Hay reckoned without Montgomery Blair, who expressed doubt about Stanton’s integrity and opposed his appointment. Attorney General Bates also distrusted Stanton, and Gideon Welles complained that Stanton’s “remarks on the personal appearance of the President were coarse, and his freely expressed judgment on public measures unjust.” The navy secretary believed Stanton “was engaged with discontented and mischievous persons in petty intrigues to impair confidence in the Administration.” (Indeed, Stanton had criticized Lincoln severely in private, and the Washington rumor mill spread his caustic comments far and wide. McClellan recalled the “extreme virulence” with which Stanton “abused the President, the administration, and the Republican party. He carried this to such an extent that I was often shocked by it. He never spoke of the President in any other way than as the ‘original gorilla.’ ”) Welles also objected to the way Stanton curried McClellan’s favor. Later, the navy secretary wrote that Stanton “took pleasure in being ungracious and rough towards those who were under his control, and when he thought his bearish manner would terrify or humiliate those who were subject to him. To his superiors or those who were his equals in position, and who neither heeded nor cared for his violence, he was complacent, sometimes obsequious.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