I would rather be defeated with the soldier vote behind me than to be...

[David Lockmiller]

(03-12-2020 08:06 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  I honestly don't have an opinion either way as to how trustworthy Wing's recollections are. I've not done enough research to show what other historians think of Wing. Given that many approach history with an exceedingly skeptical eye, it wouldn't surprise me that some might take his stories as unproven anecdote. That Tarbell accepted them uncritically and that the only negative review I found came from Barton doesn't surprise me. I honestly believe that Wing was such an obscure figure that very little study has ever been given to him, and its likely that very little ever will.

Best
Rob

Rob, I apologize for my delay in responding to your post. I had to go down to the San Francisco Public Main Library to read a copy of Secretary Welles May 7, 1864 diary entry when President Lincoln and the members of his cabinet, including Secretary Welles, met with the New York Tribune reporter Henry Wing. It was a most prophetic and fateful meeting for President Lincoln with reporter Henry Wing by way of what occurred after the formal meeting ended and the members of President Lincoln’s cabinet had withdrawn.

The book reads in part as follows:

Between one and two o’clock of Saturday morning, May 7, the train came into the capital on its return trip, and Wing, unwashed, unbrushed, but entirely unconscious of such minutiae, stepped into a waiting carriage and was driven to the White House. . . .

Henry’s first consciousness of his condition came at the moment when he saw the look of dismay that crossed the face of the President. But it was only for a moment – the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, had recognized him as a constituent, and rising said, “You are Henry Wing from Litchfield?” And, so he was introduced.

“What had he to tell them,” Mr. Lincoln asked. “When and where had he left Grant?”

What he told them was little more than he had put into his [telegraph] message.

(“A Reporter for Lincoln, Story of Henry E. Wing,” by Ida M. Tarbell, The Macmillan Company (1927), pages 9-11.)

Henry Wing was conscious of the inadequacy of his news. It was not what had happened Thursday that they wanted to know now, but what had happened Friday. And why now, Saturday morning, they still had no news. It was almost as if they put him aside as they rose one by one, said, “Good night, Mr. President,” and left the room. The President himself seemed so overwhelmed with uncertainty that he was scarcely conscious that Henry Wing had lingered behind.

“You wanted to speak to me?" said Mr. Lincoln.

(“A Reporter for Lincoln, page 12.)

Secretary Welles’ entry to his diaries for May 7, 1864 reads as follows:

Some fragmentary intelligence comes to us of a conflict of the two great armies. A two days’ fight is said to have taken place. The President came into my room about 1 P.M. and told me he had slept none last night. He lay down for a short time on the sofa in my room and detailed all the news he had gathered.

Mr. Wing, a correspondent of the New York Tribune called upon me this evening. He brings the first news we have had, but this not full and conclusive.

There is no reference in Ida Tarbell’s book to this possible separate meeting later the same day with Secretary Welles. Perhaps Welles confused the early morning hours of May 7 as the evening hours in his diary entry.

I think that Ida Tarbell is a very fine writer. She reminds me of the excellent “readability” writings of Doris Kearns Goodwin in “Team of Rivals.” Both authors make reading history interesting and informative.

Until proven otherwise, I believe the accounts as written in “A Reporter for Lincoln, Story of Henry E. Wing,” by Ida M. Tarbell, The Macmillan Company (1927).

To repeat, it was a most prophetic and fateful meeting for President Lincoln by way of what occurred after the formal meeting ended and the members of President Lincoln’s cabinet had withdrawn.

“You wanted to speak to me? said Mr. Lincoln.

“Yes, Mr. President. I have a message for you – a message from General Grant. He told me I was to give it to you when you were alone.”

In an instant the President was all awareness, intent – “Something from Grant to me?”

“Yes,” blurted out Henry. “He told me I was to tell you, Mr. President, that there would be no turning back.”

The harried man had waited long – three years – for such a word – the one word that could have brought him help in his despair; and his long arm swept around and gathered the boy to him, and bending over he pressed a kiss on his cheek. “Come and tell me about it,” he said.

They sat down, and suddenly all of Henry’s journalistic discretion was gone. Here was one who had the right to know, and so he told him of the horrors and uncertainties of that day in the Wilderness – of men fighting without knowing where they were going, fighting in groups not masses; of Hancock, left without support; of Warren’s over-caution, bottling up the troops that Hancock had expected to support him; of a day gone wrong from start to finish.

He told how, when night had come and commanders and correspondents had gathered at headquarters, there had been angry charges, one officer accusing another; of Meade’s decision that they should fall back north of the river, reestablish their lines, and try again later, and how General Grant had come in with his quiet but final, “No, we shall attack again in the morning.”

(“A Reporter for Lincoln, pages 12 - 14.)