Abraham Lincoln papers

From Sydney H. Gay to [John G. Nicolay], September 17, 1864

New York, Sept. 17 1864

1 My Dear Sir— I write you at the suggestion of Mr. Wilkerson to state a fact or two which possibly you may make use of in the proper quarter.

1 Samuel Wilkeson was Washington bureau chief of the New York Tribune. Formerly an ally of Thurlow Weed, Wilkeson at this time was in the camp of Horace Greeley.

2 The recent changes in the N. Y. Custom House have been made at the demand of Thurlow Weed. 3 4 This is on the authority of a statement made by Mr. Nicolay to Surveyor Andrews & Genl. Busteed. Now Andrews refuses to resign, & if he is removed he will publish the facts substantiated by oath & 5 correspondence. It will go to the country that Mr. Lincoln removed from office a man of whom he thought so well that he promised to give him anything he asked hereafter, provided he would enable the President now to accede to the demands of the man who, outside of this state, is universally beleived to be the most infamous political scoundrel that ever cursed any country, & in the state is without influence with the party which he has publicly denounced & abandoned. Mr. Lincoln ought to know immediately that such is the attitude which he will occupy before the people if he persists in this matter. Andrews will defend himself, & I know, from a consultation with some of the leading men in the party here, to-day, that he will be upheld & justified in it, be the consequences what they may. They may be the loss of Connecticut to begin with. Can we afford to begin with a loss anywhere? Mr. Lincoln ought to know that a very large proportion of the party sustain it in spite of his being the candidate. It will not be very difficult to convince that portion of it that we may as well go to the devil with George B. McClellan as Thurlow Weed, while in with the former, we shall be, at least, free from all responsibility. I am, very truly yrs,

2 In the midst of a particularly close presidential re-election campaign, there was considerable pressure on the President from the William H. Seward-Thurlow Weed faction in New York to replace Hiram Barney, a supporter of Salmon P. Chase, as Collector of the Port of New York. Barney was asked to resign, as was Rufus F. Andrews, Surveyor of the Port. Barney was replaced by Simeon Draper. Numerous letters in the collection document the crisis in the New York Custom House.

Abraham Lincoln papers http://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.4307000 3 Rufus F. Andrews

4 Busteed, a New York lawyer and former brigadier general of volunteers, was appointed by Lincoln in September 1863 to the bench of the U. S. District Court of Alabama.

5 Andrews did not resign, and was removed by Lincoln in September.

S. H. Gay

Abraham Lincoln papers http://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.4307000