly to support the National government.
A large number of the members of both the House and Senate introduced
resolutions on "the State and the Union." As a sample of what they
were, I offer the following, which Walter Q. Gresham introduced the
second day of the session, the day before Henry S. Lane was inaugurated
Governor of Indiana and Oliver P. Morton Lieutenant-Governor. In a few
days Mr. Lane was elected to the United States Senate and Mr. Morton
became Governor. A copy of the resolutions, together with the speech in
their support, was sent to George D. Prentice. Both Lane and Morton
regarded Prentice's attitude as of the greatest importance and were
much interested in the conference Walter Q. Gresham had had with him
only six days before. The resolutions read:
Resolved: That the people
of this State still retain their affection for the Union inherited from
the generation of men who achieved our liberties in the great struggle
for independence, and secured them in that sacred instrument, the
Constitution, in which justice is established, domestic tranquility is
insured, and the common defense and general welfare are provided for;
and they regard its perpetuation as the only safe guaranty for the
continuance of the wonderful prosperity and happiness which have led us
to our present high position amongst the great powers of the earth; and
they deny the right of any member of this confederacy to repudiate the
Constitution made by all the people of the States, by seceding from the
Union, and thereby disturbing the harmony and periling the happiness of
the whole.
2. That while we will not
deny to any State a right guaranteed by the Constitution, we insist
that the authority of the general government shall be maintained and
the Constitutional laws of Congress impartially enforced in all the
States and Territories; and that the armed resistance to the execution
thereof, on the part of the citizens of any State, is treason.
3. That the people of
Indiana are opposed to any interference by the Government of people of
our State with the domestic institutions of another; that they ever
have and always will maintain the same respect for the rights of other
States which they zealously exact for their own; that they will
scrupulously discharge all their constitutional obligations toward
sister States, and they demand a like observance of the same from the
other States of the Union.
4. That if any State of
this Union has enactments on its statute books in conflict with the
provisions of the Federal Constitution, or any of the laws of Congress
passed in pursuance thereof, it is the duty of such State to repeal the
same.
5. That it is the duty of
the Federal government, and of the several States, to secure to the
citizens of each State all the privileges and immunities of the
citizens of the several States as guaranteed in the Constitution, and a
failure to discharge this obligation will destroy that harmony and
paternal feeling which lie at the foundation of our free institutions.
6. That the conduct of
these patriotic men, who in the midst of the tide of disunion which is
sweeping over a portion of our once happy country, still retain their
affection for the Union and are bravely battling for the preservation
of the authority of the general government, excites our earnest
sympathies and challenges our admiration.
7. That in view of the
fact that a portion of the citizens of some of the States of the Union
are in open, armed rebellion against the power and authority and
threaten the overthrow of the general government, we hereby pledge,
whenever necessary and demanded, in strict subordination to the civil
authority, for the maintenance of the Constitution and laws of the
general government, the entire power and resources of the State of
Indiana.
These resolutions, with
all others, went to the Committee on Federal Relations. They emerged as
a report which omitted the word "treason." Men who claimed that the
Personal Liberty Laws were right were afraid to use the word "treason."
Walter Q. Gresham had used that word south of the river; he could use
it north of the river. These resolutions as finally adopted pledged all
the power of the State of Indiana to preserve the only government on
earth wherein the rights of man constituted the foundation of its laws
and the measure of its civil authority, and they deprecated any purpose
to interfere with the right of each State to regulate its own domestic
affairs.
The minority report
proposed the Crittenden Resolutions instead, as a basis for settling
the difference between the North and South. It also deprecated the use
of force to coerce the Secessionists back into the Union. While these
reports' were pending under debate, on the 19th of January the
legislature of Virginia, by telegraph, issued an invitation to all the
States to send delegates to a conference to meet in the city of
Washington on February 4, 1861, to discuss the proposed amendments to
the Constitution that might settle the differences which then existed
on the slavery question. It suggested the Crittenden Resolutions as a
basis of settlement, with Crittenden's first proposition so changed as
to provide that slavery should be recognized not only in the present
but in all future acquired territory south of the line 360 30'. The
discussion of the resolutions — they were discussed throughout the
country and in every State legislature that met that winter—largely
contributed to postpone the actual conflict until after Mr. Lincoln's
inauguration. In 1858 Davis had told the Mississippians that if it came
to a finish fight, the South could not win.
