This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
“
[762]
and circumstance of glorious war?”
We were met by the Park Commissioners, the chairman of whom cordially addressed me with the inquiry: “Are you riding in the park for exercise?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Commissioner; on business.
I was looking to see where would be the best place in the park to encamp my troops when I am ready to bring them on shore.”
“Oh, you would not encamp your troops here, General?”
“Why, Mr. Commissioner,” said I, pointing over one of the beautiful lawns, “I have never seen a better camping-ground.
What is the objection to it?
Plenty of water, isn't there?”
“Well, General,” said he, “we must submit, I suppose; but I hope you won't need to.”
“Oh, well, I assure you I shall not if I don't need to. I should be happy to see you, gentlemen, at my headquarters at the Hoffman House.
Good-morning.”
The next afternoon another sphere of duty quite foreign to my professional studies and military experiences was put upon me. I received a message from Mr. John A. Stewart, United States Assistant Treasurer in New York, asking for an interview.1 I immediately appointed an interview at my headquarters at the Hoffman House that evening.
Mr. Stewart called upon me and said:--
“General, I have just returned from Washington, where I have been on very important public matters.
I have had an interview with the President and Cabinet and asked them what I could do under the circumstances, if anything, and what they could do in the alarming prospect of affairs.
I stated to them, in substance, that I was well informed that a conspiracy was going on among certain brokers and bankers, whose names I gave them, together with the amount of gold transactions of each accompanied by actual deliveries, which were quite enormous.
I stated that these men had conspired together with some others, whom I did not know, to raise the price of gold to 300 on election day certainly, and perhaps on Monday.
I also told the President and Cabinet that I was powerless to prevent the rise in the price of gold, for I had sold a good deal of gold in order to keep the price down, and in that manner had reduced the amount I held so low that I feared the conspirators had an amount of gold securities due on demand sufficient to swallow up ”
1 See Appendix No. 90.
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.