American >tate0me
EDITED BT
JOHN T. MORSE, JB.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
BY
JOHN T. MOESE, JR.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1893 AMD X2X V BY JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
INCLUDING THE RIGBT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM
IQe SRtoettffte 9mf*
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSI
PRINTED IN THE
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER L
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS ...... 1
CHAPTER II.
THE SECOND ACT OF THE MOCLELLAN DBAULA . SI
CHAPTER III.
THE THIRD AND CLOSING ACT OF THE MCC/LELLAN
DRAMA .......... 73
CHAPTER IV.
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862, AND THE PROCLAMA-
TION OF EMANCIPATION ....... 95
CHAPTER V.
BATTLES AND SIEGES : DECEMBER, 1862-DECEMBER, 1863 134
CHAPTER VL
SUNDRIES 171
CHAPTER VII.
THE TUBN OF THE TIDE ...... * 200
CHAPTER
RECONSTRUCTION ......... 217
CHAPTER IX.
RENOMINJKTION ... ....... 246
CHAPTER X.
MILITARY SUCCESSES, AND THE REELECTION OF THE
PRESIDENT ......... 277
CHAPTER XL
THE END COMES INTO SIGHT : THE SECOND INAUGURA-
TION ........... 301
CHAPTER
EMANCIPATION COMPLETED ....... 316
CHAPTER XIII.
TEE FALL OF RICHMOND, AND THE ASSASSINATION OF
PRESIDENT LINCOLN ........ 329
INDEX ..*, ...... 369
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
CHAPTER L
E3MLOTOIPATION AND POLITICS.
DURING the spring and summer of 1861 the
people of the North presented the appearance of a
great political unit* All alleged emphatically that
the question was simply of the Union, and upon
this issue no Northerner could safely differ from
his neighbors. Only a few of the more cross-
grained ones among the Abolitionists were con-
temptuously allowed to publish the selfishness of
their morality, and to declare that they were con-
tent to see the establishment of a great slave em-
pire, provided they themselves were free from the
taint of connection with it. If any others let
Southern proclivities lurk in the obscure recesses
of their hearts they were too prudent to permit
these perilous sentiments to appear except in the
masquerade of dismal presagings. So in appear-
ance the Northern men were united, and in fact
were very nearly so for a short time.
This was a fortunate condition, which the Presi-
dent and all shrewd patriots took great pains to
maintain. It filled the armies and the Treasury,
and postponed many jeopardies. But too close to
the surface to be long suppressed lay the demand
that those who declared the Union to be the sole
issue should explain how it came about that the
Union was put in issue at all, why there was any
dissatisfaction with it, and why any desire anywhere
to be rid of it. All knew the answer to that ques-
tion; all knew that if the war was due to disunion,
disunion in turn was due to slavery. Unless some
makeshift peace should be quickly patched up,
this basic cause was absolutely sure to force recog-
nition for itself; a long and stern contest must
inevitably wear its way down to the bottom ques-
tion. It was practical wisdom for Mr. Lincoln in
his inaugural not to probe deeper than secession;
and it was well for multitudes to take arms and
contribute money with the earnest asseveration
that they were fighting and paying only for the
integrity of the country. It was the truth, or
rather it was a truth; but there was also another
and a deeper truth : that he who fought for the in-
tegrity of the country, also, by a necessity inher-
ent in the case and far beyond the influence of
his volition, fought for the destruction of slavery.
Just as soon as this second truth came up and took
distinct shape beside the other, angry political
divisions sundered the Unionists. Abolition of
slavery never displaced Union as a purpose of the
war; but the two became mingled, in a duality
which could not afterward be resolved into its
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 3
component parts so that one could be taken and
the other could be left. The union of the two
issues meant the disunion of the people of the
Middle and even of the Northern States.
In the Border States a considerable proportion
of the people was both pro-slavery and pro-Union.
These men wished to retain their servile laborers
under their feet and the shelter of the Union over
their heads. At first they did not see that they
might as well hope to serve both God and Mam-
mon. Yet for the moment they seemed to hold
the balance of power between the contestants; for
had all the pro-slavery men in the Border States
gone over in a mass to the South early in the war,
they might have settled the matter against the
North in short order. The task of holding and
conciliating this important body, with all its North-
ern sympathizers, became a controlling purpose of
the President, and caused the development of his
famous "border-state policy," for which he de-
served the highest praise and received unlimited
abuse.
The very fact that these men needed, for their
comfort, reiterated assurances of a policy not hos-
tile to slavery indicated the jeopardy of their situ-
ation. The distinct language of the President al-
leviated their anxiety so far as the Executive was
concerned, but they desired to commit the legisla-
tive branch to the same doctrine* Among all
those who might have been Secessionists, but were
not, no other could vie in respect and affection
4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
with the venerable and patriotic John J. Critten-
den, of Kentucky. This distinguished statesman
now became the spokesman for tile large body of
loyal citizens who felt deeply that the war ought not
to impinge in the least upon the great institution of
the South. In the extra session of Congress, con-
vened in July, 1861, he offered a resolution pledg-
ing Congress to hold in mind: "That this war is
not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppres-
sion, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjuga-
tion, nor with any purpose of overthrowing or in-
terfering with the rights or established institutions
of those [the revolted] States; but to defend and
maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and
to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equal-
ity, and rights of the several States unimpaired."
After the example of the Constitution, this resolu-
tion was carefully saved from the contamination of
a certain offensive word; -but everyone knew its
meaning and its purpose; and with this knowledge
all the votes save two in the House of Representa-
tives, and all save five in the Senate, were given
for it. 1 "It was," says Mr. Elaine, "a fair re-
flection of the .popular sentiment throughout the
North." So Mr. Lincoln's inaugural was rati-
fied.
But events control. The Northern armies ran
against slavery immediately. Almost in the very-
hours when the resolution of Mr- Crittenden was
1 Also, in the House Thaddeus Stevens and Lovejoy, and in
the Senate Sumner, did not vote.
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 5
gliding so easily through the House, thousands of
slaves at Manassas were doing the work of laborers
and servants, and rendering all the whites of the
Southern army available for fighting. The handi-
cap was so severe and obvious, that it immediately
provoked the introduction of a bill freeing slaves
belonging to rebels and used for carrying on the
war. The Democrats and the men of the Border
States generally opposed the measure, with very
strong feeling. No matter how plausible the rea-
son, they did not wish slavery to be touched at all.
They could not say that this especial bill was
wrong, but they felt that it was dangerous. Their
protests against it, however, were of no avail and
it became law on August 6. The extreme anti-
slavery men somewhat sophistically twisted it into
an assistance to the South.
The principle of this legislation had already been
published to the country in a very fortunate way
by General Butler. In May, 1861, being in com-
mand at Fortress Monroe, he had refused, under
instructions from Cameron, to return three fugi-
tive slaves to their rebel owner, and he had in-
geniously put his refusal on the ground that they
were "contraband of war." The phrase instantly
became popular. General Butler says that, "as a
lawyer, [he] was never very proud of it;" but
technical inaccuracy does not hurt the force of
an epigram which expresses a sound principle.
"Contraband" underlay the Emancipation Pro*
clamation.
6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Thus the slaves themselves were forcing
issue, regardless of politics and diplomacy. With
a perfectly correct instinctive insight into the true
meaning of the war, they felt that a Union camp
ought to be a place of refuge, and they sought
it eagerly and in considerable numbers. Then,
however, their logical owners came and reclaimed
them, and other commanders were not so apt at
retort as General Butler was. Thus it came to
pass that each general, being without instructions,
carried out his own ideas, and confusion ensued.
Democratic commanders returned slaves; Aboli-
tionist commanders refused to do so; many were
sadly puzzled what to do. All alike created em-
barrassing situations for the administration.
General Fremont led off . On August 30, being
then in command of the Western Department, he
issued an order, in which he declared that he
would "assume the administrative powers of the
State/' Then, on the basis of this bold assump-
tion, he established martial law, and pronounced
the slaves of militant or active rebels to be "free
men." The mischief of this ill-advised proceeding
was aggravated by the "fires of popular enthusi-
asm which it kindled." The President wrote to
Fremont, expressing his fear that the general's
action would "alarm our Southern Union friends,
and turn them against us; perhaps ruin our rather
fair prospect in Kentucky." Very considerately
lie said: "Allow me, therefore, to ask that you
will, as of your own motion, modify that para-
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 7
graph, so as to conform to " the Act of August 6.
Fremont replied, in substance, that the President
might do this, but that he himself would not!
Thereupon Mr. Lincoln, instead of removing the
insubordinate and insolent general, behaved in
his usual passionless way, and merely issued an
order that Fremont's proclamation should be so
modified and construed as "to conform with and
not to transcend" the law. By this treatment,
which should have made Fremont grateful and
penitent, he was in fact rendered angry and in-
dignant; for he had a genuine belief in the old
proverb about laws being silent in time of war,
and he really thought that documents signed in
tents by gentlemen wearing shoulder-straps were
deserving of more respect, even by the President,
than were mere Acts of Congress. This was a
mistaken notion, but Fremont never could see
that he had been in error, and from this time
forth he became a vengeful thorn in the side of
Mr. Lincoln.
Several months later, on May 9, 1862, General
Hunter proclaimed martial law in Georgia, Flor-
ida, and South Carolina, and said: "Slavery and
martial law in a free country are altogether incom-
patible. The persons in these States, heretofore
held as slaves, are therefore declared forever
free." At once, though not without reluctance,
Mr. Lincoln revoked this order, as unauthorized.
He further said that, if he had power to "declare
the slaves of any State or States free," the pro-
8 ABRAHAM- LINCOLN.
priety of exercising that power was a question
which he reserved exclusively to himself. These
words he fully made good. The whole country,
wild with excitement and teeming with opinions
almost co-numerous with its citizens, threatened
to bury him beneath an avalanche of advice. But
while all talked and wrote madly and endlessly, he
quietly held his peace, did what he chose when he
chose, and never delegated any portion of his au-
thority over this most important business to any
one. He took emancipation for his own special
and personal affair; it was a matter about which
he had been doing much thinking very earnestly
for a long while, and he had no notion of forming
now any partnership for managing it.
The trend, however, was not all in one direc-
tion. While Butler, Fremont, and Hunter were
thus befriending the poor runaways, Buell and
Hooker were allowing slave-owners to reclaim fu-
gitives from within their lines ; Halleck was order-
ing that no fugitive slave should be admitted
within his lines or camp, and that those already
there should be put out; and McClellan was prom-
ising to crush "with an iron hand" any attempt
at slave insurrection. Amid such confusion, some
rule of universal application was sorely needed.
But what should it be ?
Secretary Cameron twice nearly placed the ad-
ministration in an embarrassing position by taking
very advanced ground upon the negro question.
In October, 1861, he instructed General Thomas
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 9
West Sherman when starting for Port Royal to
employ negroes in any capacity which he might
"deem most beneficial to the service." Mr. Lin-
coln prudently interlined the words: "This, how-
ever, not to mean a general arming of them for
military service." A few weeks later, in the Re-
port which the Secretary prepared to be sent with
the President's Message to Congress, he said: "As
the labor and service of their slaves constitute the
chief property of the rebels, they should share the
common fate of war. ... It is as clearly a right
of the government to arm slaves, when it becomes
necessary, as it is to use gunpowder taken from
the enemy. Whether it is expedient to do so
is purely a military question." He added more
to the same purport. He then had his "Report"
printed and sent copies, by mail, to many news-
papers throughout the country, with permission to
publish it so soon as the telegraph should report
the reading before Congress. At the eleventh
hour a copy was handed to Mr. Lincoln, to accom-
pany his message; and then, for the first time, he
saw these radical passages. Instantly he directed
that all the postmasters, to whose offices the
printed copies had been sent on their way to the
newspaper editors, should be ordered at once to
return these copies to the Secretary. He then or-
dered the Secretary to make a change, equivalent
to an omission, of this inflammatory paragraph.
After this emasculation the paragraph only stated
that "slaves who were abandoned by their owners
10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
on the advance of our troops " should not be re-
turned to the enemy.
When the Thirty-seventh Congress came to*
getiier for the regular session, December 2, 1861,
anti-slavery sentiment had made a visible advance.
President Lincoln, in his message, advised recog-
nizing the independence of the negro states of
Hayti and Liberia. He declared that he had been
anxious that the " inevitable conflict should not
degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolu-
tionary struggle," and that he had, therefore,
"thought it proper to keep the integrity of the
Union prominent as the primary object of the con-
test on our part." Kef erring to his enforcement
of the law of August 6, he said: "the Union must
be preserved, and hence all indispensable means
must be employed." The shadow which pro-slav-
ery men saw cast by these words was very slightly,
if at all, lightened by an admission which accom-
panied it: that "we should not be in haste to
determine that radical and extreme measures, which
may reach the loyal as well as the disloyal, are in-
dispensable." Further he said that already, by the
operation of the Act of August 6, numbers of per-
sons had been liberated, had become dependent on
the United States, and must be provided for. He
anticipated that some of the States might pass sim-
ilar laws for their own benefit; in which case he
recommended Congress to "provide for accepting
such persons from such States, according to some
mode of valuation, in lieu, pro tanto*> of direct
EMANCIPATION' AND POLITICS. 11
taxes, or upon some other plan to be agreed on."
He desired that these negroes, being "at once
deemed free," should be colonized in some "cli
mate congenial to them," and he wished an appro
priation for acquiring territory for this purpose.
Thus he indicated with sufficient clearness the
three cardinal points of his own theory for eman-
cipation : voluntary action of the individual slave
States by the exercise of their own sovereign power;
compensation of owners ; and colonization.
Congress soon showed that it meant to strike a
pace much more rapid than that set by the Presi-
dent; and the friends of slavery perceived an at-
mosphere which made them so uneasy that they
thought it would be well to have the Crittenden
resolution substantially reaffirmed. They made
the effort, and they failed, the vote standing 65
yeas to 71 nays. All which this symptom in-
dicated as to the temper of members was borne out
during the session by positive and aggressive legis-
lation. Only a fortnight had passed, when Henry
Wilson, Senator from Massachusetts, introduced a
bill to emancipate the slaves in the District of Co-
lumbia, and to pay a moderate compensation to
owners. The measure, rightly construe^ as the
entering point of the anti-slavery wedge, gave rise
to bitter debates in both houses. The senators
and representatives from the slave States mani-
fested intense feeling, and were aided with much
spirit by the Democrats of the free States. But
resistance was useless; the bill passed the Senate
12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
by a vote of 29 to 14, and the House by 92 to 38o
On April 16 the President signed it, and returned
it with a message, in which he said: "If there be
matters within and about this Act which might
have taken a course or shape more satisfactoiy to
my judgment, I do not attempt to specify them.
I am gratified that the two principles of compen-
sation and colonization are both recognized and
practically applied in the Act." It was one of the
coincidences of history that by his signature he
now made law that proposition which, as a member
of the House of Representatives in 1849, he had
embodied in a bill which then hardly excited pass-
ing notice as it went on its quick way to oblivion.
The confused condition concerning the harbor-
ing and rendition of fugitive slaves by military 1
commanders, already mentioned, was also promptly
taken in hand. Various bills and amendments
offered in the Senate and in the House were sub-
stantially identical in the main purpose of making
the recovery of a slave from within the Union lines,
practically little better than impossible. The shape
which the measure ultimately took was the enact-
ment of an additional article of war, whereby all
officers in the military service of the United States
were "prohibited from using any portion of the
forces under their respective commands for the
purpose of returning fugitives from service or
labor; " any officer who should violate the article
was to be dismissed from the service. Again the
men from the Border States, rallying their few
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 13
Democratic allies from the North to their assist*
ance, made vehement opposition, and again they
were overwhelmed beneath an irresistible majority:
83 to 42 in the House, 29 to 9 in the Senate.
The President signed the bill on March 13, 1862,
and thereafter "nigger hunting" was a dangerous
sport in the Union camps.
On March 24, Mr. Arnold, 1 of Illinois, intro-
duced a bill ambitiously purporting "to render
freedom national and slavery sectional." It pro-
hibited slavery wherever Congress could do so,
that is to say, in all Territories, present and fu-
ture, in all forts, arsenals, dockyards, etc., in all
vessels on the high seas and on all national high-
ways beyond the territory and jurisdiction of the
several States. Both by its title and by its sub-
stance it went to the uttermost edge of the Consti-
tution and, in the matter of Territories, perhaps
beyond that edge. Mr. Arnold himself supported
it with the bold avowal that slavery was in deadly
hostility to the national government, and there-
fore must be destroyed. Upon a measure so sig-
nificant, and so defended, debate waxed hot, so
that one gentleman proposed that the bill should
be sent back to the Committee with instructions
not to report it back "until the cold weather."
The irritation and alarm of the Border States
rendered modification necessary unless tact and
caution were to be wholly thrown to the winds.
1 Lincoln's intimate personal and political friend, and after*
ward his biographer.
14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Ultimately, therefore, the offensive title was ex-
changed for the simple one of "An Act to secure
freedom to all persons within the Territories of the
United States," and the bill, curtailed to accord
with this expression, became law by approval of
the President on June 19.
A measure likely in its operation to affect a
much greater number of persons than any other of
those laws which have been mentioned, was intro-
duced by Senator Trumbull of Illinois. This was
"for the confiscation of the property of rebels, and
giving freedom to the persons they hold in slavery."
It made the slaves of all who had taken up arms
against the United States "forever thereafter free."
It came up for debate on February 25, and its
mover defended it as "destroying to a great extent
the source and origin of the rebellion, and the only
thing which had ever seriously threatened the peace
of the Union." The men of the Border States, ap-
palled at so general a manumission, declared that
it would produce intolerable conditions in their
States, leading either to reenslavement or extermi-
nation. So strenuous an anti-slavery man as Sen-
ator Hale also suggested that the measure was
unconstitutional. Similar discussion upon similar
propositions went forward contemporaneously in
the House. For once, in both bodies, the Demo-
crats won in many skirmishes. Ultimately, as the
outcome of many amendments, substitutes, recom-
mitments, and conferences, a bill was patched up,
which passed by 27 to 12 in the Senate and 82 to
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 15
42 in the House, and was approved by the Presi-
dent July 17. It was a very comprehensive mea-
sure ; so much so, that Mr. Blaine has said of it :
44 Even if the war had ended without a formal and
effective system of emancipation, it is believed that
this statute would have so operated as to render
the slave system practically valueless."
The possibility of enlisting negroes as soldiers
received early consideration. Black troops had
fought in the Revolution; why, then, should not
black men now fight in a war of which they them-
selves were the ultimate provocation? The idea
pleased the utilitarian side of the Northern mind
and shocked no Northern prejudice. In fact, as
early as the spring of 1862 General Hunter, in
the Department of the South, organized a negro
regiment. In July, 1862, pending consideration
of a bill concerning calling forth the militia, re-
ported by the Senate Committee on Military Af-
fairs, amendments were moved declaring that
"there should be no exemption from military ser-
vice on account of color," permitting the enlistment
of "persons of African descent," and making "for-
ever thereafter free" each person so enlisted, his
mother, his wife and his children. No other
measure so aroused the indignation of the border-
state men. Loyalty to the Union could not change
their opinion of the negro. To put arms into the
hands of slaves, or ex-slaves, was a terrible propo-
sition to men who had too often vividly conceived
the dread picture of slave insurrection. To set
16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
black men about the business of killing white men,
to engage the inferior race to destroy the superior
race, seemed a blasphemy against Nature. A few
also of the Northerners warmly sympathized with
this feeling. Black men shooting down white men
was a spectacle which some who were friends of
the black men could not contemplate without a
certain shudder. Also many persons believed that
the white soldiers of the North would feel de-
graded by having regiments of ex-slaves placed
beside them in camp and in battle. Doubts were
expressed as to whether negroes would fight,
whether they would not be a useless charge, and
even a source of peril to those who should depend
upon them. Language could go no further in
vehemence of protest and denunciation than the
words of some of the slave-state men in the House
and Senate, Besides this, Grarrett Davis, of Ken-
tucky, made a very effective argument, when he
said: "There is not a rebel in all Secessia whose
heart will not leap when he hears that the Senate
of the United States is originating such a policy.
It will strengthen his hopes of success by an ulti-
mate union of all the slave States to fight such a
policy to the death." It was, however, entirely
evident that, in the present temper of that part of
the country which was represented in Congress,
there was not much use in opposing any anti-slavery
measure by any kind of argument whatever; even
though the special proposition might be distasteful
to many Republicans, yet at last, when pressed to
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 17
issue, they all faithfully voted Yea. In this
case the measure, finally so far modified as to re-
late only to slaves of rebel owners, was passed and
was signed by the President on July 17. Never-
theless, although it thus became law, the certainty
that, by taking action under it, he would alienate
great numbers of loyalists in the Border States
induced him to go very slowly. At first actual
authority to enlist negroes was only extorted from
the administration with much effort. On Au-
gust 25 obstinate importunity elicited an order
permitting General Saxton, at Hilton Head, to
raise 5000 black troops; but this was somewhat
strangely accompanied, according to Mr. Wil-
son, with the suggestive remark, that it "must
never see daylight, because it was so much in ad-
vance of public sentiment." After the process
had been on trial for a year, however, Mr. Lincoln
said that there was apparent "no loss by it in our
foreign relations, none in our home popular senti-
ment, none in our white military force, no loss
by it anyhow or anywhere." On the other hand,
it had brought a reinforcement of 130,000 soldiers,
seamen, and laborers. "And now," he said, "let
any Union man who complains of this measure,
test himself by writing down in one line that he is
for subduing the rebellion by force of arms, and
in the next that he is for taking these 130,000 men,
from the Union side, and placing them where they
would be best for the measure he condemns." Yet
so ineradicable was the race prejudice that it was
18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 .
not until the spring of 1864, after all efforts for
action by Congress had failed, that the Attorney-
General declared black soldiers to be entitled to
the same pay as white soldiers. Kegarding a sol-
dier merely as a marketable commodity, doubtless
the white was worth more money; yet life was
about the same to each, and it was hard to see why
one should be expected to sell his life for fewer
dollars than satisfied the other.
Besides these measures Congress gave evidence
of its sentiments by passing an act for appointing
diplomatic representatives to Hayti and Liberia;
also further evidence by passing certain legislation
against the slave trade.
The recital of all these doings of the legislat-
ors sufficiently indicates the hostility of Congress
towards slavery. In fact, a large majority both
in the Senate and in the House had moved out
against it upon nearly every practicable line to the
extremity of the constitutional tether. Neither
arguments, nor the entreaties of the border-state
men, nor any considerations of policy had exer-
cised the slightest restraining influence. It is
observable that this legislation did not embody
that policy which Mr. Lincoln had suggested, and
to which he had become strongly attached. On
the contrary, Congress had done everything to
irritate, where the President wished to do every-
thing to conciliate; Congress made that compulsory
which the President hoped to make voluntary.
Mr* Lincoln remained in 1862, as he had been in
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 19
1858, tolerant towards the Southern men who by
inheritance, tradition, and the necessity of the sit*
nation, constituted a slave-holding community. To
treat slave-ownership as a crime, punishable by
confiscation and ruin, seemed to him unreasonable
and merciless. Neither does he seem ever to have
accepted the opinion of many Abolitionists, that
the negro was the equal of the white man in nat-
ural endowment. There is no reason to suppose
that he did not still hold, as he had done in the
days of the Douglas debates, that it was undesir-
able, if not impossible, that the two races should
endeavor to abide together in freedom as a unified
community. In the inevitable hostility and com-
petition he clearly saw that the black man was
likely to fare badly. It was by such feelings that
he was led straight to the plan of compensation of
owners and colonization of freedmen, and to the
hope that a system of gradual emancipation, em*
bodying these principles, might be voluntarily un-
dertaken by the Border States under the present
stress. If the executive and the legislative depart-
ments should combine upon the policy of encourag-
ing and aiding such steps as any Border State
could be induced to take in this direction, the
President believed that he could much more easily
extend loyalty and allegiance among the people of
those States, a matter which he valued far more
highly than other persons were inclined to do.
Such were his views and such his wishes. To dis-
cuss their practicability and soundness would only
20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN-.
be to wander in the unprofitable vagueness of hypo-
thesis, for in spite of all his efforts they were never
tested by trial. It must be admitted that general
opinion, both at that day and ever since, lias re-
garded them as visionary; compensation seemed
too costly, colonization probably was really impos-
sible.
After the President had suggested his views in
his message he waited patiently to see what action
Congress would take concerning them. Three
months elapsed and Congress took no such action.
On the contrary, Congress practically repudiated
them. Not only this, it was industriously putting
into the shape of laws many other ideas, which
were likely to prove so many embarrassments and
obstructions to that policy which the President had
very thoughtfully and with deep conviction marked
out for himself. He determined, therefore, to
present it once more, before it should be rendered
forever hopeless. On March 6, 1862, he sent to
Congress a special message, recommending the
adoption of a joint resolution: "That the United
States ought to cooperate with any State which
may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving
to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such
State in its discretion, to compensate for the incon-
venience, both public and private, produced by
such change of system." The first paragraph in
the message stated briefly the inducements to the
North: "The Federal government would find its
highest interest in such a measure, as one of the
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 21
most efficient means of self - preservation. The
leaders of the existing insurrection entertain the
hope that this government will ultimately be forced
to acknowledge the independence of some part of
the disaffected region, and that all the slave States
north of such part will then say: 6 The Union for
which we have struggled being already gone, we
now choose to go with the Southern section. ' To
deprive them of this hope substantially ends the
rebellion; and the initiation of Emancipation com-
pletely deprives them of it as to all the States in-
itiating it- The point is that ... the more north-
ern [States] shall, by such initiation, make it cer-
tain to the more southern that in no event will the
former ever join the latter in their proposed Con-
federacy. I say 'initiation,' because in my judg-
ment gradual and not sudden emancipation is better
for all. In the mere financial or pecuniary view,
any member of Congress, with the census tables
and Treasury reports before him, can readily see
for himself how very soon the current expenditures
of this war would purchase, at fair valuation, all
the slaves in any named State."
The second paragraph hinted at that which it
would have been poor tact to state plainly, the
reasons which would press the Border States to
accept the opportunity extended to them. "If
resistance continues, the war must also continue;
and it is impossible to foresee all the incidents
which may attend, and all the ruin which may fol-
low it. Such as may seem indispensable, or may
22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN*
obviously promise great efficiency toward ending
the struggle, must and will come. The proposi-
tion now made, though an offer only, I hope it
may be esteemed no offense to ask whether the
pecuniary consideration tendered would not be of
more value to the States and private persons con-
cerned, than are the institution and property in it,
in the present aspect of affairs." The suggestion,
between the lines, to the border slave-owners could
not be misunderstood : that they would do better
to sell their slaves now than to be deprived of
them later.
The President's proposition was not cordially
received. Pro-slavery men regarded it as an uii*
derhand movement against the institution. Mr.
Crittenden expressed confidence in the President
personally, but feared that the resolution "would
stir up an emancipation party " in the loyal slave
States. Thus the truth was made plain that eman-
cipation, by any process, was not desired. In a
debate upon a cognate measure, another Kentuck-
ian said that there was "no division of sentiment
on this question of emancipation, whether it is to
be brought about by force, by fraud, or by pur-
chase of slaves out of the public treasury." Dem-
ocrats from Northern States, natural allies of the
border-state men, protested vehemently against
taxing their constituents to buy slave property in
other States. Many Eepublicans also joined tho
Democracy against Mr. Lincoln, and spoke even
with anger and insult. Thaddeus Stevens, the
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 23
fierce and formidable leader of the Kadicals, gave
his voice against "the most diluted milk-and-water
gruel proposition that had ever been given to the
American nation." Hickman of Pennsylvania,
until 1860 a Democrat, but now a Republican,
with the characteristic vehemence of a proselyte
said: "Neither the message nor the resolution is
manly and open. They are both covert and insid-
ious. They do not become the dignity of the
President of the United States. The message is
not such a document as a full-grown, independent
man should publish to the nation at such a time
as the present, when positions should be freely and
fully defined." In the Senate Mr. Powell, of Ken-
tucky, translated the second paragraph into blunt
words. He said that it held a threat of ultimate
coercion, if the cooperative plan should fail; and he
regarded "the whole thing" as "a pill of arsenic,
sugar-coated."
But, though so many insisted upon uttering their
fleers in debate, yet, when it came to voting, they
could not well discredit their President by voting
down the resolution on the sole ground that it was
foolish and ineffectual. So, after it had been
abused sufficiently, it was passed by about the
usual party majority: 89 to 34, in the House; 32
to 10 in the Senate. Thus Congress somewhat
sneeringly handed back to the President his bant-
ling, with free leave to do what he could with it.
Not discouraged by such grudging and unsym-
pathetic permission, Mr. Lincoln at once set about
24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
his experiment. He told Lovejoy and Arnold,
strenuous Abolitionists but none the less his near
friends, that they would live to see the end of slav-
ery, if only the Border States would cooperate in
his project. On March 10, 1862, he gathered
some of the border-state members and tried to win
them over to his views. They listened coldly; but
he was not dismayed by their demeanor, and on
July 12 he again convened them, and this time
laid before them a written statement. This paper
betrays by its earnestness of argument and its
almost beseeching tone that he wrote it from his
heart. The reasons which he urged were as fol-
lows:
"Believing that you of the Border States hold
more power for good than any other equal number
of members, I felt it a duty which I cannot justi-
fiably waive to make this appeal to you.
"I intend no reproach or complaint when I as-
sure you that, in my opinion, if you all had voted
for the resolution in the gradual emancipation
message of last March, the war would now be sub-
stantially ended.
"And the plan therein proposed is yet one of
the most potent and swift means of ending it.
Let the States which are in rebellion see definitely
and certainly that in no event will the States you
represent ever join their proposed Confederacy,
and they cannot much longer maintain the contest.
But you cannot divest them of their hope to ulti-
mately have you with them as long as you show a
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 25
determination to perpetuate the institution within
your own States; beat them at election as you have
overwhelmingly done, and, nothing daunted, they
still claim you as their own. You and I know
what the lever of their power is. Break that lever
before their faces, and they can shake you no more
forever. Most of you have treated me with kind-
ness and consideration; and I trust you will not
now think I improperly touch what is exclusively
your own, when, for the sake of the whole country,
I ask: can you, for your States, do better than to
take the course I urge? Discarding punctilio and
maxims adapted to more manageable times, and
looking only to the unprecedentedly stern facts of
our case, can you do better in any possible event?
You prefer that the constitutional relation of the
States to the nation shall be practically restored
without disturbance of the institution ; and if this
were done, my whole duty in this respect under
the Constitution and my oath of office would be
performed. But it is not done, and we are trying
to accomplish it by war.
"The incidents of the war cannot be avoided.
If the war continues long, as it must if the object
be not sooner attained, the institution in your
States will be extinguished by mere friction and
abrasion, by the mere incidents of the war. It
will be gone, and you will have nothing valuable
in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone already.
How much better for you and your people to take
the step which at once shortens the war, and se-
26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
cures substantial compensation for that which is
sure to be wholly lost in any other event. Hov
much better to thus save the money which else wu
sink forever in the war* How much better to do
it while we can, lest the war erelong render us
pecuniarily unable to do it. How much better
for you, as seller, and the nation, as buyer, to sell
out and buy out that without which the war never
could have been, than to sink both the thing to be
sold and the price of it in cutting one another's
throats. I do not speak of emancipation at once,
but of a decision at once to emancipate gradually."
He closed with an ardent appeal to his hearers,
as " patriots and statesmen," to consider his pro-
position, invoking them thereto as they "would
perpetuate popular government for the best people
in the world."
Thirty gentlemen listened to this paper and
took two days to consider it. Then twenty of
them signed a response which was, in substance,
their repudiation of the President's scheme. They
told him that hitherto they had been loyal "under
the most discouraging circumstances and in face
of measures most distasteful to them and injurious
to the interests they represented, and in the hear-
ing of doctrines, avowed by those who claimed to
be his friends, most abhorrent to themselves and
their constituents." They objected that the mea-
sure involved "interference with what exclusively
belonged to the States;" that perhaps it was un-
constitutional; that it would involve an "immense
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 27
outlay," beyond what the finances could bearj
that it was "the annunciation of a sentiment *
rather than a "tangible proposition; " they added
that the sole purpose of the war must be "restor-
ing the Constitution to its legitimate authority."
Seven others of the President's auditors said
politely but very vaguely that they would "ask
the people of the Border States calmly, deliber-
ately, and fairly to consider his recommendations."
Maynard, of the House, and Henderson, of the
Senate, alone expressed their personal approval.
Even this did not drive all hope out of Mr. Lin-
coln's heart. His proclamation, rescinding that
order of General Hunter which purported to free
slaves in certain States, was issued on May 19.
In it he said that the resolution, which had been
passed at his request, "now stands an authentic,
definite, and solemn proposal of the nation to the
States and people most interested in the subject
matter. To the people of these States I now ear-
nestly appeal. I do not argue ; I beseech you to
make the arguments for yourselves. You cannot,
if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I
beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of
them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal
and partisan politics. This proposal makes com-
mon cause for a common object, casting no re-
proaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The
change it contemplates would come gently as the
dews from Heaven, not rending or wrecking any-
thing. Will you not embrace it ? So much good
28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
has not been done by one effort in all past time,
as in the providence of God it is now your high
privilege to do. May the vast future not have to
lament that you have neglected it! "
This eloquent and beautiful appeal sounds deeply
moving in the ears of those who read it in these
days, so remote from the passions and prejudices of
a generation ago; but it stirred little responsive
feeling and no responsive action in 1862. In fact,
the scheme was not practicable.
It may be it probably must be believed that
compensated emancipation and colonization could
never have been carried out even if Northern Re*
publicans had been willing to pay the price and
Southern slave-owners had been willing to accept
it, and if both had then cordially united in the
task of deporting the troublesome negro from the
country. The vast project was undoubtedly vis-
ionary; it was to be criticised, weighed, and con-
sidered largely as a business enterprise, and as
such it must be condemned. But Mr. Lincoln,
who had no capacity for business, was never able
to get at this point of view, and regarded his fa-
vorite plan strictly in political and humanitarian
lights. Yet even thus the general opinion has
been that the unfortunate negroes, finding them-
selves amid the hard facts which must inevitably
have attended colonization, would have heartily re-
gretted the lost condition of servitude. Histori-
cally the merits of the experiment, which the South-
ern Unionists declined to have put to the test of
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS. 29
trial, are of no consequence; it is only as the
scheme throws light upon the magnanimity of Mr.
Lincoln's temperament and upon certain limita-
tions of his intellect, that the subject is interest-
ing. That he should rid himself of personal vin-
dictiveness and should cherish an honest and intense
desire to see the question, which had severed the
country, disposed of by a process which would
make possible a sincere and cordial reunion, may
be only moderately surprising; but it is most sur-
prising to note the depth and earnestness of his
faith that this condition could really be reached,
and that it could be reached by the road which he
had marked out. This confidence indicated an
opinion of human nature much higher than human
nature has yet appeared entitled to. It also an-
ticipated on the part of the Southerners an appre-
ciation of the facts of the case which few among
them were sufficiently clear-minded to furnish. It
is curious to observe that Lincoln saw the present
situation and foresaw the coming situation with
perfect clearness, at the same time that he was
entirely unable to see the uselessness of his pan-
acea; whereas, on the other hand, those who re-
jected his impracticable plan remained entirely
blind to those things which he saw. It seems an.
odd combination of traits that he always recog-
nized and accepted a fact, and yet was capable of
being wholly impractical.
In connection with these efforts in behalf of the
slave-holders, which show at least a singular good*
SO ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ness of heart towards persons who had done every-
thing to excite even a sense of personal hatred, it
may not be seriously out of place to quote a para-
graph which does not, indeed, bear upon slavery,
but which does illustrate the remarkable temper
which Mr. Lincoln maintained towards the seced-
ing communities. In December, 1861, in his
annual Message to this Congress, whose searching
anti-slavery measures have just been discussed, he
said:
"There are three vacancies on the bench of the
Supreme Court. ... I have so far foreborne
making nominations to fill these vacancies for rea-
sons which I will now state. Two of the outgoing
judges resided within the States now overrun by
revolt; so that if successors were appointed in the
same localities, they could not now serve upon
their circuits; and many of the most competent
men there probably would not take the personal
hazard of accepting to serve, even here, upon the
Supreme Bench. I have been unwilling to throw
all the appointments Northward, thus disabling
myself from doing justice to the South on the re-
turn of peace; although I may remark that to
transfer to the North one which has heretofore
been in the South would not, with reference to
territory and population, be unjust." 1 To com-
ment upon behavior and motives so extraordinary
is, perhaps, as needless as it is tempting.
1 Annual Message to Congress, December, 1861*
CHAPTER II.
THE SECOND ACT OF THE MOCLELLAN DBAMA.
IT is time now to return to the theatre of war
in Virginia, where, it will be remembered, we left
the Confederate forces in the act of rapidly with-
drawing southward from the line of intrenchments
which they had so long held at Manassas. This
unexpected backward movement upon their part
deprived the Urbana route, which McClellan had
hitherto so strenuously advocated, of its chief
strategic advantages, and therefore reopened the
old question which had been discussed between him
and Mr. Lincoln. To the civilian mind a move-
ment after the retreating enemy along the direct
line to Richmond, now more than ever before,
seemed the natural scheme. But to this McClel-
lan still remained unalterably opposed. In the
letter of February 3 he had said: "The worst com-
ing to the worst, we can take Fort Monroe as a
base and operate with complete security, although
with less celerity and brilliancy of results, up the
Peninsula." This route, low as he had then
placed it in order of desirability, he now adopted
as the best resource, or rather as the only measure;
and his judgment was ratified upon March 13 bjr
32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
unanimous approval on the part of his four corps
commanders. They however made their approval
dependent upon conditions, among which were:
that, before beginning the advance along this line,
the new rebel ram Merrimac (or Virginia), just
finished at Norfolk on the James River, should be
neutralized, and that a naval auxiliary force should
silence, or be ready to aid in silencing, the rebel
batteries on the York River. In fact and very
unfortunately the former of these conditions was
not fulfilled until the time of its usefulness for
this specific purpose was over, and the latter con-
dition was entirely neglected. It was also dis-
tinctly stipulated that "the force to be left to cover
Washington shall be such as to give an entire feel-
ing of security for its safety from menace." Keyes,
Heintzelman and McDowell conceived "that, with
the forts on the right bank of the Potomac fully
garrisoned, and those on the left bank occupied, a
covering force, in front of the Virginia line, of
25,000 men would suffice." Sunnier said: "A
total of 40,000 for the defense of the city would
suffice." l On the same day Stanton informed
McClellan that the President "made no objection "
to this plan, but directed that a sufficient force
should be left to hold Manassas Junction and to
make Washington "entirely secure." The closing
1 This language was too vague to make known to us now what
Stunner's demand was ; for one of the questions bitterly in dispute
soon became : what f oroes were properly to be regarded as avail'
able " for the defense of the city."
SECOND ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 33
sentence was: "At all events, move ... at once
in pursuit of the enemy by some route." Thus at
last two important facts were established: that
the route up the Peninsula should be tried; and
that the patience of the administration was ex-
hausted.
Though the enemy upon his retreat was burning
bridges and destroying railroads behind him, and
making his possible return towards Washington a
slow, difficult process, which he obviously had no
mind to undertake, still this security of the capital
rested as weightily as ever upon Lincoln's mind.
His reiteration and insistence concerning it made
perfectly plain that he was still nervous and dis-
quieted about it, though now certainly with much
less reason than heretofore. But with or against
reason it was easy to see that he was far from rest-
ing in the tranquillity of conviction that Washing-
ton could never be so safe as when the army of
Virginia was far away upon the Peninsula. Nev-
ertheless, after the condition in its foregoing shape
had been so strenuously imposed by Mr. Lincoln
and tacitly accepted by McClellan, the matter was
left as if definitely settled; and the President
never demanded 1 from the general any distinct
statement concerning the numerical or specific al-
1 McClellan says that he offered to General Hitchcock, " who
at that time held staff relations with his Excellency, the Presi-
dent, and the Secretary of War," to submit a list of troops, to be
left for the defense of Washington, with their positions; but
Hitchcock replied that HcClellan's judgment was sufficient in the
matter. McClellan's Report, 683.
34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
lotment of the available forces between the two
purposes. The neglect was disastrous in its conse-
quences; and must also be pronounced both blame-
worthy and inexplicable, for the necessity of a
plain understanding on the subject was obvious.
The facts seem to be briefly these: in his let-
ter of February 3, McClellan estimated the force
necessary to be taken with him for his campaign
at 110,000 to 140,000 men, and said: "I hope to
use the latter number by bringing fresh troops into
Washington." On April 1 he reported 1 the forces
left behind him as follows:
At Warrenton, there is to be . . . 7,780 men
At Manassas, there is to be . . . 10,859 "
In the Valley of the Shenandoah . . 35,467 "
On the Lower Potomac . . . 1,350
In all 55,456 "
He adds: "There will thus be left for the garri-
sons, and the front of Washington, under General
"Wadsworth, 18 3 000 men, exclusive of the batter-
ies under instruction." New levies, nearly 4000
strong, were also expected. He considered all
these men as properly available "for the defense
ef the national capital and its approaches." The
President, the politicians and some military men
were of opinion that only the 18,000 ought to be
1 By letter to the Adjutant-General, wherein he requested the
transmission of the information to the Secretary of War. Report
ofComm. on Conduct of the War, II. Pt. I., 13. The addition i
tiie Report is erroneous, being given as 54,456 instead of 55,456-
SECOND ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 35
considered available for the capital. It was a
question whether it was proper to count the corps
of Banks in the Shenandoah Valley. McClellan's
theory was that the rebels, by the circumstances
attendant upon their present retreating movement,
had conclusively annulled any chance of their own
return by way of Manassas. Banks greatly out-
numbered Stonewall Jackson, who had only about
15,000 men, or less, in the Shenandoah Valley.
Also Washington was now entirely surrounded by
satisfactory fortifications. McClellan, therefore,
was entirely confident that he left everything in
good shape behind him. In fact, it was put into
even better shape than he had designed; for on
March 31 the President took from him Blenker's
division of 10,000 men in order to strengthen Fre-
mont, who was in the mountain region westward
of the Shenandoah Valley. "I did so," wrote Mr.
Lincoln, "with great pain. ... If you could
know the full pressure of the case, I am confident
that you would justify it." It was unfortunate
that the President could not stand against this
"pressure," which was not military but political.
Fremont could do, and did, nothing at all, and
to reinforce him was sheer absurdity. 1 Against
it McClellan protested almost indignantly, but
was "partially relieved by the President's posi-
tive and emphatic assurance " that no more troops
"should in any event be taken from" him, or "in
any way detached from [his] command."
1 See Comte de Paris, Civil War in America, i. 626, 627.
36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Orders had been issued on February 27, to Mr.
Tucker, Assistant Secretary of War, to prepare
means of transporting down the Potomac, troops,
munitions, artillery, horses, wagons, food, and all
the vast paraphernalia of a large army. He
showed a masterly vigor in this difficult task, and
by March 17 the embarkation began. On April 2
McClellan arrived at Fortress Monroe. On the
very next day he was disturbed by the revocation
of the orders which had left him in command of
that place and had allowed him to "draw from the
troops under General Wool a division of about
10,000 men, which was to be assigned to the First
Corps." Another and a serious disappointment
also occurred at once; he found that the navy
could not be utilized for assisting in an attack on
Yorktown, or for running by it so as to land forces
in rear of it. He must therefore depend wholly
upon his army to force a way up the Peninsula.
This he had stated to be an unsatisfactory alterna-
tive, because it involved delay at Yorktown. Nev-
ertheless, having no choice, he began his advance
on April 4. He had with him only 58,000 men;
but more were on the way, and McDowell's corps
was to be brought forward to join him as rapidly
as transportation would permit. His total nominal
force was smaller than the minimum which, on
February 3, he had named as necessary; yet it was
a fine body of troops, and he had lately said to
them: "The army of the Potomac is now a real
army, magnificent in material, admirable in dis-
SECOND ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 37
eipline, excellently equipped and armed. Your
commanders are all that I could wish,"
In two days lie was before the fortifications
which the rebels had erected at Yorktown, and
which stretched thence across the Peninsula to the
James Kiver. He estimated the force behind
these intrenchments, commanded by General Ma*
Cruder, at 15,000 to 20,000 men, easily to be rein-
forced; in fact, it was much less. Thereupon, he
set about elaborate preparations for a siege of that
city, according to the most thorough and approved
system of military science. He was afterward
severely blamed for not endeavoring to force his
way through some point in the rebel lines by a
series of assaults. 1 This was what Mr. Lincoln
wished him to do, and very nearly ordered him to
do; for on April 6, he sent this telegram: "You
now have over 100,000 troops with you. ... I
think you better break the enemy's line from
Yorktown to Warwick River at once." An en-
try in McClellan's "Own Story," under date of
April 8, comments upon this message and illus-
trates the unfortunate feeling of the writer towards
his official superior: "I have raised an awful row
about McDowell's corps. The President very
coolly telegraphed me yesterday that he thought
I had better break the enemy's lines at once ! I
was much tempted to reply that he had better
come and do it himself." Thus is made evident
the lamentable relationship between the President,
1 See discussion by Swinton, Army of Potomac, 108 et seq.
38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
who could place no confidence in the enterprise
and judgment of the military commander, and the
general, who had only sneers for the President's
incapacity to comprehend warfare. It so hap-
pened, however, that the professional man's sar-
casm was grossly out of place, and the civilian's
proposal was shrewdly right, as events soon plainly
proved. In fact what Mr. Lincoln urged was pre-
cisely what General Johnston anticipated and
feared would be done, because he knew well that
if it were done it would be of fatal effect against
the Confederates. But, on the other hand, even
after the clear proof had gone against him,
McClellan was abundantly supplied with excuses,
and the vexation of the whole affair was made the
greater by the fact that these excuses really seemed
to be good. His excuses always were both so nu-
merous and so satisfactory, that many reasonably -
minded persons knew not whether they had a right
to feel so angry towards him as they certainly could
not help doing. The present instance was directly
in point. General Keyes reported to him that no
part of the enemy's line could "be taken by assault
Without an enormous waste of life;" and General
Barnard, chief engineer of the army, thought it
uncertain whether they could be carried at all.
Loss of life and uncertainty of result were two
things so abhorred by McClellan in warfare, that
he now failed to give due weight to the considera-
tion that the design of the Confederates in inter-
posing an obstacle at this point was solely to delay
SECOND ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 39
him as much as possible, whereas much of the
merit of his own plan of campaign lay in rapid
execution at the outset. The result was, of course,
that he did not break any line, nor try to, but in-
stead thereof "presented plausible reasons," out
of his inexhaustible reservoir of such commo-
dities. It was unfortunate that the naval cooper-
ation, which McClellan had expected, 1 could not
be had at this juncture; for by it the Yorktown
problem would have been easily solved without
either line-breaking or reason-giving.
Precisely at this point came into operation the
fatal effect of the lack of understanding between
the President and the general as to the division of
the forces. In the plan of campaign, it had been
designed to throw the corps of McDowell into the
rear of Yorktown by such route as should seem
expedient at the time of its arrival, probably land-
ing it at Gloucester and moving it round by West
Point. This would have made Magruder's posi-
tion untenable at once, long before the natural
end of the siege. But at the very moment when
McClellan' s left, in its advance, first came into
actual collision with the enemy, he received news
that the President had ordered McDowell to retain
his division before Washington, "the most in-
famous thing that history has recorded," he after-
ward wrote. 2 Yet the explanation of this surpris-
1 Perhaps he was not justified in counting 1 upon it with such
apparent assurance as he had done. Webb, The Peninsula, 37-42.
a General Webb says that this question is " the leading point
40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ing news was so simple that surprise was unjustifi-
able. On April 2, immediately after McClellan's
departure, the President inquired as to what had
been done for the security of Washington. Gen-
eral Wadsworth, commanding the defenses of the
city, gave an alarming response: 19,000 or 20,000
entirely green troops, and a woful insufficiency of
artillery. He said that while it was "very improb-
able " that the enemy would attack Washington,
nevertheless the "numerical strength and the char-
acter" of his forces rendered them "entirely in-
adequate to and unfit for their important duty."