The Crittenden
Resolutions were to be the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
and, if adopted, never to be changed. They proposed: To renew the
Missouri Compromise line 36° 30'; prohibit slavery north and permit
it south of that line; admit new States with or without slavery, as
their constitutions might provide; prohibit Congress from abolishing
slavery in the States, and in the District of Columbia so long as it
existed in Virginia or Maryland; permit free transmission of slaves by
land or water in any State; make the State and the county or
municipality responsible to the owner of the fugitive slaves rescued
after arrest, with the right to the State or municipality to recover
from the rescuing parties; repeal the inequality of commissioners' fees
in the Fugitive Slave Act; and ask the repeal of the Personal Liberty
Laws of the Northern States, passed in derogation of the Fugitive Slave
Act.
In the course of the
debate in the Indiana legislature, Horace Heffron and G. 0. Moody got
into a controversy that led to Heffron sending Moody a challenge. Their
seconds settled their differences, greatly to their satisfaction, it
was said, after they reached the field of honor. But strange as it may
seem, and as it was thought at the time, seconds as well as principals
were indicted by the Kenton County Grand Jury for coming into Kentucky
to fight a duel. And thus it was that Walter Q. Gresham never met
Abraham Lincoln. For while Mr. Lincoln, on his way to Washington to be
inaugurated, was in Indianapolis stopping at the Bates House, where my
husband lived, the latter was in the Kentucky courts representing the
"traitor," Horace Heffron. He not only got Heffron off but
all the others.
As the result of the
debate, the minority or Heffron report was rejected and the majority
report adopted. The proposition of John H. Stotsenburgh of Floyd County
to have a special election as to whether Indiana would accept the
Crittenden Amendment as a basis of compromise was voted down, and then
Indiana, most of the Democrats concurring, responded to the invitation
of Virginia by authorizing Governor Morton to appoint five delegates to
the Peace Conference.
Governor Morton appointed
as one of the delegates Thomas C. Slaughter, my husband's former
partner and his best friend. Mr. Gresham told Mr. Slaughter that it was
agreed at Indianapolis that the delegates from Indiana to the Peace
Conference should oppose the first provision of the Crittenden
Resolution; that is, the one recognizing slavery south of the line 360
30' as a basis for adjustment; instead they should offer popular
sovereignty south of that line, and any pledge the pro-slavery people
desired that the anti-slavery people would live up to the Constitution
as the fathers had written it. "For one," my husband said, "and I know
the sentiment of the young men, we will never consent to a Thirteenth
or any other amendment to the Constitution, giving the slaveholder a
stronger claim than he has now. Rather than that, we will fight. The
fathers expected slavery to be abolished long before this. You are
enough of a diplomat to avoid saying what will irritate." The record of
that Peace Conference shows how Mr. Slaughter performed his duty.
The Peace Conference met
February 4 and was in session until the 28th. It was composed of many
eminent men. Ex-President Tyler of Virginia was one of its members and
was made its presiding officer. James Guthrie was one of the Kentucky
delegates.
In lieu of Mr.
Crittenden's proposition, that all the territory south of the line 360
30' should be recognized as slave territory, the Conference adopted
popular sovereignty for that territory, but with conditions which the
pro-slavery men said simply gave them the right to have a lawsuit after
they took their slaves into the territory south of the 360 30' line.
Still a majority of the pro-slavery men accepted or "swallowed" the
report, and Kentucky, led by James Guthrie, favored peace on any terms.
Senator Crittenden, who was patriotic to the core, said he would favor
it or any other proposition that could be agreed on for the purpose of
saving the Union.
At this time there might
have been an adjustment but for the Abolitionists.
The "Grape Vine" from
Montgomery was bringing the news that Jefferson Davis did not want the
issue to go to war. At this time he could not sleep at night, so his
wife tells us. His farewell address in the Senate of the United States,
tinctured with sadness, did not preclude his return, and in his
inaugural address to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States
of America, he deprecated war, and held out the hand of reconciliation.
