General John C. Fremont, with headquarters at St. Louis, astonished the country by issuing a proclamation declaring, among other things, that the property, real and personal, of all the persons in the State of Missouri who should take up arms against the United States, or who should be directly proved to have taken an active part with its enemies in the field, would be confiscated to public use and their slaves, if they had any, declared freemen.
The President was dismayed; he modified that part of the proclamation referring to slaves, and finally replaced Fremont with General Hunter.
Mrs. Fremont (daughter of Senator T. H. Benton), her husband’s real chief of staff, flew to Washington and sought Mr. Lincoln. It was midnight, but the President gave her an audience. Without waiting for an explanation, she violently charged him with sending an enemy to Missouri to look into Fremont’s case, and threatening that if Fremont desired to he could set up a government for himself.
“I had to exercise all the rude tact I have to avoid quarreling with her,” said Mr. Lincoln afterwards.
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