Generals Hitchcock and Thomas corroborated this
by reporting that the order to leave the city "en-
tirely secure" had "not been fully complied with. 5 *
Mr. Lincoln was horror-struck. He had a right
to be indignant, for those who ought to know as-
sured him that his reiterated and most emphatic
command had been disobeyed, and that what he
chiefly cared to make safe had not been made safe.
He promptly determined to retain McDowell, and
the order was issued on April 4. Thereby he seri-
ously attenuated, if he did not quite annihilate,
the prospect of success for McClellan's campaign.
of dispute in the campaign and may never be satisfactorily set at
rest" But he also says: "To allow the general to remain in
command, and then cut off the very arm with which he was about
to strike, we hold to have been inexcusable and unmilitary to
the last degree." Swinton condemns the withholding McDowell
(Army of the Potomac, 104), adding, with fine magnanimity, that
it is not necessary to impute any " really unworthy motive " te
Mr, Lincoln I
SECOND ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 41
It seems incredible and unexplainable that amid
this condition of things, on April 3, an order was
issued from the office of the Secretary of War, to
stop recruiting throughout the country !
This series of diminutions, says McClellan, had
"removed nearly 60,000 men from my command,
and reduced my force by more than one third. . . .
The blow was most discouraging. It frustrated
all my plans for impending operations. It fell
when I was too deeply committed to withdraw. . * .
It was a fatal error."
Error or not, it was precisely what McClellan
ought to have foreseen as likely to occur. He
had not foreseen it, however, and nothing miti-
gated the disappointment. Unquestionably the
act was of supreme gravity. Was Mr. Lincoln
right or wrong in doing it? The question has
been answered many times both Yea and Nay, and
each side has been maintained with intense acri-
mony and perfect good faith. It is not likely that
it will ever be possible to say either that the Yeas
have it, or that the Nays have it. 1 For while it is
1 It seems to me that military opinion, so far as I can get at it,
inclines to hold that the government, having let McClellan go to
the Peninsula with the expectation of McDowell's corps, ought
to have sent it to him, and not to have repaired its own oversight
at his cost. But this does not fully meet the position that, over-
sight or no oversight, Peninsula-success or Peninsula-defeat, blame
here or blame there, when the President had reason to doubt the
safety of the capital, he was resolved, and rightly resolved, to
put that safety beyond possibility of question, by any means or at
any cost. The truth, is that to the end of time one man -will think
one wayj and another Tnan will *hinTr another way, concerning this
unendable dispute.
42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN*.
certain that what actually did happen coincided
very accurately with McClellan's expectations; ou
the other hand, it can never be known what might
haw happened if Lincoln had not held McDowell,
and if, therefore, facts had not been what they
were.
So far as Mr. Lincoln is concerned, the question,
what military judgment was correct, that is,
whether the capital really was, or was not, abso-
lutely secure, is of secondary consequence. The
valuation which he set on that safety was undeni-
ably correct; it certainly was of more importance
than McClellan's success* If he had made a mis-
take in letting McClellan go without a more dis-
tinct understanding, at least that mistake was be-
hind him. Before him was the issue whether he
should rest satisfied with the deliberate judgment
given by McClellan, or whether, at considerable
cost to the cause, he should make the assurance
greater out of deference to other advice. He
chose the latter course. In so doing, if he was
not vacillating, he was at least incurring the evils
of vacillation. It would have been well if he
could have found some quarter in which perma-
nently to repose his implicit faith, so that one con-
sistent plan could have been carried out without
interference. Either he had placed too much con-
fidence in McClellan in the past, or he was placing
too little in him now. . If he could not accept Mc-
Clellan's opinion as to the safety of Washington,
in preference to that of Wadsworth, Thomas and
SECOND ACT OF THE M^CLELLAN DRAMA. 43
Hitchcock, then he should have removed McClel-
lan, and replaced him with some one in whom he
had sufficient confidence to make smooth coopera-
tion a possibility. The present condition of things
was illogical and dangerous. Matters had been
allowed to reach a very advanced stage upon the
theory that McClellan's judgment was trustwor-
thy; then suddenly the stress became more severe,
and it seemed that in the bottom of his mind the
President did not thus implicitly respect the gen-
eral's wisdom. Yet he did not displace him, but
only opened his ears to other counsels; whereupon
the buzz of contradictory, excited and alarming
suggestions which came to him were more than
enough to unsettle any human judgment. General
Webb speaks well and with authority to this mat-
ter: "The dilemma lay here, whose plans and
advice should he follow, where it was necessary
for him to approve and decide? . . . Should he
lean implicitly on the general actually in com-
mand of the armies, placed there by virtue of his
presumed fitness for the position, or upon other
selected advisers? We are bold to say that it was
doubt and hesitation upon this point that occa-
sioned many of the blunders of the campaign. In-
stead of one mind, there were many minds influ-
encing the management of military affairs." A
familiar culinary proverb was receiving costly
illustration.
But, setting the dispute aside, an important fact
remains: shorn as he was, McClellan was still
44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
strong enough to meet and to defeat his opponentsr
If he had been one of the great generals of the
world he would have been in Richmond before
May-day; but he was at his old trick of exagger-
ating the hostile forces and the difficulties in his
way. On April 7 he thought that Johnston and
the whole Confederate army were at Yorktown;
whereas Johnston's advance division arrived there
on the 10th; the other divisions came several days
later, and Johnston himself arrived only on the
14th.
On April 9, Mr. Lincoln presented his own
view of the situation in this letter to the Gen-
eral:
"Your dispatches complaining that you are not
properly sustained, while they do not offend me,
do pain me very much.
.
"After you left I ascertained that less than
20,000 unorganized men, without a single field
battery, were all you designed to be left for the
defense of Washington and Manassas Junction,
and part of this even was to go to General Hook-
er's old position. General Banks's corps, once de-
signed for Manassas Junction, was diverted and
tied up on the line of Winchester and Strasburg,
and could not leave it without again exposing the
upper Potomac and the Baltimore and Ohio rail-
road. This presented, or would present, when
McDowell and Sumner should be gone, a great
temptation to the enemy to turn back from the
SECOND ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 45
Rappahannock and sack Washington. My im-
plicit order that Washington should, by the judg-
ment of all the commanders of army corps, be left
entirely secure, had been neglected. It was pre-
cisely this that drove me to detain McDowell.
"I do not forget that I was satisfied with your
arrangement to leave Banks at Manassas Jiinction;
but when that arrangement was broken up, and
nothing was substituted for it, of course I was con-
strained to substitute something for it myself.
And allow me to ask, do you really think I should
permit the line from Richmond, via Manassas
Junction, to this city, to be entirely open, except
what resistance could be presented by less than
20,000 unorganized troops? This is a question
which the country will not allow me to evade.
"There is a curious mystery about the number
of troops now with you. When I telegraphed you
on the 6th, saying you had over a hundred thou-
sand with you, I had just obtained from the Secre-
tary of War a statement taken, as he said, from
your own returns, making 108,000 then with you
and en route to you. You now say you will have
but 85,000 when all en route to you shall have
reached you. How can the discrepancy of 23,000
be accounted for?
"As to General Wool's command, 1 1 understand
1 General Wool was in command at Fortress Monroe. It had
been originally arranged that General McClellan should draw
10,000 men from him. But this was afterward countermanded*
The paragraph in the President's letter has reference to this.
46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
it is doing for you precisely what a like number of
your own would have to do if that command was
away.
"I suppose the whole force which has gone for-
ward for you is with you by this time. And if
so, I think it is the precise time for you to strike
a blow. By delay the enemy will relatively gain
upon you, that is, he will gain faster by fortifi-
cations and reinforcements than you can by rein-
forcements alone. And once more let me tell you,
it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow,
I am powerless to help this. You will do me the
justice to remember I always insisted that going
down the bay in search of a field, instead of fight-
ing at or near Manassas, was only shifting, and
not surmounting, a difficulty; that we would find
the same enemy, and the same or equal intrench -
ments, at either place. The country will not fail
to note, is now noting, that the present hesitation
to move upon an intrenched enemy is but the
story of Manassas repeated.
"I beg to assure you that I have never written
you or spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling
than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you,
so far as, in my most anxious judgment, I consis-
tently can. But you must act."
McClellan, in consternation and almost despair
at the repeated pruning of his force, now begged
for at least a part of McDowell's corps, which, he
said on April 10, was "indispensable;" "the fate
of our cause depends upon it." Accordingly
SECOND ACT OF THE M^CLELLAN DRAMA. 47
Franklin's division was sent to him; and then,
after all this palaver, he kept it a fortnight on
shipboard, until Yorktown was evacuated!
On May 1 the President, tortured by the polit-
ical gadflies in Washington, and suffering painfully
from the weariness of hope so long deferred, tele-
graphed: "Is anything to be done?" A pitiful
time of it Mr. Lincoln was having, and it called for
a patient fortitude surpassing imagination. Yet
one little bit of fruit was at this moment ripe for
the plucking ! After about four weeks of wearisome
labor the general had brought matters to that con-
dition which was so grateful to his cautious soul.
At the beginning of May he had reduced success
to a certainty, so that he expected to open fire on
May 5, and to make short work of the rebel strong-
hold. But it so happened that another soldier
also had at the same time finished his task. Gen-
eral Magruder had delayed the Union army to the
latest possible hour, he had saved a whole valuable
month; and now, quite cheerfully and trium-
phantly, in the night betwixt May 3 and May 4,
he quietly slipped away. As it had happened at
Manassas, so now again the Federals marched
unopposed into deserted intrenchments ; and a sec-
ond time the enemy had so managed it that their
retreat seemed rather to cast a slur upon Union
strategy than to bring prestige to the Union arms.
McClellan at once continued his advance, with
more or less fighting, the rebels steadily drawing
back without offering battle on a large scale,
48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN:
though there was a sharp engagement at Williams-
burg, He had not even the smaller number of
men which he had originally named as his require-
ment, and he continued pertinaciously to demand
liberal reinforcements. The President, grievously
harassed by these importunate appeals, declared
to McClellan that he was forwarding every man
that he could, while to friends nearer at hand he
complained that sending troops to McClellan was
like shovelling fleas across a barnyard; most of
them did n't get there ! At last he made up his
mind to send the remainder of McDowell's corps;
not because he had changed his mind about cover-
ing Washington, but because the situation had
become such that he expected to arrange this mat-
ter by other resources.
The fight at Williamsburg took place on May 5.
McClellan pushed after the retiring enemy, too
slowly, as his detractors said, yet by roads which
really were made almost impassable by heavy rains.
Two days later, May 7, Franklin's force disem-
barked and occupied West Point. This advance
up the Peninsula now produced one important
result which had been predicted by McClellan in
his letter of February 3. On May 8 news came
that the Confederates were evacuating Norfolk,
and two days later a Union force marched into the
place. The rebels lost many heavy guns, besides
all the advantages of the navy-yard with its work-
shops and stores; moreover, their awe-inspiring
ram, the Merrimac, alias the Virginia, was obliged
SECOND ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA.* 49
to leave this comfortable nestling-place, whence
she had long watched and closed the entrance to
the James River. Her commander, Tatnall, would
Lave taken her up that stream, but the pilots de*
clared it not possible to float her over the shoals.
She was therefore abandoned and set OH fire; and
early in the morning of May 11 she blew up, leav-
ing the southern water-way to Richmond open to
the Union fleet. 1 It was a point of immense possi-
ble advantage. Later McClellan intimated that,
if he had been left free to act upon his own judg-
ment, he would probably have availed himself of
this route; and some writers, with predilections in
his favor, have assumed that he was prevented from
doing so by certain orders, soon to be mentioned,
which directed, him to keep the northerly route for
the purpose of effecting a junction with McDowell.
But this notion seems incorrect; for though he
doubtless had the James River route under consid-
eration, yet dates are against the theory that he
wished to adopt it when at last it lay open. On
the contrary, he continued his advance precisely as
before. On May 16 his leading columns reached
White House; headquarters were established there,
and steps were immediately taken to utilize it as a
depot and base of supplies. The York River route
was thus made the definitive choice. Also the ad-
vance divisions were immediately pushed out along
the York River and Richmond Railroad, which
1 A Blight obstruction by a battery at Dnrry's Bluff must have
been abandoned instantly upon the approach of a land force.
50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
they repaired as they went. On May 20 Casey's
division actually crossed the Chickahominy at Bot-
tom's Bridge, and the next day a large part of the
army was in position upon the north bank of that
stream. Obviously these operations, each and all,
ruled out the James River route, at least as a part
of the present plan. Yet it was not until they
were well under way, viz., on May 18, that the
intelligence reached McClcllan, on the strength of
which he and others afterward assumed that he had
been deprived of the power to select the James
Eiver route. What this intelligence was and how
it came to pass must now be narrated.
By this time, the advance along the Peninsula
had so completely "relieved the front of Washing-
ton from pressure," that Mr. Lincoln and his ad*
visers, reassured as to the safety of that city, now
saw their way clear to make McDowell's corps,
strengthened to a force of 41,000 men, contribute
actively to McClellan's assistance. They could
not, indeed, bring themselves to move it by water,
as McClellan desired; but the President ordered
McDowell to move down from Fredericksburg,
where he now lay, towards McClellan's right wing,
which McClellan was ordered to extend to the
north of Richmond in order to meet him. But,
in the words of the Comte de Paris, "an absurd
restriction revealed the old mistrusts and fears. 9 '
For McDowell was strictly ordered not to uncover
the capital; also, with a decisive emphasis indica-
tive of an uneasy suspicion, McClellan was for-
SECOND ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 51
bidden to dispose of McDowell's force in contra-
vention of this still primary purpose. "Whether
McDowell was under McClellan 's control, or re-
tained an independent command, was left curiously
vague, until McClellan forced a distinct under-
standing.
Although McClellan, writing to Lincoln, con-
demned rather sharply the method selected for
giving to him the aid so long implored, yet he felt
that, even as it came to him, he could make it
serve his turn. Though he grumbled at the Presi-
dent's unmilitary ways, he afterward admitted that
the "cheering news" made him "confident" of
being "sufficiently strong to overpower the large
army confronting" him. There was no doubt
of it. He immediately extended his right wing;
May 24, he drove the Confederates out of Me-
chanicsville; May 26, General Porter took posi-
tion at Hanover Junction, only fifteen miles from
McDowell's head of column, which had advanced
eight miles out of Fredericksburg. The situation
was not unpromising; but unfortunately that
little interval of fifteen miles was never to be
closed up.
May 24, Mr. Lincoln wrote to McClellan, and
after suggesting sundry advisable movements, he
said: "McDowell and Shields 1 both say they can,
and positively will, move Monday morning. ' * Mon-
day was the 26th. In point of fact, McDowell,
feeling time to be of great value, urged the Presi-
1 Whose command had been added to McDowell's.
62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
dent to let him move on the morning of Sunday,
the 25th; but Mr. Lincoln positively refused; the
battle of Bull Run had been fought on a Sunday,
and he dreaded the omen. 1 This feeling which he
had about days was often illustrated, and probably
the reader has observed that he seemed to like
dates already marked by prestige or good luck;
thus he had convened Congress for July 4, and had
ordered the general advance of the armies for Feb-
ruary 22 ; it was an indication of the curious thread
of superstition which ran through his strange na-
ture, a remnant of his youth and the mysterious
influence of the wilderness. But worse than a
superstitious postponement arrived before nightfall
on Saturday, A dispatch from Lincoln to Mc-
Clellan, dated at four o'clock that afternoon, said:
44 In consequence of General Banks's critical posi-
tion, I have been compelled to suspend General
McDowell's movements to join you. The enemy
are making a desperate push upon Harper's Ferry,
and we are trying to throw General Fremont's
force and part of General McDowell's in their
rear." The brief words conveyed momentous in-
telligence. It is necessary to admit that Mr. Lin-
coln was making his one grand blunder, for which
there is not even the scant salvation of possible
doubt. All that can be said in palliation is, that
1 Col. Franklin Haven, who was on General McDowell's staff
at the time, is my authority for this statement. He well remem-
bers the reason given by Mr. Lincoln, and the extreme annoyance
which the general and his officers felt at the delay.
SECOND ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 53
he was governed, or at least strongly impelled, by
the urgent advice of the Secretary of War, whose
hasty telegrams to the governors of several States
show that he was terror-stricken and had lost his
head. Mr. Elaine truly says that McDowell, thus
suddenly dispatched by Mr. Lincoln upon a "fruit-
less chase," "was doing precisely what the Presi-
dent of the Confederate States would have ordered,
had he been able to issue the orders of the Presi-
dent of the United States." There is no way to
mitigate the painful truth of this statement, made
by a civilian, but amply sustained by the military
authorities on both sides. 1
The condition was this. The retention of Mc-
Dowell's corps before Washington published the
anxiety of the administration. The Confederate
advantage lay in keeping that anxiety alive and
continuing to neutralize that large body of troops.
Strategists far less able than the Southern gener-
als could not have missed so obvious a point,
neither could they have missed the equally obvious
means at their disposal for achieving these pur-
poses. At the upper end of the valley of the
Shenandoah Stonewall Jackson had an army,
raised by recent accretions to nearly or quite
15,000 men. The Northern generals erelong
learned to prognosticate Jackson's movements by
the simple rule that at the time when he was least
1 "The expediency of the junction of this [McD.'s] large corps
-with the principal army was manifest," says Gen. Johnston*
Narr., 131.
54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
expected, and at the place where he was least
wanted, he was sure to turn up. 1 The suddenness
and speed with which he could move a body of
troops seemed marvellous to ordinary men. His
business now was to make a vigorous dashing
foray down the valley. To the westward, Fre-
mont lay in the mountains, with an army which
checked no enemy and for the existence of which
in that place no reasonable explanation could be
given. In front was Banks, with a force lately
reduced to about 5000 men. May 14, Banks
prudently fell back and took position in Stras-
burg. 2 Suddenly, on May 23, Jackson appeared
at Front Royal; on the next day he attacked
Banks at Winchester and, of course, defeated
him; on the 25th Banks made a rapid retreat to
the Potomac, and Jackson made an equally rapid
pursuit to Halltown, within two miles of Harper's
Ferry.
The news of this startling foray threw the civil-
ians of Washington into a genuine panic, by which
Mr. Lincoln was, at least for a few hours, not
1 Jackson used to say: "Mystery, mystery, is the secret of
success*"
2 The Comte de Paris is very severe, even to sarcasm, in his
comments on the President's orders to Banks (Civil War in
America, ii. 35, 36, and see 44) ; and Swinton, referring to the
disposition of the armies, which was well known to have been
made by Mr. Lincoln's personal orders, says : " One hardly wishes
to inquire by whose crude and fatuous inspiration these things
were done." Army of Potomac, 123. Later critics have not re-
peated such strong language, but have not taken different views
of the f acte.
SECOND ACT OF THE M^CLELLAN DRAMA. 5S
altogether unaffected. 1 Yet, though startled and
alarmed, he showed the excellent quality of promp-
titude in decision and action; and truly it was
hard fortune that his decision and his action were
both for the worst. He at once ordered McDow-
ell to move 20,000 troops into the Shenandoah
Valley, and instructed Fremont also to move his
force rapidly into the valley, with the design that
the two should thus catch Jackson in what Mr.
Lincoln described as a "trap." 2 McDowell was
dismayed at such an order. He saw, what every
man having any military knowledge at once recog-
nized with entire certainty, and what every mili-
tary writer has since corroborated, that the move-
ment of Jackson had no value except as a diversion,
that it threatened no serious danger, and that to
call off McDowell's corps from marching to join
McClellan in order to send it against Jackson was
to do exactly that thing which the Confederates
desired to have done, though they could hardly
have been sanguine enough to expect it. It was
swallowing a bait so plain that it might almost be
said to be labelled. For a general to come under
the suspicion of not seeing through such a ruse was
humiliating. In vain McDowell explained, pro-
tested, and entreated with the utmost vehemence
1 Observe the tone of his two dispatches of May 25 to McClellan.
McClellan's Report, 100, 101.
2 The Comte de Paris prefers to call it a "chimerical project."
Civil War in America, ii. 45. Swinton speaks of " the skill of the
Confederates and the folly of those who controlled the operations
of the Union armies." Army of Potomac, 122.
66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
and insistence. When Mr. Lincoln had made up
his mind, no man could change it, and here, as ill
fortune would have it, he had made it up. So,
with a heavy heart, the reluctant McDowell set
forth on his foolish errand, and Fremont likewise
came upon his, though it is true that he was bet-
ter employed thus than in doing nothing, and
Jackson, highly pleased, and calculating his time
to a nicety, on May 31 slipped rapidly between
the two Union generals, the closing jaws of Mr.
Lincoln's "trap," and left them to close upon
nothing. 1 Then he led his pursuers a fruitless
chase towards the head of the valley, continuing to
neutralize a force many times larger than his own,
and which could and ought to have been at this
very time doing fatal work against the Confeder-
acy. Presumably he had saved Eichmond, and
therewith also, not impossibly, the chief army of
the South. The chagrin of the Union command-
ers, who had in vain explained the situation with
entire accuracy, taxes the imagination.
There is no use in denying a truth which can
be proved. The blunder of Mr. Lincoln is not
only undeniable, but it is inexcusable. Possibly
for a few hours he feared that Washington was
threatened. He telegraphed to McClellan May 25,
at two o'clock P. M., that he thought the movement
down the valley a "general and concerted one,"
inconsistent with "the purpose of a very desperate
1 Yet if Fremont had not blundered the result might have been
different. Comte de Paris, Civil War in America, iL 47-
SECOND ACT OF THJS MWLELLAN DRAMA. 57
defense of Kichmond; " and added "1 think the
time is near when you must either attack Rich-
mond, or give up the job and come to the defense
of Washington." How reasonable this view was
at the moment is of little consequence, for within
a few hours afterward the character of Jackson's
enterprise as a mere foray became too palpable to
be mistaken. Nevertheless, after the President
was relieved from such fear for the capital as he
might excusably have felt for a very brief period,
his cool judgment seemed for once in his life, per-
haps for the only time, to be disturbed. The
truth is that Mr. Lincoln was a sure and safe,
almost an infallible thinker, when he had time
given him; but he was not always a quick thinker,
and on this occasion he was driven to think quickly.
In consequence he not only erred in repudiating
the opinions of the best military advisers, but even
upon the basis of his own views he made a mistake.
The very fact that he was so energetic in the en-
deavor to "trap " Jackson in retreat indicates his
understanding of the truth that Jackson had so
small a force that his prompt retreat was a neces-
sity. This being so, he was in the distinct and
simple position of making a choice between two
alternatives, viz. : either to endeavor to catch Jack-
son, and for this object to withhold what was
needed by and had been promised to McClellan
for his campaign against Kichmond; or, leaving
Jackson to escape with impunity, to pursue with
steadiness that plan which it was Jackson's import-
58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ant and perfectly understood errand to interrupt.
It is almost incredible that lie chose wrong. The
statement of the dilemma involved the decision.
Yet he took the little purpose and let the great one
go. Nor even thus did he gain this lesser purpose.
He had been warned by McDowell that Jackson
could not be caught, and he was not. Yet even
had this been otherwise, the Northerners would
have got little more than the shell while losing
the kernel. Probably Richmond and possibly the
Southern army fell out of the President's hand
while he tried without success to close it upon
Jackson and 15,000 men.
The result of this civilian strategy was that Mc-
Clellan, with his projects shattered, was left with
his right wing and rear dangerously exposed.
Jackson remained for a while a mysterious J&te
noire, about whose force, whereabouts, and inten-
tions many disturbing rumors flew abroad; at last,
on June 26, he settled these doubts in his usual
sharp and conclusive way by assailing the exposed
right wing and threatening the rear of the Union
army, thus achieving "the brilliant conclusion of
the operations which [he] had so successfully con-
ducted in the Valley of Virginia."
Simultaneously with the slipping of Jackson be-
twixt his two pursuers on May 31, General Johns-
ton made an attack upon the two corps 1 which
lay south of the Chickahominy, in position about
Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. Battle was waged
1 The Third, under Heintzelnura, and the Fourth, under Zeyesu
SECOND ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 59
during two days. Each side claimed a victory;
the Southerners because they had inflicted the
heavier loss, the Northerners because ultimately
they held their original lines and foiled Johnston's
design of defeating and destroying the Northern
army in detail. The result of this battle ought to
have proved to McClellan two facts; that neither
in discipline nor in any other respect were the
Southern troops more formidable than his own;
also that the Southerners were clearly not able to
overwhelm him with such superior numbers as he
had supposed; for in two days they had not been
able to overwhelm much less than half of his army.
These considerations should have encouraged him
to energetic measures. But no encouragement
could counteract the discouragement inflicted by
the loss of McDowell's powerful corps and the con-
sequent wrecking of his latest plan. Nearly to
the end of June he lay immovable. "June 14,
midnight. All quiet in every direction," thus
he telegraphed to Stanton in words intended to be
reassuring, but in fact infinitely vexatious. Was
he, then, set at the head of this great and costly
host of the nation's best, to rest satisfied with pre-
serving an eternal quietude, like a chief of police
in a disorderly quarter? Still he was indefatig-
able in declaring himself outnumbered, and in de-
manding more troops; in return he got assurances,
with only the slight fulfilment of MeCalTs division.
Every two or three days he cheeringly announced
to the administration that he was on the verge of
60 ABRAHAM: LINCOLN.
advancing, but he never passed over the verge.
Throughout a season in which blundering seemed
to become epidemic, no blunder was greater than
his quiescence at this time. 1 As if to emphasize
it, about the middle of June General Stuart, with
a body of Confederate cavalry, actually rode all
around the Union army, making the complete cir-
cuit and crossing its line of communication with
White House without interruption. The foray
achieved little, but it wore the aspect of a signal
and unavenged insult.
In Washington the only powerful backing upon
which McClellan could still rely was that of the
President, and he was surely wearing away the
patience of his only friend by the irritating attri-
tion of promises ever reiterated and never re-
deemed. No man ever kept his own counsel more
closely than did Mr. Lincoln, and the indications
of his innermost sentiments concerning McClellan
at this time are rare. But perhaps a little ray is
let in, as through a cranny, by a dispatch which
he sent to the general on June 2 : "With these con-
tinuous rains I am very anxious about the Chicka-
hominy, so close in your rear, and crossing your
line of communication. Please look to it." This
curt prompting on so obvious a point was a plain
insinuation against McClellan's military compe-
tence, and suggests that ceaseless harassment had
at last got the better of Lincoln's usually imper-
1 Even his admirer, Svdnton, says that any possible course would
have been better than inaction. Army of Potomac, 140, 141. ,
SECOND ACT OF TEE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 61
turbable self-possession; for it lacked little of be-
ing an insult, and Mr. Lincoln, in all his life,
never insulted any man. As a spot upon a white
cloth sets off the general whiteness, so this dis-
patch illustrates Lincoln's unweariable patience
and long-suffering without parallel- McClellan,
never trammelled by respect, retorted sharply:
"As the Chickahominy has been almost the only
obstacle in my way for several days, your Excel-
lency may rest assured that it has not "been over-
looked." When finally the general became active,
it was under the spur of General Jackson, not of
President Lincoln. Jackson compelled him to de-
cide and act; and the result was his famous south-
ward movement to the James Eiver. Some, adopt-
ing his own nomenclature, have called this a change
of base; some, less euphemistically, speak of it as
a retreat. According to General "Webb, it may
be called either the one or the other with equal
propriety, for it partook of the features of each. 1
It is no part of the biographer of Lincoln to nar-
rate the suffering and the gallantry of the troops
through those seven days of continuous fighting
and marching, during which they made their pain-
ful way, in the face of an attacking army, through
the dismal swamps of an unwholesome region, amid
the fierce and humid heats of the Southern sum-
mer. On July 1 they closed the dread experience
by a brilliant victory in the desperate, prolonged,
and bloody battle of Malvern Hill.
1 The Peninsula^ 188. Swinton seems to regard it in the same
62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
In the course of this march a letter was sent by
McClellan to Stanton which has become famous.
The vindictive lunge, visibly aimed at the Secre-
tary, was really designed, piercing this lesser func-
tionary, to reach the President, Even though
written amid the strain and stress of the most
critical and anxious moment of the terrible "Seven
Days/' the words were unpardonable. The letter
is too long to be given in full, but the closing sen-
tences were :
"I know that a few thousand more men would
have changed this battle l from a defeat to a vic-
tory. As it is, the government must not and
cannot hold me responsible for the result. I feel
too earnestly to-night. I have seen too many dead
and wounded comrades to feel otherwise than that
the government has not sustained this army. If
you do not do so now, the game is lost. If I save
this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no
thanks to you or to any other persons in Washing-
ton. You have done your best to sacrifice this
army," 2 It was safe to write thus to Mr. Lincoln,
whose marvellous magnanimity was never soiled
1 Gaines's Mill, contested with superb courage and constancy by
the Fifth Corps, under Porter, against very heavy odds.
2 McClellan's Report, 131, 132. See also his own comments on
this extraordinary dispatch; Own Story, 452. He anticipated,
not without reason, that he would be promptly removed. The
Comte de Paris says that the two closing sentences were sup-
pressed by the War Department, when the documents had to be
laid before the Committee on the Conduct of the War. CKvU
War in America^ ii. 112. Another dispatch, hardly less disre-
gpectful, was sent on June 25. See McClellan's Report, 121.
SECOND ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 63
by a single act of revenge; but the man who ad-
dressed such language to Stanton secured a merci-
less and unscrupulous enemy forever.
Though, at the close of this appalling week, the
troops at last were conquerors on the banks of the
James, they were in a position not permanently
tenable, and before they could rest, they had to
fall back another march to Harrison's Landing.
The rear guard reached this haven on the night of
July 3, and the army, thus at last safely placed
and in direct communication with the fleet and the
transports, was able to recuperate, 1 while those in
authority considered of the future. Certain facts
were established: first, concerning the army,
that before it met the baptism of heavy fighting
it had been brought into a splendid condition of
drill and efficiency, and that by that baptism, so
severe and so long continued, it had come as near
as volunteers could come to the excellence of veter-
ans and regulars ; also that it was at least a match
for its opponents; and, finally, strange to say, it
was very slightly demoralized, would soon again
be in condition for an advance, and felt full con-
fidence and strong affection for its commander.
Brilliant and enthusiastic tributes have been paid
to these men for their endurance amid disease and
wounds and battle; but not one word too much has
1 For a vivid description of the condition to which heat, march-
ing 1 , fighting' and the unwholesome climate had reduced the men,
see statement of Gomte de Paris, an eye-witness. Civil War in
America, iL 130.
64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
been said. It is only cruel to think of the hideous
price which they had paid, and by which they had
bought only the capacity to endure further perils
and hardship. Second, concerning McClellan; it
was to be admitted that his predictions as to points
of strategy had been fulfilled; that he had managed
his retreat, or "change of base," with skill, and
had shown some qualities of high generalship; but
it was also evident that he was of a temperament
so unenterprising and apprehensive as to make him
entirely useless in an offensive campaign* Yet the
burden of conducting a successful offense lay upon
the North. Must Mr. Lincoln, then, finally accept
the opinion of those who had long since concluded
that McClellan was not the man for the place?
A collateral question was : What should be done
next? McClellan, tenacious and stubborn, was
for persisting in the movement against Lee's army
and Richmond. He admitted no other thought
than that, having paused to gather reinforcements
and to refresh his army, he should assume the
offensive, approaching the city by the south and
southwest from the James Eiver base. Holding
this purpose, he was impolitic in sending very
dolorous dispatches on July 4 and 7, intimating
doubts as to his power to maintain successfully
even the defensive. Two or three days later, how-
ever, he assumed a better tone; and on July 11
and 12 he reported "all in fine spirits," and urged
that his army should be "promptly reinforced and
thrown again upon Richmond. If we have a little
SECOND ACT OF THE M^CLELLAN DRAMA. 65
more than half a chance, we can take it." He
continued throughout the month to press these
views by arguments which, though overruled at the
time, have since been more favorably regarded.
Whether or not they were correct is an item in the
long legacy of questions left by the war to be dis-
puted over by posterity; in time, one side or the
other may desist from the discussion in weariness,
but, from the nature of the case, neither can be
vanquished.
Whether McClellan was right or wrong, his
prestige, fresh as it still remained with his devoted
troops, was utterly gone at Washington, where the
political host was almost a unit against him. The
Committee on the Conduct of the War had long
been bitterly denouncing him; and he had so
abused the Secretary of War that even the dupli-
city of Mr. Stanton was unequal to the strain of
maintaining an Appearance of good understanding.
New military influences also fell into the same
scale. General Pope, the latest "favorite," now
enjoying his few weeks of authority, endeavored to
make it clear to Mr. Lincoln that to bring Mc-
Clellan back from the Peninsula, was the only safe
and intelligent course. Further, on July 11,
President Lincoln appointed General Halleck gen-
eral-in-chief . It may be said, in passing, that the
appointment turned out to be a very bad mistake;
for Halleck was as dull a man as ever made use of
grand opportunities only to prove his own incom-
petence. Now, however, he came well recom-
66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
mended before Lincoln, and amid novel responsi-
bilities the merit of any man could only be known
by trial. HaJleck did not arrive in Washington
tOl near tlie end of the month, then he seemed for
a while in doubt, or to be upon both sides of the
question as to whether the army should be advanced
or withdrawn; but ultimately, in the contemptuous
language of Mr. Swinton, he "added his strident
voice in favor of the withdrawal of the army from
the Peninsula." This settled the matter; for the
President had decided to place himself under the
guidance of his new military mentor; and, more-
over, his endurance was worn out.
In the way of loyalty the President certainly
owed nothing further to the general. All such ob-
ligations he had exhaustively discharged. In spite
of the covert malicious suggestions and the direct
injurious charges which tortured the air of the
"White House and vexed his judgment, he had sus-
tained McClellan with a constancy which deserved
warm gratitude. This the general never gave,
because he could never forgive Mr. Lincoln for
refusing to subordinate his own views to those
of such a military expert as himself. This point,
it is true, Lincoln never reached; but subject only
to this independence of opinion and action, so long
as he retained McClellan in command, he fulfilled
toward him every requirement of honor and gener-
osity. The movement across the Peninsula, what-
ever construction might possibly be put upon it,
seemed in Washington a retreat, and was for the
SECOND ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 67
President a disappointment weighty enough to
have broken the spirit o a smaller man. Yet
Lincoln, instead of sacrificing McClellan as a
scapegoat, sent to him on July 1 and 2 telegrams
bidding him do his best in the emergency and save
his army, in which case the people would rally and
repair all losses; "we still have strength enough in
the country and will bring it out," he said,
words full of cheering resolution unshaded by a
suspicion of reproach, words which should have
come like wine to the weary. The next day, July
3, he sent a dispatch which even McClellan, in his
formal report, described as "kind: " "I am satis-
fied that yourself, officers, and men have done the
best you could. All accounts say better fighting
was never done. Ten thousand thanks for it."
But when it came to judgment and action the
President could not alleviate duty with kindness.
To get information uncolored by passage through
the minds of others, he went down to Harrison's
Landing on July 7, observed all that he could see,
and talked matters over. Prior to this visit it is
supposed that he had leaned towards McClellan's
views, and had inclined to renew the advance.
Nor is it clearly apparent that he learned anything
during this trip which induced him to change his
mind. Bather it seems probable that he main-
tained his original opinion until General Halleck
had declared against it, and that then he yielded
to General Halleck as he had before yielded to
General McClellan, though certainly with much
68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
less reluctance. At the same time the questior
was not considered wholly by itself, but was almost
necessarily complicated with the question of depos-
ing McClellan from the command. For the in-
consistency of discrediting McClellan 's military
judgment and retaining him at the head of the
army was obvious.
Thus at last it came about that McClellan's
plan lost its only remaining friend, and on August
3 came the definite order for the removal of the
army across the Peninsula to Acquia Creek. The
campaign against Richmond was abandoned. Mc-
Clellan could not express his indignation at a pol-
icy " almost fatal to our cause; " but his strenuous
remonstrances had no effect; his influence had
passed forever. The movement of the army was
successfully completed, the rear guard arriving at
Yorktown on August 20. Thus the first great
Peninsula campaign came to its end in disappoint*
ment and almost in disaster, amid heart-burnings
and criminations. It was, says General Webb,
* 4 a lamentable failure, nothing less." There
was little hope for the future unless some master
hand could control the discordant officials who
filled the land with the din of their quarrelling.
The burden lay upon the President. Fortunately
his good sense, his even judgment, his unexcitable
temperament had saved him from the appearance
or the reality of partisanship and from any entan-
gling or compromising personal commitments.
In many ways and for many reasons, this story
SECOND ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 69
of the Peninsula has been both difficult and pain-
ful to write. To reach the truth and sound con-
clusions in the many quarrels which it has pro-
voked is never easy, and upon some points seems
impossible; and neither the truth nor the conclu-
sions are often agreeable. Opinion and sympa-
thy have gradually but surely tended in condemna-
tion of McClellan and in favor of Lincoln. The
evidence is conclusive that McClellan was vain,
disrespectful, and hopelessly blind to those non-
military but very serious considerations which
should have been allowed to modify the purely
scientific strategy of the campaign. Also, though
his military training was excellent, it was his mis-
fortune to be placed amid exigencies for which
neither his moral nor his mental qualities were
adapted. Lincoln, on the other hand, displayed
traits of character not only in themselves rare and
admirable, but so fitted to the requirements of the
times that many persons have been tempted to con-
ceive him to have been divinely led. But against
this view, though without derogating from die
merits which induce it, is to be set the fact that
he made mistakes hardly consistent with the theory
of inspiration by Omniscience. He interfered in
military matters; and, being absolutely ignorant
of military science, while the problems before him
were many and extremely perplexing, he blundered,
and on at least one occasion blundered very badly.
After he has been given the benefit of all the doubt
which can be suggested concerning the questions
70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
which he disposed of, the preponderance of expert
authority shows a residuum of substantial certainty
against him. It is true that many civilian writers
have given their judgments in favor of the Presi-
dent's strategy, with a tranquil assurance at least
equal to that shown by the military critics. But it
seems hardly reasonable to suppose that Mr. Lin-
coln became by mere instinct, and instantly, a
master in the complex science of war, and it is also
highly improbable that in the military criticism of
this especial campaign, the civilians are generally
right and the military men are generally wrong.
On the whole it is pleasanter as well as more intelli-
gent to throw out this foolish notion of miraculous
knowledge suddenly illuminating Mr. Lincoln with
a thorough mastery of the art of war* It is better
not to believe that he became at once endowed with
acquirements which he had never had an oppor-
tunity to attain, and rather to be content with hold-
ing him as a simple human being like the rest of
us, and so to credit our common humanity with the
inspiring excellence of the moral qualities displayed
by him in those months of indescribable trial.
How much of expectation had been staked upon
that army of the Potomac I All the Northern peo-
ple for nearly a year kept their eyes fastened with
aching intensity upon it ; good fortunes which be-
fell elsewhere hardly interrupted for a moment the
absorption in it. The feeling was well illustrated
by the Committee of Congress, which said that in
the history of this army was to be found all thai
SECOND ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 71
was necessary for framing a report on the Conduct
of the War; and truly added that this army had
been "the object of special care to every depart-
ment of the government." It occurred to many,
who heard this language, that matters would have
gone better with the army if the political and civil
departments had been less lavish of care and atten-
tion. None the less the fact remained that the in-
terest and anticipation of the whole loyal part of
the nation were concentrated in the Virginia cam-
paign. Correspondingly cruel was the disappoint-
ment at its ultimate miscarriage. Probably, as a
single trial, it was the most severe that Mr. Lin-
coln ever suffered. Hope then went through the
painful process of being pruned by failure, and it
was never tortured by another equal mutilation.
Moreover, the vastness of the task, the awful cost
of success, were now, for the first time, appreci-
ated. The responsibility of a ruler under so ap-
palling a destiny now descended with a weight that
could never become greater upon the shoulders of
that lonely man in the White House. A solitary
man, indeed, he was, in a solitude impressive and
painful to contemplate. Having none of those
unofficial counsellors, those favorites, those privy
confidants and friends, from whom men in chief
authority are so apt to seek relief, Mr. Lincoln
secretively held his most important thoughts in his
own mind, wrought out his conclusions by the toil
of his own brain, carried his entire burden wholly
upon his own shoulders, and in every part and way
72 ABRAHAM: LINCOLN.
met the full responsibility of his office in and by
himself alone. It does not appear that he ever
sought to be sustained or comforted or encouraged
amid disaster, that he ever endeavored to shift
upon others even the most trifling fragment of the
load which rested upon himself; and certainly he
never desired that any one should ever be a sharer
in any ill repute attendant upon a real or supposed
mistake. Silent as to matters of deep import, self-
sustained, facing alone all grave duties, solving
alone all difficult problems, and enduring alone all
consequences, he appears a man so isolated from
his fellow-men amid such tests and trials, that one
is filled with a sense of awe, almost beyond sym-
pathy, in the contemplation.
CHAPTER HI.
THE THIRD AND CLOSING ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN
DRAMA.
As it seems probable that Mr. Lincoln did not
conclusively determine against the plan of McClel-
Ian for renewing the advance upon Richmond by
way of Petersburg, until after General Halleck
had thus decided, so it is certain that afterward he
allowed to Halleck a control almost wholly free
from interference on his own part. Bid he, per-
chance, feel that a lesson had been taught him,
and did he think that those critics had not been
wholly wrong who had said that he had intermed-
dled ignorantly and hurtfully in military matters?
Be this as it might, it was in accordance with the
national character to turn the back sharply upon
failure and disappointment, and to make a wholly
fresh start; and it was in accordance with Lin-
coln's character to fall in with the popular feeling.
Yet if a fresh start was intrinsically advisable,
or if it was made necessary by circumstances, it
was made in unfortunate company. One does not
think without chagrin that Grant, Sherman, Sheri*
dan lurked undiscovered among the officers at the
West, while Halleck and Pope were pulled forth
74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
to the light and set in the high places. HaJleck
was hopelessly incompetent, and Pope was fit only
for subordinate command; and by any valuation
which could reasonably be put upon McClellan, it
was absurd to turn him out in order to bring either
of these men in. But it was the experimental
period. No man's qualities could be known except
by testing them ; and these two men came before
Lincoln with records sufficiently good to entitle
them to trial. The successes at the West had
naturally produced good opinions of the officers
who had achieved them, and among these officers
John Pope had been as conspicuous as any other.
For this reason he was now, towards the close of
June, 1862, selected to command the "Army of
Virginia,'* formed by uniting the corps of Fre-
mont, McDowell, and Banks. 1 Fremont resigned,
in a pet at having an officer who was his junior in
the service placed over his head; but he was no
loss, since his impetuous temperament did not fit
him for the duties of a corps commander. He was
succeeded by General Sigel. The fusing of these
independent commands, whose separate existence
had been a wasteful and jeopardizing error, was
an excellent measure.
General Pope remained in Washington a few
weeks, in constant consultation with the adminis-
tration. How he impressed Lincoln one would
gladly know, but cannot. He had unlimited self -
* The consolidation, and the assignment of Pop6 to the com*
maud, bore date June 26, 1862.
THIRD ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 75
confidence, and he gave it to be understood at
once that he was a fighting man; but it showed
an astounding lack of tact upon his part that, in
notifying the troops of this, his distinguishing
characteristic, he also intimated that it would be-
hoove them to turn over a new leaf now that he
had come all the way from the West in order to
teach Eastern men how to win victories! The
manifesto which he issued has become famous by
its folly; it was arrogant, bombastic, little short of
insulting to the soldiers of his command, and laid
down principles contrary to the established rules
of war. Yet it had good qualities, too ; for it was
designed to be stimulating; it certainly meant
fighting; and fortunately, though Pope was not a
great general, he was by no means devoid of mili-
tary knowledge and instincts, and he would not
really have committed quite such blunders as he
marked out for himself in his rhetorical enthusi-
asm. On the whole, however, the manifesto did
harm; neither officers nor soldiers were inclined to
receive kindly a man who came presumably on trial
with the purpose of replacing McClellan, whom
they loved with deep loyalty; therefore they ridi-
culed part of his address and took offense at the
rest of it. Mr. Lincoln could hardly have been
encouraged; but he gave no sign.
On July 29 Pope left Washington and joined
Us army, near Culpepper. He had not quite
45,000 men, and was watched by Jackson, who
lay near Gordonsville with a scant half of that
76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
number. On August 9 Banks was pushed for-
ward to Cedar Mountain, where he encountered
Jackson and attacked him. In "a hard-fought
battle, fierce, obstinate, sanguinary," the Federals
were worsted; and such consolation as the people
got from the gallantry of the troops was more than
offset by the fact, which became obvious so soon
as the whole story was known, that our generals
ought to have avoided the engagement and were
out-generalled both in the bringing it on and in
the conducting it.
Greatly as Jackson was outnumbered by Pope,
he could hope for no reinforcements from Lee so
long as Model! an, at Harrison's Landing, threat-
ened Richmond. But when gratifying indications
showed the purpose to withdraw the Northern
army from the Peninsula the Southern general
ventured, August 13, to dispatch General Long-
street northward with a strong force. Soon after-
ward he himself followed and took command. Then
for two or three days ensued a sharp matching of
wits betwixt the two generals. By one of those
audacious plans which Lee could dare to make
when he had such a lieutenant as Jackson to carry
it out, Jackson was sent upon a rapid march by
the northward, around the army of Pope, to cut its
communications. He did it brilliantly; but in do-
ing it he necessarily offered to Pope such an oppor-
tunity for fighting the Southern forces in detail as
is rarely given by a good general to an adversary
whom he fears. Pope would fain have availed
THIRD ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 77
himself of the chance, and in the effort to do so
he hurried his troops hither and thither, mingled
wise moves with foolish ones, confused his subordi-
nates, fatigued his men, and finally accomplished
nothing. Jackson retired safely from his danger-
ous position, rejoined the rest of the Southern army 9
and then the united force had as its immediate pur-
pose to fight Pope before he could receive rein-
forcements from McClellan's army, now rapidly
coming forward by way of Washington. JB con-
verso, Pope's course should have been to retire a
day's march across Bull Run and await the addi-
tional troops who could at once join him there.
Unfortunately, however, he still felt the sting of
the ridicule which his ill-starred manifesto had
called forth, and was further irritated by the
unsatisfactory record of the past few days, and
therefore was in no temper to fall back. So he
did not, but stayed and fought what is known as
the second battle of Bull Run. In the conflict his
worn-out men showed such constancy that the
slaughter on both sides was great. Again, how-
ever, the bravery of the rank and file was the only
feature which the country could contemplate with-
out indignation. The army was beaten; and re-
tired during the evening of August 30 to a safe
position at Centreville, whither it should have been
taken without loss two days earlier. 1 Thus was
1 This campaign of General Pope has been the topic of very
bitter controversy and crimination. In my brief account I have
eschewed the view of Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, who seem to me,
f 8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
fulfilled, with only a trifling inaccuracy in point of
time, the prediction made by McClellan on August
10, that "Pope will be badly thrashed within ten
days." 1
Iii all this manoeuvring and fighting the com-
manding general had shown some capacity, but very
much less than was indispensable in a commander
who had to meet the generals of the South. Forth-
with also, there broke out a series of demoralizing
quarreis among the principal officers as to what
orders iad been given and received, and whether
or not they had been understood or misunderstood,
obeyed or disobeyed. Also the enemies of Gen-
eral McClellan tried to lay upon "him the whole
responsibility for the disaster, on the ground that
he had been dilatory, first, in moving his army
from Harrison's Landing, and afterward, in send-
ing his sroops forward to join Pope; whereas, they
said, if ie had acted promptly, the Northern army
would have been too strong to have been defeated,
regardless of any incompetence in the handling of
it. Concerning the former charge, it may be said
that dispatches had flown to and fro between Hal-
leek and McClellan like bullets between implacable
if I may say it, to have written with the single-minded purpose of
throwing everybody's blunders into the scale against McClellan,
and I have adopted the view of Mr. John C. Ropes in his volume on
The Army under Pope, in the Campaigns of the Civil War Series.
In his "wilting it is impossible to detect personal prejudice, for or
against any one ; and his account is so clear and convincing that
it must be accepted, whether one likes his conclusions or not.
