President Lincoln watched with anxiety and sorrow the dethronement of another popular idol, and defended and protected Frémont with the same charity and patience he had shown to McClellan. Instead of removing him from command, as he should have done, he endeavored to shield him from the consequences of his mismanagement, and sent General David Hunter, an old friend and veteran officer in whom he had great confidence, this request: "General Frémont needs assistance which is difficult to give him. He is losing the confidence of men near him, whose support any man in his position must have to be successful.... He needs to have by his side a man of large experience. Will you not for me take that place? Your rank is one grade too high to be ordered to it; but will you not serve your country and oblige me by taking it voluntarily." With this letter General Hunter went to St. Louis to try and save Frémont, but it was too late. Frémont's principal political backing came from the Blair family, who were also his warmest personal friends; but, when they endeavored to advise and restrain him, a quarrel broke out and Frémont placed General Frank P. Blair under arrest. Blair preferred formal charges against his commander; and his father and brother, the latter being Postmaster-General, demanded Frémont's removal on account of incapacity. Then, to increase Lincoln's anxieties and perplexities, Mrs. Jessie Benton Frémont, the daughter of Senator Benton and a romantic figure in American history, appeared in Washington to conduct her husband's side of the quarrel, denouncing the Blairs and all other critics with unmeasured contempt and earnestness. The President confesses that he was exasperated almost beyond endurance. Mrs. Frémont, he says, "sought an audience with me at midnight, and attacked me so violently with many things that I had to exercise all the awkward tact I had to avoid quarrelling with her. She more than once intimated that if General Frémont should decide to try conclusions with me, he could set up for himself."