Question of the Week: Who was the worst Civil War cabinet member?
Last week we asked about the best cabinet member; this week, let’s flip the question around: Which cabinet member, in either the administrations of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis, bungled their responsibilities and was least capable?
Simon Cameron: incompetent and corrupt, a hard to beat combination.
Simon Cameron in a landslide. 🙂
That’s three votes for Simon Cameron. One more and he moves on to the next round of This Secretary Doesn’t Have Talent.
According to historical accounts, Simon Cameron, the 27th United States Secretary of War under President Abraham Lincoln, was questioned about his honesty. Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, a fellow Pennsylvanian, expressed his reservations about Cameron’s character, stating that “I don’t think he would steal a red-hot stove.” This remark was reportedly made during a discussion about Cameron’s potential cabinet position. When Cameron demanded Stevens retract his statement, Stevens replied, “I believe I told you he would not steal a red-hot stove. I will now take that back.”
Simon Cameron is the obvious choice for Lincoln’s administration. He would be much more infamous if he had been in charge longer and negatively impacted the war as it continued.
The Davis administration has multiple candidates. You can start with the Vice President. Alexander Stephens did not politically align with Davis and undermined him from Georgia. Stephens’ fellow Georgian Robert Toombs was barely in the cabinet but was another thorn in Davis’s side and that was because they didn’t politically align + Toombs wanted the job Davis had. Generally speaking none of the picks Davis made for his cabinet lasted the entire duration of the war in the position they were placed – Judah Benjamin being the one who job-hopped to stay in power. It’s easier to point out who failed him!
Secretary of War John B. Floyd.
Although he did not serve during the Civil War, James Buchanan is the Worst Civil War President because he allowed that war to become an inevitability. John Floyd, while serving as Buchanan’s Secretary of War, sent over 100,000 older arms from the Springfield Massachusetts Armory to armouries in the South during 1859-1860. During the Fort Sumter Crisis, it was John Floyd who attempted to get Major Anderson to evacuate his strong position and return to the more vulnerable position at Fort Moultrie. Floyd attempted to send a large quantity of artillery pieces south as well; but those orders were countermanded by Acting Secretary of War Holt after Floyd resigned. But, the most notorious incident of John Floyd’s tenure as Secretary of War was The Indian Bond Scandal. Involving William H. Russell (Pony Express) and a clerk for the Interior Department named Godard Bailey, $800 000 in bonds held in trust for Native Americans by the Department of the Interior “were removed” during the waning months of 1860 and given to Russell to be used as security on Pony Express loans. Secretary of War John Floyd approved the diversion of funds. Floyd resigned as Secretary of War in December 1860 (and emerged a short time later as a rebel Major General); Bailey avoided jail by revealing all that he knew to a House of Representatives Inquiry; the Pony Express went bankrupt a few months later; the $800 000 worth of Indian Bonds “were lost to History.”
This answer may circumvent the question a bit, but I think that Jefferson Davis is the worst member of all Civil War cabinets. The selection and management of a cabinet is one of the most important Presidential responsibilities. Davis failed to select, retain, and effectively utilize the members of his cabinet. Davis admitted that he only met two of his cabinet members before nominating them and had little to say about them in his post-war writings. While I agree with the above comments about Simon Cameron, I will counter by asking, if Cameron were in Davis’s cabinet and the two were antebellum friends, would Davis fire him? The answer is no! Davis routinely promoted and retained people based on their personal loyalty.