geeky
Orville Babcock had a resume that might have made him appear as a good candidate for government service. He was born on Christmas day in 1835 in Franklin, Vermont, a small town near the Canada–US border close to Lake Champlain. At the age of 16, Babcock secured a place at the West Point Military Academy where he graduated third in a class of 45 on May 6, 1861. The Civil War was beginning just as Babcock was graduating. Babcock was commissioned as a Brevet Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, and assigned to duty as an Assistant Engineer for the military district that included Washington. His first mission was the undertaking of efforts to improve the defensive works of Washington, D.C. and protect the city from attack. In August, he received his commission as a second lieutenant and he was assigned to the Department of the Shenandoah, and constructed military fortifications on the Potomac River and in the Shenandoah Valley while also serving as aide-de-camp under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks.
On November 17, 1861, Babcock was promoted to First Lieutenant, Corps of Engineers, and a week later was assigned to the Army of the Potomac. During the Peninsular Campaign, Babcock served bravely at the Siege of Yorktown with the Army of the Potomac's Engineer Battalion and was breveted as a captain to rank from May 4, 1862. In December 1862, during the Battle of Fredericksburg, Babcock served on Brigadier General William B. Franklin's engineering staff.
On January 1, 1863, Babcock was promoted to permanent captain and brevet lieutenant colonel, and was named the Assistant Inspector General of the VI Corps until February 6, when he was named the Assistant Inspector General and Chief Engineer of the IX Corps. Babcock fought with the IX Corps at the Battle of Vicksburg and the Battle of Blue Springs, and the Battle of Campbell's Station. He also saw action at the Battle of Fort Sanders, a brutal struggle that ended in a lopsided Union victory. After fighting in the Knoxville Campaign, at the Battle of Fort Sanders, Babcock became the Chief Engineer of the Department of the Ohio and was promoted to brevet major on November 29, 1863.
Babcock was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the regular army on March 29, 1864 and became the aide-de-camp to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. At the time Grant was commanding the Union forces in the Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Babcock served in the Battle of the Wilderness, the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, and the Battle of Cold Harbor. On August 9, 1864, Babcock, while stationed at Union headquarters in City Point, was wounded in the hand after Confederate spies had blown up an ammunition barge moored below the city's bluffs. As Grant's aide-de-camp, Babcock ran dispatches between Grant and Major General William T. Sherman during Sherman's March to the Sea campaign.
On April 9, 1865 after being defeated at the Battle of Appomattox, Commanding Confederate General Robert E. Lee formally surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant. Babcock personally chose the site of surrender at the McLean House, and he also personally escorted Lee to the meeting. He was present when Grant and Lee discussed and signed the terms of surrender.
On July 17, 1866, President Andrew Johnson nominated Babcock for brevet brigadier general in the regular army, to rank from March 13, 1865, and the United States Senate confirmed the appointment on July 23, 1866. After the War, Babcock remained on Grant's staff. Grant dispatched Babcock and Horace Porter to report on the progress of Southern Reconstruction. Babcock discovered and informed Grant of a white supremacist insurgency that was developing to intimidated African Americans.
In 1868, Ulysses S. Grant was elected as the 18th President of the United States. Grant appointed Babcock as his personal secretary, a position comparable to today's Chief of Staff. Babcock worked directly for President Grant and had unprecedented influence over Grant, a position he used for personal advantage. Babcock planted suspicions in Grant that enemies were out to politically destroy him. He gave Grant advice on cabinet appointments. Babcock's duties included handling patronage matters, opposition research, amd feeding political stories to pro-Grant newspapers. In order to see Grant, visitors had to go through Babcock. Babcock also opened and answered most of Grant's personal letters.
In 1869, Babcock served as a special agent of President Ulysses S. Grant in the attempt to annex the Dominican Republic, then known as Santo Domingo. Without any diplomatic authorization, Babcock entered negotiations for annexation of the island. Babcock claimed that he was a representative of President Grant, and he was called to Dominican Republic to discuss the Union of the two republics. A plan for annexation was drawn up in which the country would be annexed to the United States after paying of the Dominican Republic's national debt of $1.5 million. When Babcock returned to the White House having a treaty, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish and Secretary of Interior Jacob D. Cox were angered by Babcock's actions taken without any official standing. Fish said to Cox, referring to Babcock's actions, "I pledge you my word he had no more diplomatic authority than any other casual visitor to the island." At the next cabinet meeting, with Babcock present, Grant told his cabinet officers that he approved of the treaty. Fish threatened to resign over the matter, but Grant convinced him to stay, promising that he would not go behind Fish's back again. Fish agreed to remain on the cabinet. Fish sent Babcock back to the Dominican Republic on November 18, this time with official State Department status and instructions to draw up two formal treaties. Grant kept the treaties secret from Congress and the public, until mid-January 1870. The treaties was formerly submitted to Congress in March. Senator Charles Sumner strongly opposed the annexation treaties objecting to Babcock's secret negotiations. The people of Santo Domingo held a plebiscite and overwhelmingly voted 15,169 to 11 in favor of annexation. Babcock was accused of being given investment land on Samaná Bay, but a Congressional investigation found no conclusive evidence that Babcock would financially gain from the country's annexation. The treaty failed to pass approval in the senate.