1 Own Story, 466.
THIRD ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 79
duellists; Halleck ordered the army to be trans*
ported, and McClellan retorted that lie was given
no transports ; it is a dispute which cannot be dis-
cussed here. Concerning the other charge, it was
also true that the same two generals had been for
some days exchanging telegrams, but had been
entirely unable to understand each other. Whose
fault it was cannot easily be determined. The
English language was giving our generals almost
as much trouble as were the Southerners at this
time; so that in a few short weeks material for
endless discussion was furnished by the orders,
telegrams, and replies which were bandied between
Pope and Porter, McClellan and Halleck. A
large part of the history of the period consists of
the critical analysis and construing of these docu-
ments. What did each in fact mean? What did
the writer intend it to mean? What did the re-
cipient understand it to mean? Did the writer
make his meaning sufficiently clear? Was the
recipient justified in his interpretation? Histo-
rians have discussed these problems as theologians
have discussed puzzling texts of the New Testa-
ment, with not less acerbity and with no more
conclusive results. Unquestionably the capacity
to write two or tiiree dozen consecutive words so
as to constitute a plain, straightforward sentence
would have been for the moment a valuable adjunct
to military learning.
The news of the defeat brought dismay, but not
quite a panic, to the authorities in Washington*
80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
In fact, there was no immediate danger for the
capital. The army from the Peninsula was by
this time distributed at various points in the imme-
diate neighborhood; and a force could be promptly
brought together which would so outnumber the
Confederate army as to be invincible. Yet the
situation demanded immediate and vigorous action.
Some hand must seize the helm at once, and Pope's
hand would not do ; so much at least was entirely
certain. He had been given his own way, without
interference on the part of President or Secretary,
and he had been beaten; he was discredited before
the country and the army; nothing useful could
now be done with him. Halleck was utterly de-
moralized, and was actually reduced to telegraph-
ing to McClellan: "I beg of you to assist me, in
this crisis, with your ability and experience." It
was the moment for a master to take control, and
the President met the occasion. There was only
one thing to be done, and circumstances were such
that not only must that thing be done by him, but
also it must be done by him iu direct opposition to
the strenuous insistence of all his official and most
of his self -constituted advisers. It was necessary
to reinstate McClellan.
It was a little humiliating to be driven to this
step. McClellan had lately been kept at Alexan-
dria with no duty save daily to disintegrate his
own army by sending off to Washington and to
the camp of his own probable successor division
after division of the troops whom he had so long
THIRD ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 81
commanded. Greatly mortified, he had begged at
least to be "permitted to go to the scene of battle."
But he was ignored, as if he were no longer of any
consequence whatsoever. In plain truth it was
made perfectly obvious to him and to all the world
that if General Pope could win a victory the ad-
ministration had done with General McClellan.
Mr. Lincoln described the process as a "snub-
bing," Naturally those who were known to be
the chief promoters of this "snubbing" and to
have been highly gratified by it, now looked rue-
fully on the evident necessity of suddenly cutting
it short, and requesting the snubbed individual to
assume the role of their rescuer. McClellan 's
more prominent enemies could not and would not
agree to this. Three members of the Cabinet even
went so far as formally to put in writing their pro-
test against restoring him to the command of any
army at all; while Stanton actually tried to frighten
the President by a petty threat of personal conse-
quences. But this was foolish. The crisis was of
the kind which induced Mr. Lincoln to exercise
power, decisively. On this occasion his imper-
sonal, unimpassioned temperament left his judg-
ment free to work with evenness and clearness amid
the whirl of momentous events and the clash of
angry tongues. No one could say that he had been
a partisan either for or against McClellan, and his
wise reticence in the past gave him in the present
the privilege of untrammelled action. So he set-
tled the matter at once by ordering that McClellan
82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
should have command within the defenses of Wash*
ington.
By this act the President gave extreme offense
to the numerous and strenuous band with whom
hatred of the Democratic general had become a
sort of religion; and upon this occasion even
Messrs. Nicolay and Hay seem more inclined to
apologize for their idol than to defend him. In
point of fact, nothing can be more misplaced than
either apology or defense except criticism. Mr.
Lincoln could have done no wiser thing. He was
simply setting in charge of the immediate business
the man who could do that especial business best.
It was not a question of a battle or a campaign,
neither of which was for the moment imminent;
but it was a question of reorganizing masses of
disorganized troops and getting them into shape
for battles and campaigns in the future. Only the
intensity of hatred could make any man blind to
McCleUan's capacity for such work; and what he
might be for other work was a matter of no conse-
quence just now. Lincoln simply applied to the in-
stant need the most effective help, without looking
far afield to study remote consequences. Two re-
marks, said to have been made by him at this time,
indicate his accurate appreciation of the occasion
and the man: "There is no one in the army who
can man these fortifications and lick these troops
of ours into shape half so well as he can." "We
must use the tools we have; if he cannot fight him-
self, he excels in making others ready to fight."
THIRD ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 83
On September 1 Halleck verbally instructed
McClellan to take command of the defenses of
Washington, defining this to mean strictly "the
works and their garrisons." McClellan says that
later on the same day he had an interview with the
President, in which the President said that he had
"always been a friend" of the general, and asked
as a favor that the general would request his per-
sonal friends among the principal officers of the
army to give to General Pope a more sincere and
hearty support than they were supposed to be actu-
ally rendering. 1 On the morning of September 2,
McClellan says, "the President informed me that
Colonel Kelton had returned from the front; that
our affairs were in a bad condition; that the army
was in full retreat upon the defenses of Washing-
ton, the roads filled with stragglers, etc. He in-
structed me to take steps at once to stop and collect
the stragglers; place the works in a proper state
of defense, and go out to meet and take command
of the army, when it approached the vicinity of the
works, then to place the troops in the best position,
committing everything to my hands." By this
evidence, Mr. Lincoln intrusted the fate of the
country and with it his own reputation absolutely
to the keeping of McClellan.
McClellan was in his element in fusing into
unity the disjointed fragments of armies which lay
about in Virginia like scattered ruins. His bitter-
1 Pope retained for a few days command of the army in canrp
outside the defenses.
84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
est detractors have never denied him the gift of
organization, and admit that he did excellent ser-
vice just now for a few days. But circumstances
soon extended his field of action, and gave detrac-
tion fresh opportunities. General Lee, in a bold
and enterprising mood, perhaps attributable to the
encouraging inefficiency of his Northern opponents,
moved up the banks of the Potomac and threatened
an irruption into Maryland and even Pennsylvania.
It was absolutely necessary to watch and, at the
right moment, to fight him. For this purpose Me-
Clellan was ordered to move along the north bank
of the river, but under strict injunctions at first to
go slowly and cautiously and not to uncover Wash-
ington. For General Halleck had not fully recov-
ered his nerve, and was still much disquieted, es-
pecially concerning the capital. Thus the armies
drew slowly near each other, McClellan creeping
forward, as he had been bidden, while Lee, with
his usual energy, seemed able to do ^rith a thou-
sand men more than any Northern general could
do with thrice as many, and ran with exasperating
impunity those audacious risks which, where they
cannot be attributed to ignorance on the part of
a commander, indicate contempt for his opponent.
This feeling, if he had it, must have received agree-
able corroboration from the clumsy way in which
the Federals just at this time lost Harper's Ferry,
with General Miles's garrison. The Southern
fcroops, who had been detailed against it, rapidly
rejoined General Lee's army; and again the people
THIRD ACT OF THE MGQLELLAN DRAMA. 85
saw that the South had out-marched and out-gen-
eralled the North.
With all his troops together, Lee was now ready
to fight at the convenience or the pleasure of Mc-
Clellan, who seemed chivalrously to have deferred
his attack until his opponent should be prepared
for it I The armies were in presence of each other
near where the Antietam empties into the Potomac,
and here, September 17, the bloody conflict took
place.
The battle of Antietam has usually been called
a Northern victory. Both the right and the left
wings of the Northern army succeeded in seizing
advanced positions and in holding them at the end
of the fight; and Lee retreated to the southward,
though it is true that before doing so he lingered
a day and gave to his enemy a chance, which was
not used, to renew the battle. His position was
obviously untenable in the face of an outnumber-
ing host. But though upon the strength of these
facts a victory could be claimed with logical pro-
priety, yet the President and the country were,
and had a right to be, indignant at the very un-
satisfactory proportion of the result to the means.
Shortly before the battle McClellan's troops, upon
the return to them of the commander whom they
idolized, had given him a soul-stirring reception,
proving the spirit and confidence with which they
would fight under his orders; and they went into
the fight in the best possible temper and condition.
On the day of the battle the Northern troops out*
86 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
numbered the Southerners by nearly two to one;
in fact, the Southern generals, in their reports,
insisted that they had been simply overwhelmed by
enormous odds against which it was a marvel of
gallantry for their men to stand at all. The plain
truth was that in the first place, by backwardness
in bringing on the battle, McClellan had left Lee
to effect a concentration of forces which ought
never to have been permitted. Next, the battle
itself had not been especially well handled, though
perhaps this was due rather to the lack of his per-
sonal attention during its progress than to errors
in his plan. Finally, his failure, with so large an
army, of which a part at least was entirely fresh,
to pursue and perhaps even to destroy the reduced
and worn-out Confederate force seemed inexplica-
ble and was inexcusable*
The South could never be conquered in this
way. It had happened, on September 12, that
President Lincoln heard news apparently indicat-
ing the withdrawal of Lee across the Potomac.
He had at once sent it forward to McClellan, add^
ing: "Do not let him get off without being hurt."
Three days later, he telegraphed: "Destroy- the
rebel army if possible." But McClellan had been
too self -restrained in his obedience. He had, in-
deed, hurt Lee, but he had been very careful not
to hurt him too much; and as for destroying the
rebel army, he seemed unwilling to enter so lightly
on so stupendous an enterprise. The administra-
tion and the country expected, and perfectly fairly
THIRD ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 87
expected, to see a hot pursuit of General Lee-
They were disappointed; they saw no such thing,
but only saw McClellan holding his army as quies-
cent as if there was nothing more to be done, and
declaring that it was in no condition to move!
It was intolerably provoking, unintelligible, and
ridiculous that a ragged, ill-shod, over-worked,
under-fed, and beaten body of Southerners should
be able to retreat faster than a great, fresh, well-
fed, well-equipped, and victorious body of North-
erners could follow. Jackson said that the North-
ern armies were kept in too good condition; and
declared that he could whip any army which
marched with herds of cattle behind it. But the
North preferred, and justly, to attribute the ineffi-
ciency of their troops to the unfortunate tempera-
ment of the commander. Mr. Lincoln looked at
the unsatisfactory spectacle and held his hand as
long as he could, dreading perhaps again to seem
too forward in assuming control of military affairs.
Patience, however, could not endure forever, nor
common-sense be always subservient to technical
science. Accordingly, on October 6, he ordered
McClellan to cross the Potomac, and either to
"give battle to the enemy or to drive him south."
McClellan paid no attention to the order. Four
days later the Confederate general, Stuart, with
2000 cavalry and a battery, crossed into Mary-
land and made a tour around the Northern army,
with the same insolent success which had attended
his like enterprise on the Peninsula. On October
88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN-.
13 the President wrote to McClellan a letter, so
admirable both in temper and in the soundness of
its suggestions that it should be given entire:
"Mr DEAE SIB, You remember my speaking
to you of what I called your over-cautiousness.
Are you not over-cautious when you assume that
you cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing?
Should you not claim to be at least his equal in
prowess, and act upon the claim?
"As I understand, you telegraphed General
Halleck that you cannot subsist your army at
Winchester, unless the railroad from Harper's
Ferry to that point be put in working order. But
the enemy does now subsist his army at Winchester
at a distance nearly twice as great from railroad
transportation as you would have to do without
the railroad last named. He now wagons from
Culpepper Court House, which is just about twice
as far as you would have to do from Harper's
Ferry. He is certainly not more than half as well
provided with wagons as you are. I certainly
should be pleased for you to have the advantage of
the railroad from Harper's Ferry to Winchester;
but it wastes all the remainder of autumn to give
it to you, and, in fact, ignores the question of time
which cannot and must not be ignored.
"Again, one of the standard maxims of war, as
you know, is 'to operate upon the enemy's com-
munications as much as possible without exposing
your own.' You seem to act as if this applies
THIRD ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 89
against you, but cannot apply in your favor.
Change positions with the enemy, and think you
not he would break your communication with Rich-
mond within the next twenty-four hours? You
dread his going into Pennsylvania. But if he
does so in full force, he gives up his communica-
tion to you absolutely, and you have nothing to
do but to follow and ruin him; if he does so with
less than full force, fall upon and beat what is left
behind, all the easier.
"Exclusive of the water line, you are now nearer
Eichmond than the enemy is, by the route that
you can, and he must take. Why can you not
reach there before him, unless you admit that he
is more than your equal on a march? His route is
the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. The
roads are as good on yours as on his.
"You know I desired, but did not order you,
to cross the Potomac below, instead of above, the
Shenandoah and Blue Eidge. The idea was that
this would at once menace the enemy's communica-
tions, which I would seize, if he would permit.
If he should move northward, I would follow him
closely, holding his communications. If he should
prevent our seizing his communications, and move
towards Eichmond, I would press closely to him,
fight him if a favorable opportunity should pre-
sent, and at least try to beat him to Eichmond on
the inside track. I say, try; if we never try, we
shall never succeed. If he makes a stand at Win-
chester, moving neither north nor south, I would
90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
fight him there, on the idea that if we cannot beat
him when he bears the wastage of coming to us,
we never can when we bear the wastage of going
to him. This proposition is a simple truth, and
is too important to be lost sight of for a moment.
In coming to us, he tenders us an advantage which
we should not waive. We should not so operate
as to merely drive him away. As we must beat
him somewhere, or fail finally, we can do it, if at
all, easier near to us than far away. If we cannot
beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he
again being within the intrenchments of Rich-
mond.
"Recurring to the idea of going to Richmond
on the inside track, the facility for supplying from
the side away from the enemy is remarkable, as it
were by the different spokes of a wheel extending
from the hub towards the rim; and this, whether
you move directly by the chord or on the inside
arc, hugging the Blue Ridge more closely. The
chord line, as you see, carries you by Aldie, Hay-
market, and Fredericksburg, and you see how
turnpikes, railroads, and finally the Potomac, by
Acquia Creek, meet you at all points from Wash-
ington. The same, only the lines lengthened a
little, if you press closer to the Blue Ridge part of
the way. The Gaps through the Blue Ridge, I
understand to be about the following distances
from Harper's Ferry, to wit: Vestala, five miles;
Gregory's, thirteen; Snicker's, eighteen; Ash-
by 's, twenty-eight; Manassas, thirty-eight; Ches*
THIRD ACT OF THE MWLELLAN DRAMA. 91
ter, forty -five; and Thornton's, fifty-three. I
should think it preferable to take the route nearest
the enemy, disabling him to make an important
move without your knowledge, and compelling him
to keep his forces together for dread of you. The
Gaps would enable you to attack if you should
wish. For a great part of the way you would be
practically between the enemy and both Washing-
ton and Richmond, enabling us to spare you the
greatest number of troops from here. When, at
length, running for Richmond ahead of him ena-
bles him to move this way, if he does so, turn and
attack him in rear. But I think he should be en-
gaged long before such point is reached. It is all
easy if our troops march as well as the enemy, and
it is unmanly to say they cannot do it. This letter
is in no sense an order."
A general who failed to respond to such a spur
as this was not the man for offensive warfare; and
McClellan did not respond. Movement was as
odious to him now as it ever had been, and by
talking about shoes and overcoats, and by other
dilatory pleas, he extended his delay until the close
of the month. It was actually the second day of
November before his army crossed the Potomac.
Another winter of inaction seemed about to begin.
It was simply unendurable. Though it was true
that he had reorganized the army with splendid
energy and skill, and had shown to the Northern
soldiers in Virginia the strange and cheerful spec-
92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN-.
tacle of the backs of General Lee's soldiers, yet
it became a settled fact that he must give place to
some new man. He and Pope were to be suc-
ceeded by a third experiment. Therefore, on No-
vember 5, 1862, the President ordered General
McClellan to turn over the command of the army
to General Burnside; and on November 7 this was
done.
This action, taken just at this time, called forth
a much more severe criticism than would have at-
tended it if the removal had been made simulta-
neously with the withdrawal from the Peninsula.
By what motive was Mr. Lincoln influenced?
Not very often is the most eager search rewarded
by the sure discovery of his opinions about per-
sons. From what we know that he did, we try to
infer why he did it, and we gropingly endeavor to
apportion the several measures of influence between
those motives which we choose to put by our con-
jecture into his mind; and after our toilful scru-
tiny is over we remain painfully conscious of the
greatness of the chance that we have scarcely even
approached the truth. Neither diary nor letters
guide us; naught save reports of occasional pithy,
pointed, pregnant remarks, evidence the most du-
bious, liable to be colored by the medium of the
predilections of the hearer, and to be re-shaped
and mis-shaped by time, and by attrition in passing
through many mouths. The President was often
in a chatting mood, and then seemed not remote
from his companion. Yet while this was the visi
THIRD ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 93
ble manifestation on the surface, lie was the most
reticent of men as to grave questions, and no con-
fidant often heard his inmost thoughts. Espe-
cially it would be difficult to name an instance in
which he told one man what he thought of another;
a trifling criticism concerning some single trait
was the utmost that he ever allowed to escape him;
a full and careful estimate, never.
Such reflections come with peculiar force at this
period in his career. What would not one give
for his estimate of McClellan ; it would be worth
the whole great collection of characters sketched
by innumerable friends and enemies for that much*
discussed general. While others think that they
know accurately the measure of McClellan's real
value and usefulness, Lincoln really knew these
things; but he never told his knowledge. We
only see that he sustained McClellan for a long
while in the face of vehement aspersions; yet that
he never fully subjected his own convictions to the
educational lectures of the general, and that he
seemed at last willing to see him laid aside ; then
immediately in a crisis restored him to authority in
spite of all opposition; and shortly afterward, as
if utterly weary of him, definitively displaced him.
Still, all these facts do not show what Lincoln
thought of McClellan. Many motives besides his
opinion of the man may have influenced him. The
pressure of political opinion and of public feeling
was very great, and might have turned him far
aside from the course he would have pursued if it
94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
could liave been neglected. Also other considera-
tions have been suggested as likely to have weighed
with him, that McClellan could do with the army
what no other man could do, because of the intense
devotion of both officers and men to him; and that
an indignity offered to McClellan might swell the
dissatisfaction of the Northern* Democracy to a
point at which it would seriously embarrass the
administration. These things may have counter-
acted, or may have corroborated, Mr. Lincoln's
views concerning the man himself. He was an
extraordinary judge of men in their relationship
to affairs ; moreover, of all the men of note of that
time he alone was wholly dispassionate and non-
partisan. Opinions tinctured with prejudices are
countless; it is disappointing that the one opinion
that was free from prejudice is unknown. 1
1 McClure says : " I saw Lincoln many times during the cam-
paign of 1864, when McClellan was his competitor for the presi-
dency. I never heard him speak of McClellan in any other than
terms of the highest personal respect and kindness. 19 Lincoln and
Men of War-Times, 207.
CHAPTER IV.
THE AUTUMN" ELECTIONS OF 1862, AND THE
PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.
THE chapter which has been written on "Eman-
cipation and Politics " shows that while loyalty to
the Union operated as a bond to hold together the
people of the North, slavery entered as a wedge to
force them asunder. It was not long before the
wedge proved a more powerful force than the bond,
for the wedge was driven home by human nature;
and it was inevitable that the men of conservative
temperament and the men of progressive tempera-
ment should erelong be easily restored to their
instinctive antagonism. Of those who had been
stigmatized as "Northern men with Southern prin-
ciples," many soon found their Southern proclivi-
ties reviving. These men, christened "Copper-
heads," became more odious to loyal Northerners
than were the avowed Secessionists. In return
for their venomous nickname and the contempt and
hatred with which they were treated, they them-
selves grew steadily more rancorous, more extreme
in their feelings. They denounced and opposed
every measure of the government, harangued
vehemently against the war and against all that
96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
was done to prosecute it, reviled with scurrilous
and passionate abuse every prominent Kepublican,
filled the air with disheartening forecasts of defeat,
ruin, and woe, and triumphed whenever the miser-
able prophecies seemed in the way of fulfilment.
General Grant truly described them as auxiliaries
to the Confederate army, and said that the North
would have been much better off with a hundred
thousand of these men in the Southern ranks, and
the rest of their kind at home thoroughly subdued,
as the Unionists were at the South, than was the
case as the struggle was actually conducted. In
time the administration found itself forced, though
reluctantly, to arrest and imprison many of the
ringleaders in this Northern disaffection. Yet all
the while the Copperheads resolutely maintained
their affiliations with the Democratic party, and
though they brought upon it much discredit which
it did not deserve, yet they could not easily be
ejected from it. Differences of opinion shaded
into each other so gradually that to establish a
line of division was difficult.
Impinging upon Copperheadism stood the much
more numerous body of those who persistently as-
serted their patriotism, but with equal persistence
criticised severely all the measures of the govern-
ment. These men belonged to that well-known
class which is happily described as being "for the
law, but ag'in the enforcement of it." They were
for the Union, but against saving it. They kept
up a disapproving headshaking over pretty much
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 2862. 97
everything that the President did. With much
grandiloquent argument, in the stately, old-school
style, they bemoaned the breaches which they
charged him with making in the Constitution.
They also hotly assumed the role of champions of
General McClellan, and bewailed the imbecility of
an administration which thwarted and deposed
him* Protesting the purest and highest patriot-
ism, they were more evasive than the outspoken
Copperheads, and as their disaffection was less
conspicuous and offensive, so also it was more in-
sidious and almost equally hurtful. They consti-
tuted the true and proper body of Democracy.
In a fellowship, which really ought not to have
existed, with these obstructionists, was the pow-
erful and respectable body of war Democrats.
These men maintained a stubborn loyally to the
old party, but prided themselves upon being as
hearty and thorough-going war-men as any among
the Republicans. A large proportion of the most
distinguished generals, of the best regimental
officers, of the most faithful soldiers in the field,
were of this political faith. The only criticism
that Republicans could reasonably pass upon them
was, that they did not, in a political way, strengthen
the hands of the government, that they would not
uphold its authority by swelling its majorities, nor
aid its prestige by giving it their good words.
Over against this Democracy, with its two very
discordant wings, was arrayed the Republican
party, which also was disturbed by the ill-will of
98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
those who should have been its allies; for while
the moderate Abolitionists generally sustained the
President, though only imperfectly satisfied with
him, the extreme Abolitionists refused to be so
reasonable. They were a very provoking body
of pure moralists. They worried the President,
condemned his policy, divided the counsels of the
government, and introduced injurious personal
enmities and partisanship with reckless disregard
of probable consequences. To a considerable ex-
tent they had the same practical effect as if they
had been avowed opponents of the Eepublican
President. They wished immediately to place the
war upon the footing of a crusade for the abolition
of slavery. Among them were old-time Abolition-
ists, with whom this purpose was a religion, men
who had hoped to see Seward the Eepublican
President, and who said that Lincoln's friends in
the nominating convention had represented a "su-
perficial and only half-hearted Republicanism."
Beside these men, though actuated by very differ-
ent and much less honorable motives, stood many
recruits, some even from the Democracy, who were
so vindictive against the South that they desired to
inflict abolition as a punishment.
All these critics and dissatisfied persons soon
began to speak with severity, and sometimes with
contempt, against the President. He had said that
the war was for the Union; but they scornfully
retorted that this was to reduce it to "a mere sec-
tional strife for ascendency; " that "a Union, with
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 99
slavery spared and reinstated, would not be worth
the cost of saving it." It was true that to save
the Union, without also removing the cause of dis-
union, might not be worth a very great price; yet
both Union and abolition were in serious danger
of being thrown away forever by these impetuous
men who desired to pluck the fruit before it was
ripe, or rather declared it to be ripe because they
so wanted to pluck it.
It is not, here and now, a question of the mer-
its and the usefulness of these men; undoubtedly
their uncompromising ardor could not have been
dispensed with in the great anti-slavery struggle ;
it was what the steam is to the engine, and if the
motive power had been absent, no one can say how
long the United States might have lain dormant as
a slave-country. But the question is of their pres-
ent attitude and of its influence and effect in the im-
mediate affairs of the government. Their demand
was for an instant and sweeping proclamation of
emancipation; and they were angry and denuncia-
tory against the President because he would not
give it to them. Of course, by their ceaseless as-
saults they hampered him and weakened his hands
very seriously. It was as an exercise of the Pres-
ident's war-power that they demanded the procla-
mation; and the difficulty in the way of it was
that Mr. Lincoln felt, and the great majority of
Northern men were positive in the opinion, that
such a proclamation at this time would not be an
honest and genuine exercise of the war-power, that
100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
it would be only falsely and colorably so called,
and that in real truth it would be a deliberate and
arbitrary change of the war from a contest for
Union to a contest for abolition. Mr. Lincoln
could not make it a war-measure merely by calling
it so; it was no mere matter of political christen-
ing, but distinctly a very grave and substantial
question of fact. It may be suspected that very
many even of the Abolitionists themselves, had
they spoken the innermost conviction of their
minds, would have admitted that the character of
the measure as a wise military transaction, pure
and simple, was very dubious. It was certain that
every one else in all the country which still was or
ever had been the United States, would regard it
as an informal and mis-named but real change of
base for the whole war. No preamble, no Whereas,
in Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, reciting as a fact
and a motive that which he would have known,
and ninety-nine out of every hundred loyal men
would have believed, not to be the true fact and
motive, could make the rest of his proclamation
lawful, or his act that of an honest ruler. Accord-
ingly no pressure could drive him to the step ; he
preferred to endure, and long did endure the abuse
of the extreme Abolitionists, and all the mischief
which their hostility could inflict upon his admin-
istration. Yet, in truth, there was not in tjie
North an Abolitionist who thought worse of the
institution of slavery than did the man who had
repeatedly declared it to be "a moral, a social,
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 101
and a political evil." Bef erring to these times,
and the behavior of the Abolitionists, he afterward
wrote : l
"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not
wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember
when I did not so think and feel, and yet I have
never understood that the presidency conferred
upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon
this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I
took that I would, to the best of my ability, pre-
serve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the
United States. I could not take the office without
taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might
take an oath to get power, and break the oath in
using the power. I understood, too, that in ordi-
nary civil administration, this oath even forbade
me to practically indulge my primary abstract
judgment on the moral question of slavery. I had
publicly declared this many times, and in many
ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done
no official act in mere deference to my abstract
judgment and feeling on slavery. I did under-
stand, however, that my oath to preserve the Con-
stitution to the best of my ability imposed upon
me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable
means, that Government, that nation, of which
that Constitution was the organic law. Was it
possible to lose the nation and yet preserve the
Constitution? By general law, life and limb must
i To A. 6. Hodges, April 4, 1864, N. and H., ri. 430; rad see
Lincoln to Chase, Sept. 2, 1863; ibid. 484.
102 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
be protected, yet often a limb must be amputated
to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to
save a limb, I felt that measures, otherwise un-
constitutional, might become lawful by becoming
indispensable to the preservation of the Constitu-
tion through the preservation of the nation. Right
or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow
it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability,
I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if,
to save slavery or any minor matter, I should per-
mit the wreck of Government, country, and Con-
stitution all together. When, early in the war,
General Fremont attempted military emancipation,
I forbade it, because I did not then think it an
indispensable necessity. When, a little later, Gen-
eral Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested
the arming of the blacks, I objected because I did
not yet think it an indispensable necessity. When,
still later, General Hunter attempted military
emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did
not yet think the indispensable necessity had
come."
None could deny that the North could abolish
slavery in the South only by beating the South in
the pending war. Therefore, by his duty as Presi-
dent of the Union and by his wishes as an anti-
slavery man, Mr. Lincoln was equally held to win
this fight. Differing in opinion from the Aboli-
tionists, he believed that to turn it, at an early
stage, into a war for abolition rather than to leave
it a war for the Union would be to destroy all hope
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 103
of winning. The step would alienate great num-
bers at the North. The "American Society for
promoting National Unity" had lately declared
that emancipation "would be rebellion against
Providence and destruction to the colored race in
our land; " and it was certain that this feeling was
still widely prevalent in the loyal States. In July,
1862, General McClellan said, warningly, that a
declaration of radical views on the slavery question
would rapidly disintegrate and destroy the Union
armies. Finally, it seemed hardly doubtful that
fatal defections would take place in the Border
States, even if they should not formally go over to
the Confederacy. No man saw the value of those
Border States as Mr. Lincoln did. To save or to
lose them was probably to save or lose the war; to
lose them and the war was to establish a powerful
slave empire. Where did abolition come in among
these events? It was not there!
Painfully, therefore, untiringly, with all the skill
and tact in his power, Mr. Lincoln struggled to
hold those invaluable, crucial States. His "bor-
der-state policy " soon came to be discussed as the
most interesting topic of which men could talk
wherever they came together. Savage were the
maledictions which emancipationists uttered against
it, and the intensity of their feeling is indicated by
the fact that, though that policy was carried out,
and though the nation, in due time, gathered the
ripe and perfect fruit of it both in the integrity of
the country and the abolition of slavery, yet even
104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN-.
at the present day many old opponents of Presi-
dent Lincoln, survivors of the Thirty - Seventh
Congress, remain unshaken in the faith that his
famous policy was "a cruel and fatal mistake."
By the summer of 1862 the opinions and the
action of Mr. Lincoln in all these matters had
"brought him into poor standing in the estimation
of many Republicans. The great majority of the
politicians of the party and sundry newspaper ed-
itors, that is to say, those persons who chiefly make
the noise and the show before the world, were bus-
ily engaged in condemning his policy. The head-
quarters of this disaffection were in Washington.
It had one convert even within the Cabinet, where
the Secretary of the Treasury was thoroughly
infected with the notion that the President was
fatally inefficient, laggard, and unequal to the oc-
casion. The feeling was also especially rife in
Congressional circles. Mr. Julian, than whom
there can be no better witness, says: "No one at
a distance could have formed any adequate concep-
tion of the hostility of Republican members toward
Mr. Lincoln at the final adjournment [the middle
of July], while it was the belief of many that our
last session of Congress had been held in Washing-
ton. Mr. Wade said the country was going to hell,
and that the scenes witnessed in the French Revo-
lution were nothing in comparison with what we
should see here." If most of the people at the
North had not had heads more cool and sensible
than was the one which rested upon the shoulders
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 105
of the ardent "Ben" Wade, the alarming predic-
tion of that lively spokesman might have been ful-
filled. Fortunately, however, as Mr. Julian ad-
mits, "the feeling in Congress was far more intense
than [it was] throughout the country." The ex-
perienced denizens of the large Northern cities
read in a critical temper the tirades of journalist
critics, who assumed to know everything. The
population of the small towns and the village
neighborhoods, though a little bewildered by the
echoes of denunciation which reached them from
the national capital, yet by instinct, or by a divine
guidance, held fast to their faith in their President.
Thus the rank and file of the Republican party
refused to follow the field officers in a revolt against
the general. No better fortune ever befell this
very fortunate nation. If the anti-slavery extrem-
ists had been able to reinforce their own pressure
by the ponderous impact of the popular will, and
so had pushed the President from his "border-
state policy" and from his general scheme of ad-
vancing only very cautiously along the anti-slavery
line, it is hardly conceivable either that the Union
would have been saved or that slavery would have
been destroyed.
On August 19, 1862, the good, impulsive, im-
practical Horace Greeley published in his news-
paper, the New York "Tribune," an address to the
President, to which he gave an awe-inspiring title,
"The Prayer of 20,000,000 of People." It was
an extremely foolish paper, and its title, like other
106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
parts of it, was false. Only those persons who
were agitators for immediate emancipation could
say amen to this mad prayer, and they were far
from being even a large percentage of "20,000,000
of people." Yet these men, being active mission-
aries and loud preachers in behalf of a measure in
which they had perfect faith, made a show and ex-
erted an influence disproportioned to their num-
bers. Therefore their prayer, 1 though laden with
blunders of facts and reasoning, fairly expressed
malcontent Republicanism. Moreover, multitudes
.who could not quite join in the prayer would read
it and would be moved by it. The influence of
66 The Tribune " was enormous. Colonel McClure
truly says that by means of it Mr. Greeley "reached
the very heart of the Republican party in every
State in the Union; 99 and perhaps he does not
greatly exaggerate when he adds that through this
same line of connection the great Republican ed-
itor "was in closer touch with the active loyal
sentiment of the people than [was] even the Presi-
dent himself." For these reasons it seemed to
1 "It was,' 9 says Mr. Arnold, "full of errors and mistaken in-
ferences, and written in ignorance of many facts which it was the
duty of the President to consider." Life of Lincoln^ 254 But,
per contra, Hon. George W. Julian says : " It was one of the most
powerful appeals ever made in behalf of justice and the rights of
man. 9 ' Polit. RecdL, 220. Arnold and Julian were both mem-
bers of the House, and both thorough-going abolitionists. Their
difference of opinion upon this letter of Mr. Greeley illustrates
well the discussions which, like the internecine fends of Christian
sects, existed between men who ought to have stood side by side
against the heretics and unbelievers.
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 107
Mr. Lincoln worth while to make a response to
an assault which, if left unanswered, must seri-
ously embarrass the administration. He there-
fore wrote :
"DEAR SIR, I have just read yours of the
19th instant, addressed to myself through the New
York 'Tribune.'
"If there be in it any statements or assumptions
of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do
not now and here controvert them.
"If there be any inferences which I believe to
be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue
against them.
"If there be perceptible in it an impatient and
dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old
friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be
right.
"As to the policy 6 I seem to be pursuing,* as
you say, I have not meant to leave any one in
doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it
in the shortest way under the Constitution.
"The sooner the national authority can be re-
stored, the nearer the Union will be, the Union
as it was.
"If there be those who would not save the
Union, unless they could at the same time save
slavery, I do not agree with them.
"If there be those who would not save tibe
Union, unless they could at the same time destroy
slavery, I do not agree with them.
" My paramount object is to save the
and not either to &aiw or da&farn/
108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
"If I could save the Union without freeing any
slave, I would do it. And if I could save it by
freeing all the slaves, I would do it. And if I
could save it by freeing some, and leaving others
alone, I would also do that.
"What I do about slavery and the colored race,
I do because I believe it helps to save the Union,
and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not be-
lieve it would help to save the Union.
"I shall do less whenever I believe what I am
doing hurts the cause, and shall do more, when-
ever I believe doing more will help the cause.
"I shall try to correct errors, when shown to be
errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they
shall appear to be true views.
"I have here stated my purpose, according to
my view of official duty, and I intend no modifica-
tion of my oft-expressed personal wish, that all
men everywhere could be free."
This reply, placing the Union before all else,
did "more to steady the loyal sentiment of the
country in a very grave emergency than anything
that ever came from Lincoln's pen." It was, very
naturally, "particularly disrelished by aaiti- slav-
ery men," whose views were not modified by it
but whose temper was irritated in proportion to
the difficulty of meeting it, Mr. Greeley himself,
enthusiastic and woolly-witted, allowed this heavy
roller to pass over him, and arose behind it una-i
ware that he had been crushed. He even pub-*
lished a retort, which was discreditably abusive.
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 2862. 109
A fair specimen of his rhetoric was his demand to
be informed whether Mr. Lincoln designed to save
the Union "by recognising, obeying and enforcing
the laws, or by ignoring, disregarding and in fact
defying them? " Now the precise fact which so
incensed Mr. Greeley and all his comrades was,
that the President was studiously and stubbornly
insisting upon "recognizing, obeying and enforc-
ing the laws; " and the very thing which they were
crying for was a step which, according to his way
of thinking, would involve that he should "ignore,
disregard and defy " them. They had not shrunk
from taking this position, when pushed toward it.
They had contemned the Constitution, and had de-
clared that it should not be allowed to stand in the
way of doing those things which, in their opinion,
ought to be done. Their great warrior, the chief-
tain of their forces in the House of Representa-
tives, Thaddeus Stevens, was wont to say, in his
defiant iconoclastic style, that there was no longer
any Constitution, and that he was weary of hear-
ing this "never-ending gabble about the sacred-
ness of the Constitution." Yet somewhat incon-
sistently these same men held as an idol and a
leader Secretary Chase; and he at the close of
1860 had declared: "At all hazards and against
all opposition, the laws of the Union should be
enforced. . . . The question of slavery should not
be permitted to influence my action, one way or
the other." Later perhaps he and his allies had
forgotten these words. Still many persons hold
110 ABRAHAM LINCOLN*.
to the opinion that the emancipationists did not
give Mr. Lincoln fair play. 1
On September 13 a body of clergymen from
Chicago waited upon Mr. Lincoln to urge imme-
diate and universal emancipation. The occasion
was made noteworthy by his remarks to them.
"I am approached with the most opposite opin-
ions and advice, and that by religious men, who
are equally certain that they represent the Divine
will. I am sure that either the one or the other
class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps, in
some respect, both. I hope it will not be irrever-
ent for me to say that, if it is probable that God
would reveal his will to others on a point so con-
nected with my duty, it might be supposed He
would reveal it directly to me; for, unless I am
more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my
earnest desire to know the will of Providence in
this matter. And if I can learn what it is, I will
do it! These are not, however, the days of mira-
cles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am
not to expect a direct revelation. I must study
the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what
is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and
right. The subject is difficult, and good men do
not agree.
"What good would a proclamation of emancipa-
tion from me do, especially as we are now situated?
I do not want to issue a document that the whole
1 For views contrary to mine, see Julian, Polit. Recoil., 221.
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. Ill
world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like
the Pope's bull against the comet! Would my
word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce
the Constitution in the rebel States? Is there a
single court, or magistrate, or individual that
would be influenced by it there? And what rea-
son is there to think it would have any greater
effect upon the slaves than the late law of Con-
gress, which I approved, and which offers protec-
tion and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters
who come within our lines? Yet I cannot learn
that that law has caused a single slave to come
over to us.
"Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possi-
ble result of good would follow the issuing of such
a proclamation as you desire? Understand, I raise
no objections against it on legal or constitutional
grounds, for, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army
and Navy, in time of war, I suppose I have a right
to take any measure which may best subdue the
enemy; nor do I urge objections of a moral na-
ture, in view of possible consequences of insur-
rection and massacre at the South* I view this
matter as a practical war measure, to be decided
on according to the advantages or disadvantages
it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion.
"Do not misunderstand me because I have men-
tioned these objections. They indicate the difficul-
ties that have thus far prevented my action in
112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
some such way as you desire. I have not decided
against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but
hold the matter under advisement. And I can
assure you that the subject is on my mind, by day
and night, more than any other. Whatever shall
appear to be God's will I will do. I trust that in
the freedom with which I have canvassed your
views I have not in any respect injured your feel-
ings."
Whether or not the clerical advisers winced un-
der the President's irony, at least they must have
appreciated the earnestness and sincerity with
which he considered the subject.
All this while that newspaper writers, religious
teachers, members of Congress and political busy-
bodies generally were tirelessly enlightening Mr.
Lincoln concerning what was right, what was wise,
what was the will of the people, even what was the
will of God, he was again quietly making good
that shrewd Southerner's prophecy: he was "do-
ing his own thinking; " neither was he telling to
anybody what this thinking was. Throngs came
and went, and each felt called upon to leave behind
him some of his own wisdom, a precept, advice or
suggestion, for the use of the President; perhaps
in return he took away with him a story which
was much more than full value for what he had
given; but no one found out the working of the
President's mind, and no one could say that he
had influenced it. History is crowded with tales
of despots, but it tells of no despot who thought
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 113
and decided with the tranquil, taciturn indepen-
dence which was now marking this President of
the free American Republic. It is a little amus-
ing for us, to-day, to know that while the emanci-
pationists were angrily growling out their disgust
at the ruler who would not abolish slavery accord-
ing to their advice, the rough draft of the Eman-
cipation Proclamation had already been written.
It was actually lying in his desk when he was
writing to Greeley that letter, which caused so
much indignation. It had been communicated to
his Cabinet long before he talked to those Chicago
clergymen, and showed them that the matter was
by no means so simple as they, in their one-sided,
unworldly way, believed it to be.
It is said to have been on July 8 that the Presi-
dent wrote this rough draft, on board the steam-
boat which was bringing him back from his visit to
McClellan at Harrison's Landing. He then laid
it away for the days and events to bring ripeness.
By his own statement he had for some time felt
convinced that, if compensated emancipation should
fail, emancipation as a war measure must ensue.
Compensated emancipation had now been offered,
urged, and ill received; therefore the question
in his mind was no longer whether, but when he
should exercise his power. This was more a mili-
tary than a political question. His right to eman-
cipate slaves was strictly a war power; he had the
right to exercise it strictiyfor the purpose of weak-
ening the enemy or strengthening his own generals;
114 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
he Had not the right to exercise it in the cause of
humanity, if it would not either weaken the enemy
or strengthen his own side. If by premature exer-
cise he should alienate great numbers of border-
state men, while the sheet of paper with his name
at its foot would be ineffectual to give actual lib-
erty of action to a single black man in the Con-
federacy, he would aid the South and injure the
North, that is to say, he would accomplish pre-
cisely the reverse of that which alone could law-
fully form the basis of his action. The question
of When, therefore, was a very serious one. At
what stage of the contest would a declaration of
emancipation be hurtful to the Southern and bene-
ficial to the Northern cause?
Schuyler Colfax well said that Mr. Lincoln's
judgment, when settled, "was almost as immovable
as the eternal hills." A good illustration of this
was given upon a day about the end of July or be-
ginning of August, 1862, when Mr. Lincoln called
a Cabinet meeting. To his assembled Secretaries
he then said, with his usual simple brevity, that
he was going to communicate to them something
about which he did not desire them to offer any
advice, since his determination was taken; they
might make suggestions as to details, but nothing
more. After this imperious statement he read the
preliminary proclamation of emancipation. The
ministers listened in silence; not one of them had
been consulted; not one of them, until this mo-
ment, knew the President's purpose; not even now
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. US
did he think it worth while to go through any idle
form of asking the opinion of any one of them. 1
He alone had settled the matter, and simply noti-
fied them that he was about to do the most moment-
ous thing that had ever been done upon this con-
tinent since thirteen British colonies had become a
nation. Such a presentation of "one-man-power "
certainly stood out in startling relief upon the
background of popular government and the great
free republican system of the world!
One or two trifling verbal alterations were
made. The only important suggestion came from
Mr. Seward, who said that, in the "depression of
the public mind consequent upon our repeated ad-
verses," he feared that so important a step might
"be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted
government, a cry for help; the government
stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia, instead of
Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to the govern-
ment." He dreaded that "it would be considered
our last shriek on the retreat." Therefore he
thought it would be well to postpone issuing the
proclamation till it could come before the country
with the support of some military success. Mr.
Lincoln, who had not committed himself upon the
precise point of time, approved this idea. In
fact, he had already had in mind this same notion,
that a victory would be an excellent companion for
1 The story that some members of the Cabinet were opposed to
the measure was distinctly denied by the President. Carpenter,
Six Months in the White House, 8&
116 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
the proclamation. In July Mr. Boutwell had
said to him that the North would not succeed until
the slaves were emancipated, and Mr. Lincoln had
replied: "You would not have it done now, would
you? Had we not better wait for something like
a victory?" This point being accordingly settled
to the satisfaction of all, the meeting then dis-
solved, with the understanding that the secret was
to be closely kept for the present; and Mr. Lin-
coln again put away his paper to await the coming
of leaden-footed victory.
For the moment the prospects of this event were
certainly sufficiently gloomy. Less than three
weeks, however, brought the battle of Antietam.
As a real "military success" this was, fairly
speaking, unsatisfactory; but it had to serve the
turn; the events of the war did not permit the
North to be fastidious in using the word victory;
if the President had imprudently been more ex-
acting the Abolitionists would have had to wait
for Gettysburg. News of the battle reached Mr.
Lincoln at the Soldiers' Home. "Here," he says,
"I finished writing the second draft. I came to
Washington on Saturday, called the Cabinet to-
gether to hear it, and it was published on the fol-
lowing Monday, the 22d of September, 1862."
The proclamation was preliminary or monitory
only, and it did not promise universal emancipa-
tion. It stated that, on January 1, 1863, "all
persons held as slaves within any State or desig-
nated part of a State, the people whereof shall
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 117
then be in rebellion against the United States,
shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free;"
also, that "the Executive will, on the first day of
January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the
States and parts of States, if any, in which the
people thereof respectively shall then be in rebel-
lion against the United States."
The measure was entirely Mr. Lincoln's own.
Secretary Chase reports that at the Cabinet meet-
ing on September 22, he said: "I must do the best
I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the
course which I feel I ought to take." It has been
said that he acted under a severe specific pressure,
emanating from the calling of the famous confer-
ence of governors at Altoona. This, however, is
not true. On September 14 Governor Curtin in-
vited the governors of loyal States to meet on Sep-
tember 24 to discuss the situation and especially
the emergency created by the northward advance
of General Lee. But that this meeting was more
than a coincidence, or that the summons to it had
any influence in the matter of the proclamation is
disproved by all that is known concerning it. 1
The connection with the battle is direct, avowed,
and reasonable; that with the gubernatorial con-
gress is supposititious and improbable. Governor
Curtin says distinctly that the President, being in-
formed by himself and two others that such a con-
ference was in preparation, "did not attempt to
1 For interesting statements about this Altoona conference, see
McClure, Lincoln and Men of War-Times, 248-251.
118 ABRAHAM LINCOLN*.
conceal the fact tliat we were upon the eve of ap
emancipation policy," in response to which state-
ment he received from his auditors the "assurance
that the Altoona Conference would cordially in-
dorse such a policy." As matter of fact, at the
meeting, most of the governors, in a sort of supple-
mentary way, declared their approval of the procla-
mation; but the governors of New Jersey, Del-
aware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri would
not unite in this action. If further evidence were
needed upon this point, it is furnished by the sim-
ple statement of President Lincoln himself. He
said: "The truth is, I never thought of the meet-
ing of the governors at all. When Lee came over
the Potomac I made a resolve that, if McClellan
drove him back, I would send the proclamation
after him. The battle of Antietam was fought
Wednesday, but I could not find out until Satur-
day whether we had won a victory or lost a battle.
It was then too late to issue it on that day, and on
Sunday I fixed it up a little, and on Monday I let
them have it." Secretary Chase, in his Diary,
under date of September 22, 1862, gives an ac-
count in keeping with the foregoing sketch, but
casts about the proclamation a sort of superstitious
complexion, as if it were the fulfilment of a reli-
gious vow. He says that at the Cabinet meeting
the President said: "When the rebel army was at
Frederick, I determined, as soon as it should be
driven out of Maryland, to issue a proclamation of
emancipation, such as I thought most likely to be
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1S62. 119
useful. I said nothing to anyone; but I made
the promise to myself, and (hesitating a little) to
my Maker. The rebel army is now driven out,
and I am going to fulfil that promise." About an
event so important and so picturesque small le-
gends will cluster and cling like little barnacles on
the solid rock; but the rock remains the same be-
neath these deposits, and in this case the fact that
the proclamation was determined upon and issued
at the sole will and discretion of the President is
not shaken by any testimony that is given about it.
He regarded it as a most grave measure, as plainly
it was ; to a Southerner, who had begged him not
to have recourse to it, he replied: "You must not
expect me to give up this government without
playing my last card." l So now, on this moment-
ous twenty-second day of September, the Presi-
dent, using his own judgment in playing the great
game, cast what he conceived to be his ace of
trumps upon the table.
The measure took the country by surprise. The
President's secret had been well kept, and for once
rumor had not forerun execution. Doubtless the
reader expects now to hear that one immediate
effect was the conciliation of all those who had
been so long reproaching Mr. Lincoln for his delay
in taking this step. It would seem right and
natural that the emancipationists should have ral-
lied with generous ardor to sustain him. They
did not. They remained just as dissatisfied and
l Elaine, L 439.
