It is proper to hear Mr. Buchanan himself, in regard to his refusal to garrison the Southern forts in October or November, 1860, according to the recommendations in General Scott’s “views.” This refusal is attributed, without the least cause, to the influence of Governor Floyd. All my cabinet must bear me witness that I was the President myself, responsible for all the acts of the administration; and certain it is that during the last six months previous to the 29th December, 1860, the day on which he resigned his office, after my request, he exercised less influence on the administration than any other member of the cabinet. Mr. Holt was immediately thereafter transferred from the Post Office Department to that of War; so that, from this time until the 4th March, 1861, which was by far the most important period of the administration, he [Mr. Holt] performed the duties of Secretary of War to my entire satisfaction.[67] Footnote 67: Letter from Mr. Buchanan to the Editors of the _National Intelligencer_, October 28, 1862.—If the reader chooses to consult the controversy of 1862 between General Scott and Mr. Buchanan, he will find there the sources from which General Scott drew his conclusions. One of them was information given to him while the controversy was going on, in a telegram from Washington, sent by a person whose name he did not disclose. A reference to Mr. Buchanan’s last letter in the controversy will show how he disposed of this “nameless telegram.” The period when the alleged improper transfers of arms into the Southern States were said to have occurred was, as Mr. Buchanan states, long before the nomination of Mr. Lincoln, and nearly a year before his election. General Scott’s reply to this shows that in 1862 he had convinced himself that the revolt of the Southern States had been planned for a long time before the nomination of Mr. Lincoln, and that it was to be carried out in the event of the election of any Northern man to the Presidency. It had become the fashion in 1862, in certain quarters, to believe, or to profess to believe, in this long-standing plot. There are several conclusive answers to the suggestion: 1st. It is not true, as a matter of fact, that at any time before the nomination of Mr. Lincoln, there were any transfers of arms to the South which ought to have led even to the suspicion of the existence of such a plot. 2d. That it is not true, as a matter of fact, that at any time after Mr. Lincoln’s nomination, and before his election, there were any transfers of arms whatever from the Northern arsenals of the United States into the Southern States. 3d. That after Mr. Lincoln’s election, viz., in December, 1860, a transfer of ordnance from Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, to Mississippi and Texas, which had been ordered by Secretary Floyd a few days before he left office, was immediately countermanded by his successor, Mr.