In 1869, Babcock invested money in the Jay Cooke & Company's Gold Ring, a scam by wealthy New York tycoons Jay Gould and James Fisk to profit by cornering the market on gold. Secretary of the Treasury George S. Boutwell had regulated the price of gold by monthly sales from the Treasury in exchange for greenbacks. Gould convinced Grant not to increase the Treasury's September gold sale, helping make it scarce and inflating the price. Gould and Fisk then set up a buying operation, the New York Gold Room, where traders in their employ purchased as much gold as they could acquire. This artificially drove up the price. When Grant became aware of the full extent of the attempt to corner the market in late September 1869, he ordered the release of $4,500,000 in Treasury gold, which caused the price to collapse. This thwarted the scheme planned by Gould and Fisk, but caused a decline in the stock market and the overall economy. Babcock and other individuals who secretly invested with him lost $40,000 (about $750,000 in 2018). To satisfy his creditors, Babcock had to sign a trust deed on his property. The extent of Babcock's involvement was not revealed to Grant until 1876, when his complicity in the Gold Ring was uncovered during the investigation of his involvement in another scandal known as the Whiskey Ring.
At that time, a common fraudulent practice was for distillers and corrupt Internal Revenue agents to make falsely low whiskey production reports and pocket unpaid tax revenue. However, during the early 1870s, the corruption became more organized by distillers, who used the illegally obtained money for bribery and illegal election financing, to the point where every agent in St. Louis was involved in corruption. This organized network became known as the Whiskey Ring, and it extended nationally.
In June 1874, President Grant appointed Benjamin Bristow as Secretary of Treasury, with authority to investigate the Whiskey Ring and prosecute wrongdoers. Bristow, a Kentuckian and Union Army veteran, was known for his honesty and integrity. He had served as the nation's first Solicitor General under Grant. Bristow discovered widespread whiskey tax evasion among distillers and corrupt officials in the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Bureau. Bristow employed the use of secret agents appointed from outside the Treasury Department. As a result of the evidence they obtained, on May 10, 1875 Treasury Department agents raided and shut down corrupt distilleries in St. Louis, Chicago, and Milwaukee, seizing company financial records and other files. Bristow prosecuted the offenders, working with Grant's newly appointed Attorney General, Edwards Pierrepont, a popular New York reformer who had gained fame by shutting down New York City's corrupt Tweed Ring.
In the course of the investigation it was discovered that Orville Babcock was informing ring leader John McDonald in St. Louis of inspections by Bristow's agents, giving them time to hide incriminating evidence before agents arrived. Babcock was paid off by cash, two five-hundred-dollar bills, in one instance, hidden a inside cigar box, for this information and protection. McDonald was indicted in June, when Bristow obtained indictments against 350 distillers and government officials.
In July 1875, Bristow and Pierrepont met Grant, who was vacationing at Long Branch, and provided him with evidence that Babcock was a member of the ring. Grant told Pierrepont "Let no guilty man escape." In October, Babcock was summoned in front of Grant, Bristow, and Pierrepont at the White House to explain two telegrams hand he had sent to distillers. Babcock gave an explanation that Grant accepted, but Bristow and Pierrepont did not. They demanded that the recipients of the telegraph messages be summoned to Washington. Pierrepont discovered evidence showing that Babcock sent a warning to one of these men. Grant found himself in a difficult position, on the one hand feeling some loyalty to Babcock, but on the other hand wanting Bristow and Pierrepont to prosecute the Whiskey Ring. Babcock had no credible explanation for his message. He was indicted on November 4, 1875 for tax fraud.
On December 2, 1875 Babcock requested of Grant that he be tried in a military court martial. On December 8, 1875, U.S. Attorney David Dyer followed Bristow's instructions to deny Babcock a court martial, setting his St. Louis jury trial for February, 1876. Then something most unusual happened. When Babcock's trial in St. Louis came up in February, Grant decided to testify in Babcock's defense. Grant's cabinet members objected to Grant testifying in St. Louis, seeing this as unseemly for a President. Grant compromised by giving a deposition at the White House.