120 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
distrustful towards Mm as ever. Some said that
he had been forced into this policy, some that he
had drifted with the tide of events, some that he
had waited for popular opinion at the North to
give him the cue, instead of himself guiding that
opinion. To show that he was false to the re-
sponsibility of a ruler, there were those who cited
against him his own modest words: "I claim not
to have controlled events, but confess plainly that
events have controlled me." Others, however, put
upon this language the more kindly and more hon-
est interpretation, that Mr. Lincoln appreciated
that both President and people were moved by the
drift of events, which in turn received their own
impulse from an agency higher than human and to
which they must obediently yield. But whatever
ingenious excuses were devised by extremists for
condemning the man who had done the act, the
Republican party faithfully supported the act itself.
In the middle of December the House passed a
resolution ratifying the President's policy as "well
adapted to hasten the restoration of peace," and
"well chosen as a war measure."
The President himself afterward declared his
"conviction," that, had the proclamation been
issued six months earlier, it would not have been
sustained by public opinion; and certainly it is
true that contemporaneous political occurrences
now failed to corroborate the soundness of those
assertions by which the irreconcilable emancipa-
tionist critics of Mr. Lincoln had been endeavor-
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 121
ing to induce hire to adopt their policy earlier.
They themselves, as Mr. Wilson admits, "had
never constituted more than an inconsiderable
fraction " of the whole people at the North. He
further says: "At the other extreme, larger num-
bers received it [the proclamation] with deadly and
outspoken opposition; while between these ex-
tremes the great body even of Union men doubted,
hesitated. ... Its immediate practical effect did
perhaps more nearly answer the apprehensions of
the President than the expectations of those most
clamorous for it. It did, as charged, very much
'unite the South and divide the North.* "
In the autumn of 1862 there took place the elec-
tions for Kepresentatives to the Thirty-eighth Con-
gress. The most ingenious sophist could hardly
maintain that strenuous anti-slavery voters, who
had been angry with the government for backward-
ness in the emancipation policy, ought now to
manifest their discontent by voting the Democratic
ticket. If there should be a Democratic reaction
at the polls it could not possibly be construed
otherwise than as a reaction against anti-slavery;
it would undeniably indicate that Congress and the
administration had been too hostile rather than too
friendly towards that cause of the strife, that they
had outstripped rather than fallen behind popular
sympathy. It soon became evident that a formid-
able reaction of this kind had taken place, that
dissatisfaction with the anti-slavery measures and
discouragement at the military failures, together,
122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
were even imperilling Eepublican ascendency.
Now all knew, though some might not be willing
to say, that the loss of Republican ascendency
meant, in fact, the speedy settlement of the war
by compromise; and the South was undoubtedly
in earnest in declaring that there could be no com-
promise without disunion. Therefore, in those
elections of the autumn months in 1862 the whole
question of Union or Disunion had to be fought out
at the polls in the loyal States, and there was an
appalling chance of its going against the Unionist
party. "The administration," says Mr. Elaine,
"was now subjected to a fight for its life;" and
for a while the fortunes of that mortal combat wore
a most alarming aspect*
The Democracy made its fight on the ground
that the anti-slavery legislation of the Eepublican
majority in the Thirty-seventh Congress had sub-
stantially made abolition the ultimate purpose of
the war. Here, then, they said, was a change of
base; were or were not the voters of the loyal
States willing to ratify it? Already this ground
had been taken in the platforms of the party in
the most important Northern States, before Mr.
Lincoln issued his proclamation. Was it unrea-
sonable to fear that this latest and most advanced
step would intensify that hostility, stimulate the
too obvious reaction, and aggravate the danger
which, against his judgment, 1 as it was under-
1 It was understood that he had not favored the principal anti-
slavery measures of the Thirty-seventh Congress, on the ground
that they were premature.
THE AUTUMN ELECTION'S OF 2862. 123
stood, Congress had created? Was it not proba-
ble that Mr. Blair was correct when he warned
the President that the proclamation would "cost
the administration the fall elections"? Naturally
it will be asked : if this was a reasonable expecta-
tion, why did the President seize this critical mo-
ment to ally the administration with anti-slavery?
Mr. Elaine furnishes a probable explanation:
"The anti-slavery policy of Congress had gone
far enough to arouse the bitter hostility of all
Democrats, who were not thoroughly committed to
the war, and yet not far enough to deal an effect-
ive blow against the institution." The adminis-
tration stood at a point where safety lay rather in
defying than in evading the ill opinion of the mal-
contents, where the best wisdom was to commit
itself, the party, and the nation decisively to the
"bold, far-reaching, radical and aggressive policy,"
from which it would be impossible afterward to
turn back "without deliberately resolving to sacri-
fice our nationality." Presumably the President
wished to show the people that their only choice
now lay between slavery on the one hand and na-
tionality on the other, so that, of the two things,
they might take that one which they deemed the
more worthy. The two together they could never
again have. This theory tallies with the well-
known fact that Mr. Lincoln was always willing
to trust the people upon a question of right and
wrong. He never was afraid to stake his chance
upon the faith that what was intrinsically right
124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
would prove in the long run to be politically safe.
While he was a shrewd politician in matters of
detail, he had the wisdom always in a great ques-
tion to get upon that side where the inherent mor-
ality lay. Yet, unfortunately, it takes time time
which cannot always be afforded for right to
destroy prejudice; the slow-grinding mill of God
grinds sometimes so slowly that man cannot help
fearing that for once the stint will not be worked
out; and in this autumn of 1862 there was one of
these crises of painful anxiety among patriots at
the North.
Maine held her election early in September,
and upon the vote for governor a Republican
majority, which usually ranged from 10,000 to
19,000, was this year cut down to a little over
4000; also, for the first time in ten years, a Demo-
crat secured a seat in the national House of Repre-
sentatives. Then came the "October States." In
that dreary month Ohio elected 14 Democrats and
5 Republicans; the Democrats casting, in the total,
about 7000 more votes than the Republicans. In-
diana sent 8 Democrats, 3 Republicans. In Penn-
sylvania the congressional delegation was divided,
but lihe Democrats polled the larger vote by about
4000; whereas Mr. Lincoln had had a majority in
the State of 60,000! In New York the famous
Democratic leader, Horatio Seymour, was elected
governor by a majority of nearly 10,000. Illi-
nois, the President's own State, showed a Demo-
cratic majority of 17,000, and her congressional
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 125
delegation stood 11 Democrats to 3 Kepublicans.
New Jersey turned from Republicanism to Demo-
cracy. Michigan reduced a Republican majority
from 20,000 to 6000. Wisconsin divided its del-
egation evenly* 1 When the returns were all in,
the Democrats, who had had only 44 votes in the
House in the Thirty-seventh Congress, found that
in its successor they would have 75. Even if the
non-voting absentees in the army 2 had been all
Republicans, which they certainly were not, such
a reaction would have been appalling.
Fortunately some other Northern States New
England's six, and Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota,
California, and Oregon held better to their
Republican faith. But it was actually the border
slave States which, in these dark and desperate
days, came gallantly to the rescue of the Presi-
dent's party. If the voters of these States had
seen in him a radical of the stripe of the anti-slav-
ery agitators, it is not imaginable that they would
have helped him as they now did. Thus was
his much maligned "border-state policy" at last
handsomely vindicated ; and thanks to it the fright-
ened Republicans saw, with relief, that they could
command a majority of about twenty votes in the
House. Mr. Lincoln had saved the party whose
leaders had turned against him.
1 The foregoing- statistics have been taken from Mr. Elaine,
Twenty Years of Congress, L 441-444.
2 Later, legislation enabled the soldiers in {he field to votej
but at this time they could not do so.
126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Beneath the dismal shadow of these autumnal
elections the Thirty-seventh Congress came to-
gether for its final session, December 1, 1862*
The political situation was peculiar and unfortu-
nate. There was the greatest possible need for
sympathetic cooperation in the Eepublican party;
but sympathy was absent, and cooperation was im-
perfect and reluctant. The majority of the Repub-
lican members of Congress obstinately maintained
their alienation from the Republican President ; an
enormous popular defection from Republicanism
had taken place in its natural strongholds; and
Republican domination had only been saved by the
aid of States in which Republican majorities had
been attainable actually because a large proportion
of the population was so disaffected as either to
have enlisted in the Confederate service, or to
have refrained from voting at elections held under
Union auspices. Therefore, whether Mr. Lin-
coln looked forth upon the political or the military
situation, he beheld only gloomy prospects. But
having made fast to what he believed to be right,
he would not, in panic, cast loose from it. In the
face of condemnation he was not seen to modify
his course in order to conciliate any portion of the
people; but, on the contrary, in his message he
returned to his plan which had hitherto been so
coldly received, and again strenuously recom-
mended appropriations for gradual, compensated
emancipation and colonization. The scheme had
three especial attractions for him: 1. It would be
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 127
operative in those loyal States and parts of States
in which military emancipation would not take
effect. 2. In its practical result it would do away
with slavery by the year 1900, whereas military
emancipation would now free a great number of
individuals, but would leave slavery, as an institu-
tion, untouched and liable to be revived and rein-
vigorated later on. 3. It would make emancipation
come as a voluntary process, leaving a minimum of
resentment remaining in the minds of slave-hold-
ers, instead of being a violent war measure never
to be remembered without rebellious anger. This
last point was what chiefly moved him. He in-
tensely desired to have emancipation effected in
such a way that good feeling between the two sec-
tions might be a not distant condition; the human-
ity of his temperament, his passion for reasonable
dealing, his appreciation of the mischief of sec-
tional enmity in a Republic, all conspired to estab-
lish him unchangeably in favor of "compensated
emancipation. 1 '
For the accomplishment of his purpose he now
suggested three articles of amendment to the Con-
stitution. He spoke earnestly; for "in times like
the present," he said, "men should utter nothing
for which they would not willingly be responsible
through time and eternity." Beneath the solem-
nity of this obligation he made for his plan a very
elaborate argument. Among the closing sentences
were the following :
"The plan would, I am confident, secure peaoe
128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
more speedily, and maintain it more permanently,
than can be done by force alone; while all it would
fiost, considering amounts, and manner of pay-
inent, and times of payment, would be easier paid
than will be the additional cost of the war, if we
rely solely upon force. It is much, very much,
that it would cost no blood at all.
*
"Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose,
if adopted, would shorten the war, and thus lessen
its expenditure of money and of blood? Is it
doubted that it would restore the national authority
and national prosperity, and perpetuate both in-
definitely? Is it doubted that we here Con-
gress and Executive can secure its adoption?
Will not the good people respond to a united and
earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they, by
any other means so certainly or so speedily assure
these vital objects? We can succeed only by con-
cert. It is not 'Can any of us imagine better?*
but 'Can we all do better? ' Object whatsoever
is possible, still the question recurs, 'Can we do
better? * The dogmas of the quiet past are inade-
quate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled
high with difficulty, and we must rise with the
occasion. As our case is new, so we must think
anew and act anew. We must disenthrall our-
selves, and then we shall save our country.
"Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history.
of this Congress and this administration,
[shall] be remembered in spite of ourselves.
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 129
No personal significance, or insignificance, can
spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through
which we pass will light us down, in honor or dis-
honor, to the latest generation. We say we are
for the Union. The world will not forget that we
say this. We know how to save the Union. The
world knows we do know how to save it. We
even we here hold the power and bear the re-
sponsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we
assure freedom to the/ree, honorable alike in
what we give and what we preserve. We shall
nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of
earth. Other means may succeed; this could not
fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just,
a way which, if followed, the world will forever
applaud, and God must forever bless."
Beautiful and impressive as was this appeal, it
persuaded few or none. In fact, no effort on the
President's part now, or at any time, could win
much approval for his plan. Not many were ever
pleased by it ; but afterward, in the winter of 1863,
many members of the Thirty-eighth Congress were
willing, without believing in it, to give him a
chance to try it in Missouri. Accordingly a bill
then passed the House appropriating 110,000,000
to compensate slave-owners in that State, if aboli-
tion of slavery should be made part of its organic
law. The Senate made the sum $15,000,000 and
returned the bill to the House for concurrence.
But the Representatives from Missouri were tire-
less in their hostility to the measure, and finally
killed it by parliamentary expedients of delay.
130 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
This was a great disappointment to Mr. Lin-
coln. While the measure was pending he argued
strenuously with leading Missourians to induce
them to put their State in the lead in what he
hoped would then become a procession of slave
States. But these gentlemen seemed to fear that,
if they should take United States bonds in pay-
ment, they might awake some morning in these
troublous times to find their promisor a bankrupt
or a repudiationist. On the other hand, such was
the force of habit that a slave seemed to them very
tangible property. Mr. Lincoln shrewdly sug-
gested that, amid present conditions, "bonds were
better than bondsmen," and "two-legged prop-
erty" was a very bad kind to hold. Time proved
him to be entirely right; but for the present his
argument, entreaty, and humor were all alike use-
less. Missouri would have nothing to do with
"compensated emancipation ;" and since she was
regarded as a test case, the experiment was not
tried elsewhere. So it came to pass afterward that
the slave-holders parted with their slaves for no-
thing instead of exchanging them for the six per
cent bonds of the United States.
The first day of January, 1863, arrived, and no
event had occurred to delay the issue of the prom-
ised proclamation. It came accordingly. By vir-
tue of his power as commander-in-chief, "in time
of actual armed rebellion, . . . and as a fit and
necessary war measure for suppressing said rebel-
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 131
lion," the President ordered that all persons held
as slaves in certain States and parts of States,
which he designated as being then in rebellion,
should be thenceforward free, and declared that
the Executive, with the army and navy, would
"recognize and maintain the freedom of said per-
sons." The word "maintain" was inserted at
Seward's suggestion, and somewhat against Mr.
Lincoln's wish. He said that he had intentionally
refrained from introducing it, because it was not
his way to promise what he was not entirely sure
that he could perform. The sentence invoking
the favor of God was contributed by Secretary
Chase. The paper was signed after the great
public reception of New Year's Day. Mr. Lin-
coln, as he took the pen, remarked to Mr. Seward
that his much-shaken hand was almost paralyzed,
so that people who, in time to come, should see
that signature, would be likely to say: "He hesi-
tated," whereas, in fact, his whole soul was in it.
The publication took place late in the day, and the
anti-slavery critics grumbled because it was not
sent out in the morning.
The people at large received this important step
with some variety of feeling and expression; but,
upon the whole, approval seems to have far outrun
the dubious prognostications of the timid and con-
servative class. For the three months, which had
given opportunity for thinking, had produced the
result which Mr. Lincoln had hoped for. It turned
ut that the mill of God had been grinding as ex*
132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
actly as always. Very many, who would not have
advised the measure, now heartily ratified it.
Later, after men's minds had had time to settle
and the balance could be fairly struck, it ap-
peared undeniable that the final proclamation had
been of good effect; so Mr. Lincoln himself said.
It is worth noting that while many Englishmen
spoke out in generous praise, the rulers of England
took the contrary position. Earl Eussell said that
the measure was "of a very strange nature," "a
very questionable kind, "an act of "vengeance on
the slave-owner," and that it did no more than
"profess to emancipate slaves, where the United
States authorities cannot make emancipation a
reality." But the English people were strongly
and genuinely anti - slavery , and the danger of
English recognition of the Confederacy was greatly
diminished when the proclamation established the
policy of the administration.
The proclamation contained a statement that ex-
slaves would be "received into the armed service
of the United States." Up to this time not much
had been done in the way of enlisting colored
troops. The negroes themselves had somewhat
disappointed their friends by failing to take the
initiative, and it became evident that they must be
stirred by influences outside their own race. The
President now took the matter in hand, and en-
deavored to stimulate commanders of Southern
departments to show energy concerning it. By
degrees successful results were obtained. The
THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862. 133
Southerners formally declared that they would not
regard either neigro troops or their officers as pris-
oners of war; but that they would execute the offi-
cers as ordinary felons, and would hand over the
negroes to be dealt with by the state authorities as
slaves in insurrection. Painful and embarrassing
questions of duty were presented by these menaces.
To Mr. Lincoln the obvious policy of retaliation
seemed abhorrent, and he held back from declar-
ing that he would adopt it, in the hope that events
might never compel him to do so. But on July 30
he felt compelled, in justice to the blacks and
those who led them, to issue an order that for
every Union soldier killed in violation of the laws
of war a rebel soldier should be executed; and for
every one enslaved a rebel soldier should be placed
at hard labor on the public works. Happily, how-
ever, little or no action ever became necessary in
pursuance of this order. The Southerners either
did not in fact wreak their vengeance in fulfilment
of their furious vows, or else covered tiieir doings
so that they could not be proved. Only the shock-
ing incident of the massacre at Fort Pillow seemed
to demand stern retaliatory measures, and even
this was, too mercifully, allowed gradually to sink
away into neglect. 1
1 For account of these matters of retaliation and protection of
negroes, see N. and H., yoL vi. cL zzi
CHAPTEE V.
BATTLES AND SIEGES: DECEMBER, 1862-DECEMBEB,
1863.
THE clouds of gloom and discouragement, which
shut so heavily about the President in the autumn
of 1862, did not disperse as winter advanced.
That dreary season, when nearly all doubted and
many despaired, is recognized now as an interlude
between the two grand divisions of the drama.
Before it, the Northern people had been enthusi-
astic, united, and hopeful; after it, they saw as-
surance of success within reach of a reasonable
persistence. But while the miserable days were
passing, men could not see into the mysterious fu-
ture. Not only were armies beaten, but the people
themselves seemed to be deserting their princi-
ples. The face and the form of the solitary man,
whose position brought every part of this sad pros*
pect fully within the range of his contemplation,
showed the wear of the times. The eyes went
deeper into their caverns, and seemed to send
their search farther than ever away into a reced-
ing distance; the furrows sank far into the sallow
face; a stoop bent the shoulders, as if the burden
of the soul had even a physical weight. Yet still
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 135
he sought neither counsel, nor strength, nor sym-
pathy from any one; neither leaned on any friend,
nor gave his confidence to any adviser; the prob-
lems were his and the duty was his, and he ac-
cepted both wholly. "I need success more than I
need sympathy," he said; for it was the cause, not
his own burden, which absorbed his thoughts.
The extremists, who seemed to have more than
half forgotten to hate the South in the intensity of
their hatred of McClellan, had apparently cher-
ished a vague faith that, if this procrastinating
spirit could be exorcised, the war might then be
trusted to take care of itself. But after they had
accomplished their purpose they were confronted
by facts which showed that in this matter, as in
that of emancipation, the President's deliberation
was not the unpardonable misdoing which they had
conceived it to be. In spite of McClellan' s inso-
lent arrogance and fault-finding, his unreasonable
demands, and his tedious squandering of invaluable
time, Mr. Lincoln, being by nature a man who
contemplated the consequence of an action, did not
desire to make a vacancy till he could fill it with a
better man. "I certainly have been dissatisfied,'*
he said, "with Buell and McClellan; but before I
relieved them I had great fears I should not find
successors to them who would do better; and I am
sorry to add I have seen little since to relieve those
fears." One bloody and costly experiment had
already failed at Manassas. Two others were soon
to result even more disastrously; and still another
136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 .
leader was to be superseded, before the "man of
destiny " came. McClellan had thrown away su-
perb opportunities; but to turn him out was not
to fill his place with an abler man.
On the evening of November 7, 1862, the dis-
patch came which relieved McClellan and put
Burnside in command. The moment was not well
chosen. McClellan seemed in an unusually ener-
getic temper. He had Lee's army divided, and
was conceivably on the verge of fighting it in de-
tail. 1 On the other hand, Burnside assumed the
charge with reluctance and self -distrust. A hand-
some, popular gentleman, of pleasing manners and
with the prestige of some easily won successes, he
had the misfortune to be too highly esteemed.
The change of commanders brought a change of
scheme, which was now to advance upon Richmond
by way of Fredericksburg. When this was sub-
mitted to the President he said that it might suc-
ceed if the movement was rapid, otherwise not.
The half of this opinion which concerned success
was never tested; the other half was made pain-
fully good. Instead of rapidity there was great
delay, with the result that the early days of Decem-
ber found Lee intrenching strongly upon the
heights behind Fredericksburg on the south bank
of the Eappahannock, having his army now re-
united and reinforced to the formidable strength
of 78,288 men "present for duty." Burnside lay
upon the north bank, with 113,000 men, but hav-
1 Palfrey, The Antietam and Frederickstorg, 132.
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 137
ing exchanged the promising advantages which had
existed when he took command for very serious
disadvantages. He had the burden of attacking a
position which he had allowed his enemy not only
to select but to fortify. Happily it is not our task
to describe the cruel and sanguinary thirteenth
day of December, 1862, when he undertook this
desperate task. When that night fell at the close
of a fearful combat, which had been rather a series
of blunders than an intelligent plan, 10,208 Fed-
eral soldiers were known to be lying killed or
wounded, while 2145 more were "missing." Such
was the awful price which the brave Northern
army had paid, and by which it had bought
nothing! Nothing, save the knowledge that Gen-
eral Burnside's estimate of his capacity for such
high command was correct. Even the mere brutal
comparison of "killed and wounded" showed that
among the Confederates the number of men who
had been hit was not quite half that of the Federal
loss. The familiar principle, that in war a general
should so contrive as to do the maximum of injury
to his adversary with a minimum of injury to him-
self, had been directly reversed; the unfortunate
commander had done the maximum of injury to
himself with the minimum of injury to his foe.
The behavior of Burnside in so bitter a trial was
such as to attract sympathy. Yet his army had
lost confidence in his leadership, and therefore
suffered dangerously in morale. Many officers
whispered their opinions in Washington, and, as
138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
usual, Congress gave symptoms of a desire to talk.
Influenced by these criticisms and menacings, on
December 30 the President ordered Burnside not
to enter again upon active operations without first
informing him. Burnside, much surprised, has-
tened to see Mr. Lincoln, and learned what derog-
atory strictures were in circulation. After brief
consideration he proposed to resign. But Mr.
Lincoln said: "I do not yet see how I could profit
by changing the command of the army of the
Potomac; and, if I did, I should not wish to do
it by accepting the resignation of your commis-
sion. 9 ' So Burnside undertook further manoeu-
vres. These, however, did not turn out well, and
he conceived that a contributing cause lay in
the half-heartedness of some of his subordinates.
Thereupon he designed against them a defensive
or retaliatory move in the shape of an order dis-
missing from the service of the United States four
generals, and relieving from command four others,
and one colonel. This wholesale decapitation was
startling, yet was, in fact, soundly conceived. In
the situation, either the general, or those who had
lost faith in the general, must go. Which it
should be was conclusively settled by ilie length of
the list of condemned. The President declined to
ratify this, and Burnside's resignation inevitably
followed. His successor was the general whose
name led the list of those malcontent critics whom
he had desired to displace, and was also the same
who had once stigmatized McClellan as "a baby."
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 139
Major-General Joseph Hooker, a graduate of West
Point, was now given the opportunity to prove his
own superiority.
The new commander was popularly known as
"Fighting Joe." There was inspiration in the
nickname, and yet it was not quite thus that a
great commander, charged with weighty responsi-
bility, should be appropriately described. Upon
making the appointment, January 26, 1863, the
President wrote a letter remarkable in many points
of view:
"GENERAL, I have placed you at the head
of the army of the Potomac. Of course, I have
done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient
reasons ; and yet I think it best for you to know
that there are some things in regard to which I am
not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be
a brave and skilful soldier, which, of course, I
like. I also believe you do not mix politics with
your profession, in which you are right. You
have confidence in yourself, which is a valua-
ble, if not an indispensable quality. You are am-
bitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does
good rather than harm ; but I think that, during
General Burnside's command of the army, you
have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted
him as much as you could, in which you did a
great wrong to the country, and to a most merito-
rious and honorable brother officer. I have heard,
in such way as to believe it, of your recently say-
ing that both the army and the government needed
140 ABRAHAM LINCOLN".
a dictator. Of course, it was not for this, but in
spite of it, that I have given you the command.
Only those generals who gain successes can set up as
dictators. What I now ask of you is military suc-
cess, and I will risk the dictatorship. The govern-
ment will support you to the utmost of its ability,
which is neither more nor less than it has done
and will do for all commanders. I much fear that
the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the
army, of criticising their commander and withhold-
ing confidence from him, will now turn upon you.
I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down.
Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again,
could get any good out of an army while such a
spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of rash-
ness. Beware of rashness, but, with energy and
sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victo-
ries. 9 '
Hooker was of that class of generals who show
such capacity as lieutenants that they are supposed
to be capable of becoming independent chiefs, un-
til their true measure is ascertained by actual trial.
In two months he had restored to good shape an
army which he had found demoralized and depleted
by absenteeism, and at the end of April he had
under him about 124,500 men. He still lay on
the north bank of the Potomac, facing Lee's army
in its intrenchments about Fredericksburg. His
plan of campaign, says General Doubleday, was
"simple, efficacious, and should have been success-
ful." Diverting the attention of Lee, he threw
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 141
the chief part of his army across the Rappahan-
nock several miles above Fredericksburg; then,
marching rapidly to Chancellorsville, he threatened
the left flank and rear of the Confederates. Push-
ing a short distance out upon the three roads which
led from Chancellorsville to Fredericksburg, he
came to the very edge and brink, as it were, of be-
ginning a great battle with good promise of suc-
cess. But just at this point his generals at the
front were astounded by orders to draw back to
Chancellorsville. Was it that he suddenly lost
nerve in the crisis of his great responsibility? 1 Or
was it possible that he did not appreciate the op-
portunity which he was throwing away? No one
can say. Only the fact can be stated that he re-
jected the chance which offended Fortune never
offers a second time. Back came the advanced
columns, and took position at Chancellorsville,
while Lee, who had not the Northern habit of
repudiating fair opportunity, pressed close upon
them.
On May 1 manoeuvring for position and some
fighting took place. On Saturday, May 2, a bril-
liant flanking movement by "Stonewall" Jackson
wrecked the Federal right. But the dangerous
Southerner, accidentally shot by his own soldiers,
was carried from the field a dying man. Upon
Sunday, May 3, there was a most sanguinary con-
1 Swinton says : " The moment he confronted his antagonist he
seemed to suffer a collapse of all his powers. 7 ' Army of Potomac,
280.
142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
flict. "The Federals fought like devils at Chan-
cellorsville," said Mahone. Still it was again the
sad and wearisome story of brave men so badly
handled that their gallantry meant only their own
slaughter. The President had expressly urged
Hooker to be sure to get all his troops at work.
Yet he actually let 37,000 of them stand all day
idle, not firing a shot, while their comrades were
fighting and falling and getting beaten. On May
4, Hooker, whose previous "collapse" had been
aggravated by a severe personal hurt, "seemed
disposed to be inactive;" and Lee seized the
chance to turn upon Sedgwick, who was coming up
in the rear of the Confederates, and to drive him
across the river. General Hooker now made up
his mind that he had been beaten; and though a
majority of his corps commanders were otherwise
minded and were for renewing the conflict, he re-
turned to the northern bank, leaving behind him
his wounded soldiers, 14 guns, and 20,000 stand
of arms. Another ghastly price had been paid to
settle another experiment and establish the value
of another general. The North lost in killed and
wounded 12,197 men, with 5000 others "missing,"
and found out that General Hooker was not the
man to beat General Lee. The Confederate loss
was 10,266 killed and wounded, 2753 missing.
The days in which the news from Chancellors-
ville was spreading among the cities and villages
of the North were the darkest of the war. In those
countless households, by whose generous contribu*
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 143
tions the armies had been recruited, the talk began
to be that it was folly, and even cruelty, to send
brave and patriotic citizens to be slaughtered use-
lessly, while one leader after another showed his
helpless incompetence. The disloyal Copperheads
became more bodeful than ever before; while men
who would have hanged a Copperhead as gladly
as they would have shot a Secessionist felt their
hearts sink before the undeniable Southern pres-
tige. But the truth was that Pope and Burnside
and Hooker, by their very defeats, became the
cause of victory; for the elated Southerners, be-
ginning to believe that their armies were invinci-
ble, now clamored for "invasion" and the capture
of Washington. Apparently General Lee, too,
had drunk the poison of triumph, and dreamed of
occupying the national capital, Baltimore, and
Philadelphia, and dictating the terms of peace to
a disheartened North. The fascinating scheme,
the irretrievable and fatal blunder, was de-
termined upon.
To carry out this plan Ewell's corps was cov-
ertly moved early in June into the Shenandoah
Valley. Hooker, anticipating some such scheme,
had suggested to Mr. Lincoln that, if it were en-
tered upon, he should like to cross the river and
attack the Southern rear corps in Fredericksburg.
The President suggested that the intrenched
Southerners would be likely to worst the assail-
ants, while the main Southern army "would in
some way be getting an advantage northward."
144 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
"In one word," lie wrote, "I would not take any
risk of being entangled upon the river, like an
ox jumped half over a fence and liable to be torn
by dogs front and rear, without a fair chance to
gore one way or kick the other." Yet, very soon,
when the attenuation of Lee's line became certain,
Lincoln sent to Hooker one of his famous dis-
patches: "If the head of Lee's army is at Mar-
tinsburg, and the tail of it on the plank road
between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the
animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you
not break him?" But the "animal" was moving
rapidly, and the breaking process did not take
place.
Hooker now conceived a plan seductive by its
audacity and its possible results. He proposed by
a sudden movement to capture Richmond, presum-
ably garrisoned very scantily, and to get back be-
fore Lee could make any serious impression at the
North. It might have been done, and, if done, it
would more than offset all the dreary past; yet the
risk was great, and Mr. Lincoln could not sanction
it. He wrote: "I think Lee's army, and not
Richmond, is your sure objective point. If he
comes towards the Upper Potomac, follow on his
flank and on his inside track, shortening your
lines while he lengthens his; fight Trim, too, when
opportunity offers. If he stays where he is, fret
Tiim^ and fret him."
This was good strategy and was adopted for the
campaign. EwelTs corps crossed the Upper Po-
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 145
tomac, and, on June 22, was in Pennsylvania.
The corps of Longstreet and Hill quickly followed,
and Lee's triumphant army, at least 70,000 strong,
marched through the Cumberland Valley to Cham-
bersburg and Carlisle, gathering rich booty of
herds and grain as they went, with Harrisburg as
an immediate objective, Philadelphia in no remote
distance, Baltimore and Washington in a painfully
distinct background. The farmers of western
Pennsylvania, startled by the spectacle of gray-
coated cavalry riding northward towards their
state capital, cumbered the roads with their wag-
ons. The President called from the nearest States
120,000 militia* General Hooker, released from
his waiting attitude by the development of his ad-
versary's plan, manoeuvred well. He crossed the
Potomac at Edwards' Ferry, June 25-26, and
drew his forces together at Frederick. It was
then decided to move northward and to keep Lee
as well to the westward as possible, thereby reserv-
ing, for the bearing of future events, the questions
of cutting the Confederate communications or
bringing on a battle.
An unfortunate element in these critical days
was that HaJleck and Hooker disliked each other,
and that their ideas often clashed. Mr. Lincoln
was at last obliged to say to Hooker: "To remove
all misunderstanding, I now place you in the strict
military relation to General Halleck of a com-
mander of one of the armies to the general-in-
chief of all the armies. I have not intended dif
146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ferentiy; but as it seems to be differently under-
stood, I shall direct him to give you orders, and
you to obey them." At the same time he wrote
him a "private" letter, endeavoring to allay the
ill-feeling. He closed it with words of kindness,
of modesty, and with one of his noble appeals for
subjection of personal irritation and for union of
effort on behalf of the country:
"I believe you are aware that, since you took
command of the army, I have not believed you had
any chance to effect anything till now. As it
looks to me, Lee's now returning towards Harper's
Ferry gives you back the chance that I thought
McClellan lost last fall. Quite possibly I was
wrong both then and now; but, in the great re-
sponsibility resting upon me, I cannot be entirely
silent. Now, all I ask is that you will be in such
mood that we can get into our action the best cor-
dial judgment of yourself and General Halleck,
with my poor mite added, if, indeed, he and you
shall think it entitled to any consideration at all."
The breach, however, could not be closed.
Hooker, finding his army seriously weakened by
the withdrawal of the two years 3 and the nine
months' troops, asked for the garrison of Harper's
Ferry, which seemed useless where it was. Hal-
leck refused it, and, June 27, Hooker requested
to be relieved of the command. His request was
instantly granted, and Major-General George G.
Meade was appointed in his place. Swinton says
that command was given to Meade "without any
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 147
lets or hindrances, the President expressly waiving
all the powers of the Executive and the Constitu-
tion, so as to enable General Meade to make,
untrammelled, the best dispositions for the emer-
gency.'* One would like to know the authority
upon which so extraordinary a statement is based;
probably it is a great exaggeration, and the simple
fact would prove to be that, since the situation was
such that new developments were likely to occur
with much suddenness, the President wisely and
even necessarily placed the general in full control,
free from requirements of communication and con-
sultation. But to represent that Mr. Lincoln
abdicated his constitutional functions is absurd!
Be this as it may, the fact is that the appoint-
ment brought no change of plan. For three days
the armies manoeuvred and drew slowly together.
Finally it was betwixt chance and choice that the
place and hour of concussion were determined.
The place was the village of Gettysburg and the
time was the morning of July 1.
Then ensued a famous and most bloody fight!
During three long, hot days of midsummer those
two great armies struggled in a desperate grapple,
and with not unequal valor, the Confederates
fiercely assailing, the Federals stubbornly holding,
those historic ridges, and both alike, whether at-
tacking or defending, whether gaining or losing
ground, always falling in an awful carnage of dead
ajid wounded. It was the most determined fight-
ing that had yet taken place at the East, and the
148 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
names of Cemetery Eidge, Little Bound Top, and
Gulp's Hill are written deep in blood in American
memories. When the last magnificent charge of
the Southerners was hurled back in the afternoon
of July 3, the victory was decided. The next day
Lee began to send away his trains, his wounded
and prisoners. It is indeed true that during the
day he held his army in position on Seminary
Ridge, hoping that Meade would attack, and that,
with an exchange of their relative parts of assail-
ants and defenders, a change of result also might
come about. But Meade made no advance, and
with the first hours of darkness on the evening of
July 4 the Southern host began its retreat.
The losses at Gettysburg were appalling. The
estimate is 2834 killed, 13,709 wounded, 6643
missing, a total of 23,186 on the Federal side;
the figures were only a trifle less on the Confed-
erate side. But if such bloodshed carried grief
into many a Northern household, at least there was
not the cruel thought that life and limb, health
and usefulness had been sacrificed through incom-
petence and without advantage to the cause. It
was true that the Northern general ought to have
won, for he commanded more troops, 1 held a very
strong defensive position, and fought a strictly
1 But, says Swinton, there -was less disproportion than usual ;
for the great army which Hooker had had before Chancellorsville
had been greatly reduced, both by casualties and by the expira-
tion of terms of service. On May 13, he reported that his " march-
ing- force of infantry" was "about 80,000 men." A Htde later
the cavalry was reported at 4677. Army of Potomac, 310.
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 149
defensive battle. But such had been the history
of the war that when that which ought to be done
was done, the people felt that it was fair cause
for rejoicing. Later there was fault-finding and
criticism; but that during so many days so many
troops on unfamiliar ground should be handled in
such a manner that afterward no critic can suggest
that something might have been done better,
hardly falls among possibilities. The fact was
sufficient that a most important and significant
victory had been won. On the battle-field a stone
now undertakes to mark the spot and to name the
hour where and when the flood tide of rebellion
reached its highest point, and where and when it
began its slow and sure ebb. Substantially that
stone tells the truth.
Nevertheless the immediately succeeding days
brought keen, counteracting disappointment. Ex-
pectation rose that the shattered army of Lee
would never cross the Potomac; and the expecta-
tion was entirely reasonable, and ought to have
been fulfilled. But Meade seemed to copy Me*
Clellan after Antietam* Spurred on by repeated
admonitions from the President and General Hal*
leek, he did, on July 10, catch up with the re-
treating army, which was delayed at Williamsport
on the north bank of the river by the unusually
high water. He camped close by it, and received
strenuous telegrams urging him to attack. But
he did not, 1 and on the night of July 13 the South-
* S'winton says that whether Meade should have attacked or not,
150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ern general successfully placed the Potomac
tween himself and his too tardy pursuer. Bitter
then was the resentment of every loyal man at the
North. For once the President became severe
and sent a dispatch of such tenor that General
Meade replied by an offer to resign his command.
This Mr. Lincoln did not accept. Yet he was too
sorely pained not to give vent to words which in
fact if not in form conveyed severe censure. He
was also displeased because Meade, in general
orders, spoke of "driving the invaders from our
soil;" as if the whole country was not "our
soil!" Under the influence of so much provoca-
tion, he wrote to General Meade a letter repro-
duced from the manuscript by Messrs. Nicolay and
Hay. It is true that on cooler reflection he re-
frained from sending this missive, but it is in itself
sufficiently interesting to deserve reading:
"I have just seen your dispatch to General Hal-
leek, asking to be relieved of your command be-
cause of a supposed censure of mine. I am very-
grateful to you for the magnificent success you
gave the cause of the country at Gettysburg; and
I am sorry now to be the author of the slight-
est pain to you. But I was in such deep distress
myself that I could not restrain some expression
of it. I have been oppressed nearly ever since the
battle at Gettysburg by what appeared to be evi-
* will probably always remain one of those questions about which
men will differ." He inclines to think that Meade was right
Artny of Potomac, 369, 370.
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 151
dences that yourself and General Couch and Gen-
eral Smith were not seeking a collision with the
enemy, but were trying to get him across the river
without another battle. What these evidences
were, if you please, I hope to tell you at some time
when we shall both feel better. The case, sum-
marily stated, is this: You fought and beat the
enemy at Gettysburg; and, of course, to say the
least, his loss was as great as yours* He re-
treated; and you did not, as it seemed to me,
pressingly pursue him; but a flood in the river
detained him till, by slow degrees, you were again
upon him. You had at least twenty thousand vet-
eran troops directly with you, and as many more
raw ones within supporting distance, all in addi-
tion to those who fought with you at Gettysburg,
while it was not possible that he had received a
single recruit; and yet you stood and let the flood
run down, bridges be built, and the enemy move
away at his leisure without attacking him. And
Couch and Smith, the latter left Carlisle in
time, upon all ordinary calculation, to have aided
you in the last battle at Gettysburg, but he did
not arrive. At the end of more than ten days, I
believe twelve, under constant urging, he reached
Hagerstown from Carlisle, which is not an inch
over fifty-five miles, if so much; and Couch's
movement was very little different.
"Again, my dear general, I do not believe you
appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune in-
volved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy
152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in con-
nection with our other late successes, have ended
the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged in-
definitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last
Monday, how can you possibly do so south of the
river, when you can take with you very few more
than two thirds of the force you then had in hand?
It would be unreasonable to expect, and I do not
expect [that] you can now effect much. Your
golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed
immeasurably because of it.
"I beg you will not consider this a prosecution
or persecution of yourself. As you had learned
that I was dissatisfied, I have thought it best to
kindly tell you why."
There was an odd coincidence during this mo-
mentous first week in July. During the preceding
winter Mr. Lincoln had been exceedingly bothered
by certain Democrats, notably that gentleman of
unsavory repute, Fernando "Wood, who had urged
upon him all sorts of foolish schemes for "com-
promising, " or " settling the difficulties, " phrases
which were euphemisms of the peace Democracy
to disguise a concession of success to the South.
The President endured these sterile suggestions
with his wonted patience. But toward the close
of June, Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of
the Confederacy, was seized with the notion that,
if he should go to Washington on a personal mis-
sion to Mr. Lincoln, purporting to be about pris-
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 153
oners of war, he might then "indirectly . . turn
attention to a general adjustment.*' Accordingly
he set forth on his way to Fortress Monroe; but
very inopportunely for his purposes it fell out that
the days of his journey were the very days in which
General Lee was getting so roughly worsted at
Gettysburg. So it happened that it was precisely
on the day of the Southern retreat, July 4, that
he notified the Admiral in Hampton Roads that
he was the "bearer of a communication in writing
from Jefferson Davis, Commander-in-Chief of the
land and naval forces of the Confederate States,
to Abraham Lincoln, Commander-in-Chief of the
land and naval forces of the United States; 9 ' and
he asked for leave to proceed to Washington. But
his ingenious phraseology was of no avail. Mr.
Lincoln said: "The request of A. H. Stephens is
inadmissible. The customary agents and chan-
nels are adequate for all needful communication
and conference between the United States forces
and the insurgents." Thus the shrewd instinct
of the Northerner brought to naught a scheme con-
ceived in the spirit of the old-time Southern poli-
tics, a scheme which was certainly clever, but
which, without undue severity, may also be called
a little artful and insidious; for Mr. Stephens him-
self afterward confessed that it had, for its ulterior
purpose, "not so much to act upon Mr. Lincoln
and the then ruling authorities at Washington as
through them, when the correspondence should be
published, upon the great mass of the people in
154 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
the Northern States." The notion, disseminated
among the people, that Mr. Lincoln would not
listen to proposals for peace, would greatly help
malcontents of the Fernando Wood school.
It is necessary now to turn from the Eastern
field of operations to the Middle and Western
parts of the country, where, however, the control
exercised by Mr. Lincoln was far less constant
than at the East. After the series of successes
which culminated at Corinth, the Federal good
fortune rested as if to recuperate for a while. A
large part of the powerful army there gathered
was carried away by Buell, and was soon given oc-
cupation by General Bragg. For Jefferson Davis
had long chosen to fancy that Kentucky was held
in an unwilling subjection to the Union, and from
this thraldom he now designed to relieve her,
and to make the Ohio Eiver the frontier of Seces-
sion. Accordingly cavalry raids in considerable
force were made, Cincinnati was threatened, and
General Bragg, with a powerful army, started
northward from Gainesville. At the same time
the Federals left Murfreesboro', and the two
armies raced for Louisville. Bragg, with a hand-
some start, should have won, but, on September
29, 1862, Buell entered the city ahead. The win-
ning of the goal, however, was not the end. Two
hostile armies, which had come so far and got so
close together, were bound to have a fight. This
took place at Perryville, October 8, with the re-
sult that on the next day Bragg began a rapid
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 155
retreat. He had brought 20,000 stand of aims for
the Kentuckians who were to flock to his camp; but
they had not flocked, and the theory of Kentuckian
disloyalty was no longer tenable.
So soon as Bragg was out of Kentucky, Halleck,
probably at the instigation of the President, re-
curred to the project of a campaign in Eastern
Tennessee. Buell said that it was not feasible,
and since by this opinion he placed himself at
odds, with the authorities at Washington, he asked
to be relieved from his command. At the close
of October, Major-General William S. Eosecrans
succeeded him. But the new commander would
not, any more than his predecessor, fall in with
Halleck 9 s schemes, and what Cist contemptuously
describes as "Halleck's brilliant paper campaign
into East Tennessee " did not take place.
General Rosecrans took command of -the army
at Bowling Green, November 2, 1862. Bragg
fell back to Murfreesboro', in Tennessee, and the
city of Nashville, now in Federal possession, be-
came the gage of battle. On December 26 Eose-
crans moved out from that city towards Murfrees-
boro', and on January 2, 1863, the battle of
Stone's Eiver took place. It was desperately con-
tested, and the losses were heavy. At the close
of the day the advantage rested with the Confeder-
ates; but it was inconsiderable, and both sides con-
sidered iihe battle only begun. On the next day,
however, Bragg found such dangerous demoraliza-
tion among his troops that he decided to withdraw.
156 ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
Although he always persisted in describing himself
as the victor in the engagement, yet he now left his
wounded in the hospitals, and fell back to Shelby-
ville. In these positions, not far apart, the two
armies lay for a long while watching each other;
there were a few raids and small encounters, but
substantially, during the first six months of 1863,
quietude reigned in the region which they dominated.
But quietude was not what the government
wished, and Mr. Lincoln and General Halleck
soon fell into much the same relationship with
Eosecrans which they had previously occupied
towards McClellan. Whenever Eosecrans had
taken the field he had shown himself a skilful
strategist and an able commander in battle; but
his propensity seemed to be to remain in quarters,
and thence to present extravagant exactions, and
to conduct'endless disputes with the President and
the General-in-Chief. He seemed like a restive
horse, the more he was whipped and spurred the
more immovably he retained his balking attitude.
Mr. Lincoln was sorely tried by this obstinacy,
and probably had been pushed nearly to the limits
of his patience, when at last Eosecrans stirred. It
was on June 24 that he set his army in motion to
settle with Bragg those conclusions which had been
left open for half a year. With this purpose he
moved upon Shelbyville, but when he arrived there
he found that Bragg had gone back to Tullahoma;
and when he pushed on to Tullahoma, Bragg had
left there also. Thus it came to pass that on the
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 157
same famous Fourth of July on which Lee started
to get out of Pennsylvania, Bragg in like manner
was getting over the Southern boundary line of
Tennessee and putting the mountain range between
himself and the pursuing Federal commander.
The converging lines of Federal good luck came
together on this great day of the nation, in a way
that touches the superstitious chord; for still
further west another and a momentous event was
taking place.
General Grant, at Corinth, had been pondering
a great scheme which he meant to undertake so
soon as his scanty army should be sufficiently rein-
forced. If Richmond had an artificial value as a
token of final triumph, the Mississippi Eiver had
scarcely less value of a practical character. Vicks-
burg and Port Hudson cut out a mid-section of
about 200 miles of the great stream, which section
still remained under Confederate control. Vicks-
burg was General Grant's objective point. Even
to conceive the capture of this stronghold seemed
in itself evidence of genius; no mere pedant in
warfare could have had the conception. Every
difficulty lay in the way of the assailant. The
Confederates had spared no skill, no labor, no ex-
pense in fortifying the town; yet after all had been
done that military science could do, human achieve-
ment counted for little in comparison with the
surpassing arrangements of Nature. If what she
intended could be inferred from what she had done,
she clearly had designed this town to be through
158 ABRAHAM LINCOLN-.
all time a veritable " virgin fortress;" she had
made for its resting-place a great bluff, which jutted
insolently out into the channel of the Mississippi
River, and upon the summit of which the cluster
of buildings resembled rather an eyrie of eagles
than a place of human habitation; the great stream,
as if confounded by the daring obstruction, before
it could recover its interrupted course spread it-
self far over the surrounding country in a tangle of
bayous and a vast expanse of unwholesome, impas-
sable swamp; the high ridges which lay inland
around the place were intersected by frequent long,
deep, and precipitous ravines, so that by this side
also hostile approach had apparently been rendered
impossible* Nevertheless, that one of the North-
ern generals to whom nothing ever seemed im-
possible, having cast the eye of desire upon this
especial spot, now advanced upon it, and began
operations in his silent, enduring, pertinacious
way, which no men and no intrenchments could
permanently withstand* His lieutenant, Sherman,
made one desperate assault, not, as it seemed,
because there was a possibility of taking the place,
but rather to demonstrate that it could not be
taken. Then slower and more toilsome methods
were tried. It was obvious that a siege must be
resorted to 5 yet it was not easy to get near enough
even to establish a siege.
General Grant had early decided that the city
would remain impregnable until by some means he
could get below it on the river and approach it
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 159
from the landward side. Ingenious schemes of
canals were tried, and failed. Time passed; the
month of April was closing, and all that had been
done seemed to amount to nothing better than an
accumulation of evidence that the Confederacy had
one spot which the Federals could never touch.
At last ingenuity was laid aside for sheer daring.
The fleet, under Admiral Porter, transported the
army down stream, athwart the hostile batteries,
and set it ashore on the east bank, below the forti-
fications. Yet this very success seemed only to
add peril to difficulty. The Confederates, strain-
ing every nerve to save the place, were gathering
a great force in the neighborhood to break up the
besieging army. With a base of supplies which
was substantially useless, in a hostile country, with
a powerful army hovering near him, and an unap-
proachable citadel as his objective, Grant could
save himself from destruction only by complete and
prompt success. Desperate, indeed, was the occa-
sion, yet all its exorbitant requirements were met
fully, surely, and swiftly by the commander and
the gallant troops under him. In the task of get-
ting a clear space, by driving the Confederates
from the neighborhood for a considerable distance
around, the army penetrated eastward as far as
Jackson, fighting constantly and living off the
country. Then, returning westward, they began
the siege, which, amid hardship and peril and infi-
nite difficulty, was pushed with the relentless vigor
of the most relentless and most vigorous leader of
160 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
the war. At last, on July 3, General Pemberton,
commanding within the city, opened negotiations
for a surrender. He knew that an assault would
be made the next day, and he knew that it must
succeed; he did not want to illustrate the Fourth
of July by so terrible a Confederate loss, so mag-
nificent a Federal gain. Yet he haggled over the
terms, and by this delay brought about a part of
that which he had wished to avoid. It was due to
his fretfulness about details, that the day on which
the Southern army marched out and stacked their
arms before the fortifications of Vicksburg, and
on which the Northern army, having generously
watched the operation without a cheer, then
marched in and took possession of the place, was
that same Fourth of July on which two other de-
feated generals were escaping from two other vic-
torious Northern armies.
