Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1874-08-01
A GOVERNMENT SECRET.


NJ. Stanton, the War Secretary, was
not wholly attributable to the natural
course of disease.
The idea, however, was put forward
in a dim, uncertain kind of a manner,
which made it seem more like a sugges
ton than an assertion. Black never de-
clared boldly that Stanton came to an
unnatural end by suicide, but he wove
into his writing here and there black
thread which was suggestive ofremorse,
disappointment and bitter end.
What Black intimated so darkly, 9TH
ers have whispered, but in an indefinite
way. There are men about the Nation
al Capitol who in conversation among
themselves talk frankly of Stanton s
death and the horrible circumstances at
tending it. These men say that almost
upon the very eve of the merry Christ
mas day of 1869, by the stroke OF "a
zor, Stanton made the term of his exis-
tence only question of hours. At the
time, the circumstances were known to
very few, and the number OF those privy
to the secret has not much increased
since. Outside the Congressional Ii
brarian, and few well trained trusty
servants of the Capitol, who guard Sc
crets as they would their lives, and out
side of two or three members OF the
Stanton family, the story of the suicide
given below is probably not known to
dozen people in the country.
1t is matter of history that the North
owes more to Stanton in a certain sense
for the final result of the civil war than
to any one man. He was the embodi-
ment and moving spirit of all that was
ceaselessly vigilant, tyrannical and
vengeful in the fratricidal strife. Stan
ton would have been prime minister
in an oppressive monarchy, and as long
as the war lasted he was in a position
which met the craving of his peculiar
nature.
Getting his first taste of national pub
lie life in brief service as Attorney
General under Buchanan in the latter
DAYS of that administration, Stanton was
willing enough to take up the portfolio
which Cameron laid down in 1864, and
became the War Secretary. After the
first few weeks Lincoln seldom or never
interfered with him. Stanton was vir-
tually Commander-in-Chief Of the army
from that day until the meeting of
Grant and Lee under the apple tree at
Appomattox. d.,
With the habeas corpus suspended
and the ears of the people filled with
the clamor Of war, Staunton found no
trouble in usurping powers which i'll ac-
corded with Republican principles If
the tinkle of Stewards bell was all that
was need to send any man in the States
to Lafayette, it was Stanton who more
than half the time inspired the ring.
And besides there was right to his hand
the Capitol Prison, the murderous Sc
crets of which have gone into the grave
with Stanton and Preston King, or are
sacredy guarded by the few living
members of the little coterie who man
aged the War Department.
1t was well for the North that Stan
ton was the War Secretary. Without
such a man in that place the contest
might have lasted longer and ended diff
ferently. The war gave him his mis-,
sion, and he followed it regardless OF
any human influence, entirely inditter-
ent to all but his work.
1t would have been well for Stanton
if he could have gone as Lincoln did.
He would have been enshrined as a
martyr, and his countrymen would have
remembered him with reverence and
homage. His work was done, and he
only lived to struggle against the turn
ing tide and meet fate which no man
can envy. He came out of the war with
heart and soul full of the vengeance
which cries for blood. Could he have
had his way, Jefferson Davis and Others
who had differed with him in principle,
and who fought their principles as he
hid, would have been doomed to felons
fates.
So, when the better day of peace and
reconciliation dawned, Stanton could
rot accept it. He fought against it to
the bitter end, d,and overcome by the tide
of public opinion which recognized
our national brotherhood, Stanton went
under, and in despair and gloom, found
death with his own hand.
His course in the Surratt trial, and
later in the impeachment of President
Johnson only exemplified what is stated
more generally above. He forced the
trial of Mrs. Surratt to the result it
took, and then with heart which loved
Justice without mercy, sedulously guard
ed all avenues for communication or re-
prieve. 1t was his auxiliary, Preston
King, who met poor Annie Surratt on
the steps of the White House, going
up to intercede with the President for
her mothers life, and when he knew her
errand, pushed her away and told her
that she could not see Mr.. Johnson.
And when she threw herself on her
knees, and implored for a hearing, 1t
was Preston King who threw her of,
and thus intercepted the petition OF the
pleading daughter.
May not the memory of that poor old
woman hurried into eternity from the
scaffold, have pursued King and bis
chief like a shadow, an ever-hauntIng
Nemesis, until both were driven to sui
eide. King in the New York Custom
House, with career before him which
had not a cloud in it, filled his pockets
with shot and dropped from a pier into
East River. Stanton, with place up.