On February 8, 1876 Babcock was put on trial. The trial lasted eighteen days. The trial took place at the U.S. Post Office and Custom House located at 218 North Third Street. It was a well-attended spectacle. Only persons with signed passes and Whiskey Ring defendants were allowed in. Grant's White House deposition took place on February 12. It was notarized by Chief Justice Morrison Waite and witnessed by both Bristow and Pierrepont. In the deposition Grant said that he fully supported the Whiskey Ring prosecutions, but he willfully refused to testify against Babcock, and said that he he had "great confidence" in Babcock's integrity, and that his confidence in Babcock was "unshaken". On February 17, Babcock's defense read President Grant's deposition to the jury. The same day, General William T. Sherman, testified at the trial, that Babcock's "character has been very good." On February 25, the St. Louis jury acquitted Babcock on all counts. Pierrepont resigned office on May 21, 1876 and was appointed by Grant United States Minister to the United Kingdom on July 11, 1876. Bristow resigned from the cabinet on June 20, 1876.
When Babcock returned to Washington, he went back to his White House office, as if there had been no trial. Grant's Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, was furious, and told Grant that babcock had to go. Treasury Solicitor Wilson informed Grant that Babcock had been involved with the 1869 plot to corner the gold market. Grant finally dismissed Babcock from the White House and appointed his son Ulysses Jr. in Babcock's place.
From March 3, 1873 to March 3, 1877 Babcock served as Washington's Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds, a Grant appointment. In this role, Babcock also faced allegations of corruption. Bacbcock and the city's territorial governor, Alexander Robey Shepherd, were accused of personally profiting from construction projects within the city limits.
There was one other bizarre incident involving Babcock. On April 15, 1876, fifty-one days after his acquittal in the Whiskey Ring trial, Babcock was indicted again, this time for involvement in the Safe Burglary Conspiracy. In 1874, Richard Harrington, an Assistant United States Attorney for Washington, DC, attempted to plant false evidence against Columbus Alexander, leader of the Memorialists. They were a reform organization critical of Shepherd's management of the city. Harrington had some dishonest Secret Service agents break into the U.S. Attorney's safe, using explosives to make it appear that a burglary had occurred. The conspirators then took materials that they said had been stolen from the safe to his Alexander's home at night. The plan was to give them to Alexander and then later arrest him for their possession. Alexander refused to answer the door that night. When that plan failed, the Secret Service agents arrested two other conspirators who pretended to be the supposed burglars. The had these two sign false affidavits implicating Alexander in the burglary
Alexander was charged for the offence. But at his trial the Secret Service agents admitted that the charges were false, and Alexander was acquitted. Babcock was discovered to be the liaison between Harrington and the Secret Service agents. Babcock wanted to silence Alexander, who was a prominent critic of the Grant administration. There was insufficient evidence to convict Babcock, but his ties to scandal and corruption turned public opinion against him.
On February 27, 1877 Grant appointed Babcock Inspector of Lighthouses of the Fifth District, a low-profile position that enabled Babcock to earn a living by making use of his engineering skills while keeping him out of the public eye. In September 1879, when Ulysses Grant returned from his famous world tour, Stalwart Republicans proposed to nominate him for a third term as president. Democrats sought to discredit his previous administration, including his cabinet and political appointees. On February 4, 1880, a color illustration by artist Joseph Keppler appeared in Puck magazine, in which Keppler ridiculed Grant and his associates, including Babcock, for past involvement in corruption.
On May 14, 1880, Connecticut Senator William W. Eaton, a Democrat, read a memorial from Davis Hatch, who had been arrested in Santo Domingo in 1868 and was requesting reimbursement for the financial losses he said resulted from his imprisonment. Hatch had claimed that he was imprisoned on false charges and was going to be released, but Babcock interfered with Hatch's release from prison. It is unclear if this allegation was true or if it was an attempt by Eaton to make this an issue in an election year.
Babcock lost his life by drowning. He had been the supervising engineer at the Mosquito Inlet Lighthouse project started in 1883. On June 2, 1884, Babcock and his associates were on duty were aboard the government schooner Pharos to deliver construction supplies. They were anxious to get to land because a sudden storm created hazardous ocean conditions. As the storm worsened, Captain Newins of the nearby Bonito led seven men in a rowboat to the Pharos in order to retrieve the passengers. In debating whether to wait out the storm on the Pharos or try to make land, Babcock concluded that since Newins and his crew had rowed safely to the Pharos, then they should be able to row safely to shore. After eating lunch on the Pharos, Babcock and his associates boarded a rowboat and started for the shore. Swells capsized the boat several times, and it took on water. Babcock was thrown clear from the boat and his lifeline was torn loose from the boat, resulting in his drowning death.