In a military point of view this campaign and
siege have been pronounced by many competent
critics the greatest achievement of the war; but
the magnificent and interesting story must, with
regret, be yielded to the biographer of Grant; it
does not belong to the biographer of Lincoln. The
whole enterprise was committed to Grant to be
handled by him without let or hindrance, and it
was conducted by him from beginning to end with-
out interference, and almost even without sugges-
tion. Yet this very fact was greatly to the credit
of the administration. In the outset the President
passed judgment upon the man; and it was a cor*
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 161
rect judgment. Afterward lie stood to it gallantly.
In the middle of the business, when the earlier
expedients went wrong, a great outcry against
Grant arose. Editors and politicians, even the
Secretary of the Treasury himself, began to hound
the President with importunate demands for the
displacement of a general whom they fervently al-
leged to be another of the incompetents; in short,
there was the beginning of just such a crusade as
that which had been made against McClellan.
But by this time the President had had opportunity
to measure the military capacity of editors and pol-
iticians, and he was not now so much disquieted by
their clamor as he once had been. He simply, in
his quiet way, paid no attention to them what-
soever. Only when one of them reiterated the gos-
sip about Grant being drunk at Shiloh, he made
his famous reply, that he should like to send to
some other generals a barrel of the whiskey which
Grant drank. In a word, the detractors of the
silent general made little impression on the soli-
tary President, who told them shortly and deci-
sively : "I can't spare this man; he fights." They
wholly failed to penetrate the protecting fence
which the civilian threw around the soldier, and
within the shelter of which that soldier so admira-
bly performed the feat which more than any other
illustrates the national arms. Certainly the Presi-
dent comes in for his peculiar share of the praise.
When the news came to Mr. Lincoln he wrote to
General Grant this letter :
162 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
July 16, 1868.
"My DEAB GENERAL, I do not remember that
you and I ever met personally. I write this now
as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost ines-
timable services you have done the country.
"I wish to say a word further. When you
reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you
should do what you finally did, march the troops
across the neck, run the batteries with the trans-
ports, and thus go below; and I never had any
faith, except in a general hope that you knew bet-
ter than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the
like would succeed.
" When you got below and took Port Gibson,
Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go
down the river and join General Banks ; and when
you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I
feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make a
personal acknowledgment that you were right and
I was wrong."
Immediately after the ceremony of surrender
was over Sherman marched away with a strong
force to find and fight Johnston* s army. But that
general, shunning the conflict, moved so far south-
ward into Mississippi that pursuit was imprudent
during the hot season.
While Grant was finishing the siege of Vicks-
burg, General Banks was besieging Port Hudson,
which lay at the southern end of the rebel section
of the river. The fall of the Northern post ren-
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 163
dered the Southern one untenable, and it was sur-
rendered on July 9. Henceforth the great river
was a safe roadway for unarmed craft flying the
stars and stripes.
It is time now to go back to Tennessee. By the
close of the first week in July, 1863, the Confed-
erate force was established in Chattanooga, and
thus the hostile armies were "placed back in the
relative positions occupied by them prior to Bragg' s
advance into Kentucky, a little less than one year
previous." But though the Southern general had
reached his present position by a retreat at the end
of a disappointing enterprise, the issue of final
success was still an open one between him and
Eosecrans, with many advantages on his side. He
had a large army in the heart of a mountainous
region, with the opportunity to post it in positions
which ought to be impregnable. Moreover, he
received fresh troops under Johnston; and later
the inaction of Meade in Virginia encouraged Lee
to send to him a considerable force under Long-
street, himself no small reinforcement. These ar-
rived just on the eve of the impending battle.
Meantime Mr. Lincoln was sorely exercised at
his inability to make his generals carry out his
plans. He desired that Bumside should move
down from the north and unite with Rosecrans,
and that then the combined force should attack
Bragg promptly. But Eosecrans lay still for
about six weeks, to repair losses and fatigue, and
164 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
again played the part of the restive steed, respond-
ing to the President's spur only with fractious
kickings. It was August 16 when he moved, but
then he showed his usual ability in action. The
march was difficult; yet, on September 6, he had
ids whole force across the Tennessee and in the
mountains south of Chattanooga. Burnside, mean-
while, had advanced to Knoxville, but had stopped
there, and was now, greatly to Mr. Lincoln's be-
wilderment and annoyance, showing activity in
every direction except precisely that in which he
was directed to move.
At last, after much fruitless manoeuvring, the
collision took place, and for two days there was
fierce and stubborn fighting on the famous battle-
field of Chickamauga. On the second day, Sep-
tember 20, Longstreet, commanding the Confed-
erate left, thoroughly defeated the Federal right
and centre and sent them in precipitate flight to
Chattanooga. Eosecrans, overwhelmed amid the
rush of fugitives, and thinking that all was lost,
also hastened thither to take charge of the frag-
ments. In truth all would have been lost, had it
not been for Thomas. This able and resolute
commander won in this fight the rhetorical but
well merited name of "the Eock of Chickamauga."
Under him the Federal left stood immovable,
though furiously assailed by odds, and tried by
the rout of their comrades. At nightfall these
troops, still in position, covered the withdrawal to
Chattanooga.
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 165
Eosecrans, "badly demoralized, gave the Presi-
dent to understand that there had been a terrible
disaster, and the President, according to his cus-
tom in such trying moments, responded with words
of encouragement and an instant effort to restore
morale. Mr. Lincoln always cheered his generals
in the hour of disaster, which he seemed to regard
only as the starting-point for a new advance, the
incentive to a fresh exertion. Yet, in fact, there
had not been a disaster, but only a moderate worst-
ing of the Federal army, resulting in its retirement
a trifling distance to the place whence its opponents
had just marched out. The issue between the two
generals was still as open after Eosecrans 9 s misfor-
tune as it had been after the previous misfortunes
of Bragg. Already there was a new question;
who would win that coming battle which plainly
was close at hand. The curtain had only gone
down on an act; the drama itself had not been
played out.
Bragg advanced to besiege Chattanooga, and
Eosecrans's communications were so imperfect that
his troops were put on short rations. On the
other hand, Mr. Lincoln bestirred himself vigor-
ously. He promptly sent Sherman from the
West, and Hooker from the East, each with con-
siderable reinforcements, en route for the belea-
guered town. Also he saw plainly that, whether
by fault or misfortune, the usefulness of Eosecrans
was over, and on October 16 he put Thomas in
166 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
place of Kosecrans, 1 and gave to General Grant
the command of the Military Division of the Mis-
sissippi, including the Departments of the Ohio,
the Cumberland, and the Tennessee. Grant at
once telegraphed to Thomas to hold Chattanooga
at all hazards ; to which Thomas replied : " We will
hold the town till we starve! " Grant well knew
that they were already getting very hungry. He
showed his usual prompt energy in relieving them;
and a little fighting soon opened a route by which
sufficient food came into the place.
It was now obvious that the decisive conflict be-
tween the two armies, which had so long been
striving for the advantage of strategic position,
and fighting in hostile competition, was at last to
occur. Each had its distinctive advantage. The
Federals were led by Grant, with Sherman,
Thomas, Sheridan, and Hooker as his lieutenants,
a list which may fairly recall Napoleon and his
marshals. On the other hand, the Southerners,
lying secure in intrenched positions upon the pre-
cipitous sides and lofty summits of Lookout Moun-
tain and Missionary Ridge, seemed invulnerably
placed. It does not belong to this narrative to
describe the terrific contest in which these two
combatants furiously locked horns on November 24
and 25. It was Hooker's brave soldiers who per-
formed the conspicuous feat which was conclusive
of victory. Having, by command, stormed the
1 Giant disliked Hosecrans, and is said to haye asked for this
change.
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 167
first line of rifle-pits on the ascent, upon the Con-
federate left, they suddenly took the control into
their own hands; without orders they dashed for-
ward, clambered upward in a sudden and resistless
access of fighting fury, and in an hour, emerging
above the mists which shrouded the mid-mountain
from the anxious view of General Grant, they
planted the stars and stripes on top of Lookout
Mountain. They had fought and won what was
poetically christened "the battle above the clouds."
Sherman, with seven divisions, had meanwhile
been making desperate and bloody assaults upon
Missionary Kidge, and had gained the first hill-
top; but the next one seemed impregnable. It
was, however, not necessary for him to renew the
costly assault; for Hooker's victory, which was
quickly followed by a handsome advance by Sheri-
dan, on Sherman's right, so turned the Confederate
position as to make it untenable.
The Northerners were exasperated to find,
among the Confederate troops who surrendered as
captives in these two battles, prisoners of war
taken at Vicksburg and Port Hudson, who had
been paroled and never exchanged.
On the eve of this battle Longstreet had started
northward to cut off and destroy Burnside in
Knoxville, and no sooner was the actual fighting
over than Grant sent Sherman in all haste to
Burnside's assistance. Thereupon Longstreet fell
back towards Virginia, and came to a resting-place
midway, where he afterward lay unharmed and
168 ABRAHAM LINCOLN-.
unharming for many months. Thus at last the
long-deferred wish of the President was fulfilled,
and the chief part of East Tennessee was wrested
from Confederate occupation. Among the loyal
inhabitants the great rejoicing was in proportion
to the sufferings which they had so long been un-
dergoing.
Meanwhile, since Gettysburg, no conspicuous
event had attracted attention in Virginia. The
President had been disappointed that Meade had
not fought at Williamsport, but soon afterward
he gave decisive advice against forcing a fight at a
worse place in order to cure the blunder of having
let go the chance to fight at the right place. About
the middle of September, however, when Lee had
reduced his army by leaves of absence and by dis-
patching Longstreet to reinforce Bragg, Mr. Lin-
coln thought it a good time to attack him. Meade,
on the other hand, now said that he did not feel
strong enough to assault, and this although he
had 90,000 men "between him and Washington,"
and by his estimate the whole force of the enemy,
"stretching as far as Richmond," was only 60,000.
"For a battle then," wrote Mr. Lincoln, "General
Meade has three men to General Lee's two. Yet,
it having been determined that choosing ground
and standing on the defensive gives so great advan-
tage that the three cannot safely attack the two,
the three are left simply standing on the defensive
also. If the enemy's 60,000 are sufficient to keep
BATTLES AND SIEGES. 169
our 90,000 away from Richmond, why, by the same
rule, may not 40,000 of ours keep their 60,000
away from Washington, leaving us 50,000 to put
to some other use? ... I can perceive no fault
in this statement, unless we admit we are not the
equal of the enemy man for man." But when, a
few days later, Stanton proposed to detach 30,000
men from Meade to Rosecrans, Mr. Lincoln de-
murred, and would agree only to let go 13,000,
whom Hooker took with him to Chattanooga.
Probably he did not wish to diminish the Federal
strength in Virginia.
Late in October, Lee, over-estimating the num-
ber of troops thus withdrawn, endeavored to move
northward; but Meade outmanoeuvred and out-
marched him, and he fell back behind the Eapi-
dan. General Meade next took his turn at the
aggressive. Toward the close of November he
crossed the Rapidan with the design of flanking
and attacking Lee. But an untoward delay gave
the Southerners time to intrench themselves so
strongly that an attack was imprudent, and Meade
returned to the north bank of the stream. The
miscarriage hurt his reputation with the people,
though he was not to blame for it.
Now, as the severe season was about to begin,
all the armies both of the North and of the South,
on both sides of the mountain ranges, turned gladly
into winter quarters. Each had equal need to
rest and recuperate after hard campaigns and
bloody battles. For a while the war news was in-
170 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
frequent and insignificant; and the cessation in
the thunder o cannon and the rattle of musketry
gives opportunity again to hear the voices of con-
tending politicians. For a while we must leave
the warriors and give ear to the talkers.
CHAPTER VL
SUNDRIES.
IT lias been pleasant to emerge from the dismal
winter of 1862-63 into the sun-gleam of the Fourth
of July of the latter year. But it is necessary to
return for a while into that dusky gloom, for the
career of a "war president " is by no means wholly
a series of campaigns. Domestic politics, foreign
relations, finance, make their several demands.
Concerning one of these topics, at least, there is
little to be said. One day, in a period of financial
stress, Mr. Chase expressed a wish to introduce
to the President a delegation of bankers, who had
come to Washington to discuss the existing condi-
tion with regard to money. "Money! " exclaimed
Mr. Lincoln, "I don't know anything about
'money ' ! I never had enough of my own to fret
me, and I have no opinion about it any way."
Accordingly, throughout his administration, he
left the whole subject in the hands of the Secretary
of the Treasury. The tariffs and internal revenue
bills, the legal tender notes, the "five-twenties,"
the "ten-forties," and the "seven-thirties," all the
loans, the national banking system, in short, all
the financial schemes of the administration were
172 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
adopted by Mr. Lincoln upon the recommendation
of Mr. Chase, with little apparent study upon his
own part. Satisfied of the ability of his Secre-
tary, he gave to all the Treasury measures his loyal
support. In return, he expected the necessary
funds to be forthcoming; for he had implicit con-
fidence in the willingness of the people to pay the
bills of the Union; and he expected the Secretary
to arrange methods by which they could do so with
reasonable convenience. Mr. Chase was cast for
the role of magician, familiar with those incan-
tations which could keep the Treasury ever full.
It was well thus, for in fact no word or incident
in Mr. Lincoln's life indicates that he had any ca-
pacity whatsoever in financiering. To live within
his income and pay his dues with a minute and
careful punctuality made the limit of his dealings
and his interest in money matters.
Foreign affairs, less technical, could not in like
easy manner be committed to others, and in these
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward labored together.
The blackest cloud was the Trent affair, yet after
that had passed the sky by no means became clear.
In the spring of 1862 the Oreto went out from
Liverpool to become the rebel privateer Florida.
Before her departure Mr. Adams complained con-
cerning her to the English government, but was
assured that the vessel was designed for the Sicilian
fruit trade! As it is not diplomatic to say that
gentlemen in office are telling lies, the American
SUNDRIES. 173
minister could push the matter no further. The
Florida, therefore, escaped, not to conduct com-
merce with Sicily, but to destroy the commerce o^
the United States. At the same time that she
was fitting out, a mysterious craft, oddly known
only as the "290," was also building in the Liver-
pool docks, and against her Mr. Adams got such
evidence that the Queen's ministers could not help
deciding that she must be detained. Unfortu-
nately, however, and by a strange, if not a signifi-
cant chance, they reached this decision on the day
after she had sailed! She became the notorious
Alabama. Earl Russell admitted that the affair
was "a scandal," but this did not interfere with
the career of Captain Semmes. In these incidents
there was both cause and provocation for war, and
hot-headed ones cried out for it, while prudent men
feared it. But the President and the Secretary
were under the bonds of necessity to keep their
official temper. Just at this juncture England
would have found it not only very easy, but also
very congenial to her real sympathies, to play for
the South a part like that which France had once
played for certain thirteen revolted colonies, and
thereby to change a rebellion into a revolution.
So Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, not willing to
give the unfriendly power this opportunity, only
wrote down in the national ledger sundry charges
against Great Britain, which were afterward paid>
not promptly, yet in full!
Another provoking thing was the placing of
174 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Confederate loans in London. This could not be
interfered with. The only comfort was that the
blockaded South had much difficulty in laying
Jiands upon the proceeds of the bonds which Eng-
lish friends of the Slave Empire were induced to
buy. Yet time, always the faithful auxiliary of
the North, took care of this matter also. When
the news of Gettysburg and Vicksburg came, the
investors, who had scarcely finished writing the
cheques with which to pay their subscriptions,
were obliged to face a drop of thirty per cent in
the market price of their new securities. For
many years after the war was over British strong
boxes wasted space in accommodating these absurd
documents, while the idea of their worthlessness
was slowly filtering through the minds of their
owners.
Another thing, which did no harm at all, but
was exceedingly vexatious, was the constant sug-
gestion of European mediation. For a couple of
years, at least, the air was full of this sort of talk.
Once, in spite of abundant discouragement, the
French Emperor actually committed the folly of
making the proposal. It came inopportunely on
February 3, 1863, after the defeat of Fredericks-
burg, like a carrion bird after a battle. It was
rejected very decisively, and if Napoleon III. ap-
preciated Mr. Seward's dispatch, he became aware
that he had shown gross lack of discernment. Yet
he was not without some remarkable companions
in this incapacity to understand that which he was
SUNDRIES. 175
observing, as if from aloft, with an air of superior
wisdom. One would think that the condition of
feeling in the United States which had induced
Governor Hicks, in the early stage of the rebel-
lion, to suggest a reference to Lord Lyons, as ar-
bitrator, had long since gone by. But it had not;
and it is the surprising truth that Horace Greeley
had lately written to M. Mercier, the French min-
ister at Washington, suggesting precisely the step
which the Emperor took; and there were other less
conspicuous citizens who manifested a similar lack
of spirit and intelligence.
All this, however, was really of no serious conse-
quence. Talk about mediation coming from Amer-
ican citizens could do little actual injury, and from
foreigners it could do none. If the foreigners had
only been induced to offer it by reason of a friendly
desire to help the country in its hour of stress.,
the rejection might even have been accompanied
with sincere thanks. Unfortunately, however, it
never came in this guise; but, on the contrary,
it always involved the offensive assumption that
the North could never restore the integrity of the
Union by force. Northern failure was established
in advance, and was the unconcealed, if not quite
the avowed, basis of the whole transaction. Now
though mere unfriendliness, not overstepping the
requirements of international law, could inflict lit-
tle substantial hurt, yet there was something very
discouraging in the unanimity and positiveness
with which all these experienced European states*
176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
men assumed the success of the Confederacy as the
absolutely sure outcome; and in this time of ex-
treme trial to discourage was to injure. Further-
more, the undisguised pleasure with which this
prospect was contemplated was sorely trying to
men oppressed hy the burdens of anxiety and trou-
ble which rested on the President and his minis-
ters. The man who had begun life as a frontiers-
man had need of much moral courage to sustain
him in the face of the presagings, the condemna-
tions, and the hostility of nearly all the sage and
well-trained statesmen of Europe. In those days
the United States had not yet fully thrown off a
certain thraldom of awe before European opinion.
Nevertheless, at whatever cost in the coin of self-
reliance, the President and the Secretary main-
tained the courage of their opinions and never
swerved or hesitated in the face of foreign anti-
pathy or contempt. The treatment inflicted upon
them was only so much added to the weight under
which they had to stand up.
Eebellion and foreign ill-will, even Copperhead-
ism, presented difficulties and opposition which
were in a certain sense legitimate; but that loyal
Eepublicans should sow the path of the administra-
tion thick with annoyances certainly did seem an
unfair trial. Yet, on sundry occasions, some of
which have been mentioned, these men did this
thing, and they did it in the very uncompromising
and exasperating manner which is the natural ema-
SUNDRIES. 177
nation from conscientious purpose and intense self*
faith. An instance occurred in December, 1862.
The blacker the prospect became, the more bitten
waxed the extremists. Such is the fashion of fan-
atics, who are wont to grow more warm as their
chances seem to grow more desperate; and some
of the leaders of the anti-slavery wing of the
Republican party were fanatics. These men by
no means confined their hostility to the Democratic
McClellan; but extended it to so old and tried a
Republican as the Secretary of State himself. It
had already come to this, that the new party was
composed of, if not split into, two sections of
widely discordant views. The conservative body
found its notions expressed in the Cabinet by Sew-
ard; the radical body had a mouthpiece in Chase.
The conservatives were not aggressive; but the
radicals waged a genuine political warfare, and
denounced Seward, not, indeed, with the vehe-
mence which was considered to be appropriate
against McClellan, yet very strenuously. Finally
this hostility reached such a pass that, at a cau-
cus of Republican senators, it was actually voted
to demand the dismission of this long-tried and
distinguished leader in the anti-slavery struggle.
Later, in place of this blunt vote, a more polite
equivalent was substituted, in the shape of a re-
quest for a reconstruction of the Cabinet. Then
a committee visited the President and pressed
him to have done with the Secretary, whom they
thought lukewarm. Meanwhile, Seward had heard
178 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
of wliat was going forward, and, in order to free
Mr. Lincoln from embarrassment, lie had already
tendered his resignation before the committee ar-
rived.
The crisis was serious. The recent elections in-
dicated that even while, as now, the government
represented all the sections of Republicanism, still
the situation was none too good; but if it was to
be controlled by the extremist wing of a discordant
party the chance that it could endure to the end
the tremendous strain of civil war was reduced
almost to hopelessness. The visitors who brought
ihis unwelcome suggestion to the President re-
ceived no immediate response or expression of
opinion from him, but were invited to come again
in the evening; they did so, and were then much
surprised to meet all the members of the Cabinet
except Mr. Seward. An outspoken discussion en-
sued, in which Mr. Chase found his position em-
barrassing, if not equivocal. On the following
morning, he, with other members of the Cabinet,
came again for further talk with the President;
in his hand he held a written resignation of his
office. He "tendered" it, yet "did not advance
to deliver it,'* whereupon tihe President stepped
forward and took it "with alacrity." 1
Having now in his hands the resignations of the
chiefs of the two principal factions of the party,
the President had made the first step towards re-
1 N. and H., vi 268; this account is derived from their twelfth
SUNDRIES. 179
lieving the situation of dangerous one-sidedness.
At once lie took the next step by sending to each
this note:
December 20, 1862.
Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD and Hon. SALMON P.
CHASE:
Gentlemen, You have respectively tendered
me your resignations as Secretary of State and
Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.
I am apprised of the circumstances which render
this course personally desirable to each of you;
but, after most anxious consideration, my deliber-
ate judgment is, that the public interest does not
admit of it.
I therefore have to request that you will resume
the duties of your departments respectively.
Your obedient servant,
A. LINCOLN.
The next morning Mr. Seward wrote briefly:
"I have cheerfully resumed the functions of this
department, in obedience to your command." Mr.
Chase seemed to hesitate. On December 20, in
the afternoon, he had written a letter, in which he
had said that he thought it desirable that his resig-
nation should be accepted. He gave as his reason
that recent events had "too rudely jostled the
unity" of the Cabinet; and he intimated that,
with both himself and Seward out of it, an im-
proved condition might be reached. He had not,
180 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
however, actually dispatched this, when the Presi-
dent's note reached him. He then, though feeling
his convictions strengthened, decided to hold back
the letter which he had prepared and "to sleep on "
the matter. Having slept, he wrote, on the morn-
ing of December 22, a different letter, to the effect
that, though reflection had not much, if at all,
changed his original opinion as to the desirability
of his resignation, yet he would conform to the
judgment and wishes of the President. If Mr.
Chase was less gracious than Mr. Seward in this
business, it is to be remembered that he was very
much more dissatisfied with the President's course
than was Mr. Seward, who. indeed, for the most
part was not dissatisfied at all.
Thus a dangerous crisis was escaped rather than
overcome. For though after the relief given by
this plain speaking the situation did not again be-
come quite so strained as it had previously been,
yet disagreement between men naturally prudent
and men naturally extremist was inevitable. Nev-
ertheless it was something that the two sections had
encountered each other and that neither had won
control of the government. The President had re-
strained dissension within safe limits and had saved
himself from the real or apparent domination of a
faction. When it was all over, he said: "Now I
can ride ; I have got a pumpkin in each end of my
bag." Later on he repeated: "I do not see how
it could have been done better. I am sure it was
right. If I had yielded to that storm and. dis-
8UNDMIES. 181
missed Seward, the thing would all have slumped
over one way, and we should have been left with
a scanty handful of supporters." Undoubtedly he
had managed very skilfully a very difficult affair,
but he ought never to have been compelled to ar-
range such quarrels in the camp of his own party.
Those counties of Virginia which lay west of
the Alleghanies contained a population which was,
by an overwhelming majority, strenuously loyal.
There had long been more of antagonism than of
friendship between them and the rest of the State,
and now, as has been already mentioned, the seces-
sion of Virginia from the Union stimulated them,
in turn, to secede from Virginia. In the summer
of 1861 they took measures to form themselves
into a separate State; and in April, 1862, they
adopted a state Constitution by a vote of 18,862
yeas against 514 nays. A bill for the admission
of "West Virginia" was passed by the Senate in
July, and by the House in December, and was
laid before the President for signature. There
were nice questions of constitutional law about
this, and some doubt also as to whether the move
was altogether well advised. Mr. Lincoln asked
the opinions of the Cabinet as to whether he
should sign the bill. Three said Yea, and three
Nay; and it was noteworthy that the three who
thought it expedient also thought it constitutional,
and that the three who thought it inexpedient also
thought it unconstitutional. Mr. Lincoln, not
182 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
much assisted, then decided in the affirmative, and
signed the bill December 31, 1862. A statement
of the reasons l which led him to this decision con-
cludes thus: "It is said that the admission of
West Virginia is secession, and tolerated only be-
cause it is our secession. Well, if we call it by
that name, there is still difference enough between
secession against the Constitution and secession in
favor of the Constitution." Mr. Elaine says that
the creation of this State was sustained by "legal
fictions;" and Thaddeus Stevens declared that it
was a measure entirely outside of any provision of
the Constitution, yet said that ha should vote for
it in accordance with his general principle: that
none of the States in rebellion were entitled to the
protection of the Constitution. The Republicans
themselves were divided in their views as to the
lawfulness of the measure. However the law may
have stood, it is evident to us, looking backward,
that for practical purposes the wisdom of the Presi-
dent's judgment cannot be impugned. The mea-
sure was the amputation of so much territory from
that which the Confederates, if they should suc-
ceed, could claim as their own; and it produced
no inconvenience at all when, instead of succeed-
ing, they failed.
Many causes conspired to induce an obstreper-
ous outbreak of "Copperheadism" in the spring
of 1863. The Democratic successes in the elec*
1 N. and H. , yi. 309, from MS.
SUNDRIES. 183
tions of the preceding autumn were in part a pre-
monition of this, in part also a cause. Moreover,
reaction was inevitable after the intense outburst
of patriotic enthusiasm which had occurred during
the earlier part of the war. But more than all
this, Mr. Lincoln wrote, and eveiy one knew, that,
"if the war fails, the administration fails," and
thus far the war had been a failure. So the grum-
blers, the malcontents and the Southern sympa-
thizers argued that the administration also, at
least so far as it had gone, had been a failure;
and they fondly conceived that their day of tri-
umph was dawning.
That which was due, punctually arrived. There
now came into prominence those secret societies
which, under a shifting variety of names, contin-
ued to scheme and to menace until the near and
visible end of the war effected their death by in-
anition. The Knights of the Golden Circle, The
Order of American Knights, the Order of the
Star, The Sons of Liberty, in turn enlisted re-
cruits in an abundance which is now remembered
with surprise and humiliation, sensations felt
perhaps most keenly by the sons of those who
themselves belonged to the organizations. Mr.
Seward well said: "These persons will be trying
to forget, years hence, that they ever opposed this
war." These societies gave expression to a terri-
ble blunder, for Copperheadism was even more
stupid than it was vicious. But the fact of their
stupidity made them harmless. Their very names
184 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
labelled them. Men who like to enroll themselves
in Golden Circles and in Star galaxies seldom
accomplish much in exacting, especially in danger-
ous, practical affairs. Mr. Lincoln took this sen-
sible view of these associations. His secretaries,
who doubtless speak from personal knowledge, say
that his attitude "was one of good-humored con-
tempt."
As a rule these "Knights" showed their valor
in the way of mischief, plotting bold things, but
never doing them. They encouraged soldiers to
desert; occasionally they assassinated an enrolling
officer; they maintained communications with the
Confederates, to whom they gave information and
occasionally also material aid; they were tireless in
caucus work and wire-pulling; in Indiana, in 1863,
they got sufficient control of the Legislature to
embarrass Governor Morton quite seriously; they
talked much about establishing a Northwestern
Confederacy; a few of them were perhaps willing
to aid in those cowardly efforts at incendiarism in
the great Northern cities, also in the poisoning of
reservoirs, in the distribution of clothing infected
with disease, and in other like villainies which were
arranged by Confederate emissaries in Canada,
and some of which were imperfectly carried out in
New York and elsewhere; they also made great
plans for an uprising and for the release of Con-
federate prisoners in Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana.
But no actual outbreak ever occurred; for when
they had come close to the danger line, these asso-
SUNDRIES. 185
ciates of mediaeval tastes and poetic appellatives
always stopped short.
The President was often urged to take decisive
measures against these devisers of ignoble treasons.
Such men as Governor Morton and General Eose-
crans strove to alarm him. But he said that the
"conspiracy merited no special attention, being
about an equal mixture of puerility and malice."
He had perfect information as to all the doings
and plottings, and as to the membership, of all
the societies, and was able to measure accurately
their real power of hurtfulness; he never could be
induced to treat them with a severity which was
abundantly deserved, but which might not have
been politic and would certainly have added to the
labor, the expense and the complications of the
government. "Nothing can make me believe," he
once charitably said, "that one hundred thousand
Indiana Democrats are disloyal! " His judgment
was proved to be sound; for had many of these
men been in grim earnest in their disloyalty, tiiey
would have achieved something. In fact these
bodies were unquestionably composed of a small
infusion of genuine traitors, combined with a
vastly larger proportion of bombastic fellows who
liked to talk, and foolish people who were tickled
in their shallow fancy by the element of secrecy
and the fineness of the titles.
The man whose name became unfortunately pre-
eminent for disloyalty at this time was Clement
L. Vallandigham, a Democrat, of Ohio. General
186 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Burnside was placed in command of the Depart-
ment of the Ohio, March 25, 1863, and having
for the moment no Confederates to deal with, he
turned his attention to the Copperheads, whom he
regarded with even greater animosity. His Order
No. 38, issued on April 13, brought these hor-
nets about his ears in impetuous fury; for, having
made a long schedule of their favorite offenses,
which he designed for the future severely to pro-
scribe, he closed it by saying that "the habit of
declaring sympathy for the enemy will not be al-
lowed in this Department;" and he warned per-
sons with treasonable tongues that, unless they
should keep that little member in order, they
might expect either to suffer death as traitors,
or to be sent southward within the lines of "their
friends." Now Mr. Vallandigham had been a
member of Congress since 1856, and was at pres-
ent a prominent candidate for any office which
the Democrats of his State or of the United
States might be able to fill; he was the popular
and rising leader of the Copperhead wing of the
Democracy. Such was his position that it would
have been ignominious for him to allow any Union
general to put a military gag in his mouth. Nor
did he. On the contrary he made speeches which
at that time might well have made Unionists mad
with rage, and which still seem to have gone far
beyond the limit of disloyalty which any govern-
ment could safely tolerate. Therefore on May 4
te was arrested by a company of soldiers, brought
SUNDRIES. 187
to Cincinnati, and thrown into jail. His friends
gathered in anger, and a riot was narrowly avoided.
At once, by order of General Burnside, he was
tried by a military commission. He was charged
with "publicly expressing sympathy for those in
arms against the government of the United States,
and declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions,
with the object and purpose of weakening the
power of the Government in its efforts to sup-
press an unlawful rebellion." Specifications were
drawn from a speech delivered by him on or about
May 1. The evidence conclusively sustained the
indictment, and the officers promptly pronounced
him guilty, whereupon he was sentenced by Burn-
side to confinement in Fort Warren. An effort to
obtain his release by a writ of habeas corpus was
ineffectual.
The rapidity of these proceedings had taken
every one by surprise. But the Democrats
throughout the North, rapidly surveying the situa-
tion, seized the opportunity which perhaps had
been too inconsiderately given them. The country
rang with plausible outcries and high sounding
oratory concerning military usurpation, violation
of the Constitution, and stifling freedom of speech.
It was painfully obvious that this combination of
rhetoric and argument troubled the minds of many
well-affected persons. If the President had been
consulted in the outset, it is thought by some "that
he would not have allowed matters to proceed so
far. Soon afterward, in his reply to fihe New
188 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
York Democrats, lie said: "In my own discretion,
I do not know whether I would have ordered the
arrest of Mr. VaUandigham." On the other hand,
Mr. Elaine states that Burnside "undoubtedly had
confidential instructions in regard to the mode of
dealing with the rising tide of disloyalty which,
beginning in Ohio, was sweeping over the West."
In a very short time the violence of the fault-
finding reached so excessive a measure that Burn-
side offered his resignation; but Mr. Lincoln de-
clined to accept it, saying that, though all the
Cabinet regretted the necessity for the arrest,
"some perhaps doubting there was a real necessity
for it, yet, being done, all were for seeing you
through with it." This seems to have been his
own position. In fact it was clear that, whether
what had been done was or was not a mistake, to
undo it would be a greater mistake. Accordingly
Mr. Lincoln only showed that he felt the pressure
of the criticism and denunciation by commuting
the sentence, and directing that Vallandigham
should be released from confinement and sent
"within the Confederate lines, which was, indeed,
a very shrewd and clever move, and much better
than the imprisonment. Accordingly the quasi
rebel was tendered to and accepted by a Confeder-
ate picket, on May 25. He protested vehemently,
declared his loyalty, and insisted that his charac-
ter was that of a prisoner of war. But the Con-
federates, who had no objection whatsoever to his
peculiar methods of demonstrating "loyalty" to
SUNDRIES. 189
their opponents, insisted upon treating him as a
friend, the victim of an enemy common to them-
selves and him; and instead of exchanging hi as
a prisoner, they facilitated his passage through
the blockade on his way to Canada* There he
arrived in safety, and thence issued sundry mani-
festoes to the Democracy. On June 11 the Demo-
cratic Convention of Ohio nominated him as their
candidate for governor, and it seems that for a
while they really expected to elect him.
In the condition of feeling during the months in
which these events were occurring, they undenia-
bly subjected the government to a very severe
strain. They furnished the Democrats with am-
munition far better than any which they had yet
found, and they certainly used it well. Since the
earliest days of the war there had never been quite
an end of the protestation against arbitrary mili-
tary arrests and the suspension of the sacred writ
of habeas corpus, and now the querulous outcry
was revived with startling vehemence. Crowded
meetings were held everywhere; popular orators
terrified or enraged their audiences with pictures
of the downfall of freedom, the jeopardy of every
citizen ; resolutions and votes without number ex-
pressed the alarm and anger of the great assem-
blages; learned lawyers lent their wisdom to corro-
borate the rhetoricians, and even some Kepublican
newspapers joined the croaking procession of their
Democratic rivals. Erelong the assaults appeared
to be producing effects so serious and widespread
190 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
that iihe President was obliged to enter into the
controversy. On May 16 a monster meeting of
"the Democrats of New York" was told by Gov-
ernor Seymour that the question was: "whether
this war is waged to put down rebellion at the
South, or to destroy free institutions at the
North." Excited by such instigation, the audi-
ence passed sundry damnatory resolutions and sent
them to the President.
Upon receiving these, Mr. Lincoln felt that he
must come down into the arena, without regard to
official conventionality. On June 12 he replied
by a full presentation of the case, from his point
of view. He had once more to do the same thing
in response to another address of like character
which was sent to him on June 11 by the Demo-
cratic State Convention of Ohio. In both cases
the documents prepared by the remonstrants were
characterized, to more than the usual degree, by
that dignified and ore rotundo phraseology, that
solemnity in the presentation of imposing gener-
alities, which are wont to be so dear to committees
charged with drafting resolutions. The replies of
the President were in striking contrast to this rhe-
torical method alike in substance and in form;
clear, concise and close-knit, they were models of
good work in political controversy, and like most
of his writing they sorely tempt to liberal tran-
scription, a temptation which must unfortunately
be resisted, save for a few sentences. The opening
paragraph in the earlier paper was cleverly put--
SUNDRIES. 191
"The resolutions are resolvable into two propo-
sitions, first, the expression of a purpose to sus-
tain the cause of the Union, to secure peace
through victory, and to support the administration
in every constitutional and lawful measure to sup-
press the rebellion; and, secondly, a declaration
of censure upon the administration for supposed
unconstitutional action, such as the making of
military arrests. And, from the two propositions,
a third is deduced, which is, that the gentlemen
composing the meeting are resolved on doing their
part to maintain our common government and
country, despite the folly or wickedness, as they
may conceive, of any administration. This posi-
tion is eminently patriotic, and, as such, I thank
the meeting, and congratulate the nation for it.
My own purpose is the same, so that the meeting
and myself have a common object, and can have
no difference, except in the choice of means or
measures for effecting that object."
Later on followed some famous sentences:
**Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the
war on the part of the Union; and his arrest was
made because he was laboring, with some effect,
to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage de-
sertion from the army, and to leave the rebellion
without an adequate military force to suppress it.
He was not arrested because he was damaging
the political prospects of the administration or the
personal interests of the commanding general, but
because he was damaging the army, upon the ex-
192 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
istence and vigor of which the life of the Nation
depends.
"I understand the meeting, whose resolutions I
am considering, to be in favor of suppressing the
rebellion by military force, by armies. Long ex-
perience has shown that armies cannot be main-
tained unless desertion shall be punished by the
severe penalty of death.
"The case requires, and the law and the Consti-
tution sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a
simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I
must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who in-
duces him to desert? This is none the less injuri-
ous when effected by getting a father, or brother,
or friend, into a public meeting, and there work-
ing upon his feelings until he is persuaded to write
the soldier boy that he is fighting in a bad cause,
for a wicked administration of a contemptible gov-
ernment, too weak to arrest and punish him if he
shall desert. I think that, in such a case, to si-
lence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only
constitutional, but withal a great mercy."
The Ohio Democrats found themselves con-
fronted with this :
"Tour nominee for governor ... is known to
yon and to the world to declare against tihe use of
an army to suppress the rebellion. Your own at-
titude therefore encourages desertion, resistance to
the draft, and the like, because it teaches those who
incline to desert and to escape the draft, to be-
SUNDRIES. 193
lieve it is your purpose to protect them, and to hope
that you will become strong enough to do so."
The arguments of the President called out retort
rather than reply, for in fact they really could not
be answered, and they were too accurately put to
be twisted by sophistry; that they reached the
minds of the people was soon made evident. The
Democratic managers had made a fatal blunder in
arraying the party in a position of extreme hos-
tility to the war. Though there were at the North
hosts of grumblers who were maliciously pleased
at all embarrassments of the administration, and
who were willing to make the prosecution of the
war very difficult, there were not hosts who were
ready to push difficulty to the point of impossi-
bility. On the other hand the fight was made
very shrewdly by the Union men of Ohio, who
nominated John Brough, a "war Democrat" as
their candidate. Then the scales fell from the
eyes of the people; they saw that in real fact votes
for Brough or for Vallandigham were, respec-
tively, votes for or against the Union. The cam-
paign became a direct trial of strength on this
point. Freedom of speech, habeas corpus, and the
kindred incidents of the Vallandigham case were
laid aside as not being the genuine and fundamen-
tal questions. It was one of those instances in
which the common-sense of the multitude suddenly
takes control, brushes away confusing details, and
gets at the great and true issue. The result was
that Vallandigham was defeated by a majority of
194 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
over 100,000 votes; and thus a perilous crisis was
well passed. This incident had put the Republican
ascendency in extreme peril, but when the adminis-
tration emerged from the trial with a success so
brilliant, it was thereafter much stronger than if
the test had never been made. The strain was
one of that kind to which the war was subjecting
the whole nation, a strain which strengthens rather
than weakens the body which triumphantly en-
counters it. The credit for the result was gener-
ally admitted to be chiefly due to Mr. Lincoln's
effective presentation of the Republican position.
As the second year of the war drew towards its
close, the administration had to face a new and
grave difficulty in the recruitment of the army.
Serious errors which had been made in calling and
enlisting troops now began to bear fruit. Under
the influence of the first enthusiasm a large propor-
tion of the adult male population at the North
would readily have enlisted "for the war;" but
unfortunately that opportunity had not been seized
by the government, and it soon passed, never to
return. That the President and his advisers had
been blameworthy can hardly be said; but whether
they had been blameworthy or excusable became
an immaterial issue, when they found that the
terms of enlistment were soon to expire, and also
that just when the war was at its hottest, the pa-
triotism of the people seemed at its coldest. De-
feats in the field and Copperheadism at home com*
SUNDRIES. 195
bined in their dispiriting and deadly work. Vol-
untary enlistment almost ceased. Thereupon
Congress passed an act "for enrolling and calling
out the national forces." All able-bodied citizens
between twenty and forty-five years of age were
to "perform military duty in the service of the
United States, when called on by the President
for that purpose." 1 This was strenuous earnest,
for it portended a draft.
The situation certainly was not to be considered
without solicitude when, in a war which peculiarly
appealed to patriotism, compulsion must be used
to bring involuntary recruits to maintain the con-
test. Yet the relaxation of the patriotic temper
was really not so great as this fact might seem to
indicate. Besides many partial and obvious ex-
planations, one which is less obvious should also
be noted. During two years of war the people,
notoriously of a temperament readily to accept
new facts and to adapt themselves thereto, had be-
come accustomed to a state of war, and had learned
to regard it as a condition, not normal and per-
manent, yet of indefinite duration. Accordingly
they were now of opinion that the government
must charge itself with the management of this
condition, that is to say, with the conduct of the
war, as a strict matter of business, to be carried
on like all other public duties and functions. In
the first months of stress every man had felt called
upon to contribute, personally, his own moral,
1 The act was signed by the President, March 3, 1863.
196 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
financial and even physical support; but that crisis
had passed, and it was now conceived that the
administration might fairly be required to arrange
for getting men and money and supplies in the
systematic and business-like fashion in which, as
history taught, aH other governments had been
accustomed to get these necessaries in time of war.
At any rate, however it was to be explained or
commented upon, the fact confronted Mr. Lincoln
that he must institute enrolment and drafting.
The machinery was arranged and the very disa-
greeable task was entered upon early in the sum-
mer of 1863. If it was painful in the first in-
stance for the President to order this, the process
was immediately made as hateful as possible for
him. Even loyal and hearty "war -governors"
seemed at once to accept as their chief object the
protection of the people of their respective States
from the operation of the odious law. The mer-
cantile element was instantly and fully accepted
by them. The most patriotic did not hesitate to
make every effort to have the assigned quotas re-
duced; they drew jealous comparisons to show
inequalities; and they concocted all sorts of
schemes for obtaining credits. Not marshalling
recruits in the field, but filling quotas upon paper,
seemed a legitimate purpose; for the matter had
become one of figures, of business, of competition,
and all the shrewdness of the Yankee mind was at
once aroused to gain for one's self, though at the
expense of one's neighbors. Especially the Demo-
SUNDRIES. 197
cratic officials were viciously fertile in creating
obstacles. The fact that the Act of Congress was
based on the precedent of an Act of the Confeder-
ate Congress, passed a year before, did not seem
in the least to conciliate the Copperheads. Gov-
ernor Seymour of New York obtained a discredi-
table preeminence in thwarting the administration.
He gathered ingenious statistics, and upon them
based charges of dishonest apportionments and of
fraudulent discrimination against Democratic pre-
cincts. He also declared the statute unconstitu-
tional, and asked the President to stay all proceed-
ings under it until it could be passed upon by the
Supreme Court of the United States, an ingen-
uous proposition, which he neglected to make prac-
ticable by arranging with General Lee to remain
conveniently quiescent while the learned judges
should be discussing the methods of reinforcing
the Northern armies.
In a word Mr. Lincoln was confronted by every
difficulty that Republican inventiveness and De-
mocratic disaffection could devise. Yet the draft
must go on, or the war must stop. His reason-
ableness, his patience, his capacity to endure un-
fair trials, received in this business a demonstra-
tion more conspicuous than in any other during
his presidency. Whenever apportionments, dates,
and credits were questioned, he was liberal in
making temporary, and sometimes permanent al-
lowances, preferring that any error in exactions
should be in the way of moderation. But in the
198 ABRAHAM LINCOLN".
main business he was inflexible; and at last it
came to a direct issue between himself and the
malcontents, whether the draft should go on or
stop. In the middle of July the mob in New
York city tested the question. The drafting be*
gan there on Saturday morning, July 11. On
Monday morning, July 13, the famous riot broke
out. It was an appalling storm of rage on the
part of the lower classes ; during three days terror
and barbarism controlled the great city, and in its
streets countless bloody and hideous massacres were
perpetrated. Negroes especially were hanged and
otherwise slain most cruelly. The governor was
so inefficient that he was charged, of course extra*
vagantly, with being secretly in league with the
ringleaders. A thousand or more lives, as it was
roughly estimated, were lost in this mad and bru-
tal fury, before order was again restored. The
government gave the populace a short time to cool,
and then sent 10,000 troops into the city and
proceeded with the business without further in-
terruption. A smaller outbreak took place in
Boston, but was promptly suppressed. In other
places it was threatened, but did not occur. In
spite of all, the President continued to execute the
law. Yet although by this means the armies
might be kept full, the new men were very inferior
to those who had responded voluntarily to the ear-
lier calls. Every knave in the country adopted
the lucrative and tolerably safe occupation of
"bounty- jumping," and every worthless loafer was
SUNDRIES. 199
to the front, whence lie escaped at the first
opportunity to sell himself anew and to be counted
again. The material of the army suffered great
depreciation, which was only imperfectly offset
by the improvement of the military machine,
whereby a more effective discipline, resembling
that of European professionalism, was enforced. 1
1 Concerning 1 the deterioration of the army, in certain particu-
lars, see an article, "The War as we see it now/' by John C.
Ropes, Scribner's Magazine, Jane, 1891.
CHAPTER YET.
THE TUBE" OP THE TIDE.
THE winter of 1862-68 was for the Eebellion
much what the winter of Valley Forge was for the
Revolution. It passed, however, and the nation
still clung fast to its purpose. The weak brethren
who had become dismayed were many, but the
people as a whole was steadfast. This being so,
ultimate success, became assured. Wise and cool-
headed men, in a frame of mind to contemplate the
situation as it really was, saw that the tide was
about at its turning, and that the Union would not
drift away to destruction in this storm at any rate.
They saw that the North could whip the South, if
it chose ; and it was now sufficiently evident that
it would choose, that it would endure, and would
finish its task. It was only the superficial ob-
servers who were deceived by the Virginian disas-
ters, which rose so big in the foreground as par-
tially to conceal the real fact: that the Confederacy
was being at once strangled and starved to death.
The waters of the Atlantic Ocean and of the Gulf
of Mexico were being steadily made more and more
inaccessible, as one position after another along
the coast gradually passed into Federal hands.
THE TURN OF TEE TIDE. 201
The Mississippi Biver, at last a Union stream from
its source to its mouth, now made a Chinese wall
for the Confederacy on the west. Upon the north
the line of conflict had been pushed down to the
northern borders of Mississippi and Georgia, and
the superincumbent weight of the vast Northwest
lay with a deadly pressure upon these two States.
It was, therefore, only in Virginia that the Con-
federates had held their own, and here, with all
their victories, they had done no more than just
hold their own. They had to recognize, also, that
from such battle-fields as Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville they gathered no sustenance, how-
ever much they might reap in the way of glory.
Neither had they gained even any ground, for the
armies were still manoeuvring along the same roads
over which they had been tramping and swaying
to and fro for more than two years. By degrees
/ / o
the Southern resources in the way of men, money,
food, and supplies generally, were being depleted.
The Confederacy was like a lake, artificially in-
closed, which was fed by no influx from outside,
while it was tapped and drained at many points.
On the other hand, within the North, affairs
were coining into a more satisfactory condition.
It was true that all the military successes of July
had not discouraged the malcontents; and during
the summer they had been busily preparing for the
various state elections of the autumn, which they
hoped would strongly corroborate their congres-
sional triumphs of 1862. But when the time came
202 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
they were exceedingly disappointed. The law now,
fairly enough, permitted soldiers in the field to
vote, and this was, of course, a reinforcement for
the Eepublican party; "but even among the voters
at home the Democratic reaction of the preceding
year had spent its force. In October Pennsyl-
vania gave Governor Curtin, the Republican can-
didate for reelection, a majority of 15,000. In the
same month, under the circumstances described in
the preceding chapter, Ohio buried Vallandigham
under a hostile majority of more than 100,000.