As before mentioned, when the test came, Jefferson Davis would not, or
at least did not, order Beauregard to fire the shot at the flag at
Sumter that precluded the possibility of a peaceable settlement. The
overtures of the president of the Provisional Congress of the
Confederate States of America were answered by Mr. Seward and Mr.
Lincoln by the proposition to amend the Constitution of the United
States so as to provide that slavery should never be disturbed in the
States where it existed except by unanimous consent. Before this the
announcement had gone forth that Seward would be Secretary of State.
Then it was, on February
17, 1861, that Wendell Phillips spoke:
Seward will swear to obey
the Constitution of the United States, but will not keep his oath.
Bankrupt South Carolina,
with 100,000 more slaves than whites within her borders, throws down
her gauntlet at the feet of 25,000,000 people in defense of an idea
which she thinks is right. I would that New England had one State among
her six so brave.
Union or no Union,
Constitution or no Constitution, freedom for every man between the
oceans and from the frozen pole to the hot gulf. You may as well
attempt to dam up the Niagara with bullrushes as try to bind our
anti-slavery purpose with a congressional compromise. The
South knows it.
But let the world
distinctly understand why the slave holding States leave the Union—to
save slavery! and why we rejoice at their departure—because we know
their declaration of independence is the jubilee of the slave.
Thirty years devoted to
earnest use of moral means show how sincere is our wish that this
question should have a peaceful solution. If your idols—your Websters,
Clays, Calhouns, Sewards, Adamses—had done their duty, so it would have
been. Not ours the guilt of this storm, or of the future, however
bloody. But I hesitate not to say that I prefer an insurrection which
frees the slaves in ten years to slavery for a century. A slave I pity.
A rebellious slave I respect.
Inciting the slaves to
insurrection was a scheme from which I have shown my husband revolted
in horror.
At this time Mr. Gresham
told Senator-elect Lane and Governor Morton that he would not fight in
a servile or domestic war. "Rather than that," he wrote me from
Indianapolis at that time, "the sooner the North and South have a
peaceable separation the better." In this he was supported by many of
the younger element. This ultimatum of the younger men, among whom
Walter Q. Gresham was the leader, was the only basis Oliver P. Morton
ever had for making the charge, as he afterwards did, that Mr. Gresham
was disloyal. If a consideration for the whites whose misfortune it was
to be linked with the bondsmen was disloyalty, then Walter Q. Gresham
was always disloyal. And never was Mr. Gresham loyal to the Republican
organization on the proposition — quoting Mr. Lincoln's own words—"To
make slavery express and irrevocable." To save the Union he would not
make that concession, but he would give his life's blood for it.
Then it was that the
line-up became sectional. In the last days of February and the first
days of March, 1861, the Republicans organized the territories of
Colorado, Dakota, and Nebraska, in each instance—as has already been
noted—copying the Kansas-Nebraska Act verbatim; certainly not, as Mr.
Blaine says, to placate the Secessionists.
The most important
measure before the Indiana legislature was the Gresham Military Bill.
On the organization of the House, Mr. Gresham had been made chairman of
the Military Committee and had been given by Governor Lane a commission
as colonel on the Governor's staff. Under the existing law the military
officers of the State were elected by the men. It was manifest the
officers should be appointed by the Governor. This view Walter Q.
Gresham early adopted and adhered to, although he had incurred the
enmity of Governor Morton and had given up his commission as colonel on
the Governor's staff. The opposition to the Gresham Military Bill was
based on its centralizing effect. It was finally passed through the
House on one of the last days of the session. After the vote had been
taken, Representative John H. Stotsenburgh proposed to amend the title
by substituting these words: "An Act Making Provision for the Complete
Rout of the Republican Party at the Next and All Succeeding Popular
Elections." He was ruled out of order. But the bill failed to become a
law, as it did not pass the Senate.
In 1861, J. F. D. Lanier,
one of the country's ablest financiers, and his partner, R. H. Winslow,
under the firm name, Winslow, Lanier & Company of New York, were
reorganizing the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, & Chicago Railroad
Company. Mr. Lanier had settled at Madison, Indiana, at an early day,
and before going into business in New York had been the president of
the Madison Branch of the Indiana State Bank. At Mr. Ianier's
instance, and also to please his friend, Samuel Patterson of
Jeffersonville, a large owner in the Jeffersonville, Madison &
Indianapolis Railroad, Walter Q. Gresham helped pass the legislation
providing for the reorganization of the insolvent railroad corporations
of the State. These acts were drawn in New York by Samuel J. Tilden,
and the construction they subsequently received at the hands of the
United States Supreme Court will be interesting.
