Joseph Totten: Mr. Lincoln could find time for General Scott and him
From The New-York Times March 16, 1861 (The New York Times Archive):
WASHINGTON, Friday, March 15.
THE PRESIDENT’S HEALTH.
There is a good deal of anxiety in Republican circles concerning the President’s health, and the effect upon it of his manner of doing business. He has no system or method whatever, but allows his time and strength to be exhausted in listening to office-seekers, and doing other drudgery, which belongs to the Departments. Until Wednesday morning he had not even taken a ride for recreation. From 6 o’clock in the morning until long after midnight, he permits himself to be made the passive victim of the thousands who would readily sacrifice his life and the safety of the nation to their own selfish eagerness for office. This course of action can have but one result. It has killed two good Presidents, and will inevitably deprive the country of another, if it is not changed. A false delicacy prevents his friends from making proper representations to Mr. LINCOLN on this subject, and the danger is that his profound and unselfish anxiety to see everybody and give nobody any ground to complain of injustice, will sap his strength and shorten his life. The Departments have clerical force sufficient to digest all applications for office, and he should require the Secretaries to bring him the results of such a sifting process, instead of taking the whole mass on his own shoulders. And, except in cases certified to be important by the proper Department, or where he has some special personal interest or feeling in the matter, he should refuse to allow anybody to talk to him about office. His time and strength and intellectual energy are required by the country for higher duties.
The Cabinet had another special meeting this morning, at which Lieut.-Gen. SCOTT and Gen. TOTTEN, head of the Engineer Corps, were present for two hours. The result has not transpired, but Gen. SCOTT’s smiling face, and evidently excellent spirits, as he left the White House, seemed indicative that his advice in favor of the peace policy was likely to prevail.
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Howell Cobb: this secessionist actually served in Confederate army
A Technique to Reduce Number of Office-seekers
Apparently some fire-eaters are only looking for a particular type of work to help their much longed-for CSA.
From The New-York Times March 13, 1861 (The New York Times Archive):
SEEDY SECEDERS SCRAMBLING FOR OFFICE.
Whether or no it be true that black sheep are greedier than white ones, is still a subject of dispute. But the wild scramble now going on at Montgomery for every phantom office created by his Dictatorship DAVIS, shows conclusively that the lust for office down there has already attained a development that dwindles into insignificance even the greed of the hungry hordes which now besiege Washington. Great numbers of office-seekers have flocked to the new capital within the last month from South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana. But, unfortunately, there are found to be far more applicants for place than there are either places or spare cash; and the disappointed fire-eaters wander about the muddy streets of the village, care-worn, disconsolate and mad.
The other day, some unchivalric wag posted an advertisement in the Post-office of the Confederate Capital, announcing that “twenty-five competent accountants” were “wanted by the Executive at No. 10 Government Building” — the Treasury Office of the new Government. The whole of the inhabitants of the village, and all the office-seekers within its gates, were immediately thrown into the greatest commotion. Everybody rushed to the barber’s to get shaved, everybody hastily donned clean shirt collars, and all the little negroes in town were quickly set to work polishing boots and shoes. In less than half an hour an immense array of nicely-dressed Fire-eaters were congregated at the doors of the “Government Building,” anxious to see COBB, or DAVIS, “or any other man,” privately, for a few moments. For two hours the procession kept streaming up the steps of the building, vainly attempting to gain access to No. 10. Finally it was officially announced to the panting, hungry beagles, that the advertisement was a hoax, and that no “competent accountants” were wanted. The clean shaved gentry, however, immediately had an invitation extended to them to enlist in the regular army of the Confederated States, which magnanimous offer scattered the host of applicants as rapidly as the first invitation had gathered them.
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In With Malice Toward None (New American Library New York 1977 page 241 in paperback) Stephen B. Oates mentions the crush of office-seekers that made Mr. Lincoln feel like a “prisoner in his own house.” This responsibility added to the mental strain of Fort Sumter and diplomatic appointments.
Howell Cobb was the Speaker of the Provisional Confederate Congress and served as an officer in the Confederate army. Hes was President Buchanan’s Secretary of the Treasury until december 1860.
Joseph Gilbert Totten served as Chief Engineer of the U.S. army from 1838 until his death in 1864. “One of Totten’s most significant achievements was the design and construction of the Minots Ledge lighthouse near Cohasset, Massachusetts.”
Minot's Ledge Light
Postbellum Cobb