The lead thus given by the "October States " was
followed by the "November States." In New
York no Governor was to be elected; but the Ee-
publican state ticket showed a majority of 30,000,
whereas the year before Seymour had polled a ma-
jority of 10,000. The Northwest fell into the pro-
cession, tiiough after a hard fight. A noteworthy
feature of the struggle, which was fierce and for a
time doubtful in Illinois, was a letter from Mr.
Lincoln. He was invited to attend amass meeting
at Springfield, and with reluctance felt himself
obliged to decline; but in place of a speech, which
might not have been preserved, the good fortune
of posterity caused him to write this letter:
August 26, 1863.
HON. JAMES C. CONKUNG:
My dear Sir, Your letter inviting me to at-
tend a mass meeting of unconditional Union men,
to be held at the capital of Illinois, on the third
THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 203
day of September, has been received. It would be
very agreeable for me thus to meet my old friends
at my own home, but I cannot just now be absent
from here as long as a visit there would require.
The meeting is to be of all those who maintain
unconditional devotion to the Union, and I am
sure my old political friends will thank me for ten-
dering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those
other noble men whom no partisan malice or par-
tisan hope can make false to the nation's life.
There are those who are dissatisfied with me.
To such I would say: you desire peace, and you
blame me that we do not have it. But how can
we attain it? There are but three conceivable
ways : First, to suppress the rebellion by force of
arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for it?
If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not
for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I
am against this. Are you for it? If you are, you
should say so plainly. If you are not for /orce,
nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some
imaginable compromise.
I do not believe that any compromise embracing
the maintenance of the Union is now possible.
All that I learn leads to a directly opposite belief.
The strength of the rebellion is its military, its
army. That army dominates all the country and
all the people within its range. Any offer of terms
made by any man or men within that range, in
opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the
present; because such man or men have no power
204 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if
one were made with them.
To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South
and peace men of the North get together in con-
vention, and frame and proclaim a compromise
embracing a restoration of the Union. In what
way can that compromise be used to keep Lee's
army out of Pennsylvania? Meade's army can
keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania, and, I
think, can ultimately drive it out of existence.
But no paper compromise, to which the controllers
of Lee's army are not agreed, can at all affect that
army. In an effort at such compromise we would
[should] waste time, which the enemy would im-
prove to our disadvantage, and that would be all.
A compromise, to be effective, must be made
either with those who control the rebel army, or
with the people, first liberated from the domination
of that army by the success of our own army.
Now, allow me to assure you that no word or in-
timation from that rebel army, or from any of the
men controlling it, in relation to any peace com-
promise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief.
All charges and insinuations to the contrary are
deceptive and groundless. Ajod I promise you
that if any such proposition shall hereafter come,
it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from you.
I freely acknowledge myself to be the servant of
the people, according to the bond of service, the
United States Constitution; and that, as such, I
am responsible to them. But, to be plain, you are
THE TURN OF THE TIDE.
dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite likely
there is a difference of opinion between you and
myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that
all men could be free, while you, I suppose, do
not. Yet I have neither adopted nor proposed any
measure which is not consistent with even your
views, provided that you are for the Union. I
suggested compensated emancipation, to which you
replied : you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes.
But I had not asked you to be taxed to buy ne-
groes, except in such a way as to save you from
greater taxation to save the Union exclusively by
other means.
You dislike the emancipation proclamation, and
perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is
unconstitutional. I think differently. I think the
Constitution invests its commander-in-chief with
all the law of war in time of war. The most that
can be said, if so much, is, that slaves are prop*
erty. Is there, has there ever been, any question
that by the law of war, property, both of enemies
and friends, may be taken when needed? -And is
it not needed whenever it helps us and hurts the
enemy? Armies, the world over, destroy enemies'
property when they cannot use it, and even destroy
their own to keep it from the enemy.
But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or
is not valid. If it is not valid it needs no retrac-
tion. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted, any
more than the dead can be brought to life. Some
206 ABRAHAM LINCOLN".
of you profess to think its retraction would operate
favorably for the Union. Why better after the
retraction than before the issue? There was more
than a year and a half of trial to suppress the re-
bellion before the proclamation was issued, the last
one hundred days of which passed under an ex-
plicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by
those in revolt returning to their allegiance. The
war has certainly progressed as favorably for us
since the issue of the proclamation as before. I
know, as fully as one can know the opinion of oth-
ers, that some of the commanders of our armies in
the field, who have given us our most important vic-
tories, believe the emancipation policy and the use
of colored troops constitute the heaviest blows yet
dealt to the rebellion, and that at least one of those
important successes could not have been achieved,
when it was, but for the aid of black soldiers.
Among the commanders who hold these views
are some who have never had an affinity with what
is called ' abolitionism/ or with 'Republican party
polities,' but who held them purely as military
opinions. I submit their opinions as entitled to
some weight against the objections often urged
that emancipation and arming the blacks are un-
wise as military measures, and were not adopted
as such in good faith.
You say that you will not fight to free negroes.
Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but
no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively to save
the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose
THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 207
to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you
shall have conquered all resistance to the Union,
if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be
an apt time then for you to declare you will not
fight to free negroes. I thought that, in your
struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the
negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that
extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to
you. Do you think differently?
I thought that whatever negroes can be got to
do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white
soldiers to do in saving the Union* Does it ap-
pear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other
people, act upon motives. Why should they do
anything for us, if we will do nothing for them?
If they stake their lives for us, they must be
prompted by the strongest motive, even the prom-
ise of freedom. And the promise, being made,
must be kept.
The signs look better. The Father of Waters
again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the
great Northwest for it; nor yet wholly to them.
Three hundred miles up they met New England,
Empire, Keystone and Jersey, hewing their way
right and left. The sunny South, too, in more
colors than one, also lent a helping hand. On the
spot their part of the history was jotted down in
black and white. The job was a great national
one, and let none be slighted who bore an honor-
able part in it. And while those who have cleared
the great river may well be proud, even that is not
208 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
all. It is hard to say that anything has been more
bravely or well done than at Antietam, Murfrees-
boro% Gettysburg, and on many fields of less note.
Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten. At
all the watery margins they have been present, not
only on the deep sea, tiie broad bay, and the rapid
river, but also up the narrow muddy bayou, and
wherever the ground was a little damp, they have
been and made their tracks. Thanks to all. For
the great Republic, for the principle it lives by
and keeps alive, for man's vast future, thanks
to all.
Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I
hope it will come soon, and come to stay, and so
come as to be worth the keeping in all future time.
It will then have been proved that among free
men, there can be no successful appeal from the
ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such
appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost.
And there will be some black men who can remem-
ber that with silent tongue, and clinched teeth,
and steady eye, and well poised bayonet, they have
helped mankind on to this great consummation;
while I fear there will be some white men unable
to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful
speech they have striven to hinder it.
Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy final
triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently
apply the means, never doubting that a just God,
in his own good time, will give us the rightful result.
Yours very truly, A. LINCOLN.
THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 209
This was a fair statement of past facts and of
the present condition; and thus the plain tokens
of the time showed that the menace of disaffection
had been met and sufficiently conquered. The
President had let the nation see the strength of
his will and the immutability of his purpose. He
had faced bullying Republican politicians, a Demo-
cratic reaction, Copperheadism, and mob violence,
and by none of these had he been in the least de-
gree shaken or diverted from his course. On the
contrary, from so many and so various struggles
he had come out the victor, a real ruler of the
country. He had shown that whenever and by
whomsoever, and in whatever part of the land he
was pushed to use power, he would use it. Tem-
porarily the great Eepublic was under a "strong
government," and Mr. Lincoln was the strength.
Though somewhat cloaked by forms, there was for
a while in the United States a condition of "one-
man power," and the people instinctively recog-
nized it, though they would on no account admit
it in plain words. In fact every malcontent knew
that there was no more use in attempting to resist
the American President than in attempting to re-
sist a French Emperor or a Russian Czar; there
was even less use, for while the President managed
on one plausible ground or another to have and
to exercise all the power that he needed, he was
sustained by the good -will and confidence of a
majority of the people, which lay as a solid sub-
stratum beneath all the disturbance on the surface.
210 AERASAM LINCOLN.
It was well that this was so, for a war conducted
by a Cabinet or a Congress could have ended only
in disaster. This peculiar character of the situ-
ation may not be readily admitted; it is often
convenient to deny and ignore facts in order to
assert popular theories; and that there was a real
master in the United States is a proposition which
many will consider it highly improper to make and
veiy patriotic to contradict. None the less, how-
ever, it is true, and by the autumn of 1863 every
intelligent man in the country felt that it was true.
Moreover, it was because this was true, and be-
cause that master was immovably persistent in the
purpose to conquer the South, that the conquest of
the South could now be discerned as substantially
a certainty in the future.
Some other points should also be briefly made
here. The war is to be divided into two stages.
The first two years were educational; subsequently
the fruits of that education were attained. The
men who had studied war as a profession, but had
had no practical experience, found much to learn
in warfare as a reality after the struggle began.
But before the summer of 1863 there were in the
service many generals, than whom none better
could be desired. "Public men'* were somewhat
slow in discovering that their capacity to do pretty
much everything did not include the management
of campaigns. But by the summer of 1863 these
"public " persons made less noise in the land than
they had made in the days of McClellan; and
TEE TURN OF THE TIDE. 211
though political considerations could never be
wholly suppressed, the question of retaining or
displacing a general no longer divided parties,
or superseded, and threatened to wreck, the vital
question of the war. Moreover, as has heen re-
marked in another connection, the nation began to
appreciate that while war was a science so far as
the handling of armies in the field was concerned,
it was strictly a business in its other aspects. By,
and in fact before, the summer of 1863 this busi-
ness had been learned and was being efficiently
conducted.
Time and experience had done no less for the
President than for others. A careful daily student
of the topography of disputed regions, of every
proposed military movement, of every manoeuvre,
every failure, every success, he was making himself
a skilful judge in the questions of the campaigns.
He had also been studying military literature.
Yet as his knowledge and his judgment grew, his
modesty and his abstention from interference like-
wise grew. He was more and more chary of en-
deavoring to control his generals. The days of
such contention as had thwarted the plans of Mc-
Clellan without causing other plans to be heartily
and fully adopted had fortunately passed, never to
return. Of course, however, this was in part due
to the fact tibat the war had now been going on
long enough to enable Mr. Lincoln to know pretty
well what measure of confidence he could place in
the several generals. He had tried his experiments
212 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
and was now using his conclusions. Grant, Sher-
man, Sheridan, Thomas, Hancock, and Meade
were no longer undiscovered generals; while Fre-
mont, McClellan, Halleck, and perhaps two or
three more might be named, may be described
in a counter - phrase as generals who were now
quite thoroughly discovered. The President and
the country were about to get the advantage of
this acquired knowledge.
A consequence of these changed conditions, of
the entrance upon this new stage of the war, be-
comes very visible in the life of Mr. Lincoln. The
disputation, the hurly-burly, the tumultuous com-
petition of men, opinions, and questions, which
made the first eighteen months of his presidency
confusing and exciting as a great tempest on the
sea, have gone by. For the future his occupation
is rather to keep a broad general supervision, to
put his controlling touch for the moment now here,
now there. He ceases to appear as an individual
contestant; his personality, though not less impor-
tant, is less conspicuous; his influence is exerted
less visibly, though not less powerfully. In short,
the business-like aspect affects him and his func-
tions as it does all else that concerns the actual
conduct of the war; he too feels, though he may
not formulate, the change whereby a crisis has
passed into a condition. This will be seen from
the character of the remainder of this narrative.
There are no more controversies which call for
other chapters like those which told of the cam-
THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 213
paigns of McClellan. There are no more fierce
intestine dissensions like those which preceded the
Proclamation of Emancipation, at least not un-
til the matter of reconstruction comes up, and re-
construction properly had not to do with the wax,
but with the later period. In a word, the country
had become like the steed who has ceased fretfully
to annoy the rider, while the rider, though exercis-
ing an ever-watchful control, makes less apparent
exertion.
By one of the odd arrangements of our govern-
mental machine, it was not until December 7, 1863,
that the members of the Thirty-eighth Congress
met for the first time to express those political sen-
timents which had been in vogue more than a year
before that time, that is to say during the months
of October and November, 1862, when these gen-
tlemen had been elected, at the close of the sum-
mer's campaign. It has been said and shown
that a very great change in popular feeling had
taken place and made considerable advance during
this interval. The autumn of 1863 was very dif-
ferent from the autumn of 1862! A Congress
coming more newly from the people would have
been much more Republican in its complexion.
Still, even as it was, the Eepublicans had an am-
ple working majority, and moreover were disturbed
by fewer and less serious dissensions among them-
selves than had been the case occasionally in times
past. McClellan and the Emancipation Procla-
214 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
mation had not quite yet been succeeded by any
other questions of equal potency for alienating a
large section of the party from the President.
Not that unanimity prevailed by any means; that
was impossible under the conditions of human na-
ture. The extremists still distrusted Mr. Lincoln,
and regarded him as an obstruction to sound poli-
cies. Senator Chandler of Michigan, a fine sam-
ple of the radical Republican, instructed him that,
by the elections, Conservatives and traitors had
been buried together, and begged him not to ex-
hume them, since they would "smell worse than
Lazarus did after he had been buried three days."
Apparently he ranked Seward among these defunct
and decaying Conservatives; certainly he regarded
the Secretary as a "millstone about the neck"
of the President. 1 Still, in spite of such denunci-
ations, times were not in this respect so bad as
they had been, and the danger that the uncom-
promising Radicals would make wreck of the war
was no longer great*
Another event, occurring in this autumn of 1863,
was noteworthy because through it the literature of
our tongue received one of its most distinguished
acquisitions. On November 19 the national mili-
tary cemetery at Gettysburg was to be consecrated;
Edward Everett was to deliver the oration, and
the President was of course invited as a guest.
Mr. Arnold says that it was actually while Mr. Lin*
1 N. and H., Til 389.
THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 215
coin was "in the cars on his way from the White
House to the battle-field " that he was told that
he also would be expected to say something on the
occasion; that thereupon he jotted down in pencil
the brief address which he delivered a few hours
later. 1 But that the composition was quite so ex-
temporaneous seems doubtful, for Messrs. Nicolay
and Hay transcribe the note of invitation, written
to the President on November 2 by the master of
the ceremonies, and in it occurs this sentence: "It
is the desire that, after the oration, you, as Chief
Executive of the Nation, formally set apart these
grounds to their sacred use, by a few appropriate
remarks." Probably, therefore, some forethought
went to the preparation of this beautiful and
famous "Gettysburg speech." When Mr. Everett
sat down, the President arose and spoke as fol-
lows : 2
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers
brought forth on this continent a new nation, con-
ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal. Now we are en-
gaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedi-
cated, can long endure. We are met on a great
battle-field of that war. We have come to dedi-
1 Arnold, Lincoln, 328. This writer gives a very vivid de-
scription of the delivery of the speech, derived in part from Gov-
ernor Dennison, afterward the Postmaster-General, vho -was pres-
ent on the occasion.
2 Mr. Arnold says that in an unconscious and absorbed manner,
Mr. Lincoln " adjusted his spectacles " and read his address.
216 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
eate a portion of that field as a final resting-place
for those who here gave their lives that that nation
might live. It is altogether fitting and proper
that we should do this. But in a larger sense we
cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we can-
not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living
and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it
far above our poor power to add or detract. The
world will little note, nor long remember, what we
say here, but it can never forget what they did
here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedi-
cated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It
is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great
task remaining before us ; that from these hon-
ored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause
for which they gave the last full measure of devo-
tion; that we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under
God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth/ 9
CHAPTER VOT.
BECONSTJIUCTION*
Iff his inaugural address President Lincoln said:
"The union of these States is perpetual. . . . No
State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get
out of the Union; resolves and ordinances to that
effect are legally void." In these words was im-
bedded a principle which later on he showed his
willingness to pursue to its logical conclusions con-
cerning the reconstruction of the body politic*
If no State, by seceding, had got itself out of the
Union, there was difficulty in maintaining that
those citizens of a seceding State, who had not dis-
qualified themselves by acts of treason, were not
still lawfully entitled to conduct the public busi-
ness and to hold the usual elections for national
and state officials, so soon as the removal of hostile
force should render it physically possible for them
to do so. Upon the basis of this principle, the
resumption by such citizens of a right which had
never been lost, but only temporarily interfered
with by lawless violence, could reasonably be de-
layed by the national government only until the
loyal voters should be sufficient in number to
relieve the elections from the objection of being
218 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
colorable and unreal. This philosophy of "recon-
struction " seemed to Mr. Lincoln to conform with
law and good sense, and he was forward in meet-
ing, promoting, almost even in creating opportuni-
ties to apply it. From the beginning of the war
he had been of opinion that the framework of a
state government, though it might be scarcely
more than a skeleton, was worth preservation. It
held at least the seed of life. So after West Vir-
ginia was admitted into statehood, the organization
which had been previously established by the
loyal citizens of the original State was maintained
in the rest of the State, and Governor Pierpoint
was recognized as the genuine governor of Vir-
ginia, although few Virginians acknowledged alle-
giance to him, and often there were not many
square miles of the Old Dominion upon which titie
dispossessed ruler could safely set his foot. For
the present he certainly was no despot, but in the
future he might have usefulness. He preserved
continuity; by virtue of him, so to speak, there
still was a State of Virginia.
Somewhat early in the war large portions of
Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas were recov-
ered and kept by Union forces, and beneath such
protection a considerable Union sentiment found
expression. The President, loath to hold for a
long time the rescued parts of these States under
the sole domination of army officers, appointed
"military governors." 1 The anomalous office
1 These appointments were as follows: Andrew Johnson, Ten-
RECONSTRUCTION. 219
found an obscure basis among those "war powers "
which, as a legal resting-place, resembled a quick-
sand, and as a practical foundation were undenia-
bly a rock; the functions and authority of the
officials were as uncertain as anything, even in law,
possibly could be. Legal fiction never reached a
droller point than when these military governor-
ships were defended as being the fulfilment by the
national government "of its high constitutional ob-
ligation to guarantee to every State in this Union
a republican form of government ! " 1 Yet the
same distinguished gentleman, who dared gravely
to announce this ingenious argument, drew a pic-
ture of facts which was in itself a full justifica-
tion of almost any scheme of rehabilitation; he
said : "The state government has disappeared.
The Executive has abdicated; the Legislature has
dissolved; the Judiciary is in abeyance." In this
condition of chaos Mr. Lincoln was certainly
bound to prevent anarchy, without regard to any
comicalities which might creep into his technique.
So these hermaphrodite officials, with civil duties
and military rank, were very sensibly and properly
given a vague authority in the several States, as
from time to time these were in part redeemed
from rebellion by the Union armies. So soon as
possible they were bidden, in collaboration with
nessee, Feb. 23, 1S62 ; Edward Stanley, North Carolina, May 19 f
1862; Col. G. F. Shepley, Louisiana, June 10, 1862.
1 So said Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee,
March 18, 1862.
220 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
the military commanders in their respective dis-
tricts, to make an enrolment of loyal citizens, with
a view to holding elections and organizing state
governments in the customary form. The Presi-
dent was earnest, not to say pertinacious, in urg-
ing forward these movements. On September 11,
1863, immediately after the battle of Chattanooga,
he wrote to Andrew Johnson that it was "the nick
of time for reinaugurating a loyal state govern-
ment" in Tennessee; and he suggested that, as
touching this same question of " time when,"
it was worth while to "remember that it cannot
be known who is next to occupy the position I now
hold, nor what he will do." He warned the gover-
nor that reconstruction must not be so conducted
44 as to give control of the State, and its represen-
tation in Congress, to the enemies of the Union.
.... It must not be so. You must have it
otherwise. Let the reconstruction be the work
of such men only as can be trusted for the Union.
Exclude all others; and trust that your govern-
ment, so organized, will be recognized here as be-
ing the one of republican form to be guaranteed
to the State." 1
At the same time these expressions by no means
indicated that the President intended to have, or
would connive at, any sham or colorable process.
Accordingly, when some one suggested a plan for
1 In a contest in which emancipation was indirectly at stake, in
Maryland, he expressed his wish that " all loyal qualified votera "
should have the privilege of voting.
RECONSTRUCTION. 221
setting up as candidates in Louisiana certain Fed-
eral officers, who were not citizens of that State,
he decisively forbade it, sarcastically remarking to
Governor Shepley: "We do not particularly want
members of Congress from there to enable us to
get along with legislation here. What we do
want is the conclusive evidence that respectable
citizens of Louisiana are willing to be members of
Congress, and to swear support to the Constitu-
tion, and that other respectable citizens there are
willing to vote for them and send them. To send
a parcel of Northern men here as Representatives,
elected, as would be understood (and perhaps really
so), at the point of the bayonet, would be dis-
graceful and outrageous. 9 ' Again he said that he
wished the movement for the election of members
of Congress "to be a movement of the people of
the district, and not a movement of our military
and quasi - military authorities there. I merely
wish our authorities to give the people a chance,
to protect them against secession interference."
These instructions were designed as genuine rulea
of action, and were not to be construed away.
Whatever might be said against the theory which
the President was endeavoring to establish for state
restoration, no opponent of that theory was to be
given the privilege of charging that the actual con-
duct of the proceedings under it was not rigidly
honest. In December, 1862, two members of Con-
gress were elected in Louisiana, and in February,
1863, they were admitted to take seats in the House
222 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
for the brief remnant of its existence. This was
not done without hesitation, but the fact that it
was done at all certainly was in direct line with the
President's plan. Subsequently, however, other
candidates for seats, coming from rehabilitated
States, were not so fortunate.
As reorganizations were attempted the promoters
generally desired that the fresh start in state life
should be made with new state Constitutions. The
conventions chosen to draw these instruments were
instructed from Washington that the validity of the
Emancipation Proclamation and of all the legis-
lation of Congress concerning slavery must be dis-
tinctly admitted, if their work was to receive re-
cognition. Apart from this, so strenuous were the
hints conveyed to these bodies that they would do
well to arrange for the speedy abolition of slavery,
that no politician would have been so foolish as to
offer a constitution, or other form of reorganiza-
tion, without some provision of this sort. This
practical necessity sorely troubled many, who still
hoped that some happy turn of events would occur,
whereby they would be able to get back into the
Union with the pleasant and valuable group of
their slaves still about them, as in the good times
of yore. Moreover, in other matters there were
clashings between the real military commanders
and the quasi-military civilian officials; and it was
unfortunately the case that, in spite of Mr. Lin-
coln's appeal to loyal men to "eschew cliquism"
and "work together," there were abundant rival'
RECONSTRUCTION. 223
ries and jealousies and personal schemings. All
these vexations were dragged before the President
to harass him with their pettiness amid his more
conspicuous duties; they gave him infinite trouble,
and devoured his time and strength. Likewise
they were obstacles to the advancement of the busi-
ness itself, and coming in addition to the delays
inevitable upon elections and deliberations they
ultimately kept all efforts towards reconstruction
dallying along until a late period in the war.
Thus it was February 22, 1864, when the state
election was held in Louisiana; and it was Sep-
tember 5 in the same year when the new Constitu-
tion, with an emancipation clause, was adopted*
It was not until January, 1865, that, in Ten-
nessee, a convention made a Constitution, for
purposes of reconstruction, and therein abolished
slavery.
Pending these doings and before practical re-
construction had made noticeable progress, Mr.
Lincoln sent in, on December 8, 1863, his third
annual Message to Congress. To this Message
was appended something which no one had antici-
pated, a Proclamation of Amnesty. In this the
President recited his pardoning power and a recent
act of Congress specially confirmatory thereof,
stated the wish of certain repentant rebels to re-
sume allegiance and to restore loyal state govern-
ments, and then offered, to all who would take a
prescribed oath, full pardon together with "restora-
tion of all rights and property, except as to slaves,
224 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
and . . . where rights o third parties shall have in-
tervened." The oath was simply to "support, pro-
tect, and defend" the Constitution and the Union,
and to abide by and support all legislation and
all proclamations concerning slavery made during
the existing rebellion. There were, of course, sun-
dry exceptions of persons from this amnesty; but
the list of those excepted was a moderate and rea-
sonable one. He also proclaimed that whenever in
any seceded State "a number of persons not less
than one tenth in number of the votes cast in such
State at the presidential election of the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty, each
having taken the oath aforesaid and not having
since violated it, and being a qualified voter by the
election law of the State existing immediately be-
fore the so-called act of secession, and excluding
all others, shall reestablish a state government
which shall be republican, and in no wise contra-
vening said oath, such shall be recognized as the
true government of the State, and the State shall
receive thereunder the benefits of the constitutional
provision which declares that 'the United States
shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Re-
publican form of government, and shall protect
each of them against invasion; and, on application
of the legislature, or the executive (when the legis-
lature cannot be convened), against domestic vio-
lence.'"
Also further: "that any provision that may be
adopted by such state government, in relation to
RECONSTRUCTION. 225
the freed people of such State, which shall recog-
nize and declare their permanent freedom, provide
for their education, and which may yet be consis-
tent, as a temporary arrangement, with their pres-
ent condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless
class, will not be objected to by the national Exec-
utive. And it is suggested as not improper that,
in constructing a loyal state government in any
State, the name of the State, the boundary, the
subdivisions, the constitution, and the general code
of laws, as before the rebellion, be maintained,
subject only to the modifications made necessary
by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such
others, if any, not contravening said conditions,
and which may be deemed expedient by those
framing the new state government."
Concerning this proclamation the message, which
communicated it, noted: that it did not transcend
the Constitution; that no man was coerced to take
the oath; and that to make pardon conditional
upon taking it was strictly lawful; that a test of
loyalty was necessary, because it would be "simply
absurd " to guarantee a republican form of govern-
ment in a State "constructed in whole, or in pre-
ponderating part, from the very element against
whose hostility and violence it is to be protected; "
that the pledge to maintain the laws and procla-
mations as to slavery was a proper condition, be-
cause these had aided and would further aid the
Union cause; also because "to now abandon them
would be not only to relinquish a lever of power.
226 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
but would also be a cruel and astounding breach of
faith."
He continued: "But why any proclamation,
now, upon the subject? This question is beset
with the conflicting views that the step might be
delayed too long or be taken too soon. In some
States the elements for resumption seem ready for
action, but remain inactive, apparently for want
of a rallying point, a plan of action. "Why shall
A adopt the plan of B rather than B that of A?
And if A and B should agree, how can they know
but that the general government here will reject
their plan? By the proclamation a plan is pre-
sented which may be accepted by them as a rally-
ing point, and which they are assured in advance
will not be rejected here. This may bring them
to act sooner than they otherwise would.
"The objection to a premature presentation of
a plan by the national Executive consists in the
danger of committals on points which could be
more safely left to further developments.
"Care has been taken to so shape the document
as to avoid embarrassments from this source. Say-
ing that, on certain terms, certain classes will be
pardoned, with rights restored, it is not said that
other classes or other terms will never be included.
Saying that reconstruction will be accepted if pre-
sented in a specified way, it is not said it will never
be accepted in any other way.
"The movements, by state action, for emanci-
pation in several of the States, not included in the
JSJECONST& UCTION. 227
emancipation proclamation, are matters of pro-
found gratulation. And while I do not repeat in
detail what I have heretofore so earnestly urged
upon this subject, my general views and feelings
remain unchanged ; and I trust that Congress will
omit no fair opportunity of aiding these important
steps to a great consummation.
"In the midst of other cares, however import-
ant, we must not lose sight of the fact that the
war power is still our main reliance. To that
power alone we can look yet for a time, to give
confidence to the people in the contested regions,
that the insurgent power will not again overrun
them. Until that confidence shall be established,
little can be done anywhere for what is called re-
construction*
"Hence our chief est care must be directed to the
army and navy, who have thus far borne their
harder part so nobly and well. And it may be
esteemed fortunate that in giving the greatest effi-
ciency to these indispensable arms, we do also
honorably recognize the gallant men, from com-
mander to sentinel, who compose them, and to
whom, more than to others, the world must stand
indebted for the home of freedom disenthralled,
regenerated, enlarged, and perpetuated."
This step, this offer of amnesty and pardon, and
invitation to state reconstruction, took every one
by surprise. As usual the President had been
"doing his own thinking," reaching his own con-
clusions and acting upon them with little counsel
228 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
asked from any among the multitudes of wise men
who were so ready to furnish it. For a moment
his action received a gratifying welcome of praise
and approval. The first impulsive sentiment was
that of pleasure because the offer was in so liberal,
so conciliatory, so forgiving a spirit; moreover,
people were encouraged by the very fact that the
President thought it worth while to initiate recon-
struction ; also many of the more weak-kneed, who
desired to see the luring process tried, were grati-
fied by a generous measure. Then, too, not very
much thought had yet been given, at least by the
people in general, to actual processes of reconstruc-
tion; for while many doubted whether there would
ever be a chance to reconstruct at all, very few
fancied the time for it to be nearly approaching.
Therefore the President occupied vacant ground in
the minds of most persons.
But in a short time a very different temper was
manifested among members of Congress, and from
them spread forth and found support among the
people. Two reasons promoted this. One, which
was avowed with the frankness of indignation, was
a jealousy of seeing so important a business pre-
empted by the executive department. The other
was a natural feeling of mingled hostility and dis-
trust towards rebels, who had caused so much
blood to be shed, so much cost to be incurred. In
this point of view, the liberality which at first had
appeared admirable, now began to be condemned
as extravagant, unreasonable, and perilous.
RECONSTRUCTION. 229
Concerning the first of these reasons it must be
admitted that it was entirely natural that Congress
should desire to take partial or, if possible, even
entire charge of reconstruction. Which depart-
ment had the better right to the duty, or how it
should be distributed between the legislative and
executive departments, was uncertain, and could
be determined only by inference from the definite
functions of each as established by the Constitu-
tion. The Executive unquestionably had the power
to pardon every rebel in the land; yet it was a
power which might conceivably be so misused as
to justify impeachment. The Senate and the
House had the power to give or to refuse seats to
persons claiming to have been elected to them.
Yet they could not dare to exercise this power
except for a cause which was at least colorable in
each case. Furthermore, the meaning of "recog-
nition" was vague. Exactly what was "recog-
nition " of a state government, and by what spe-
cific process could it be granted or withheld?
The Executive might recognize statehood in some
matters; Congress might refuse to recognize it in
other matters. Every one felt that disagreement
between the two departments would be most unfor-
tunate and even dangerous; yet it was entirely pos-
sible ; and what an absurd and alarming condition
might be created, if the President, by a general
amnesty, should reinstate the ex-rebels of a State
as citizens with all their rights of citizenship, and
Congress should refuse to seat the Senators and
230 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Representatives elected by these constituents on
the alleged ground of peril to the country by rea-
son of their supposed continuing disloyalty. Even
worse still might be the case ; for the Senate and
the House might disagree. There was nothing in
law or logic to make this consummation impossible.
People differed much in feeling as well as opin*
ion upon this difficult subject, this problem which
was solved by no law. Treason is a crime and
must be made odious, said Andrew Johnson, sternly
uttering the sentiments of many earnest and stren-
uous men in Congress and in the country. Others
were able to eliminate revengefulness, but felt
that it was not safe in the present, nor wise for
the future, to restore to rebels all the rights of
citizenship upon the moment when they should
consent to abandon rebellion, more especially when
all knew and admitted that the abandonment was
made not in penitence but merely in despair of
success. It was open to extremists to argue that
the whole seceded area might logically, as con-
quered lands, be reduced to a territorial condition,
to be recarved into States at such times and upon
such conditions as should seem proper. But others,
in agreement with the President, insisted that if
no State could lawfully secede, it followed that no
State could lawfully be deprived of statehood.
These persons reinforced their legal argument with
the sentimental one that lenity was the best policy.
As General Grant afterward put it: "The people
who had been in rebellion must necessarily come
RECONSTRUCTION. 231
back into the Union, and be incorporated as an
integral part o the nation. Naturally the nearer
they were placed to an equality with the people
who had not rebelled, the more reconciled they
would feel with their old antagonists, and the bet-
ter citizens they would be from the beginning.
They surely would not make good citizens if they
felt that they had a yoke around their necks." The
question, in what proportions mercy and justice
should be, or safely could be, mingled, was clearly
one of discretion. In the wide distance betwixt
the holders of extreme opinions an infinite variety
of schemes and theories was in time broached and
held. Very soon the gravity of the problem was
greatly enhanced by its becoming complicated with
proposals for giving the suffrage to negroes. Upon
this Mr. Lincoln expressed his opinion that the
privilege might be wisely conferred upon "the
very intelligent, and especially those who have
fought gallantly in our ranks," though apparently
he intended thus to describe no very large percent-
age. Apparently his confidence in the civic ca-
pacity of the negro never became very much greater
than it had been in the days of the joint debates
with Douglas.
Congress took up the matter very promptly and
with much display of feeling. Early in May, 1864,
Henry Winter Davis, a vehement opponent of the
President, introduced a bill, of which the anti-
rebel preamble was truculent to the point of being
amusing. His first fierce Whereas declared that
232 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
the Confederate States were waging a war so glar-
ingly unjust "that they have no right to claim the
mitigation of the extreme rights of war, which
are accorded by modern usage to an enemy who
has a right to consider the war a just one." But
Congress, though hotly irritated, was not quite
willing to say, in terms, that it would eschew civi-
lization and adopt barbarism, as its system for the
conduct of the war; and accordingly it rejected
Mr. Davis 's fierce exordium. The words had very
probably only been used by him as a sort of safety-
valve to give vent to the fury of his wrath, so that
he could afterward approach the serious work of
the bill in a milder spirit; for in fact the actual
effective legislation which he proposed was by no
means unreasonable. After military resistance
should be suppressed in any rebellious State, the
white male citizens were to elect a convention for
the purpose of reestablishing a state government.
The new organization must disfranchise prominent
civil and military officers of the Confederacy, es-
tablish the permanent abolition of slavery, and
prohibit the payment by the new State of any
indebtedness incurred for Confederate purposes.
After Congress should have expressed its assent to
the work of the convention, the President was to
recognize by proclamation the reorganized State.
This bill, of course, gave to the legislative depart-
ment the whole valuable control in the matter of
recognition, leaving to the President nothing more
than the mere empty function of issuing a procla-
RECONSTRUCTION. 233
mation, which he would have no right to hold back;
but in other respects its requirements were entirely
fair and unobjectionable, from any point of view,
and it finally passed the House by a vote of 74 to
59. The Senate amended it, but afterward re-
ceded from the amendment, and thus the measure
came before Mr, Lincoln on July 4, 1864. Con-
gress was to adjourn at noon on that day, and he
was at the Capitol, signing bills, when this one
was brought to him. He laid it aside. Zachariah
Chandler, Senator from Michigan, a dictatorial
gentleman and somewhat of the busy-body order,
was watchfully standing by, and upon observing
this action, he asked Mr. Lincoln, with some show
of feeling, whether he was not going to sign that
bill. Mr. Lincoln replied that it was a "matter
of too much importance to be swallowed in that
way." Mr. Chandler warned him that a veto
would be very damaging at the Northwest, and
said: "The important point is that one prohibiting
slavery in the reconstructed States." "This is the
point," said Mr. Lincoln, "on which I doubt the
authority of Congress to act." "It is no more
than you have done yourself," said the Senator.
"I conceive, "replied Mr. Lincoln, "that I may in
an emergency do things on military grounds which
cannot be done constitutionally by Congress." A
few moments later he remarked to the members of
the Cabinet: "I do not see how any of us now can
deny and contradict what we have always said: that
Congress has no constitutional power over slavery
234 ABRAHAM LINCOLN*.
in the States. . . . This bill and the position of
these gentlemen seem to me, in asserting that the
insurrectionary States are no longer in the Union,
to make the fatal admission that States, whenever
they please, may of their own motion dissolve their
connection with the Union. Now we cannot sur-
vive that admission, I am convinced. If that be
true, I am not President; these gentlemen are not
Congress. I have laboriously endeavored to avoid
that question ever since it first began to be mooted.
... It was to obviate this question that I earnestly
favored the movement for an amendment to the
Constitution abolishing slavery. ... I thought it
much better, if it were possible, to restore the
Union without the necessity for a violent quarrel
among its friends as to whether certain States have
been in or out of the Union during the war, a
merely metaphysical question, and one unnecessary
to be forced into discussion." 1 So the bill re-
mained untouched at his side.
A few days after the adjournment, having then
decided not to sign the bill, he issued a proclama-
tion in which he said concerning it, that he was
"unprepared by a formal approval of [it] to be in-
flexibly committed to any single plan of restora-
tion;" that he was also "unprepared to declare
that the free-state constitutions and governments,
already adopted and installed in Arkansas and
Louisiana, [should] be set aside and held for
1 N. and EL, iz. 120-122, quoting from the diary of Mr. John
Hay.
RECONSTRUCTION. 235
naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the
loyal citizens, who have set up the same, as to
further effort;" also that he was unprepared to
"declare a constitutional competency in Congress
to abolish slavery in the States." Yet he also said
that he was fully satisfied that the system proposed
in the bill was "one very proper plan" for the
loyal people of any State to adopt, and that he
should be ready to aid in such adoption upon any
opportunity. In a word, his objection to the bill
lay chiefly in the fact that it established one single
and exclusive process for reconstruction. The
rigid exclusiveness seemed to him a serious error.
Upon his part, in putting forth his own plan, he
had taken much pains distinctly to keep out this
characteristic, and to have it clearly understood
that his proposition was not designed as "a pro-
crustean bed, to which exact conformity was to
be indispensable; " it was not the only method, but
only a method.
So soon as it was known that the President
would not sign the bill, a vehement cry of wrath
broke from all its more ardent friends. H. "W.
Davis and B. F. Wade, combative men, and leaders
in their party, who expected their opinion to be re-
spected, published in the New York "Tribune"
an address "To the Supporters of the Govern-
ment." In unbridled language they charged "en-
croachments of the Executive on the authority of
Congress." They even impugned the honesty of
the President's purpose in words of direct personal
236 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
insult; for they said: "The President, by prevent-
ing this bill from becoming a law, holds the elec-
toral votes of the rebel States at the dictation of
his personal ambition. ... If electors for Presi-
dent be allowed to be chosen in either of those
States [Louisiana or Arkansas], a sinister light
will be cast on [his] motives." They alleged that
"a more studied outrage on the legislative author-
ity of the people has never been perpetrated."
They stigmatized this "rash and fatal act" as "a
blow at the friends of the administration, at the
rights of humanity, and at the principles of repub-
lican government." They warned Mr. Lincoln
that, if he wished the support of Congress, he
must "confine himself to his executive duties, to
obey and execute, not make the laws; to suppress
by arms armed rebellion, and leave political reor-
ganization to Congress." If they really meant
what they said, or any considerable part of it,
they would have been obliged to vote " Guilty "
had the House of Eepresentatives seen fit to put
these newspaper charges of theirs into the formal
shape of articles of impeachment against the Presi-
dent.
To whatever "friends " Mr. Lincoln might have
dealt a "blow," it is certain that these angry gen-
tlemen, whether "friends " or otherwise, were deal-
ing him a very severe blow at a very critical time;
and if its hurtfulness was diminished by the very
fury and extravagance of their invective, they at
least were entitled to no credit for the salvation
RECONSTRUCTION. 237
thus obtained. They were exerting all their pow-
erful influence to increase the chance, already
alarmingly great, of making a Democrat the next
President of the United States. Nevertheless
Mr. Lincoln, with his wonted imperturbable fixed-
ness when he had reached a conviction, did not
modify his position in the slightest degree.
Before long this especial explosion spent its
force, and thereafter very fortunately the ques-
tion smouldered during the rest of Mr. Lincoln's
lifetime, and only burst forth into fierce flame
immediately after his death, when it became more
practical and urgent as a problem of the actually
present time. The last words, however, which he
spoke in public, dealt with the matter. It was
on the evening of April 11, and he was addressing
in Washington a great concourse of citizens who
had gathered to congratulate him upon the bril-
liant military successes, then just achieved, which
insured the immediate downfall of the Confeder-
acy. In language as noteworthy for moderation
as that of his assailants had been for extravagance,
he then reviewed his course concerning reconstruc-
tion and gave his reasons for still believing that
he had acted for the best. Admitting that much
might justly be said against the reorganized gov-
ernment of Louisiana, he explained why he thought
that nevertheless it should not be rejected. Con-
cede, he said, that it is to what it should be only
what the egg is to the fowl, "we shall sooner have
OO '
the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it. 51
238 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
He conceived that the purpose of the people might
be fairly stated to be the restoration of the proper
practical relations between the seceded States and
the Union, and he therefore argued that the ques-
tion properly took this shape : Whether Louisiana
could "be brought into proper practical relation
with the Union sooner by sustaining or by dis-
carding her new state government." x
By occurrences befalling almost immediately
after Mr. Lincoln's death his opinions were again
drawn into debate, when unfortunately he could
neither explain nor develop them further than he
Lad done. One of the important events of the war
was the conference held on March 28, 1865, at
Hampton Roads, between the President, General
Grant, General Sherman, and Admiral Porter, and
at which no other person was present* It is suffi-
ciently agreed that the two generals then declared
that one great final battle must yet take place; and
that thereupon Mr. Lincoln, in view of the ad-
mitted fact that the collapse of the rebellion was
inevitably close at hand, expressed great aversion
and pain at the prospect of utterly useless blood-
1 He Had used mrrnlar language in a letter to General Canby,
Dec. 12, 1S64 ; N. and H., ix. 448 ; also in his letter to Trumbull
concerning- the Louisiana senators, Jan. 9, 1865 ; ibid. 454. Colo-
nel McClure, on the strength of conversations with Lincoln, says
that his single purpose -was " the speedy and cordial restoration
of the dissevered States. He cherished no resentment against the
South, and every theory of reconstruction that he ever conceived
or presented was eminently peaceful and looking solely to re*
attaching the estranged people to the government." Lincoln and
Men of Far-Times, 223.
RECONSTRUCTION. 239
sited, and asked whether it could not by some
means be avoided. It is also tolerably certain that
Mr. Lincoln gave very plainly to be understood
by his remarks, and also as usual by a story, his
desire that Jefferson Davis and a few other of the
leading rebels should not be captured, but rather
should find it possible to escape from the country.
It is in other ways well known that he had already
made up his mind not to conclude the war with a
series of hangings after the historic European fash-
ion of dealing with traitors. He preferred, how-
ever, to evade rather than to encounter the prob-
lem of disposing of such embarrassing captives,
and a road for them out of the country would be
also a road for Trim out of a difficulty. What else
was said on this occasion, though it soon became
the basis of important action, is not known with
accuracy; but it may be regarded as beyond a doubt
that, in a general way, Mr. Lincoln took a very
liberal tone concerning the terms and treatment
to be accorded to the rebels in the final arrange-
ment of the surrendering, which all saw to be
close at hand. It is beyond doubt that he spoke,
throughout the conference, in the spirit of for-
getting and forgiving immediately and almost en-
tirely.
From this interview General Sherman went back
to his army, and received no further instructions
afterward, until, on April 18, he established with
General Johnston the terms on which the remain-
ing Confederate forces should be disbanded. This
240 ABRAHAM LINCOLN*.
"Memorandum or basis of agreement," 1 then
entered into by him, stipulated for "the recogni-
tion, by the Executive of the United States, of the
several State governments, on their officers and le-
gislatures taking the oaths prescribed by the Consti-
tution of the United States; " also that the inhabi-
tants of the Southern States should "be guaranteed,
so far as the Executive can, their political rights
and franchises, as well as their rights of person
and property ; " also that the government would not
"disturb any of the people by reason of the late
war," if they should dwell quiet for the future;
and, in short, that there should be "a general
amnesty," so far as it was within the power of the
Executive of the United States to grant it, upon
the return of the South to a condition of peace.
No sooner were these -engagements reported in
"Washington than they were repudiated. How-
ever they might have accorded with, or might
Lave transcended, the sentiments of him who had
been President only a few days before, they by
no means accorded with the views of Andrew
Johnson, who was President at that time, and still
less with the views of the Secretary of War, who
well represented the vengeful element of the coun-
try. Accordingly Mr. Stanton at once annulled
them by an Order, which he followed up by a
bulletin containing ten reasons in support of the
Order. This document was immediately published
in the newspapers, and was so vituperative and
i Sherman, Memoirs, ii. 356.
RECONSTRUCTION. 241
insulting towards Sherman l tliat the General, who
naturally did not feel himself a fitting object for
insolence at this season of his fresh military tri-
umphsj soon afterward showed his resentment; at
the grand parade of his army, in Washington, he
conspicuously declined, in the presence of the
President and the notabilities of the land, to shake
the hand which Secretary Stanton did not hesitate
then and there to extend to him, for Stanton
had that peculiar and unusual form of meanness
which endeavors to force a civility after an insult.
But however General Sherman might feel about it,
his capitulation had been revoked, and another con-
ference became necessary between the two generals,
which was followed a little later by still another
between Generals Schofield and Johnston* At
these meetings the terms which had been estab-
lished between Generals Grant and Lee were sub-
stantially repeated, and by this "military conven-
tion " the war came to a formal end on April 26,
1865.
By this course of events General Sherman was,
of course, placed in a very uncomfortable position,
and he defended himself by alleging that the terms
which he had made were in accurate conformity
with the opinions, wishes, and programme ex-
pressed by Mr. Lincoln on March 28. He reiter-
ates this assertion strongly and distinctly in his
1 Grant stigmatizes jfl" g as "cruel and harsh treatment * *
unnecessarily . . . inflicted," Mem., ii. 534, and as "infamous,"
Badean, Milit. Hist, of Grant, iiL 636 n.
242 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
"Memoirs," and quotes in emphatic corroboration
Admiral Porter's account of that interview. 1 The
only other witness who could be heard on this
point was General Grant; he never gave his recol-
lection of the expressions of President Lincoln
concerning the matters in dispute; but on April
21 he did write to General Sherman that, after
having carefully read the terms accorded to John-
ston he felt satisfied that they "could not possibly
be approved." 2 He did not, however, say whether
or not they seemed to him to contravene the policy
of the President, as he had heard or understood
that policy to be laid down in the famous inter-
view. In the obscurity which wraps this matter,
individual opinions find ample room to wander; it
is easy to believe that what General Sherman un-
dertook to arrange was in reasonable accordance
with the broad purposes of the President; but it
certainly is not easy to believe that the President
ever intended tihat so many, so momentous, and
such complex affairs should be conclusively dis-
posed of, with all the honorable sacredness attend-
ant upon military capitulations, by a few hasty
strokes of General Sherman's pen. The compre-
hensiveness of this brief and sudden document of
1 Sherman, Memoirs, ii. 328. The Admiral says that, if Lincoln
had tired, he "would have shouldered all the responsibility"
for Sherman's action, and Secretary Stanton would have "issued
no false telegraphic dispatches." See also Senator Sherman's
corroborative statement ; MeClure, Lincoln and Men of War-Times,
219 n.
* Sherman, Memoirs, ii. 360.
RECONSTRUCTION. 243
surrender was appalling! Mr. Lincoln had never
before shown any inclination to depute to others
so much of his own discretionary authority; his
habit was quite the other way.
It is not worth while to discuss much the merits
or demerits of President Lincoln's schemes for
reconstruction. They had been only roughly and
imperfectly blocked out at the time of his death;
and in presenting them he repeatedly stated that
he did not desire to rule out other schemes which
might be suggested; on the contrary, he distinctly
stated his approval of the scheme developed in
the bill introduced by Senator Davis and passed
by Congress. Reconstruction, as it was actually
conducted later on, was wretchedly bungled, and
was marked chiefly by bitterness in disputation
and by clumsiness in practical arrangements, which
culminated in that miserable disgrace known as the
regime of the "carpet-baggers." How far Lincoln
would have succeeded in saving the country from
these humiliating processes, no one can say; but
that he would have strenuously disapproved much
that was done is not open to reasonable doubt. On
the other hand, it is by no means certain that his
theories, at least so far as they had been developed
up to the time of his death, either could have been,
or ought to have been carried out. This seems to
be generally agreed. Perhaps they were too lib-
eral; perhaps he confided too much in a sudden
change of heart, an immediate growth of loyalty,
among persons of whom nearly all were still embit*
244 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
tered, still believed that it was in a righteous cause
that they had suffered a cruel defeat.