In the debate on the bill
to abolish the State printer, Walter Q. Gresham said: "When the
gentleman from La Porte comes in here and endorses the sentiment, that
'to the victor belongs the spoils,' he endorses a doctrine that I
cannot endorse."
At the election of the
trustees who were clothed with the management and government of the
benevolent institutions of the State —they then were elected by the
members of the two houses in joint session —Mr. Gresham voted against
his party; that is, he voted to retain the existing board, although it
was Democratic in politics. A difference of temperament, together with
these acts, started a breach with Governor Morton that had become wide
by the time the session ended.
Limited as the regular
session of the Indiana legislature was to sixty days, my husband was
home by the middle of March, although he had remained in Indianapolis a
few days after the legislature adjourned, to look after some cases in
the State Supreme Court and in the Federal courts, and also to consider
an advantageous proposition to form a partnership for the practice of
law in Indianapolis which had been offered him by David Macy. But for
the events that followed, the law partnership would have been formed
and we would have removed to Indianapolis. He told me that his
relations with Governor Morton, which had been cordial and friendly at
the beginning, had become strained and bitter, and that as a result he
had given up his commission as a colonel on the Governor's staff. This
was most agreeable news to me, for if there was to be war, I felt he
would not be in it. But when Sumter was fired on, my fears came back. I
knew what it meant. Wendell Phillips was the first man to mount a dry
goods box in the streets of Boston and declare that the Union he had
for years labored to dissolve must be preserved.
Mr. Lincoln early got in
touch with the Kentucky Union leaders. And the tenderness and coddling
he showered on them all during the Spring and the dog days of 1861 is
in strong contrast to the part he took in 1858, in "goading the
slaveholder to madness,"—although he did not put it in these exact
words—as part of his plan to separate Douglas from the Southern
Democrats or, per se, the slave-holder. I am not saying this in
criticism of Mr. Lincoln, but am simply recording the fact that he was
big enough to throw consistency to the winds, and turn tail on his most
cherished and lofty sentiments. He became a Union man per se—determined
to save the Union with or without slavery. That he was sincere, the
people farther south and in Virginia became convinced when it was too
late.
Against the charge that
their position was insincere and illogical, the Union leaders in
Kentucky claimed they certainly saved Kentucky as a State to the Union,
and that the pledges they made to the Kentucky slaveholders, with Mr.
Lincoln's consent, were in good faith, although they were not kept. The
compensation that was subsequently offered by the government to the
Kentuckians was utterly inadequate. And before the war was over, many
of the good Union men of 1860, 1861, and 1862 were in sympathy with the
Confederate government.
In his inaugural address
Mr. Lincoln modified his anti-slavery views. He said that he was
willing that what was implied in the Constitution of the United States
should by amendment be made express and irrevocable: namely, "the right
of one man to hold another to service" or slavery.
These words were very
different from the language of the Republican platform to which Lincoln
had referred George D. Prentice the year before, when Mr. Prentice
urged him to give voice to his conservative sentiments. They had a
powerful influence in Kentucky. But more potent than his words were Mr.
Lincoln's acts in actually enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
And never was the wisdom of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster in drafting
and passing "that infamous law that made man the catcher of his fellow
man" better attested than in those trying days when patriotic men were
holding the Border States to the Union.
J. Russell Jones, one of
"the Galena gang" and one of Mr. Lincoln's "boys," was one of Lincoln's
first appointees. Before he left Springfield Mr. Lincoln said, "Jones,
I will appoint you United States marshal, and the first thing I want
you to do is to return those three fugitive slaves now held in the Cook
County jail in Chicago for safe keeping, pending their return under an
order of Judge Drummond, to their owners, citizens of Missouri. Every
attempt Buchanan's marshals have made of late to return a fugitive has
failed. I want to show them at the earliest moment we will enforce the
law."
It was the popular belief
that the Buchanan marshals had connived at rescues.
