Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-03-07

Washington Correspondence Gin. Commercial
The Colonel's parties have long been
noted Tor the liberal scale on which they
are given, and it is no uncommon thing
for him to entertain more than half of
both Houses of Congress, besides n large
number of Washington officials and other
citizens, of an evening. The spread"
also, which adorns the supper table, is on
the most generous scale, and includes the
finest wines, the choicest viands, and q lit
tie the best article of Otard aad old Bour-
bon TO be found in the Federal city. On
the present ~oecasion-the week after the
veto -message-and signalized as it has
beer by the successive pr0nu1cianlsntos
leach more savage than the preeeding) of
Colonel Forney against the President, in
the columns OF his paper, it was curious TO
note the company assembled. All sides of
the political quarrel were represented.
Senator Buekalew, of Copperhead renown,
was h~obnobbing with such unmitgated
Radicals as Chandler and Wilson, while
Thaddeus Stevens, in one corner, was hold
ing Postmaster General Dennison and
Governor Cox engrossed in close aud
amusing conversation. There were
Senators Lane, of Indiana, and Anthony,
of Rhode Island, trying to extract some
sober sense from the rigmaroles of Senator
McDougall. There Bingham, of Ohio
with his unkempt locks flying, as usual.
in all directions at once, was engaged in
close confabulation with Strouse, of Penn
sylvania, who is an uncommonly fierce
specimen of the genus Copperhead. The
gray-haired and genial DR.. Elder, OF the
Treasury Department, whose happy knack
at storytelling keeps every circle he
mingles with in good humor, was taking
wine with Provost Marshal General Fry,
of the War Department, whose inscruta-
bic figuring on the draft a year or two
ago, kept whole States in amazed and in
dignant protest. There, enveloped in a
huge white neck-cloth, and with
snOw-white hair and beard, waddled the
short, squat figure of Sir Isaac Newton las
the ways ale wont to call him. Commits
sioner of Agriculture, who got his place
(rumor says by the sheer force of impu-
dence, backed by the powerful influence
cfMrs. Lincoln, and keeps it by the sole
power of the cis i%Herti1, which makes so
many slow persons chronic ofice-holders
under the Federal Government.
1t has been usually an accompaniment
81 these evening gatherings at Col. For-
ney's, to wind up the supper with some
ot-hand speeches, in which distinguished
politicians have made known their opin-
ions with that freedom and abandon
which comes of the ~.mellowness of good
cheer. Thus it was at one of Col. For
ney's suppers that the distinguished pre-
decessor of Secretary Stanton, Governor
Cameron, first "broke ground" in favor
of the employment OF negro soldiers in
the Union army. This was in 1862, and
those present will not soon forget the
scene when Caleb B. Smith, then Secre-
tary 0 fthe Interior, c~ontroverted the idea
that it was proper for US to lean upon the
black race to help US in solving the mill
tary problem. The difference thus de- |
elared created much excitement at the
time. At last nights gathering no
speeches were made, perhaps because it
would have been indecorous to marthe
harmony of so pleasant a reunion of a pol
iticians from all sides, at a time, too,
when political strife is being carried to an
seldom witnessed in our country.