But if the feasibility of Mr. Lincoln's plan is
matter of fruitless disputation, having to do only
with fancied probabilities, and having never been
put to the proof of trial, at least no one will deny
that it was creditable to his nature. A strange
freak of destiny arranged that one of the most ob-
stinate, sanguinary wars of history should be con-
ducted by one of the most humane men who ever
lived, and that blood should run in rivers at the
order of a ruler to whom bloodshed was repugnant,
and to whom the European idol of military glory
seemed a symbol of barbarism. During the war
Lincoln's chief purpose was the restoration of na-
tional unity, and his day-dream was that it should
be achieved as a sincere and hearty reunion in
feeling as well as in fact. As he dwelt with much
earnest aspiration upon this consummation, he per-
haps came to imagine a possibility of its instant
accomplishment, which did not really exist. His
longing for a genuinely reunited country was not
a pious form of expression, but an intense senti-
ment, and an end which he definitely expected to
bring to pass. Not improbably this frame of mind
induced him to advance too fast and too far, in
order to meet with welcoming hand persons who
were by no means in such a condition of feeling
that they could grasp that hand in good faith, or
could fulfil at once the obligations which such a
reconciliation would have imposed upon them, as
RECONSTRUCTION. 245
matter of honor, in all their civil and political re-
lations. The reaction involved in passing from a
state of hostilities to a state of peace, the deep grat-
ification of seeing so mortal a struggle determined
in favor of the national life, may have carried Tn'm
somewhat beyond the limitations set by the hard
facts of the case, and by the human nature alike of
the excited conquerors and the impenitent con-
quered. On the other hand, however, it is dan-
gerous to say that Mr. Lincoln made a mistake in
reading the popular feeling or in determining a
broad policy. If he did, he did so for the first
time. Among those suppositions in which poster-
ity is free to indulge, it is possible to fancy that
if he, whom all now admit to have been the best
friend of the South living in April, 1865, had con-
tinued to live longer, he might have alleviated, if
he could not altogether have prevented, the writing
of some very painful chapters in the history of the
United States.
. In writing this chapter, I have run somewhat ahead of
the narrative in point of time ; but I hope that the desirability
of treating the topic connectedly, as a whole, will he obvious to
the reader.
CHAPTER IX.
EENOMINATION.
IN a period of fervid political feeling it was
natural that those Republicans who were dissat-
isfied with President Lincoln should begin, long
before the close of his term of office, to seek conso-
lation by arrangements for replacing him by a suc-
cessor more to their taste. Expressions of this
purpose became definite in the autumn of 1863.
Mr, Arnold says that the coming presidential elec-
tion was expected to bring grave danger, if not
even anarchy and revolution. 1 Amid existing cir-
cumstances, an opposition confined to the legiti-
mate antagonism of the Democracy would, of
course, have brought something more than the cus-
tomary strain inherent in ordinary times in gov-
ernment by party; and it was unfortunate that,
besides this, an undue gravity was imported into
the crisis by the intestinal dissensions of the Repub-
licans themselves. It seemed by no means impos-
sible that these disagreements might give to the
friends of peace by compromise a victory which
1 Arnold, Lincoln, 384, 385. Nicolay and Hay seem to me to
go too far in belittling the opposition to Mr. Lincoln "within the
Republican party.
RENOMINATIQN. 247
they really ought not to have. Eepublican hostil-
ity to Mr. Lincoln was unquestionably very bitter
in quality, whatever it might be in quantity. It
was based in part upon the discontent of the radi-
cals and extremists, in part upon personal irrita-
tion. In looking back upon those times there is
now a natural tendency to measure this opposition
by the weakness which it ultimately displayed
tfhen, later on, it was swept out of sight by the
verwhelming current of the popular will. But
this weakness was by no means so visible in the
winter of 1863-64. On the contrary the cry for
a change then seemed to come from every quarter,
and to come loudly; for it was echoed back and
forth by the propagandists and politicians, and as
these persons naturally did most of the talking and
writing in the country, so they made a show de-
lusively out of proportion to their following among
the people.
The dislike toward the President flourished
chiefly in two places, and with two distinct bodies
of men. One of these places was Missouri, which
will be spoken of later on. The other was Wash-
ington, where the class of "public men" was for
the most part very ill-disposed towards him. 1 Mr.
Julian, himself a prominent malcontent, bears his
valuable testimony to the extent of the disaffection,
saying that, of the "more earnest and thorough-
going Eepublicans in both Houses of Congress,
1 See Arnold, Lincoln, 385, But the fact is notorious among
all who remember those times.
248 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
probably not one in ten really favored " l the re-
nomination of Mr. Lincoln. In fact, there were
few of them whom the President had not offended.
They had brought to him their schemes and their
policies, had made their arguments and demands,
and after all had found the President keeping his
counsel to himself and acting according to his own
judgment. This seemed exasperatingly unjustifi-
able in a country where anybody might happen to
be President without being a whit abler than any
other one who had not happened to fall into the
office. In a word, the politicians had, and hated,
a master* Mr. Chase betrayed this when he com-
plained that there was no "administration, in the
true sense of the word; " by which he understood,
"a President conferring with his Cabinet and tak-
ing their united judgments." The existence of
that strange moat which seems to isolate the capi-
tal and the political coteries therein gathered, and
to shut out all knowledge of the feelings of the
constituent people, is notorious, and certainly was
never made more conspicuous than in this business
of selecting the Eepublican candidate for the cam-
paign of 1864. When Congress came together
the political scheming received a strong impetus.
Everybody seemed to be opposed to Mr. Lincoln.
Thaddeus Stevens, the impetuous leader of the
House of Eepresentatives, declared that, in that
body, Arnold of Illinois was the only member who
1 Polit. Recoil., 243 et seq. Mr. Julian here gives a vivid sketch
of the opposition to Mr. Lincoln.
DENOMINATION. 249
was a political friend of the President; and the
story goes that the President himself sadly ad-
mitted the fact. Visitors at Washington, who got
their impressions from the talk there, concluded
that Mr. Lincoln's chance of a second term was
small.
This opposition, which had the capital for its
headquarters and the politicians for its constitu-
ents, found a candidate ready for use. Secretary
Chase was a victim to the dread disease of presi-
dential ambition. With the usual conventional
expressions of modesty he admitted the fact.
Thereupon general talk soon developed into politi-
cal organization; and in January, 1864, a "Com-
mittee of prominent Senators, Representatives and
Citizens," having formally obtained his approval,
set about promoting his interests in business-like
fashion.
The President soon knew what was going for-
ward; but he gave no sign of disquietude; on the
contrary he only remarked that he hoped the coun-
try would never have a worse President than Mr.
Chase would be. Not that he was indifferent to
renomination and reelection. That would have
been against nature. His mind, his soul, all that
there was of force ajid feeling in him had been ex-
pended to the uttermost in the cause and the war
which were still pending. At the end of that des-
perate road, along which he had dared stubbornly
and against so much advice to lead the nation, he
seemed now to discern the goal. That he should
250 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
be permitted to guide to the end in that jour-
ney, and that his judgment and leadership should
receive the crown of success and approval, was a
reward, almost a right, which he must intensely
desire and which he could not lose without a dis-
appointment that outruns expression. Yet he was
so self-contained that, if he had cared not at all
about the issue, his conduct would have been much
the same that it was.
Besides his temperament, other causes promoted
this tranquillity. What Mr. Lincoln would have
been had his career fallen in ordinary times, amid
commonplace political business, it is difficult to
say. The world never saw him as the advocate or
assailant of a tariff, or other such affair. From
the beginning he had bound "himself fast to a great
moral purpose, which later became united with the
preservation of the national life. Having thus
deliberately exercised his judgment in a question
of this kind, he seemed ever after content to have
entrusted his fortunes to the movement, and always
to be free from any misgiving as to its happy con-
clusion. Besides this, it is probable that he accu-
rately measured the narrow limits of Mr. Chase's
strength. No man ever more shrewdly read the
popular mind. A subtle line of communication
seemed to run between himself and the people.
Nor did he know less well the politicians. His
less sagacious friends noted with surprise and anxi-
ety that he let the work of opposition go on un-
checked. In due time, however, the accuracy of
HE NOMINATION. 251
his foresight was vindicated; for when the Secre-
tary's friends achieved a sufficient impetus they
tumbled over, in manner following:
Mr. Pomeroy, Senator from Kansas, was vindic-
tive because the President had refused to take his
side in certain quarrels between himself and his
colleague. Accordingly, early in 1864, he issued
a circular, stating that the efforts making for Mr.
Lincoln's nomination required counter action on
the part of those unconditional friends of the Union
who disapproved the policy of the administration*
He said that Mr. Lincoln's reelection was "practi-
cally impossible; " that it was also undesirable, on
account of the President's "manifest tendency
towards compromises and temporary expedients of
policy," and for other reasons. Therefore, he said,
Mr. Chase's friends had established "connections
in all the States," and now invited "the hearty
cooperation of all those in favor of the speedy
restoration of the Union upon the basis of uni-
versal freedom." The document, designed to be
secret, of course was quickly printed in iiie news-
papers. 1 This was awkward; and Mr. Chase at
once wrote to the President a letter, certainly en-
tirely fair, in which he expressed his willingness
to resign. Mr. Lincoln replied kindly. He said
that he had heard of the Pomeroy circular, but had
not read it, and did not expect to do so. In fact,
he said, "I have known just as little of these
things as my friends have allowed me to know."
1 In tie National Intelligencer, Feb. 22. 1864
252 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
As to the proposed resignation, that, lie said, "is a
question which I will not allow myself to consider
from any standpoint other than my judgment of
the public service, and in that view I do not per-
ceive occasion for a change." There was through-
out a quiet undertone of indifference to the whole
business, which was significant enough to have puz-
zled the Secretary, had he noticed it; for it was
absolutely impossible that Mr. Lincoln should be
really indifferent to dangerous competition. The
truth was that the facts of the situation lay with
the President, and that the enterprise, which was
supposed by its friends to be only in its early stage,
was really on the verge of final disposition.
Mr. Chase had said decisively that he would not
be a candidate unless his own State, Ohio, should
prefer him. To enlighten fr on this point the
Republican members of the Ohio Legislature, be-
ing in much closer touch with the people than were
the more dignified statesmen at Washington, met
on February 25, and in the name of the people and
the soldiers of their State renominated Mr. Lin-
coln. The nail was driven a stroke deeper into
the coffin by Rhode Island. Although Governor
Sprague was Mr. Chase's son-in-law, the legisla-
ture of that State also made haste to declare for
Mr. Lincoln. So the movement in behalf of Mr.
Chase came suddenly and utterly to an end. Early
in May he wrote that he wished no further consid-
eration to be given to his name; and his wish was
respected. After this collapse Mr. Lincoln's re-
BENOMINATION. 253
nomination was much less opposed by the politi-
cians of Washington. Being naturally a facile
class, and not so narrowly wedded to their own
convictions as to be unable to subordinate them to
the popular will or wisdom, they now for the most
part gave their superficial and uncordial adhesion
to the President. They liked him no better than
before, but they respected a sagacity superior to
their own, bowed before a capacity which could
control success, and, in presence of the admitted
fact of his overwhelming popularity, they played
the part which became wise men of their calling.
However sincerely Mr. Chase might resolve to
behave with magnanimity beneath his disappoint-
ment, the disappointment must rankle all the same.
It was certainly the case that, while he professed
friendship towards Mr. Lincoln personally, he was
honestly unable to appreciate him as a President.
Mr. Chase's ideal of a statesman had outlines of
imposing dignity which Mr. Lincoln's simple de-
meanor did not fill out. It was now inevitable
that the relationship between the two men should
soon be severed. The first strain came because
Mr. Lincoln would not avenge an unjustifiable
assault made by General Blair upon the Secretary.
Then Mr. Chase grumbled at the free spending of
the funds which he had succeeded in providing
with so much pVi.ll and labor. "It seems as if
there were no limit to expense. . . . The spigot
in Uncle Abe's barrel is made twice as big as th*
bung-hole," he complained. Then ensued sundry
254 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
irritations concerning appointments in the custom-
houses, one of which led to an offer of resignation
by the Secretary. On each occasion, however, the
President placated him by allowing him to have
his own way. Finally, in May and June, 1864,
occurred the famous imbroglio concerning the
choice of a successor to Mr. Cisco, the assistant-
treasurer at New York. Though Mr. Chase again
managed to prevail, yet he was made so angry by
the circumstances of the case, that he again sent
in his resignation, which this time was accepted.
For, as Mr. Lincoln said: "You and I have
reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our
official relation, which it seems cannot be overcome
or longer sustained consistently with the public
service." This occurrence, taking place on June
29-30, at the beginning of the difficult political
campaign of that anxious summer, alienated from
the President's cause some friends in a crisis when
all the friends whom he could muster seemed
hardly sufficient.
The place of Mr. Chase was not easy to fill.
Mr, Lincoln first nominated David Tod, of Ohio.
This was very ill received; but fortunately the
difficulty which might have been caused by it was
escaped, because Governor Tod promptly declined.
The President then named William Pitt Fessen-
den, Senator from Maine, and actually forced the
office upon him against that gentleman's sincere
wish to escape the honor. A better choice could
not have been made* Mr. Fessenden was Chair-
DENOMINATION. 255
man of the Committee on Finance, and had filled
the position with conspicuous ability; every one
esteemed "him highly; the Senate instantly con-
firmed him, and during his incumbency in office
he fully justified these flattering opinions.
There were other opponents of the President,
who were not so easily diverted from their pur-
pose as the politicians had been. In Missouri an
old feud was based upon his displacement of Fre-
mont; the State had ever since been rent by fierce
factional quarrels, and amid them this grievance
had never been forgotten or forgiven. Emancipa-
tion by state action had been chief among the
causes which had divided the Union citizens into
Conservatives and Radicals. Their quarrel was
bitter, and in vain did Mr. Lincoln repeatedly
endeavor to reconcile them. The Radicals claimed
his countenance as a matter of right, and Mr. Lin-
coln often privately admitted that between him
and them there was close coincidence of feeling.
Yet he found their specific demands inadmissible;
especially he could not consent to please them by
removing General Schofield. So they, being ex-
tremists, and therefore of the type of men who will
have every one against them who is not for them,
turned vindictively against him. They found sym-
pathizers elsewhere in the country, sporadic in-
stances of disaffection rather than indications of
an epidemic ; but in their frame of mind they eas-
ily gained faith in the existence of a popular feel-
ing which was, in fact, the phantasm of their own
256 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
heated fancy. As spring drew on they cast out
lines of affiliation. Their purpose was not only
negatively against Lincoln, but positively for Fre-
mont. Therefore they made connection with the
Central Fremont Club, a small organization in
New York, and issued a call for a mass convention
at Cleveland on May 31. They expressed their
disgust for the "imbecile and vacillating policy"
of Mr. Lincoln, and desired the "immediate ex-
tinction of slavery ... by congressional action,"
contemning the fact that Congress had no power
under the Constitution to extinguish slavery.
Their call was reinforced by two or three others,
of which one came from a "People's Committee"
of St. Louis, representing Germans under the lead
of B. Gratz Brown.
The movement also bad the hearty approval of
Wendell Phillips, who was very bitter and sweep-
ing in his denunciations of an administration which
he regarded "as a civil and military failure."
Lincoln's reelection, he said, "I shall consider
the end of the Union in my day, or its reconstruc-
tion on terms worse than disunion." But Mr.
Phillips' s friendship ought to have been regarded
by the Fremonters as ominous, for it was his
custom always to act with a very small minority.
Moreover he had long since ceased to give voice
to the intelligence of his party or even fairly to
represent it. How far it had ever been proper to
call the Abolitionists a party may be doubted;
before the war they had been compressed into some
DENOMINATION. 257
solidity by encompassing hostility; but they would
not have been Abolitionists at all had they not
been men of exceptional independence both in
temper and in intellect. They had often dared to
differ from each other as well as from the mass of
their fellow-citizens, and they had never submitted
to the domination of leaders in the ordinary polit-
ical fashion. The career of Mr. Lincoln had of
course been watched by them keenly, very criti-
cally, and with intense and various feeling* At
times they had hopefully applauded him, and at
times they had vehemently condemned what had
seemed to them his halting, half-hearted or timid
action. As the individual members of the party
had often changed their own minds about him, so
also they had sometimes and freely disagreed with
each other concerning his character, his intentions,
his policies. In the winter and spring of 1864,
however, it seemed that, by slow degrees, observa-
tion, their own good sense, and the development
of events had at last won the great majority of the
party to repose a considerable measure of confi-
dence in him, both in respect of his capacity and
of his real anti-slavery purposes. Accordingly in
the present discussions such men as Owen Love-
joy, 1 William Lloyd Garrison, and Oliver John-
son came out fairly for him, not, indeed, be-
cause he was altogether satisfactory to them, but
because he was in great part so; also because they
easily saw that as matter of fact his personal tri-
1 Lovejoy had generally stood faithfully by the President.
258 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
urnph would probably lead to abolition, that lie
was the only candidate by whom the Democracy
could be beaten, and that if the Democracy should
not be beaten, abolition would be postponed be-
yond human vision. Lovejoy said that, to his
personal knowledge, the President had "been just
as radical as any of his Cabinet," and in view of
what the Abolitionists thought of Chase, this was
a strong endorsement. The old-time charge of
being impractical could not properly be renewed
against these men, now that they saw that events
which they could help to bring about were likely
to bring their purpose to the point of real achieve-
ment in a near future. In this condition of things
they were found entirely willing to recognize and
accept the best practical means, and their belief
was clear that the best practical means lay in the
renomination and reelection of Abraham Lincoln.
Their adhesion brought to him a very useful as-
sistance, and beyond this it also gave him the grat-
ification of knowing that he had at last won the
approval of men whose friendly sympathy he had
always inwardly desired. Sustained by the best
men in the party, he could afford to disregard the
small body of irreconcilable and quarrelsome fault-
finders, who went over to Fremont, factious men,
who were perhaps unconsciously controlled more
by mere contradictoriness of temperament than by
the higher motives which they proclaimed.
At Cleveland on the appointed day the "mass
convention " assembled, only the mass was wanting.
EENOMINATION. 259
It nominated Fremont for the presidency and Gen*
eral John Coehrane for the vice-presidency; and
thus again the Constitution was ignored by these
malcontents; for both these gentlemen were citi-
zens of New York, and therefore the important
delegation from that State could lawfully vote for
only one of them. Really the best result which
the convention achieved was that it called forth a
bit of wit from the President. Some one remarked
to hJTn that, instead of the expected thousands,
only about four hundred persons had assembled.
He turned to the Bible which, say Nicolay and
Hay, "commonly lay on his desk," 1 and read the
verse: "And every one that was in distress, and
every one that was in debt, and every one that was
discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and
he became a captain over them: and there were
with him about four hundred men." 2
The Fremonters struck no responsive chord
among the people. The nomination was received
by every one with the same tranquil indifference,
tinged with ridicule, which the President had
shown. In vain did Fremont seek to give to his
candidacy a serious and dignified character. Very
few persons cared anything about it, except the
Democrats, and their clamorous approval was as
unwelcome as it was significant. Under this hu-
miliation the unfortunate candidate at last decided
to withdraw, and so notified his Committee about
the middle of September. He still stood by his
i N. and H., ix. 40. * 1 Samuel xani. 2.
260 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
principles, however, and asserted that Mr. Lin-
coln's administration had been "politically, mili-
tarily and financially a failure ; " that the Presi-
dent had paralyzed the generous unanimity of the
North; and that, by declaring that "slavery should
be protected," he had "built up for the South a
strength which otherwise they could have never
attained." The nation received the statement
placidly and without alarm.
A feeble movement in New York to nominate
General Grant deserves mention, chiefly for the
purpose of also mentioning the generous manner
in which the general decisively brushed it aside.
Mr. Lincoln quietly said that if Grant would take
Bichmond he might also have the presidency. But
it was, of course, plain to every one that for the
present it would be ridiculous folly to take Grant
out of his tent in order to put him into the White
House.
During this same troubled period a few of the
Republican malcontents went so far as to fancy
that they could put upon Mr. Lincoln a pressure
which would induce him to withdraw from the
ticket. They never learned the extreme absurdity
of their design, for they never got enough encour-
agement to induce them to push it beyond the
stage of preliminary discussion.
All these movements had some support from
newspapers in different parts of the country.
Many editors had the like grievance against Mr.
Lincoln which so many politicians had. For they
DENOMINATION. 261
had told him what to do, and too often he had not
done it. Horace Greeley, it is needless to say,
was conspicuous in his unlimited condemnation of
the President.
The first indications of the revolt of the politi-
cians and the radicals against Mr. Lincoln were
signals for instant counteracting activity among
the various bodies which more closely felt the pop-
ular impulse. State conventions, caucuses, of all
sizes and kinds, and gatherings of the Republican
members of state legislatures, overstepped their
regular functions to declare for the renomination
of Mr. Lincoln* Clubs and societies did the same.
Simon Cameron, transmitting to the President a
circular of this purport, signed by every Unionist
member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, said:
"Providence has decreed your reelection; " and if
it is true that the voxpopuli is also the vox Dei,
this statement of the political affiliations of Provi-
dence was entirely correct. Undoubtedly the num-
ber of the President's adherents was swelled by
some persons who would have been among the dis-
affected had they not been influenced by the reflec-
tion that a change of administration in the present
condition of things must be disastrous. This feel-
ing was expressed in many metaphors, but in none
other so famous as that uttered by Mr. Lincoln
himself : that it was not wise to swap horses while
crossing the stream. The process was especially
dangerous in a country where the change would
involve a practical interregnum of one third of a
262 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
year. The nation had learned this lesson, and had
paid dearly enough for the schooling, too, in the
four months of its waiting to get rid of Buchanan,
after it had discredited Trim and all his ways. In
the present crisis it was easy to believe that to
leave Mr. Lincoln to carry on for four months an
administration condemned by the people, would in-
flict a mortal injury to the Union cause. Never-
theless, though many persons not wholly satisfied
with him supported him for this reason, the great
majority undeniably felt implicit faith and intense
loyalty towards him. He was the people's candi-
date, and they would not have any other candidate;
this present state of popular feeling, which soon
became plain as the sun in heaven, settled the
matter.
Thereupon, however, the malcontents, unwilling
to accept defeat, broached a new scheme. The
Republican nominating convention had been sum-
moned to meet on June 7, 1864; the opponents of
Mr. Lincoln now sought to have it postponed until
September. William Cullen Bryant favored this.
Mr. Greeley also artfully said that a nomination
made so early would expose the Union party to a
dangerous and possibly a successful flank move-
ment. But deception was impossible; all knew
that the postponement itself was a flank move-
ment, and that it was desired for the chance of
some advantage turning up for those who now had
absolutely nothing to lose.
Mr. Lincoln all the while preserved the same
RENOMItfATION. 263
attitude which lie had held from the beginning.
He had too much honesty and good sense to com-
mit the vulgar folly of pretending not to want
what every one knew perfectly well that he did
want very much. Yet no fair enemy could charge
him with doing any objectionable act to advance
his own interests. He declined to give General
Schurz leave of absence to make speeches in his
behalf. "Speaking in the North," he said, "and
fighting in the South at the same time are not
possible; nor could I be justified to detail any
officer to the political campaign during its contin-
uance, and then return him to the army.'* When
the renomination came to him, he took it with
clean hands and a clear conscience; and it did
come surely and promptly. The postponers were
quenched by general disapproval; and promptly
on the appointed day, June 7, the Eepublican
Convention met at Baltimore. As Mr. Forney
well said: the body had not to originate, but sim-
ply to republish, a policy; not to choose a candi-
date, but only to adopt the previous choice of the
people. Very wisely the "Radical-union," or
anti-Lincoln, delegation from Missouri was ad-
mitted, as against the contesting pro-Lincoln dele-
gates. The delegations from Tennessee, Arkan-
sas and Louisiana were also admitted. The Presi-
dent had desired this. Perhaps, as some people
charged, he thought that it would be a useful
precedent for counting the votes of these States in
the election itself, should the Republican party
264 ABRASAM LINCOLN.
have need to do so. The platform, besides many
other things, declared against compromise with the
rebels; advocated a Constitutional amendment to
abolish slavery; and praised the President and
his policy. The first ballot showed 484 for Lin-
coln, 22 for Grant. The Missouri radicals had
cast the vote for Grant; they rose and transferred
it to Lincoln, and thus upon the first ballot he was
nominated unanimously.
There was some conflict over the second place.
A numerous body felt, and very properly, that Mr.
Hamlin deserved the approval of renomination.
But others said that policy required the selection
of a war Democrat. The President's advice was
eagerly and persistently sought. Messrs. Nicolay
and Hay allege that he not only ostensibly refused
any response, but that he would give no private
hint; and they say that therefore it was "with
minds absolutely untrammelled by even any knowl-
edge of the President's wishes, that the Conven-
tion went about its work of selecting his associ-
ate on the ticket." Others assert, and, as it
seems to me, strongly sustain their assertion, that
the President had a distinct and strong purpose
in favor of Andrew Johnson, not on personal,
but on political grounds, and that it was due to
his skilful but occult interference that the choice
ultimately fell upon the energetic and aggressive
war Democrat of Tennessee. 1 The first ballot
1 See, more especially, MeClnre, Lincoln and Men of War-Times,
chapter on "Lincoln and Hamlin," 104-118. This writer says
(p. 106) that Lincoln's first selection was General Butler.
RENQMINATIQN. 265
showed for Mr- Johnson 200, for Mr. Hamlin
150, and for Daniel S. Dickinson, a war Demo-
crat of New York, 108. The nomination of Mr.
Johnson was at once made unanimous.
To the committee who waited upon Mr. Lincoln
to notify him formally of his nomination, he re-
plied briefly. His only noteworthy remark was
made concerning that clause in the platform which,
proposed the constitutional abolition of slavery;
of which he said, that it was "a fitting and neces-
sary conclusion to the final success of the Union
cause."
During the ensuing summer of 1864 the strain
to which the nation was subjected was excessive.
The political campaign produced intense excite-
ment, and the military situation caused profound
anxiety- The Democrats worked as men work
when they anticipate glorious triumph; and even
the Republicans conceded that the chance of their
opponents was alarmingly good. The frightful
conflict which had devoured men and money with-
out stint was entering upon its fourth year, and
the weary people had not that vision which enabled
the leaders from their watch-tower to see the end.
Wherefore the Democrats, stigmatizing the war
policy as a failure, and crying for peace and a set-
tlement, held out an alluring purpose, although
they certainly failed to explain distinctly iheir plan
for achieving this consummation without sacrific-
ing the Union. Skilfully devoting the summer
to assaults on the Republicans, they awaited the
266 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
guidance of the latest pliase of the political situa-
tion before making their own choice. Then, at the
end of August, their convention nominated Gen-
eral George B. McClellan. At the time it seemed
probable that the nomination was also the gift of
the office. So unpromising was the outlook for
the [Republicans during these summer months that
many leaders, and even the President himself, felt
that their only chance of winning in November lay
in the occurrence before that time of some military
success great enough to convince the people that
it was not yet time to despair of the war.
It was especially hard for the Republicans to
make head against their natural enemies, because
they were so severely handicapped by the bad feel-
ing and division among themselves. Mr. Wade,
Henry Winter Davis, Thaddeus Stevens, and a
tost more, could not do otherwise than accept the
party nominee; yet with what zeal could they work
for the candidate when they felt that they, the
leaders of the party, had been something worse
than ignored in the selection of him? And what
was their influence worth, when all who could
be reached by it knew well their extreme hostil-
ity and distrust towards Mr. Lincoln? Stevens
grudgingly admitted that Lincoln would not be
quite so bad a choice as McClellan, yet let no
chance go by to assail the opinions, measures, and
policy of the Republican president. In this he
was imitated by others, and their reluctant adhe-
sion in the mere matter of voting the party ticket
RENOMINATION. 267
was much more than offset by this vehemence in
condemning the man in whose behalf they felt it
necessary to go to the polls. In a word the situ-
ation was, that the common soldiers of the party
were to go into the fight under officers who did
not expect, and scarcely desired, to win. Victory
is rare under such circumstances.
The opposition of the Democratic party was
open and legitimate; the unfriendliness of the Re-
publican politicians was more unfortunate than
unfair, because it was the mistake of sincere and
earnest men. But in the way of Mr. Lincoln's
success there stood still other opponents whose
antagonism was mischievous, insidious and unfair
both in principle and in detail. Chief in this band
appeared Horace Greeley, with a following and an
influence fluctuating and difficult to estimate, but
considerable. His present political creed was a
strange jumble of Democratic and Republican doc-
trines. No Democrat abused the administration
or cried for "peace on almost any terms" louder
than he did; yet he still declaimed against slavery
and proposed to buy from the South all its slaves
for four hundred millions of dollars. Unfortu-
nately those of his notions which were of impor-
tance in the pending campaign were the Demo-
cratic ones. If he had come out openly as a free
lance, which was his true character, he would have
less seriously injured the President's cause. This,
however, he would not do, but preferred to fight
against the Republicans in their own camp and
268 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
wearing their own uniform, and in this guise to
devote all his capacity to embarrassing the man
who was the chosen president and the candidate of
that party. Multitudes in the country had been
wont to accept the editorials of the "Tribune" as
sound political gospels, and the present disaffected
attitude of the variable man who inspired those
vehement writings was a national disaster. He
created and led the party of peace Republicans.
Peace Democracy was a legitimate political doc-
trine; but peace Republicanism was an illogical
monstrosity. It lay, with the mortal threat of a
cancer, in the political body of the party. It was
especially unfortunate just at this juncture that
clear thinking was not among Mr. Greeley's gifts.
In single-minded pursuit of his purpose to destroy
Mr* Lincoln by any possible means he had at first
encouraged the movement for Fremont, though it
was based on views directly contrary to his own.
But soon losing interest in that, he thereafter gave
himself wholly to the business of crying aloud for
immediate peace, which he continued to do through-
)ut the presidential campaign, always unreasona-
bly, sometimes disingenuously, but without rest,
and with injurious effect. The vivid picture which
he loved to draw of "our bleeding, bankrupt, and
almost dying country," longing for peace and
shuddering at the "prospect of new rivers of hu-
man blood," scared many an honest and anxious
patriot.
In July and August Mr. Greeley was misled
RENOMINATION. 269
into lending himself to the schemes of some South-
erners at Niagara Falls, who threw out intimations
that they were emissaries from the Confederacy
and authorized to treat for peace. He believed
these men and urged that negotiations should be
prosecuted with them. By the publicity which he
gave to the matter he caused much embarrassment
to Mr. Lincoln, who saw at once that the whole
business was certainly absurd and probably treach-
erous. The real purpose of these envoys, he after-
wards said, was undoubtedly "to assist in select-
ing and arranging a candidate and a platform for
the Chicago Convention." Yet clearly as he un-
derstood this false and hollow scheme, he could
not altogether ignore Greeley's demands for atten-
tion to it without giving too much color to those
statements which the editor was assiduously scat-
tering abroad, to the effect that the administration
did not desire peace, and would not take it when
proffered. So there were reasons why this sham
*>ffer must be treated as if it were an honest one,
rexatious as the necessity appeared to the Presi-
dent. Perhaps he was cheered by the faith which
he had in the wisdom of proverbs, for now, very
fortunately, he permitted himself to be guided by
a familiar one; and he decided to give to his
annoyer liberal rope. Accordingly he authorized
Mr. Greeley himself to visit in person these emis-
saries, to confer with them, and even to bring
them to Washington in case they should prove
really to have from Jefferson Davis any written
270 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
proposition "for peace, embracing the restoration
of the Union and abandonment of slavery." It
was an exceedingly shrewd move, and it seriously
discomposed Mr. Greeley, who had not counted
upon being so frankly met, and whose disquietude
was amusingly evident as he reluctantly fluttered
forth to Niagara upon his mission of peace, less
wise than a serpent and unfortunately much less
harmless than a dove.
There is no room here to follow all the intrica-
cies of the ensuing "negotiations." The result
was an utter fiasco, fully justifying the President's
opinion of the fatuity of the whole business. The
so-called Southern envoys had no credentials at
all; they appeared to be mere adventurers, and
members of that Southern colony in Canada which
became even more infamous by what it desired to
do than mischievous by what it actually did dur-
ing the war. If they had any distinct purpose on
this occasion, it was to injure the Republican party
by discrediting its candidate in precisely the way
in which Mr. Greeley was aiding them to do these
things. But he never got his head sufficiently
clear to appreciate this, and he faithfully contin-
ued to play the part for which he had been cast
by them, but without understanding it. He per-
sistently charged the responsibility for his bootless
return and ignominious situation upon Mr. Lin-
coln; and though his errand proved conclusively
that the South was making no advances, 1 and
1 Further illustration of this unquestionable fact was famished
DENOMINATION. 271
though no man in the country was more strictly
affected with personal knowledge of this fact than
he was, yet he continued to tell the people, with
all the weight of his personal authority, that the
President was obstinately set against any and all
proffers of peace. Mr. Lincoln, betwixt mercy
and policy, refrained from crushing his antagonist
by an ungarbled publication of all the facts and
documents; and in return for his forbearance he
long continued to receive from Mr. Greeley vehe-
ment assurances that every direful disaster awaited
the Republican party. The cause suffered much
from these relentless diatribes of the Tribune's
influential manager, for nothing else could make
the administration so unpopular as the belief that
it was backward in any possible exertion to se-
cure an honorable peace.
If by sound logic the Greeley faction should
have voted with the Democrats, since in the
chief point in issue, the prosecution of the war,
they agreed with the Democracy, so the war
Democrats, being in accord with the Republicans,
upon this same over-shadowing issue should, at
the coming election at least, have voted with that
party. Many of them undoubtedly did finally pre-
fer Lincoln, coupled with Andrew Johnson, to
McClellan. But they also had anxieties, newly
stirred, and entirely reasonable in men of their
political faith. It was plain to them that Mr.
by the volunteer mission of Colonel Jaquesa and Mr. Gilmoze to
Richmond in July. N. and H., vol. iz., ch. is.
272 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Lincoln had been finding his way to the distinct
position that the abolition of slavery was an essen-
tial condition of peace. Now this was undeniably
a very serious and alterative graft upon the origi-
nal doctrine that the war was solely for the resto-
ration of the Union. The editor of a war-Demo-
cratic newspaper in Wisconsin sought information
upon this point. In the course of Mr. Greeley's
negotiatory business Mr. Lincoln had offered to
welcome " any proposition which embraces the
restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole
Union, and the abandonment of slavery." Now
this, said the interrogating editor, implies "that no
steps can be taken towards peace . . . unless ac-
companied with an abandonment of slavery. This
puts the whole war question on a new basis and
takes us war Democrats clear off our feet, leaving
us no ground to stand upon. If we sustain the
war and war-policy, does it not demand the
changing of our party politics?" Nicolay and
Hay print the draft of a reply by Mr. Lincoln
which, they say, was "apparently unfinished and
probably never sent." In this he referred to his
past utterances as being still valid. But he said
that no Southerner had "intimated a willingness
for a restoration of the Union in any event or on
any condition whatever. ... If Jefferson Davis
wishes for himself, or for the benefit of his friends
at the North, to know what I would do if he were
to offer peace and reunion, saying nothing about
slavery, let him try me." It must be admitted that
DENOMINATION. 273
this was not an answer, but was a clear waiver of
an answer. The President could not or would not
reply categorically to the queries of the editor.
Perhaps the impossibility of doing so both satis-
factorily and honestly may explain why the paper
was left unfinished and unsent. It was not an
easy letter to write; its composition must have
puzzled one who was always clear both in thought
and in expression. Probably Mr. Lincoln no
longer expected that the end of the war would
leave slavery in existence, nor intended that it
should do so; and doubtless he anticipated that
the course of events would involve the destruction
of that now rotten and undermined institution,
without serious difficulty at the opportune moment.
The speeches made at the Eepublican nominating
convention had been very outspoken, to the effect-
that slavery must be made to "cease forever," as
a result of the war. Yet a blunt statement that
abolition would be a sine qua non in any arrange-
ments for peace, emanating direcdy from the
President, as a declaration of his policy, would
be very costly in the pending campaign, and
would imperil rather than advance the fortunes
of him who had this consummation at heart, and
would thereby also diminish the chance for the
consummation itself. So at last he seems to have
left the war Democrats to puzzle over the conun-
drum, and decide as best they could. Of course
the doubt affected unfavorably the votes of some
of them.
274 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
A measure of the mischief which was done by
these suspicions and by Greeley's assertions that
the administration did not desire peace, may be
taken from a letter, written to Mr. Lincoln on
August 22 by Mr, Henry J. Raymond, Chairman
of the National Executive Committee of the Re-
publican party. From all sides, Mr. Raymond
says, "I hear but one report. The tide is setting
strongly against us." Mr. Washburne, he writes,
despairs of Illinois, and Mr. Cameron of Penn-
sylvania, and he himself is not hopeful of New
York, and Governor Morton is doubtful of In-
diana; "and so of the rest." For this melan-
choly condition he assigns two causes : the want of
military successes, and the belief "that we are not
to have peace in any event under this administra-
tion until slavery is abandoned. In some way
or other the suspicion is widely diffused that we
can have peace with union, if we would." Then
even this stanch Republican leader suggests that
it might be good policy to sound Jefferson Davis
on the feasibility of peace "on the sole condition
of acknowledging the supremacy of the Constitu-
tion, all other questions to be settled in a con-
vention of the people of all the States." The
President might well have been thrown into inex-
tricable confusion of mind, betwixt the assaults of
avowed enemies, the denunciations and predictions
of inimical friends, the foolish advice of genuine
supporters. It is now plain that all the counsel
which was given to him was bad, from whatsoever
RENOMINATION. 275
quarter it came. It shows the powerfulness of
his nature that he retained his cool and accurate
judgment, although the crisis was such that even
he also had to admit that the danger of defeat
was imminent. To Mr. Raymond's panic-stricken
suggestions he made a very shrewd response by
drafting some instructions for the purpose of
sending that gentleman himself on the mission
to Mr. Davis. It was the same tactics which he
had pursued in dispatching Mr. Greeley to meet
the Southerners in Canada. The result was that
the fruitlessness of the suggestion was admitted
by its author.
As if all hurtful influences were to be concen-
trated against the President, it became necessary
just at this inopportune time to make good the
terrible waste in the armies caused by expiration
of terms of service and by the bloody campaigns
of Grant and Sherman. Volunteering was sub-
stantially at an end, and a call for troops would
have to be enforced by a draft. Inevitably this
would stir afresh the hostility of those who dreaded
that the conscription might sweep into military
service themselves or those dear to them. It was
Mr. Lincoln's duty, however, to make the demand,
and to make it at once. He did so; regardless of
personal consequences, he called for 500,000 more
men.
Thus in July and August the surface was cov-
ered with straws and every one of them indicated
a current setting strongly against Mr. Lincoln.
276 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Unexpectedly the Democratic Convention made a
small counter-eddy; for the peace Democrats, led
by VaJlandigham, were ill advised enough to force
a peace plank into the platform. This was at
once repudiated by McClellan in his letter of ac-
ceptance, and then again was reiterated by Val-
landigham as the true policy of the party. Thus
war Democrats were alarmed, and a split was
opened. Yet it was by no means such a chasm as
that which, upon the opposite side, divided the
radicals and politicians from the mass of their Re-
publican comrades. It might affect ratios, but did
not seem likely to change results. In a word, all
political observers now believed that military suc-
cess was the only medicine which could help the
Republican prostration, and whether this medicine
could be procured was very doubtful.
CHAPTER X.
MTTJTABY SUCCESSES, AND THE EEELECTION OP
THE PRESIDENT.
IT is necessary now to return to military mat-
ters, and briefly to set forth the situation. No
especial fault was found with General Meade's
operations in Virginia; yet it was obvious that a
system quite different from that which had hitherto
prevailed must be introduced there. To fight a
great battle, then await entire recuperation of
losses, then fight again and wait again, was a pro-
cess of lingering exhaustion which might be pro-
longed indefinitely. In February, 1864, Congress
passed, though with some reluctance, and the
President much more readily signed, a bill for the
appointment of a lieutenant-general, "authorized,
under the direction and during the pleasure of the
President, to command the armies of the United
States." 1 All understood that the place was made
for General Grant, and it was at once given to
him by Mr. Lincoln. On March 3 the appoint-
ment was confirmed by the Senate. By this Hal-
leek was substantially laid aside; his uselessness
1 The rank had been held by Washington ; also, but b j bievet
only, by Scott.
278 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
had long since become so apparent, that though
still holding his dignified position, he seemed al-
most forgotten by every one.
Grant came to Washington, 1 arriving on March
8, and there was induced by what he heard and
saw to lay aside his own previous purpose and the
strenuous advice of Sherman, and to fall in with
Mr. Lincoln's wishes; that is to say, to take per-
sonal control of the campaign in Virginia. He
did this with his usual promptness, and set Sher-
man in command in the middle of the country, the
only other important theatre of operations. It is
said that Grant, before accepting the new rank and
taking Virginia as his special province, stipulated
that he was to be absolutely free from all interfer-
ence, especially on the part of Stanton. Whether
this agreement was formulated or not, it was put
into practical effect. No man hereafter interfered
with General Grant. Mr. Lincoln occasionally
made suggestions, but strictly and merely as sug-
gestions. He distinctly and pointedly said that
he did not know, and did not wish to know, the
general's plans of campaign. 2 When the new
commander had duly considered the situation, he
adopted precisely the same broad scheme which
had been previously devised by Mr. Lincoln and
General McClellan; that is to say, he arranged a
1 For curious account of Ms interview with Mr. Lincoln, see
N. and H., TiiL 340-342.
2 In ibis connection, see story of General Richard Taylor, and
contradiction thereof, concerning choice of route to Richmond.
N. and H., viiL 343.
MILITARY SUCCESSES. 279
simultaneous vigorous advance all along the line.
It was the way to make weight and numbers tell;
and Grant had great faith in weight and numbers;
like Napoleon, he believed that Providence has a
shrewd way of siding with the heaviest battalions.
On April 30, all being ready for the advance,
the President sent a note of God-speed to the gen-
eral. "I wish to express," he said, "my entire
satisfaction with what you have done up to this
time, so far as I understand it. The particulars
of your plan I neither know, nor seek to know.
... If there is anything wanting which is within
my power to give, do not fail to let me know it."
The general replied in a pleasant tone: "I have
been astonished at the readiness with which every-
thing asked for has been yielded, without even an
explanation being asked. Should my success be
less than I desire and expect, the least I can say
is, the fault is not with you." When the Presi-
dent read these strange words his astonishment
must have far exceeded that expressed by the gen-
eral. Never before had he been thus addressed
by any commander in Virginia ! Generally he had
been told that a magnificent success was about to
be achieved, which he had done nothing to pro-
mote and perhaps much to retard, but which would
nevertheless be secured by the ability of a general
in spite of unfriendly neglect by a president.
On May 4 General Grant's army started upon
its way, with 122,146 men present for duty.
Against them General Lee had 61,953. The odds
280 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
seemed excessive; but Lee had inside lines, the
defensive, and intrenchments, to equalize the dis-
parity of numbers. At once began those bloody
and incessant campaigns by which General Grant
intended to end, and finally did end, the war.
The North could afford to lose three men where
the South lost two, and would still have a balance
left after the South had spent all. The expendi-
ture in this proportion would be disagreeable; but
if this was the inevitable and only price, Grant was
willing to pay it, justly regarding it as cheaper
than a continuation of the process of purchase by
piecemeal. In a few hours the frightful struggle
in the Wilderness was in progress. All day on
the 5th, all day on the 6th, the terrible slaughter
continued in those darksome woods and swamps.
"More desperate fighting has not been witnessed
on this continent," said Grant. The Union troops
could not force their way through those tangled
forests. Thereupon, accepting the situation in his
imperturbable way, he arranged to move, on May
7, by the left flank southerly towards Spottsylva-
nia. Lee, disappointed and surprised that Grant
was advancing instead of falling back, could not
do otherwise than move in the same course; for,
in fact, the combatants were locked together in a
grappling campaign. Then took place more bloody
and determined fighting. The Union losses were
appalling, since the troops were attacking an army
in position. Yet Grant was sanguine; it was in a
dispatch of May 11 that he said that he had been
MILITARY SUCCESSES. 281
getting the better in the struggle, and that he pro-
posed to fight it out on that line if it took all sum-
mer. The result of the further slaughter at Spott-
sylvania was not a victory for either leader, but
was more hurtful to Lee because he could less well
afford to have his men killed and wounded. Grant,
again finding that he could not force Lee out of
his position, also again moved by the left flank,
steadily approaching Richmond and dragging Lee
with him. The Northern loss had already reached
the frightful total of 37,335 men; the Confederate
loss was less, but enormous. Amid the bloodshed,
however, Grant scented success. On May 26 he
wrote: "Lee's army is really whipped. . . . Our
men feel that they have gained the morale over the
enemy. ... I may be mistaken, but I feel that our
success over Lee's army is already assured." He
even gratified the President by again disregarding
all precedent in Virginian campaigns, and saying
that the promptness with which reinforcements
had been forwarded had contributed largely to
the promising situation ! But almost immediately
after this the North shuddered at the enormous and
profitless carnage at Cold Harbor. Concurrently
with all this bloodshed, there also took place the
famous and ill-starred movement of General Butler
upon Eichmond, which ended in securely shutting
up him and his forces at Bermuda Hundred, "as
in a bottle strongly corked."
Such was the Virginian situation early in June.
By a series of most bloody battles, no one of which
282 ABRAHAM LINCOLN*.
had been a real victory, Grant had come "before
the defenses of Richmond, nearly where McClellan
had already been. And now, like McClellan, he
proposed to move around to the southward and in-
vest the city. It must be confessed that in all this
there was nothing visible to the inexperienced
vision of the citizens at home which made much
brighter in their eyes the prestige of Mr. Lincoln's
war-policy. Nor could they see, as that summer
of the presidential campaign came and went, that
any really great change or improvement was
effected.
On the other hand, there took place in July
what is sometimes lightly called General Early's
raid against Washington. In fact, it was a genu-
ine and very serious campaign, wherein that gen-
eral was within a few hours of capturing the city.
Issuing out of that Shenandoah Valley whence, as
from a cave of horrors rather than one of iihe love-
liest valleys in the world, so much of terror and
mischief had so often burst out against the North,
Early, with 17,000 veteran troops, moved straight
and fast upon the national capital. On the even-
ing of July 10 Mr. Lincoln rode out to his summer
quarters at the Soldiers' Home. But the Confed-
erate troops were within a few miles, and Mr.
Stanton insisted that he should come back. The
next day the Confederates advanced along the
Seventh Street road, in full expectation of march-
ing into the city with little opposition. There was
brisk artillery firing, and Mr* Lincoln, who had
MILITARY SUCCESSES. 283
driven out to the scene of action, actually came
under fire ; an officer was struck down within a few
feet of him.
The anticipation of General Early was sanguine*
yet by no means ill founded. The veterans in
Washington were a mere handf ul, and though the
green troops might have held the strong defenses
for a little while, yet the Southern veterans would
have been pretty sure to make their way. It was,
in fact, a very close question of time. Grant had
been at first incredulous of the reports of Early's
movements ; but when he could no longer doubt,
he sent reinforcements with the utmost dispatch.
They arrived none too soon. It was while General
Early was making his final arrangements for an
attack, which he meant should be irresistible, that
General Wright, with two divisions from the army
of the Potomac, landed at the river wharves and
marched through the city to the threatened points.
With this the critical hours passed away. It had
really been a crisis of hours, and might have Keen
one of minutes. Now Early saw that the prize
Jiad slipped through his fingers actually as they
closed upon it, and so bitter was his disappoint-
ment that since he was disappointed even a
Northerner can almost afford him sympathy. So,
his chance being gone, he must go too, and that
speedily; for it was he who was in danger now.
