was unique. I was the only one in Washington who personally did
not want anything, my mission being purely in the public interest.

I was a devoted follower of Mr. Seward, the secretary of state,
and through the intimacies with officers in his department I learned
from day to day the troubles in the Cabinet, so graphically described
in the diary of the secretary of the navy Gideon Welles.

The antagonism between Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase, the secretary
of the treasury, though rarely breaking out in the open, was
nevertheless acute. Mr. Seward was devoted to the president and
made every possible effort to secure his renomination and election.
Mr. Chase was doing his best to prevent Mr. Lincoln's renomination
and secure it for himself.

No president ever had a Cabinet of which the members were so
independent, had so large individual followings, and were so
inharmonious. The president's sole ambition was to secure the
ablest men in the country for the departments which he assigned
to them without regard to their loyalty to himself. One of
Mr. Seward's secretaries would frequently report to me the acts
of disloyalty or personal hostility on the part of Mr. Chase with
the lament: "The old man--meaning Lincoln--knows all about it
and will not do a thing."

I had a long and memorable interview with the president. As
I stepped from the crowd in his reception-room, he said to me:
"What do you want?" I answered: "Nothing, Mr. President, I only
came to pay my respects and bid you good-by, as I am leaving
Washington." "It is such a luxury," he then remarked, "to find