Thomas F. Harney

[Gene C]

(08-03-2015 09:27 PM)SSlater Wrote:  I will wait until you finish your post, and add my two cents.
I have a copy of the letter that Benjamin wrote, that directed Thompson - How to disperse the "treasury". Most of the money was to be deposited in Benjamin's personal Account, in England. Thompson gets receipts for the money. (He kept "Adequate funds to be able to return home.") Some of Thompson's delay in leaving Canada was - he was waiting for his wife to arrive from Mississippi.
PS When Benjamin escaped, after the war, his first stop -before he went to see his wife - was the bank in England".

Sorry for the delay on my comments about Jacob Thompson -
I couldn't find any more significant info in "This Awful Drama". Susan Higginbotham sent me a file of Edwin Lee's diary for 1865. It's hard to read and doesn't cover much detail.
However, I did find this from Eli Evans book on Judah Benjamin
regarding Jacob Thompson...., regarding the attempted fire bombs in New York City, "Benjamin was embarrassed and furious about the mission. The damage done, or lack of it, did not matter-after all, look what Sherman was doing in Georgia. But once more it was hideously bungled: full stories in the newspaper, lack of discretion in choosing the parties to the plot, and the selection of targets, as if hotels were military installations. The most the raid could accomplish was to create excitement, stirring up vast numbers of people against the South without destroying crucial supply depots, military trains, or arsenals to make the mission worthwhile. It made the papers without making any difference.

The President (Davis) had lost his patience. He felt that Thompson was just throwing away money in Canada; there were rumors that any deserter could get a couple of thousand dollars by just saying he wanted to organize a Sons Of Liberty operation somewhere."
...... more failed operations ( John Yates Beal's failed attempt to capture a Federal gunboat patrolling the Great Lakes and then rescue prisoners from the Johnson Island prison, and then the St. Albans bank robbery, Thompson's plan to spend $100,000 out of his Confederate accounts with a Nashville banker to spent it in New York in an attempt to create a run on the gold market) and more are mentioned on page p 272.

"The spies, still more panicked after yet another failure, began to freelance more, with less and less control by Thompson." p273

I gather Davis and Benjamin were tired of Jacob Thompson's mismanagement and were attempting to recall him.
I agree with Wild Bill about Evan's book. It is very good.