Little of importance at the Cabinet-meeting. The President
laid before us the address of the loyal Governors who lately met at Altoona.
Its publication has been delayed in expectation that Governor Bradford of
Maryland would sign it, but nothing has been heard from him. His wife was here
yesterday to get a pass to visit her son, who is a Rebel officer and cannot
come to her. She therefore desires to go to him. Seward kindly procured the
document for her. I am for exercising the gentle virtues when it can
consistently and properly be done, but favor no social visitations like this. Let
the Rebel perish away from the parents whom he has abandoned by deserting his
country and fighting against his government. The President informed us of his
interview with Key, one of Halleck's staff, who said it was not the game of the
army to capture the Rebels at Antietam, for that would give the North advantage
and end slavery; it was the policy of the army officers to exhaust both sides
and then enforce a compromise which would save slavery.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864,
p. 156
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