"I think I was the first
man Mr. Lincoln appointed in Illinois," said Mr. Jones, "and my first
official act was to remove those three fugitives to Missouri. I made my
arrangements for a special train from Chicago to run through the large
towns without stopping, and for a ferry boat to meet it immediately on
arriving at East St. Louis. Judge Drummond gave us a clearance, and
before the Abolitionists knew about it, I had delivered the three
slaves to their owners in St. Louis. All of which was duly chronicled
in the newspapers."
It was acts and words of
Mr. Lincoln's like these that contributed to the election of, if they
did not elect, at the special election in Kentucky on the 20th of June,
nine Union members headed by Ex-Senator John J. Crittenden, to one
State's Right or Secessionist, to the special session of Congress that
Mr. Lincoln had called to meet July 4, 1861.
April 24, 1861, the
Indiana legislature met in special session. Governor Morton had
promptly filled Indiana's quota of troops to meet Lincoln's call for
75,000 men, issued after the fall of Fort Sumter. The most important
work for Indiana was a new military law.
The first letter I
received after the Indiana legislature assembled is as follows:
Indianapolis, Ind., April 25, 1861.
We organized yesterday,
ignoring party. The Democrats, with-out a single exception, are for the
government and war. You can have no idea of the state of feeling in
Indiana. Military companies are coming in almost every hour, and being
sent back home, the call being full. We could raise 50,000 soldiers in
thirty days in Indiana alone.
The Anderson Guards
arrived last night and went into camp this morning. They
were not here in time to get into the service of our state, and are
stationed here as a reserve guard. They are greatly admired. All or
nearly all are large, stout men, and well behaved. Capt.
Judson will make his mark as a military man.
The South has reckoned
without her host in this hellish design of breaking up the Union. They
never dreamt that the people would rise up as one man to put down the
rebellion. The Rebels must now come to terms or meet the vengeance of
an outraged people. There can be no doubt about the final result. God
is with the just.
We will be here but a
short time, perhaps a week. Horace Heffron, our Democratic friend from
Harrison and Washington, proposed Cyrus Allen, the Republican speaker
at the last session, and he was unanimously elected.
A few days later, I
received the following: Indianapolis, April 28, 1861.
This city is still
crowded with people. There are now some 10,000 soldiers here, to say
nothing of the immense throng of visitors, and in all that vast throng,
there is but one sentiment— the government must be sustained.
Republicans and Democrats are a unit on this question. You may think
this might have been avoided, that war ought not to curse this happy
land, but then you must 00k at the question in all its bearings. It is
better to have war for one year than anarchy and revolution for fifty
years. If the government should suffer the Rebels to go on with their
work with impunity, there would be no end to it and in a short time we
would be without any law or order. We must now teach the Secessionists
a lesson. They must be made to know that they cannot attack the
government without suffering for their rebellion. It is all bosh and
nonsense to talk about the North making war on the South. The South
rebelled against the laws and makes war on the government. I was
talking this evening with a very sensible gentleman who has just been
run out of the South. He left Atlanta, Georgia, last week and his only
crime was that of being a Union man. He was a merchant in Atlanta and a
very wealthy man.1 He says there is a reign of terror throughout the
seceded states, that the people are not consulted, but the leaders of
rebellion do just as they please. He came North in company with
sixty-odd others, all wealthy men. That affords some idea of the
practical workings of secession. The South must be ruined. There are
18,000,000 whites in the North and 6,000,000 whites in the entire
South. What can 6,000,000 do in fighting the united North and keeping
down their Negroes? They have been led to believe that the North would
not sustain the government. I think the difficulty will be settled
soon. God knows we do not want to destroy our Southern brethren, but
they should remember that it is their duty as good citizens to respect
the laws. They have had their own way too long. Slavery makes men
generous, but it also makes them tyrannical and overbearing.
I have been laboring hard
ever since I came here. The military committee, of which I am
chairman, has nearly all the work of the whole legislature before it.
We hope to be relieved soon. I fear we will be kept here longer than I
thought when I wrote you before. If we do not adjourn this week, I will
try and come home Saturday if my engagements will permit. . . .
Affectionately yours, W. Q. Gresham.
