Benjamin's letter to Jacob Thompson.

[John Fazio]

Laurie, et al.:

I do believe that the reference is to Simon Cameron, who served as Lincoln's Secretary of War for about a year and who was then sent to the boonies in Russia as our Ambassador, amid charges of corruption. In discussing his honesty with Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens said to Lincoln "I don't think he (Cameron) would steal a red-hot stove". When word of this trashing reached Cameron, he confronted Stevens and demanded that he retract the statement. Stevens went to Lincoln and said "I believe I told you he would not steal a red-hot stove. I will now take that back".

Queries:

Why was the letter in Cleary's hand? Was he in Richmond at the time? My understanding is that he was most often in Montreal as part of the Canadian Cabinet. Wasn't he Thompson's Secretary?

Might the $20,000 have been for John Surratt?

What happened to the rest of the Confederacy's gold?

Is it not likely that Davis, in his two-volume work (The Rise and Fall...etc."), barely mentions Benjamin, despite the fact that Benjamin was his right-hand, having served as Attorney General, Secretary of War and Secretary of State of the Confederacy, because he knew that most of Benjamin's work, especially in the last year of the war, related to terror and assassination plots? If so, it follows that the less said the better. Corroborating this line of thinking is the fact that Benjamin left the country after the fall of Richmond, endured an incredibly harrowing journey to get to "the farthest place from the United States if it takes me to the middle of China" (his words) and then, after making it to England and carving out a successful career as a barrister, never returned to the United States and never even spoke about the American Civil War, nor about his role in it, for the rest of his life.

John