George
Boutwell was
born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on 28th January, 1818. He became
a teacher in Shirley before being appointed postmaster of Groton.
A member of the Democratic Party,
he studied law before being elected to the Massachusetts legislature
in 1842. After eight years in the legislature he was the successful
candidate for governor in 1850 and 1852. He then became secretary
of the State board of education (1855-1861).
Boutwell played an active role in trying to prevent the outbreak
of the American Civil War. He was elected
to Congress as a member of the Republican
Party in 1862 and in 1865 was chosen as chairman of the House
of Representatives Committee that looked into the assassination of
President Abraham Lincoln. Only Boutwell
was allowed to look at all the relevant papers and afterwards the
Democratic Party member of the committee,
Andrew J. Rogers, accused him of being
involved in an attempt to cover-up the role of Edwin
M. Stanton in the handling of the case.
In 1867 Boutwell was one of the seven members chosen by the House
of Representatives to prosecute its impeachment charges against President
Andrew Johnson.
In 1869 Boutwell was appointed by President Ulysses
S. Grant as his Secretary of the Treasury. He resined his post
in 1873 and later that year was elected to the Senate. He served as
chairman of the Committee on the Revision of the Laws of the United
States. However in 1884 he declined the offer to become Secretary
of the Treasury.
Boutwell wrote several books including his autobiography, Reminiscences
of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (1902). George
Boutwell, who was also
president of the Anti-Imperialist League (1898-1905), died in Groton
on 27th February, 1905.
(1)
George S. Boutwell, Abraham Lincoln: Tributes from His Associates
(1895)
Hooker
was in Washington on the Thursday of the week before the battle of
Gettysburg, and at a conference with the President and the Secretary
of War, it was agreed to hold Harper's Ferry, which, the year before,
had been surrendered with great loss of men and materials of war.
Upon his return to headquarters General Hooker changed his opinion,
and, without reporting to the Secretary of War, he ordered General
Wilson to evacuate the post and join the main army. The order Wilson
transmitted to the Secretary of War. Mr. Stanton, assuming that there
had been in error in the dispatches, or a misunderstanding, counter-manded
Hooker's order. Thereupon Hooker, without seeking for an explanation,
resigning his command.
(2)
George S. Boutwell, Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs
(1902)
The
preservation of the papers (refering to the involvement of Jefferson
Davis and other members of the Confederate government being involved
in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln) may have been an
error. They should have been destroyed by the committee. I am the
only living person living who has knowledge of the papers. It is not
in the public interest that the papers should become the possession
of the public.
(3) Andrew
J. Rogers, House of
Representatives Report into the Assassination of President Abraham
Lincoln (1865)
For
some reason or reasons not fully stated, the majority of the committee
determined to throw in my way every possible impediment. The papers
were put away from me, locked in boxes, hidden; and when I asked to
see them, I was told that I coould not. It was said the interests
of the Government required that none should see these papers save
and only Mr. Boutwell who was preparing the majority report. Secrecy
has surrounded and shrouded, not to say protected every step of these
examinations, and even in the committee-room I seemed to be acting
with a sort of secret council of inquisition, itself directed by an
absent vice-inquisitor, and grand inquisitor too.
(4) Andrew
J. Rogers, the
only Democratic
Party
member of the House of Representatives
Committee that looked into the assassination of President Abraham
Lincoln, issued his own minority report (1865)
I
do not say that Judge Holt did himself originate the charges or organize
the plot of the perjurers, because I do not know that he did; I merely
say that a plot based on the assassination was formed against Davis,
Clay, and others, and that the plotters did, and even yet, operate
through the Bureau of Military Justice, and that the argument forwarded
by Mr. Holt to the Committee of the Judiciary looked to me like a
shield extended over the plotters may be, with a desire to save certain
officers of the government from the charge of having been betrayed
into the blunders of an excitement, which it was their province to
allay or control, not to increase. I believe this was done to hide
the disgraceful fact that the assassination of Mr. Lincoln was seized
upon as a pretext to hatch charges against a number of historical
personages, to blacken their private character, and afford excuse
for their trial.
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