They Had Been So Sold,
And Then, In April, 1861, They Had Been Bought Again For The
Government By The Indefatigable Cummings For 3l. Each.
Then they
were again sold as useless for 14s. each to Eastman, and instantly
rebought on behalf of the government for 4l. 8s. each!
Useless for
war purposes they may have been, but as articles of commerce it must
be confessed that they were very serviceable.
This last purchase was made by a man named Stevens on behalf of
General Fremont, who at that time commanded the army of the United
States in Missouri. Stevens had been employed by General Fremont as
an agent on the behalf of government, as is shown with clearness in
the report, and on hearing of these muskets telegraphed to the
general at once: "I have 5000 Hall's rifled cast-steel muskets,
breach-loading, new, at 22 dollars." General Fremont telegraphed
back instantly: "I will take the whole 5000 carbines. . . . I will
pay all extra charges." . . . . And so the purchase was made. The
muskets, it seems, were not absolutely useless even as weapons of
war. "Considering the emergency of the times?" a competent witness
considered them to be worth "10 or 12 dollars." The government had
been as much cheated in selling them as it had in buying them. But
the nature of the latter transaction is shown by the facts that
Stevens was employed, though irresponsibly employed, as a government
agent by General Fremont; that he bought the muskets in that
character himself, making on the transaction 1l. 18s. on each
musket; and that the same man afterward appeared as an aid-de-camp
on General Fremont's staff. General Fremont had no authority
himself to make such a purchase, and when the money was paid for the
first installment of the arms, it was so paid by the special order
of General Fremont himself out of moneys intended to be applied to
other purposes. The money was actually paid to a gentleman known at
Fremont's headquarters as his special friend, and was then paid in
that irregular way because this friend desired that that special
bill should receive immediate payment. After that, who can believe
that Stevens was himself allowed to pocket the whole amount of the
plunder?
There is a nice little story of a clergyman in New York who sold,
for 40l. and certain further contingencies, the right to furnish 200
cavalry horses; but I should make this too long if I told all the
nice little stories. As the frauds at St. Louis were, if not in
fact the most monstrous, at any rate the most monstrous which have
as yet been brought to the light, I cannot finish this account
without explaining something of what was going on at that Western
Paradise in those halcyon days of General Fremont.
General Fremont, soon after reaching St. Louis, undertook to build
ten forts for the protection of that city. These forts have since
been pronounced as useless, and the whole measure has been treated
with derision by officers of his own army. But the judgment
displayed in the matter is a military question with which I do not
presume to meddle. Even if a general be wrong in such a matter, his
character as a man is not disgraced by such error. But the manner
of building them was the affair with which Mr. Van Wyck's Committee
had to deal. It seems that five of the forts, the five largest,
were made under the orders of a certain Major Kappner, at a cost of
12,000l., and that the other five could have been built at least for
the same sum. Major Kappner seems to have been a good and honest
public servant, and therefore quite unfit for the superintendence of
such work at St. Louis. The other five smaller forts were also in
progress, the works on them having been continued from 1st of
September to 25th of September, 1861; but on the 25th of September
General Fremont himself gave special orders that a contract should
be made with a man named Beard, a Californian, who had followed him
from California to St. Louis. This contract is dated the 25th of
September. But nevertheless the work specified in that contract was
done previous to that date, and most of the money paid was paid
previous to that date. The contract did not specify any lump sum,
but agreed that the work should be paid for by the yard and by the
square foot. No less a sum was paid to Beard for this work - the
cormorant Beard, as the report calls him - than 24,200l., the last
payment only, amounting to 4000l., having been made subsequent to
the date of the contract. Twenty thousand two hundred pounds was
paid to Beard before the date of the contract! The amounts were
paid at five times, and the last four payments were made on the
personal order of General Fremont. This Beard was under no bond,
and none of the officers of the government knew anything of the
terms under which he was working. On the 14th of October General
Fremont was ordered to discontinue these works, and to abstain from
making any further payments on their account. But, disobeying this
order, he directed his quartermaster to pay a further sum of 4000l.
to Beard out of the first sums he should receive from Washington, he
then being out of money. This, however, was not paid. "It must be
understood," says the report, "that every dollar ordered to be paid
by General Fremont on account of these works was diverted from a
fund specially appropriated for another purpose." And then again:
"The money appropriated by Congress to subsist and clothe and
transport our armies was then, in utter contempt of all law and of
the army regulations, as well as in defiance of superior authority,
ordered to be diverted from its lawful purpose and turned over to
the cormorant Beard.
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