That was the undramatic and somewhat disappointing end of Dana’s fourteen years on the _Tribune_. He was forty-three years old and not rich. All he had was what he got from the sale of his _Tribune_ stock and what he had saved from the royalties on his books. From the literary view-point he was doubtless the best-equipped newspaperman in America, but there was no great place open for him then. Dana’s work on the _Tribune_ had attracted the attention of most of the big men of the North, including Edwin M. Stanton, who in January, 1862, was appointed Secretary of War in place of Simon Cameron. Stanton asked Dana to come into the War Department, and assigned him to service upon a commission to audit unsettled claims against the quartermaster’s department. While in Memphis on this work he first met General Grant, then prosecuting the war in the West. In the autumn of 1862, Stanton offered to Dana a post as second Assistant Secretary of War, and Dana, having accepted, told a newspaperman of his appointment. When the news was printed, the irascible Stanton was so much annoyed--although without any apparent reason--that he withdrew the appointment. Dana then became a partner with George W. Chadwick, of New York, and Roscoe Conkling, of Utica, in an enterprise for buying cotton in that part of the Mississippi Valley which the Union army occupied. Dana and Chadwick went to Memphis in January, 1863, armed with letters from Secretary Stanton to General Grant and other field commanders. But no sooner had their cotton operations begun than Dana saw the evil effect that this traffic was having. It had aroused a fever of speculation. Army officers were forming partnerships with cotton operators, and even privates wanted to buy cotton with their pay. The Confederacy was being helped rather than hindered. Disregarding his own fortunes, Dana called upon General Grant and advised him to “put an end to an evil so enormous, so insidious and so full of peril to the country.” Grant at once issued an order designed to end the traffic, but the cotton-traders succeeded in having it nullified by the government. Then Dana went to Washington, saw President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton, and convinced them that the cotton trade should be handled by the Treasury Department. As a result of Dana’s visit, Lincoln issued his proclamation declaring all commercial intercourse with seceded States to be unlawful. Thus Dana patriotically worked himself out of a paying business. Yet his unselfishness was not without a reward. It reestablished his friendly relations with Stanton, and won for him the President’s confidence.