The opposition to vesting
in the Governor the appointment of the officers of the regiments and
the centralizing features of the Gresham Military Bill prolonged the
session. The opposition was not confined to the Democrats. Leading
Republicans were opposed to the measure as undemocratic and autocratic.
Besides, many Republicans were disposed to let their judgment be guided
by their feelings of resentment towards Governor Morton.
Horace Bell had returned
from his Mexican experiences under Juarez, and when the legislature
met, was in Camp Morton, the rendezvous for the volunteer troops at
Indianapolis, drilling the new companies as they came in. He was then
in the service of the National government. There were sessions of the
military committees, both of the Senate and of the House, as the bill
had to be redrafted and repassed in the House. Bell was brought before
these committees as a witness of recent experience who had served in
Mexico and under Walker in the Nicaraguan War. In the
Nicaraguan War he had met some of the ablest military men in the world,
it was claimed. He had many works on military affairs and on the
organization of armies. Reinforced by Bell's experience, his treatise
on military affairs, and the testimony of the best military men in the
State—among them Lew Wallace, Major Worth, an officer of the United
States Army, stationed at Indianapolis, and especially Archibald
Forbes' works on that subject — Walter Q. Gresham, with the aid of
certain Democrats, put through the House again the bill he had drafted
and passed at the regular session, vesting the appointment of the field
and line officers of all regiments in the hands of the Governor, and so
far as the law itself was concerned, it was made plain that politics
and jealousies should be kept out of the military organization. One
Republican voted against the bill because it would make the Governor a
czar. Simeon K. Wolf, our fellow-townsman, represented Harrison County
and two adjoining counties, Washington and Crawford, in the Senate.
Through Mr. Wolf the necessary Democratic aid was secured to put the
bill through the Senate.
One million of money was
voted and the Governor was authorized to borrow $3,000,000 on the bonds
of the State for the purpose of organizing the militia of the State.
My husband also drafted,
and succeeded in getting passed, what was known as his Home Guard Bill,
which authorized the citizens of a county to organize themselves into
companies and elect their own officers. This was intended to benefit
the river counties.
There was much
dissatisfaction with Governor Morton because of some of the men he
commissioned. Representative Bingham of Jennings County, in a
resolution which did not pass, and a speech in support of it, severely
criticized Governor Morton for appointing Horace Heffron major of the
Thirteenth Regiment. Mr. Heffron never accepted the appointment. He was
known to be disloyal, and he subsequently accepted a commission from
Jefferson Davis in the Confederate Army, though he never served south
of the Ohio River. Governor Morton claimed that it was my husband who
instigated Bingham to introduce this resolution and make the attack. My
husband replied that he knew nothing of the resolution being
introduced, as he was absent from the House at the time; "but," he
said, "if I had been there, I would have supported it by speech and
vote." Bingham was another man who never resumed cordial relations with
the Governor, but, as he was young, in obedience to the demand of the
old men Governor Morton commissioned him the same as he did Gresham,
against his will.
These young men used
their power unsparingly in investigating all the acts of the Governor,
especially those relating to supplies furnished by the
quartermaster-general to the soldiers. The Governor was compelled to
give a strict account of the money placed at his disposal at the
regular session, to be used as a contingent fund in purchasing
sup-plies and arms.
The special session ended
June 2, and with it all the friendly relations that had ever existed
between Walter Q. Gresham and the Governor. His colleagues, Veatch and
Moody, in the House, and Senator Miller, in the Senate, and others,
were given command of regiments, while he was denied any commission at
all, although he tendered his services and demanded, as he claimed was
his right, a colonel's commission. He then asked for a commission in
the lower grades, which was refused. There were high words and the
Governor was denounced to his face for venting his personal feelings
when the other had sacrificed his for the good of the cause. Horace
Bell was present at the last meeting of the Governor and the chairman
of the Military Committee of the House, and, of course, in Bell's
version and telling of it, Mr. Gresham did not suffer.
My husband made a number
of trips home during the extra session to look after his law
business. On these visits he brought a great many lawsuits,
all of which he afterwards turned over to Mr. Slaughter. He remained at
Indianapolis almost a week after the legislature adjourned, to argue in
the Supreme Court the steamboat cases that had gone there from Crawford
County.