Moving rapidly, he saved himself, and returned up
the Shenandoah Valley. He had accomplished no
real harm ; but that the war had been going on for
284 ABRAHAM: LINCOLN.
three years, and that Washington was still hardly
a safe place for the President to live in, was an-
other point against the war-policy.
v Sherman had moved out against Johnston, at
Dalton, at the same time that Grant had moved
out against Lee, and during the summer he made
a record very similar to that of his chief. He
pressed the enemy without rest, fought constantly,
suffered and inflicted terrible losses, won no signal
victory, yet constantly got farther to the south-
ward. Fortunately, however, he was nearer to a
specific success than Grant was, and at last he was
able to administer the sorely needed tonic to the
political situation. Jefferson Davis, who hated
Johnston, made the steady retreat of that general
before Sherman an excuse for removing him, and
putting General Hood in his place. The army
was then at Atlanta. Hood was a fighting man,
and immediately he brought on a great battle, which
happily proved to be also a great mistake; for the
result was a brilliant and decisive victory for Sher-
man and involved the fall of Atlanta. This was
one of the important achievements of the war; and
when, on September 3, Sherman telegraphed, "At-
lanta is ours, and fairly won," the news came to
the President like wine to the weary. He hastened
to tender the "national thanks " to the general and
his gallant soldiers, with words of gratitude which
must have come straight and warm from his heart*
There was a chance now for the Union cause in
November.
MILITARY SUCCESSES. 285
About ten days before this event Farragut, in
spite of forts and batteries, iron-clads and torpe-
does, had possessed himself of Mobile Bay and
closed that Gulf port which had been so useful a
mouth to the hungry stomach of the Confederacy.
No efficient blockade of it had ever been possible.
Through it military, industrial and domestic sup-
plies had been brought in, and invaluable cotton
had gone out to pay for them. Now, however, the
sealing of the South was all but hermetical. As a
naval success the feat was entitled to high admira-
tion, and as a practical injury to the Confederacy
it could not be over-estimated.
Achievements equally brilliant, if not quite so
important, were quickly contributed by Sheridan.
In spite of objections on the part of Stanton,
Grant had put this enterprising fighter in com-
mand of a strong force of cavalry in the Shen-
andoah Valley, where Lee was keeping Early as a
constant menace upon Maryland, Pennsylvania,
and Washington. Three hard-fought battles fol-
lowed, during September and October. In each
the Federals were thoroughly victorious. The last
of the three was that which was made famous by
" Sheridan's ride." He had been to Washington
and was returning on horseback, when to his sur-
prise he encountered squads of his own troops hur-
rying back in disorderly flight from a battle which,
during his brief absence, had unexpectedly been
delivered by Early. Halting them and carrying
them back with him, he was relieved, as he came
286 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
upon the field, to find a part of his army still stand-
ing firm and even pressing the Confederates hard.
He communicated his own spirit to his troops, and
turned partial defeat into brilliant victory. By
this gallant deed was shattered forever the Con-
federate Army of the Valley; and from that time
forth there issued out of that fair concealment no
more gray-uniformed troopers to foray Northern
fields or to threaten Northern towns. For these
achievements Lincoln made Sheridan a Major-Gen-
eral, dictating the appointment in words of unusual
compliment.
Late as the Democrats were in holding their
nominating convention, they would have done well
to hold it a little later. They might then have de-
rived wisdom from these military and naval events,
and not improbably they would have been less
audacious in staking their success upon the issue
that the war was a failure, and would have so mod-
ified that craven proposition as to make it accord
with the more patriotic sentiment of their soldier
candidate. But the fortunes alike of the real war
and of the political war were decidedly and happily
against them. Even while they were in session
the details of Farragut's daring and victorious bat-
tle in Mobile Bay were coming to hand. Scarcely
had they adjourned when the roar of thunderous
salvos in every navy-yard, fort, and arsenal of the
North hailed the triumph of Sherman at Atlanta.
Before these echoes had died away the people were
electrified by the three battles in Virginia which
MILITARY SUCCESSES. 287
Sheridan fought and won in style so brilliant as to
seem almost theatrical. Thus from the South,
from the West, and from the East came simulta-
neously the fierce contradiction of this insulting
Copperhead notion, that the North had failed in
the war. The political blunder of the party was
now much more patent than was any alleged mili-
tary failure on the part of its opponents. In fact
the Northerners were beholding the sudden turn-
ing over of a great page in the book of the national
history, and upon the newly exposed side of it,
amid the telegrams announcing triumphs of arms,
they read in great plain letters the reelection of
Mr. Lincoln.. Before long most persons conceded
this. He himself had said, a few months earlier,
that the probabilities indicated that the presiden-
tial campaign would be a struggle between a Union
candidate and a Disunion candidate. McClellan
had sought to give to it a complexion safer for his
party and more honorable for himself, but the plat-
form and events combined to defeat his wise pur-
pose. In addition to these difficulties the South
also burdened him with an untimely and comprom-
ising friendship. The Charleston "Courier," with
reckless frankness, declared that the armies of the
Confederacy and the peace-men at the North were
working together for the procurement of peace;
and said: "Our success in battle insures the suc-
cess of McClellan. Our failure will inevitably
lead to his defeat." No words could have been
more imprudent; the loud proclamation of such an
288 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
alliance was the madness of self-destruction. In
the face of such talk the Northerners could not brat
believe that the issue was truly made up between
war and Union on the one side, peace and disun-
ion on the other. If between the two, when dis-
tinctly formulated, there could under any circum-
stances have been doubt, the successes by sea and
land turned the scale for the Republicans.
During the spring and summer many prominent
Republicans strenuously urged Mr. Lincoln to re-
move the Postmaster-General, Montgomery Blair,
from the Cabinet. The political purpose was to
placate the Radicals, whose unnatural hostility
within the party greatly disturbed the President's
friends. Many followers of Fremont might be
conciliated by the elimination of the bitter and
triumphant opponent of their beloved chieftain;
and besides this leader, the portentous list of those
with whom the Postmaster was on ill terms in-
cluded many magnates, Chase, Seward, Stanton,
Halleck, and abundance of politicians. Henry
Wilson wrote to the President: "Blair every one
hates. Tens of thousands of men will be lost to
you, or will give a reluctant vote, on account of
the Blairs." Even the Republican National Con-
vention had covertly assailed him; for a plank in
the platform, declaring it "essential to the general
welfare that harmony should prevail in the na-
tional councils," was known to mean that he should
no longer remain in the Cabinet. Yet to force
MILITARY SUCCESSES. 289
him out was most distasteful to the President, who
was always slow to turn against any man. Reply-
ing to a denunciatory letter from Halleck he said:
"I propose continuing to be myself the judge as to
when a member of the Cabinet shall be dismissed."
He made a like statement, curtly and decisively,
in a Cabinet meeting. Messrs. Nicolay and Hay
say that he did not yield to the pressure until he
was assured of his reelection, and that then he
yielded only because he felt that he ought not ob-
stinately to retain an adviser in whom the party
had lost confidence. On September 23 he wrote
to Mr. Blair a kindly note: "You have generously
said to me more than once that whenever your
resignation could be a relief to me, it was at my
disposal. The time has come. You very well
know that this proceeds from no dissatisfaction of
mine with you, personally or officially. Your uni-
form kindness has been unsurpassed by that of
any friend." Mr. Blair immediately relieved the
President from the embarrassing situation, and he
and his family behaved afterward with honorable
spirit, giving loyal support to Mr. Lincoln during
the rest of the campaign. Ex-governor Denni-
son of Ohio was appointed to the vacant office.
Many and various were the other opportunities
which the President was urged to seize for helping
both himself and other Republican candidates.
But he steadfastly declined to get into the mud of
the struggle. It was a jest of the campaign that
Senator King was sent by some New York men to
290 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ask whether Lincoln meant to support the Kepub-
lican ticket. He did: he openly admitted that he
believed his reelection to be for the best interest
of the country. As an honest man he could not
think otherwise. "I am for the regular nominee
in all cases," he bluntly said, in reply to a request
for his interference concerning a member of Con-
gress; and the general principle covered, of
course, his own case. To the postmaster of Phila-
delphia, however, whose employees displayed sus-
picious Republican unanimity, he administered a
sharp and imperious warning. He even would
not extend to his close and valued friend, Mr. Ar-
nold, assistance which that gentleman too sorely
needed. More commendable still was his behavior
as to the draft. On July 18, as has been said, he
issued a call for 500,000 men, though at that time
he might well have believed that by so doing he
was burying beyond resurrection all chance of re-
election. Later the Republican leaders entreated
him, with earnest eloquence and every melancholy
presage, to suspend the drafting under this call
for a few weeks only. It seemed to him, how-
ever, that the army could not wait a few weeks.
"What is the presidency worth to me, if I have
no country?" he said; and the storm of persua-
sion could not induce him to issue the postponing
order.
Campaign slanders were rife as usual. One of
them Mr. Lincoln cared to contradict. Some re-
marks made by Mr. Seward in a speech at Auburn
MILITARY SUCCESSES. 291
had been absurdly construed by Democratic ora-
tors and editors to indicate that Mr. Lincoln, if
defeated at the polls, would use the remainder of
his term for doing what he could to ruin the gov-
ernment. This vile charge, silly as it was, yet
touched a very sensitive spot. On October 19, in
a speech to some serenaders, and evidently having
this in mind, he said:
"I am struggling to maintain the government,
not to overthrow it. I am struggling especially to
prevent others from overthrowing it. ... Who-
ever shall be constitutionally elected in November
shall be duly installed as President on the fourth
of March. ... In the interval I shall do my ut-
most that whoever is to hold the helm for the next
voyage shall start with the best possible chance to
save the ship. This is due to the people both on
principle and under the Constitution. ... If
they should deliberately resolve to have immediate
peace, even at the loss of their country and their
liberty, I know [have?] not the power or the right
to resist them. It is their business, and they must
do as they please with their own."
In this connection it is worth while to recall an
incident which occurred on August 26, amid the
dark days. Anticipating at that time that he
might soon be compelled to encounter the sore
trial of administering the government during four
months in face of its near transmission to a succes-
sor all whose views and purposes would be diamet-
rically opposite to his own, and desiring before-
92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
hand clearly to mark out his duty in this stress,
Mr. Lincoln one day wrote these words:
"This morning, as for some days past, it seems
exceedingly probable that this administration will
not be reflected. Then it will be my duty to so
cooperate with the President-elect as to save the
Union between the election and the inauguration,
as he will have secured his election on such ground
that he cannot possibly save it afterwards."
He then closed the paper so that it could not be
read, and requested each member of the Cabinet to
sign his name on the reverse side.
In the end, honesty was vindicated as the best
policy, and courage as the soundest judgment.
The preliminary elections in Vermont and Maine
in September, the important elections in Pennsyl-
vania, Ohio, and Indiana in October, showed that
a Republican wave was sweeping across the North.
It swept on and gathered overwhelming volume in
the brief succeeding interval before November 8.
On that momentous day, the voting in the States
showed: 2,213,665 Republican votes, to which
were added 116,887 votes of soldiers in the field,
electing 212 presidential electors; 1,802,237 dem-
ocratic votes, to which were added 33,748 votes
of soldiers in the field, electing 21 presidential
electors. Mr. Lincoln's plurality was therefore
494,567; and it would have been swelled to over
half a million had not the votes of the soldiers of
Vermont, Kansas and Minnesota arrived too late
to be counted, and had not those of Wisconsin been
MILITARY SUCCESSES. 293
rejected for an informality. Thus were the dreary
predictions of the midsummer so handsomely con-
futed that men refused to believe that they had
ever been deceived by them.
On the evening of election day Mr. Lincoln
went to the War Department, and there stayed
until two o'clock at night, noting the returns as
they came assuring his triumph and steadily swell-
ing its magnitude. Amid the good news his feel-
ings took on no personal complexion. A crowd
of serenaders, meeting him on his return to the
White House, demanded a speech. He told them
that he believed that the day's work would be the
lasting advantage, if not the very salvation, of the
country, and that he was grateful for the people's
confidence; but, he said, "if I know my heart, my
gratitude is free from any taint of personal tri-
umph. I do not impugn the motives of any one
opposed to me. It is no pleasure to me to triumph
over any one ; but I give thanks to the Almighty
for this evidence of the people's resolution to stand
by free government and the rights of humanity."
A hypocrite would, probably enough, have said
much the same thing; but when Mr. Lincoln spoke
in this way, men who were themselves honest never
charged him with hypocrisy. On November 10 a
serenade by the Republican clubs of the District
called forth this :
"It has long been a grave question whether any
government, not too strong for the liberties of its
people, can be strong enough to maintain its owa
294 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
existence in great emergencies. On this point the
present rebellion brought our republic to a severe
test, and a presidential election occurring in regu-
lar course during the rebellion added not a little
to the strain. If the loyal people united were put
to the utmost of their strength by the rebellion,
must they not fail when divided and partially par-
alyzed by a political war among themselves ? But
the election was a necessity. We cannot have
free government without elections; and if the
rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a
national election, it might fairly claim to have
already conquered and ruined us. The strife of
the election is but human nature practically ap-
plied to the facts of the case. What has occurred
in this case must ever recur in similar cases. Hu-
man nature will not change. In any future great
national trial, compared with the men of this, we
shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as
wise, as bad and as good. Let us, therefore,
study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn
wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be
revenged. But the election, along with its inci-
dental and undesirable strife, has done good, too.
It has demonstrated that a people's government
can sustain a national election in the midst of a
great civil war. Until now, it has not been known
to the world that this was a possibility. It shows,
also, how sound and how strong we still are. It
shows that, even among candidates of the same
party, he who is most devoted to the Union and
MILITARY SUCCESSES. 295
most opposed to treason can receive most of the
people's votes. It shows, also, to the extent yet
known, that we have more men now than we had
when the war began. Gold is good in its place ;
but living, brave, patriotic men are better than
gold.
"But the rebellion continues; and, now that
the election is over, may not all having a common
interest reunite in a common effort to save our
common country? For my own part, I have
striven and shall strive to avoid placing any obsta-
cle in the way. So long as I have been here, I
have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's
bosom. While I am deeply sensible to the high
compliment of a reelection, and duly grateful, as
I trust, to Almighty God for having directed my
countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for
their own good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction
that any other man may be disappointed or pained
by the result.
"May I ask those who have not differed with
me to join with me in this same spirit towards
those who have ? And now let me close by asking
three hearty cheers for our brave soldiers and sea-
men, and their gallant and skilful commanders."
The unfortunate disputes about reconstruction
threatened to cause trouble at the counting of the
votes in Congress. Of the States which had se-
ceded, two, Arkansas and Tennessee, had endeav-
ored to reconstruct themselves as members of the
296 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Union; and their renewed statehood had received
some recognition from the President. He, how-
ever, firmly refused to listen to demands, which
were urgently pushed, to obtain his interference in
the arrangements made for choosing presidential
electors. To certain Tennesseeans, who sent him a
protest against the action of Governor Johnson, he
replied that, "by the Constitution and the laws,
the President is charged with no duty in the con-
duct of a presidential election in any State; nor do
I in this case perceive any military reason for his
interference in the matter. ... It is scarcely ne-
cessary to add that if any election shall be held,
and any votes shall be cast, in the State of Tennes-
see, ... it will belong not to the military agents,
nor yet to the executive department, but exclu-
sively to another department of the government,
to determine whether they are entitled to be
counted, in conformity with the Constitution and
laws of the United States." His prudent absten-
tion from stretching his official authority afterward
saved him from much embarrassment in the turn
which this troublesome business soon took. In
both Arkansas and Tennessee Eepublican presi-
dential electors were chosen, who voted, and sent
on to Washington the certificates of their votes to
be counted in due course with the rest. But Con-
gress jealously guarded its position on reconstruc-
tion against this possible flank movement, and in
January, 1865, passed a joint resolution declaring
that Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia,
MILITARY SUCCESSES. 297
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas,
Arkansas, and Tennessee were in such a condition
on November 8 that no valid election of presidential
electors was held in any of them, and that therefore
no electoral votes should be received or counted
from any of them. When this resolution came be-
fore Mr. Lincoln for his signature it placed him in
an embarrassing position, because his approval
might seem to be an implied contradiction of the
position which he had taken concerning the present
status of Tennessee and Arkansas. It was not un-
til February 8, the very day of the count, that he
conquered his reluctance, and when at last he did
so and decided to sign the resolution, he at the
same time carefully made his position plain by a
brief message. He said that he conceived that
Congress had lawful power to exclude from the
count any votes which it deemed illegal, and that
therefore he could not properly veto a joint resolu-
tion upon the subject; he disclaimed "all right of
the Executive to interfere in any way in the matter
of canvassing or counting electoral votes;" and
he also disclaimed that, by signing the resolution,
he had " expressed any opinion on the recitals of
the preamble, or any judgment of his own upon
the subject of the resolution." That is to say, the
especial matter dealt with in this proceeding was
ultra vires of the Executive, and the formal sig-
nature of the President was affixed by him with-
out prejudice to his official authority in any other
business which might arise concerning the restored
condition of statehood.
298 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
When the counting o the votes began, the
members of the Senate and House did not know
whether Mr. Lincoln had signed the resolution or
not; and therefore, in the doubt as to what his ac-
tion would be, the famous twenty-second joint rule,
regulating the counting of electoral votes, was
drawn in haste and passed with precipitation. 1 It
was an instance of angry partisan legislation, which
threatened trouble afterward and was useless at
the time. No attempt was made to present or
count the votes of Arkansas and Tennessee, aad
the President of the Senate acted under the joint
resolution and not under the joint rule. Yet the
vote of West Virginia was counted, and it was not
easy to show that her title was not under a legal
cloud fully as dark as that which shadowed Arkan-
sas and Tennessee.
When Mr. Lincoln said concerning his reelec-
tion, that the element of personal triumph gave
him no gratification, he spoke far within the truth.
He was not boasting of, but only in an uninten-
tional way displaying, his dispassionate and imper-
sonal habit in all political relationships, a dis-
tinguishing trait, of which history is so chary of
parallels that perhaps no reader will recall even
one. A striking instance of it occurred in this
1 This was Hie rale which provided that if, at the count, any
question should arise as to counting any vote offered, the Senate
and House should separate, and each should vote on the question
of receiving or not receiving the vote ; and it should not be re
eeived and counted except by concurrent i
MILITARY SUCCESSES. 299
same autumn. On October 12, 1864, the vener-
able Chief Justice Taney died, and at once the
friends of Mr. Chase named him for the succession.
There were few men whom Mr. Lincoln had less
reason to favor than this gentleman, who had only
condescended to mitigate severe condemnation of
his capacity by mild praise of his character, who
had hoped to displace him from the presidency,
and who, in the effort to do so, had engaged in
what might have been stigmatized even as a cabal.
Plenty of people were ready to tell him stories in-
numerable of Chase's hostility to him, and con-
temptuous remarks about him; but to all such
communications he quietly refused to give ear.
What Mr. Chase thought or felt concerning him
was not pertinent to the question whether or not
Chase would make a good Chief Justice. Yet it
was true that Montgomery Blair would have liked
the place, and the President had many personal
reasons for wishing to do a favor to Blair. It was
also true that the opposition to Mr. Chase was so
bitter and came from so many quarters, and was
based on so many alleged reasons, that had the
President chosen to prefer another to him, it
would have been impossible to attribute the prefer-
ence to personal prejudice. In his own mind,
however, Mr. Lincoln really believed that, in spite
of all the objections which could be made, Mr.
Chase was the best man for the position; and his
only anxiety was that one so restless and ambitious
might still scheme for the presidency to the inev-
300 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
itable prejudice of Ms judicial duties. He had
some thought of speaking frankly with Chase on
this subject, perhaps seeking something like a pledge
from him; but he was deterred from this by fear of
misconstruction. Finally having, after his usual
fashion, reached his own conclusion, and commun-
icated it to no one, he sent the nomination to the
Senate, and it received the honor of immediate
confirmation without reference to a committee.
CHAPTER XI.
THE END COMES INTO SIGHT: THE SECOND
INAUGURATION.
WHEN Congress came together in December,
1864, the doom of the Confederacy was in plain
view of all men, at the North and at the Sonth.
If General Grant had sustained frightful losses
without having won any signal victory, yet the
losses could be afforded; and the nature of the
man and his methods in warfare were now under-
stood. It was seen that, with or without victory,
and at whatever cost, he had moved relentlessly
forward. His grim, irresistible persistence op-
pressed, as with a sense of destiny, those who tried
to confront it; every one felt that he was going to
"end the job." He was now beleaguering Peters-
burg, and few Southerners doubted that he was
sure of taking it and Richmond. In the middle
country Sherman, after taking Atlanta, had soon
thereafter marched cheerily forth on his imposing,
theatrical, holiday excursion to the sea, leaving
General Thomas behind him to do the hard fight-
ing with General Hood. The grave doubt as to
wheiiher too severe a task had not been placed upon
Thomas was dispelled by the middle of the month,
302 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
when his brilliant victory at Nashville so shattered
the Southern army that it never again attained
important proportions. In June preceding, the
notorious destroyer, the Alabama, had been sunk
by the Kearsarge. In November the Shenandoah,
the last of the rebel privateers, came into Liver-
pool, and was immediately handed over by the
British authorities to Federal officials; for the
Englishmen had at last found out who was going
to win in the struggle. In October the rebel ram
Albemarle was destroyed by the superb gallantry
of Lieutenant Gushing. Thus the rebel flag ceased
to fly above any deck. Along the coast very few
penetrable crevices could still be found even by
the most enterprising blockade-runners; and al-
ready the arrangements were making which brought
about, a month later, the capture of Fort Fisher
and Wilmington.
Under these circumstances the desire to precipi-
tate the pace and to reach the end with a rush pos-
sessed many persons of the nervous and eager type.
They could not spur General Grant, so they gave
their vexatious attention to the President, and
endeavored to compel him to open with the Con-
federate government negotiations for a settlement,
which they believed, or pretended to believe, might
thus be attained. But Mr. Lincoln was neither to
be urged nor wheedled out of his simple position.
In his Message to Congress he referred to the
number of votes cast at the recent election as in-
dicating that, in spite of the drain of war, the
THE SECOND INAUGURATION. 303
population of the North had actually increased
during the preceding four years. This fact shows,
he said, "that we are not exhausted nor in pro-
cess of exhaustion; that we are gaining strength,
and may, if need be, maintain the contest indefi-
nitely. This as to men. Material resources are
now more complete and abundant than ever. The
natural resources, then, are unexhausted, and, as
we believe, inexhaustible. The public purpose
to reestablish and maintain the national authority
is unchanged, and, as we believe, unchangeable.
The manner of continuing the effort remains to
choose. On careful consideration of all the evi-
dence accessible, it seems to me that no attempt
at negotiation with the insurgent leader could re-
sult in any good. He would accept nothing short
of severance of the Union, precisely what we
will not and cannot give. His declarations to
this effect are explicit and oft-repeated. He does
not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no ex-
cuse to deceive ourselves. He cannot voluntarily
re-accept the Union ; we cannot voluntarily yield it.
Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple
and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be
tried by war, and decided by victory. If we yield,
we are beaten; if the Southern people fail him, he
is beaten. Either way, it would be the victory
and defeat following war.
" What is true, however, of him who heads the
insurgent cause is not necessarily true of those who
follow. Although he cannot re-accept the Union,
304 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
they can; some of them, we know, already desire
peace and reunion. The number of such may in-
crease. They can at any moment have peace sim-
ply by laying down their arms and submitting to
the national authority under the Constitution.
"After so much, the government could not, if it
would, maintain war against them. The loyal
people would not sustain or allow it. If questions
should remain, we would adjust them by the peace-
ful means of legislation, conference, courts, and
votes, operating only in constitutional and lawful
channels. Some certain, and other possible, ques-
tions are, and would be, beyond the executive
power to adjust, as, for instance, the admission
of members into Congress, and whatever might re-
quire the appropriation of money.
"The executive power itself would be greatly
diminished by the cessation of actual war. Par-
dons and remissions of forfeitures, however, would
still be within executive control. In what spirit
and temper this control would be exercised can be
fairly judged of by the past."
If rebels wished to receive, or any Northerners
wished to extend, a kindlier invitation homeward
than this, then such rebels and such Northerners
were unreasonable. Very soon the correctness of
Mr. Lincoln's opinion was made so distinct, and
his view of the situation was so thoroughly corrob-
orated, that all men saw clearly that no reluctance
or unreasonable demands upon his part contributed
to delay peace. Mr. Francis P. Blair, senior,
THE SECOND INAUGURATION. 305
though in pursuit of a quite different object, did
the service of setting the President in the true and
satisfactory light before the people. This restless
politician was anxious for leave to seek a confer-
ence with Jefferson Davis, but could not induce
Mr. Lincoln to hear a word as to his project. On
December 8, however, by personal insistence, he
extorted a simple permit "to pass our lines, go
South, and return." He immediately set out on
his journey, and on January 12 he had an inter-
view with Mr. Davis at Richmond and made to
him a most extraordinary proposition, temptingly
decorated with abundant flowers of rhetoric.
Without the rhetoric, the proposition was: that the
pending war should be dropped by both parties for
the purpose of an expedition to expel Maximilian
from Mexico, of which tropical crusade Mr. Davis
should be in charge and reap the glory! So ardent
and so sanguine was Mr. Blair in his absurd pro-
ject, that he fancied that he had impressed Mr.
Davis favorably. But in this undoubtedly he de-
ceived himself, for in point of fact he succeeded in
bringing back nothing more than a short letter,
addressed to himself, in which Mr. Davis expressed
willingness to appoint and send, or to receive,
agents "with a view to secure peace to the two
countries." The last two words lay in this rebel
communication like the twin venom fangs in the
mouth of a serpent, and made of it a proposition
which could not safely be touched. It served
only as distinct proof that the President had cor-
rectly stated the fixedness of Mr. Davis.
306 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Of more consequence, however, than this useless
letter was the news which Mr. Blair brought : that
other high officials in Richmond, "those who fol-
low," as Mr. Lincoln had hopefully said, were in
a temper far more despondent and yielding than
was that of their chief. These men might be
reached. So on January 18, 1865, Mr. Lincoln
wrote a few lines, also addressed to Mr. Blair,
saying that he was ready to receive any Southern
agent who should be informally sent to him, "with
the view of securing peace to the people of our
one common country." The two letters, by their
closing words, locked horns. Yet Mr. Davis
nominated Alexander H. Stephens, E. M. T.
Hunter, and John A. Campbell, as informal com-
missioners, and directed them, "in conformity
with the letter of Mr. Lincoln," to go to Washing-
ton aud informally confer "for the purpose of
securing peace to the two countries." This was
disingenuous, and so obviously so that it was also
foolish; for no conference about "two countries"
was "in conformity" with the letter of Mr. Lin-
coln. By reason of the difficulty created by this
silly trick the Commissioners were delayed at
General Grant's headquarters until they succeeded
in concocting a note, which eliminated the obstacle
by the simple process of omitting the objectiona-
ble words. Then, on January 31, the President
sent Mr. Seward to meet them, stating to him in
writing "that three things are indispensable, to
wit. : 1. The restoration of the national authority
THE SECOND INAUGURATION. 307
throughout all the States. 2. No receding by the
Executive of the United States on the slavery
question from the position assumed thereon in the
late annual Message to Congress, and in preceding
documents. 3. No cessation of hostilities short
of an end of the war and the disbanding of all
forces hostile to the government. You will inform
them that all propositions of theirs, not incon-
sistent with the above, will be considered and
passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality. You
will hear all they may choose to say, and report it
to me. You will not assume to definitely con-
summate anything."
The following day Mr. Lincoln seemed to be-
come uneasy at being represented by any other
person whomsoever in so important a business; for
he decided to go himself and confer personally with
the Southerners. Then ensued, and continued
during four hours, on board a steamer in Hampton
Roads, the famous conference between the Presi-
dent and his Secretary of State on the one side and
the three Confederate commissioners on the other.
It came to absolutely nothing; nor was there at
any time pending its continuance any chance that
it would come to anything. Mr. Lincoln could
neither be led forward nor cajoled sideways, di-
rectly or indirectly, one step from the primal con-
dition of the restoration of the Union. On the
other hand, this was the one impossible thing for
the Confederates. The occasion was historic, and
yet, in fact, it amounted to nothing more than
308 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
cumulative evidence of a familiar fact, and really
its most interesting feature is that it gave rise to
one of the best of the "Lincoln stories." The
President was persisting that he could not enter
into any agreement with "parties in arms against
the government;" Mr. Hunter tried to persuade
"him to the contrary, and by way of doing so, cited
precedents "of this character between Charles L
of England and the people in arms against him."
Mr. Lincoln could not lose such an opportunity !
"I do not profess," he said, "to be posted in his-
tory. On all such matters I will turn you over to
Seward. All I distinctly recollect about the case
of Charles I. is, that Tie lost his headf" Then
silence fell for a time upon Mr. Hunter.
Across the wide chasm of the main question the
gentlemen discussed the smaller topics : reconstruc-
tion, concerning which Mr. Lincoln expressed his
well-known, most generous sentiments; confisca-
tion acts, as to which also he desired to be, and
believed that Congress would be, liberal; the
Emancipation Proclamation, and the Thirteenth
Amendment, concerning which he said, that the
courts of law must construe the proclamation, and
that he personally should be in favor of appropri-
ating even so much as four hundred millions of
dollars to extinguish slavery, and that he believed
such a measure might be carried through. West
Virginia, in his opinion, must continue to be a
separate State. Yet there was little practical use
in discussing, and either agreeing or disagreeing,
THE SECOND INAUGURATION. 309
about all these dependent parts; they were but
limbs which it was useless to set in shape while the
body was lacking. Accordingly the party broke
up, not having found, nor having ever had any
prospect of finding, any common standing-ground.
The case was simple; the North was fighting for
Union, the South for disunion, and neither side
was yet ready to give up the struggle.
Nevertheless, it is not improbable that Mr. Lin-
coln, so far as he personally was concerned,
brought back from Hampton Eoads all that he had
expected and precisely what he had hoped to bring.
For in the talk of those four hours he had recog-
nized the note of despair, and had seen that Mr.
Davis, though posing still in an imperious and
monumental attitude, was, in fact, standing upon
a disintegrated and crumbling pedestal. It
seemed not improbable that the disappointed sup-
porters of the rebel chief would gladly come back
to the old Union if they could be fairly received,
although at this conference they had felt compelled
by the exigencies of an official situation and their
representative character to say that they would not.
Accordingly Mr. Lincoln, having no idea that a
road to hearty national re-integration either should
or could be overshadowed by Caudine forks, en*
deavored to make as easy as possible the return of
discouraged rebels, whether penitent or impeni-
tent. If they were truly penitent, all was as it
should be. If they were impenitent, he was will-
ing to trust to time to effect a change of heart.
810 ABRAHAM LINCOLN-.
Accordingly he worked out a scheme whereby Con-
gress should empower him to distribute between
the slave States 1400,000,000, in proportion to
their respective slave populations, on condition
that "all resistance to the national authority
[should] be abandoned and cease on or before the
first day of April next; " one half the sum to be
paid when such resistance should so cease; the
other half whenever, on or before July 1 next, the
Thirteenth Amendment should become valid law.
So soon as he should be clothed with authority,
he proposed to issue "a proclamation looking to
peace and reunion," in which he would declare
that, upon the conditions stated, he would exercise
this power; that thereupon war should cease and
armies be reduced to a peace basis ; that all politi-
cal offenses should be pardoned; that all property,
except slaves, liable to confiscation or forfeiture,
should be released therefrom (except in cases of
intervening interests of third parties); and that
liberality should be recommended to Congress
upon all points not lying within Executive control.
On the evening of February 5 he submitted to
his Cabinet a draft covering these points. His
disappointment may be imagined when he found
that not one of his advisers agreed with him ; that
his proposition was "unanimously disapproved."
"There may be such a thing," remarked Secretary
Welles, "as so overdoing as to cause a distrust or
adverse feeling." It was also said that the mea-
sure probably could not pass Congress; that to at-
THE SECOND INAUGURATION". 311
tempt to carry it, without success, would do harm;
while if the offer should really be made, it would
be misconstrued by the rebels. In fact scarcely
any Republican was ready to meet the rebels with
the free and ample forgiveness which Lincoln de-
sired to offer; and later opinion seems to be that
his schemes were impracticable.
The fourth of March was close at hand, when
Mr. Lincoln was a second time to address the peo-
ple who had chosen him to be their ruler. That
black and appalling cloud, which four years ago
hung oppressively over the country, had poured
forth its fury and was now passing away. His
anxiety then had been lest the South, making itself
deaf to reason and to right, should force upon the
North a civil war; his anxiety now was lest the
North, hardening itself in a severe if not vindic-
tive temper, should deal so harshly with a con-
quered South as to perpetuate a sectional antag-
onism. To those who had lately come, bearing
to him the formal notification of his election, he
had remarked: "Having served four years in the
depths of a great and yet unended national peril,
I can view this call to a second term in no wise
more flattering to myself than as an expression
of the public judgment that I may better finish a
difficult work, in which I have labored from the
first, than could any one less severely schooled to
the task/* Now, mere conquest was not, in his
opinion, a finishing of the difficult work of restor*
ing a Union.
312 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The second Inaugural was delivered from the
eastern portico of the capital; as follows :
: At this second ap-
pearing to take the oath of the presidential office,
there is less occasion for an extended address than
there was at the first. Then, a statement, some-
what in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed
fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of
four years, during which public declarations have
been constantly called forth on every point and
phase of the great contest which still absorbs the
attention and engrosses the energies of the nation,
little that is new could be presented. The pro-
gress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly de-
pends, is as well known to the public as to myself ;
and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and en-
couraging to all. With high hope for the future,
no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
" On the occasion corresponding to this four years
ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an im-
pending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to
avert it. While the inaugural address was being
delivered from this place, -devoted altogether to
saving the Union without war, insurgent agents
were in the city seeking to destroy it without
war seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide
effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated
war; but one of them would make war rather than
let the nation survive; and the other would accept
war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
THE SECOND INAUGURATION. 313
* 4 One eighth of the whole population were colored
slaves, not distributed generally over the Union,
but localized in the southern part of it. These
slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest.
All knew that this interest was, somehow, the
cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and
extend this interest was the object for which the
insurgents would rend the Union, even by war;
while the Government claimed no right to do more
than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude
or the duration which it has already attained.
Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict
might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself
should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph,
and a result less fundamental and astounding.
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same
God; and each invokes his aid against the other.
It may seem strange that any men should dare to
ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread
from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us
judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of
both could not be answered, that of neither has
been answered fully. The Almighty has his own
purposes. fi Woe unto the world because of of-
fenses! for it must needs be that offenses come;
but woe to that man by whom the offense comethJ
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one
of those offenses which, in the providence of God,
must needs come, but which, having continued
through his appointed time, He now wills to re-
314 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
move, and that He gives to both North and South
this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom
the offense came, shall we discern therein any de-
parture from those divine attributes which the be-
lievers in a living God always ascribe to Him?
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that
this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass
away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all
the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred
and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk,
and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as
was said three thousand years ago, so still it must
be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and
righteous altogether/
" With malice toward none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are
in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for
him who shall have borne the battle, and for his
widow, and his orphan, to do all which may
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among
ourselves, and with all nations."
This speech has taken its place among the most
famous of all the written or spoken compositions
in the English language. In parts it has often,
been compared with the lofty portions of the Old
Testament, Mr. Lincoln's own contemporaneous
criticism is interesting. "I expect it," he said,
"to wear as well as, perhaps better than, anything
THE SECOND INAUGURATION. 315
I have produced; but I believe it is not immedi-
ately popular. Men are not flattered by being
shown that there has been a difference of pur-
pose between the Almighty and them. To deny
it, however, in this case is to deny that there is a
God governing the world. It is a truth which
I thought needed to be told; and as whatever of
humiliation there is in it falls most directly on
myself, I thought others might afford for me to
tell it."
CHAPTEE 3H.
EMANCIPATION COMPLETED.
ON January 1, 1863, when the President issued
the Proclamation of Emancipation, he stepped to
the uttermost boundary of his authority in the
direction of the abolition of slavery. Indeed a
large proportion of the people believed that he had
trespassed beyond that boundary; and among the
defenders of the measure there were many who felt
bound to maintain it as a legitimate exercise of
the war power, while in their inmost souls they
thought that its real basis of justification lay in
its intrinsic righteousness. Perhaps the President
himself was somewhat of this way of thinking.
He once said: "I felt that measure, otherwise un-
constitutional, might become lawful by becoming
indispensable to the preservation of the Constitu-
tion through the preservation of the Union. . . .
I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alter-
native of either surrendering the Union, and with
it the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon
the colored element." Time, however, proved that
the act had in fact the character which Mr. Lin-
coln attributed to it as properly a war measure.
It attracted the enlistment of negroes, chiefly
EMANCIPATION COMPLETED. 317
Southern negroes, in the army; and though to the
end of the war the fighting value of negro troops
was regarded as questionable, yet they were cer-
tainly available for garrisons and for many duties
which would otherwise have absorbed great num-
bers of white soldiers. Thus, as the President
said, the question became calculable mathemati-
cally, like horse-power in a mechanical problem.
The force of able-bodied Southern negroes soon
reached 200,000, of whom most were in the regu-
lar military service, and the rest were laborers
with the armies. " We have the men," said Mr.
Lincoln, "and we could not have had them with-
out the measure." Take these men from us,
"and put them in the battle-field or corn-field
against us, and we should be compelled to abandon
the war in three weeks."
But the Proclamation was operative only upon
certain individuals. The President's emancipa-
tory power covered only those persons (with, per-
haps, their families) whose freedom would be a
military loss to the South and a military gain to
the North in the pending war. He had no power
to touch the institution of slavery. That survived,
for the future, and must survive in spite of any-
thing that he alone, as President, could do. Nev-
ertheless, in designing movements for its perma-
nent destruction he was not less earnest than were
the radicals and extremists, though he was unable
to share their contempt for legalities and for pub-.
lie opinion. It has been shown how strong was
318 ABRAHAM LINCOLN*.
his desire that legislative action for abolition
should be voluntarily initiated among the border
slave States themselves. This would save their
pride, and also would put a decisive end to all
chance of their ever allying themselves with the
Confederacy. He was alert to promote this pur-
pose whenever and wherever he conceived that any
opportunity offered for giving the first impulse.
In time rehabilitated governments of some States
managed with more or less show of regularity to
accomplish the reform. But it was rather a forced
transaction, having behind it an uncomfortably
small proportion of the adult male population of
t^e several States ; and by and by the work, thus
done, might be undone; for such action was law-
fully revocable by subsequent legislatures or con-
ventions, which bodies would be just as potent
at any future time to reestablish slavery as the
present bodies were now potent to disestablish it.
It was entirely possible that reconstruction would
leave the right of suffrage in such shape that in
some States pro-slavery men might in time regain
control.
In short, the only absolute eradicating cure was
a Constitutional amendment; 1 and, therefore, it
was towards securing this that the President bent
all his energies. He could use, of course, only
personal influence, not official authority; for the
1 A constitutional amendment requires for its passage a two-
thirds vote in the Senate and the House of Representatives, and
ratification by three fourths of the States.
EMANCIPATION COMPLETED. 319
business, as such, lay with Congress. In December,
1863, motions for such an amendment were intro-
duced in the House ; and in January, 1864, like
resolutions were offered in the Senate. The debate
in the Senate was short ; it opened on March 28,
and the vote was taken April 8 ; it stood 38 ayes,
6 noes. This was gratifying ; but unfortunately the
party of amendment had to face a very different
condition of feeling in the House. The President,
says Mr. Arnold, "very often, with the friends of
the measure, canvassed the House to see if the requi-
site number could be obtained, but we could never
count a two-thirds vote." The debate began on
March 19; not until June 15 was the vote taken,
and then it showed 93 ayes, 65 noes, being a dis-
couraging deficiency of 27 beneath the requisite
two thirds. Thereupon Ashley, of Ohio, changed
his vote to the negative, and then moved a recon-
sideration, which left the question to come up
again in the next session. Practically, therefore,
at the adjournment of Congress, the amendment
was left as an issue before the people in the political
campaign of the summer of 1864; and in that cam-
paign it was second only to the controlling question
of peace or war.
Mr. Lincoln, taking care to omit no effort in
this business, sent for Senator Morgan, the chair-
man of the Republican National Committee, which
was to make the Republican nomination for the
presidency and to frame the Republican platform,
and said to him: "I want you to mention in your
320 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
speech, when you call the convention to order, as
its keynote, and to put into the platform, as the
keystone, the amendment of the Constitution abol-
ishing and prohibiting slavery forever." Accord-
ingly the third plank in that platform declared
that slavery was the cause and the strength of
the rebellion, that it was "hostile to the principle
of republican government," and that the "national
safety demanded its utter and complete extirpation
from the soil of the Kepublic," and that to this
end the Constitution ought to be so amended as to
"terminate and forever prohibit the existence of
slavery within the limits or the jurisdiction of the
United States." Thus at the special request of
the President the issue was distinctly presented
to the voters of the country. The Copperheads,
the conservatives and reactionaries, and many of
the war Democrats, promptly opened their bat-
teries against both the man and the measure.
The Copperhead Democracy, as usual, went so
far as to lose force ; they insisted that the Emanci-
pation Proclamation should be rescinded, and all
ex-slaves restored to their former masters. This,
in their opinion, would touch a conciliatory chord
in Southern breasts, and might lead to pacification.
That even pro-slavery Northerners should urgently
advocate a proposition at once so cruel and so dis-
graceful is hardly credible. Yet it was reiterated
strenuously, and again and again Mr. Lincoln had
to repeat his decisive and indignant repudiation of
it. In the Message to Congress, December, 1863,
EMANCIPATION COMPLETED. 321
he said that to abandon the freedmen now would
be "a cruel and astounding breach of faith. , . .
I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Eman-
cipation Proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery
any person who is free by the terms of that pro-
clamation, or by any of the acts of Congress." In
May, 1864, he spurned the absurdity of depending
"upon coaxing, flattery and concession to get them
[the Secessionists] back into the Union." He
said: "There have been men base enough to pro-
pose to me to return to slavery our black warriors
of Port Hudson and Olustee, and thus win ihe
respect of the masters they fought. Should I do
so, I should deserve to be damned in time and
eternity. Come what will, I will keep my faith
with friend and foe." He meant never to be mis-
understood on this point. Recurring to it after
the election, in his Message to Congress in Decem-
ber, 1864, he quoted his language of the year be-
fore and added: "If the people should, by whatever
mode or means, make it an executive duty to rein-
slave such persons, another, and not I, must be
their instrument to perform it-" All this was plain
and spirited. But it is impossible to praise Mr.
Lincoln for contemning a course which it is sur-
prising to find any person sufficiently ignoble to
recommend. It was, nevertheless, recommended
by many, and thus we may partly see what ex-
tremities of feeling were produced by this most
debasing question which has ever entered into the
politics of a civilized nation.
322 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The anxieties of the war Democrats, who feared
that Mr. Lincoln was making abolition an essential
purpose of the war, have already been set forth.
In truth he was not making it so, but by the drift-
ing of events and the ensnarlment of facts it had
practically become so without his responsibility.
His many utterances which survive seem to indi-
cate that, having from the beginning hoped that
the war would put an end to slavery, he now knew
that it must do so. He saw that this conclusion
lay at the end of the natural course of events, also
that it was not a goal which was set there by those
to whom it was welcome, or which could be taken
away by those to whom it was unwelcome. It was
there by the absolute and uncontrollable logic of
facts. His function was only to take care that this
natural course should not be obstructed, and this
established goal should not be maliciously removed
away out of reach. When he was asked why his
expressions of willingness to negotiate with the
Confederate leaders stipulated not only for the
restoration of the Union but also for the enfran-
chisement of all slaves, he could only reply by in-
timating that the yoking of the two requirements
was unobjectionable from any point of view, be-
cause he was entirely assured that Mr. Davis would
never agree to reunion, either with or without
slavery. Since, therefore, Union could not be had
until after the South had been whipped, it would
be just as well to demand abolition also; for the
rebels would not then be in a position to refuse it,
EMANCIPATION COMPLETED. 323
and we should practically buy both, in one trans-
action. To him it seemed an appalling blunder to
pay the price of this great war simply in order to
cure this especial outbreak of the great national
malady, and still to leave existing in the body pol-
itic that which had induced this dissension and
would inevitably afterward induce others like unto
it. The excision of the cause was the only intelli-
gent action. Yet when pushed to the point of de-
claring what he would do in the supposed case of
an opportunity to restore the Union, with slavery,
he said: "My enemies pretend I am now carrying
on the war for the sole purpose of abolition. So
long as I am President, it shall be carried on for
the sole purpose of restoring the Union." The
duty of his official oath compelled him to say this,
but he often and plainly acknowledged that he had
no fear of ever being brought face to face with the
painful necessity of saving both the Union and
slavery.
It is worth noticing that the persons who
charged upon the President that he would never
assent to a peace which was not founded upon the
abolition of slavery as one of its conditions or stip-
ulations, never distinctly stated by what right he
could insist upon such a condition or stipulation,
or by what process he could establish it or intro-
duce it into a settlement. Mr. Lincoln certainly
never had any thought of negotiating with the
seceded States as an independent country, and
making with them a treaty which could embody an
324 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
article establishing emancipation and permanent
abolition. He had not power to enter with them
into an agreement of an international character,
nor, if they should offer to return to the Union,
retaining their slave institutions, could he lawfully
reject them. The endeavor would be an act of
usurpation, if it was true that no State could go
out. The plain truth was that, from any save a
revolutionary point of view, the Constitutional
amendment was the only method of effecting the
consummation permanently. When, in June, 1864,
Mr. Lincoln said that abolition of slavery was "a
fitting and necessary condition to the final success
of the Union cause," he was obviously speaking of
what was logically "fitting and necessary," and in
the same sentence he clearly specified a Constitu-
tional amendment as the practical process. There
is no indication that he ever had any other scheme.
In effect, in electing members of Congress in
the autumn of 1864, the people passed upon the
amendment. Votes for Republicans were votes
for the amendment, and the great [Republican gain
was fairly construed as an expression of the popu-
lar favor towards the measure. But though the
elections thus made the permanent abolition of
slavery a reasonably sure event in the future, yet
delay always has dangers. The new Congress
would not meet for over a year. In the interval
the Confederacy might collapse, and abolition be-
come ensnarled with considerations of reconcilia-
tion, of reconstruction, of politics generally. All
EMANCIPATION COMPLETED. 325
friends of the measure, therefore, agreed on the
desirability of disposing of the matter while the
present Congress was in the way with it, if this
could possibly be compassed. That it could be car-
ried only by the aid of a contingent of Democratic
votes did not so much discourage them as stimu-
late their zeal; for such votes would prevent the
mischief of a partisan or sectional aspect. In his
Message to Congress, December 6, 1864, the Pres-
ident referred to the measure which, after its fail-
ure in the preceding session, was now to come up
again, by virtue of that shrewd motion for recon-
sideration. Intelligibly, though not in terms, he
appealed for Democratic help. He said:
"Although the present is the same Congress and
nearly the same members, and without question-
ing the wisdom or patriotism of those who stood in
opposition, I venture to recommend the reconsid-
eration and passage of the measure at the present
session. Of course the abstract question is not
changed; but an intervening election shows, almost
certainly, that the next Congress will pass the
measure if this does not. Hence there is only a
question of time as to when the proposed amend-
ment will go to the States for their action; and as
it is so to go, at all events, may we not agree that
the sooner the better. It is not claimed that the
election has imposed a duty on members to change
their views or their votes, any further than, as an
additional element to be considered, their judg-
ment may be affected by it* It is the voice of the
826 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
people now for the first time heard upon the ques-
tion. In a great national crisis like ours unanim-
ity of action among those seeking a common end
is very desirable, almost indispensable. And
yet no approach to such unanimity is attainable
unless some deference shall be paid to the will of
the majority* In this case the common end is the
maintenance of the Union, and among the means
to secure that end, such will, through the election,
is more clearly declared in favor of such a consti-
tutional amendment."
In the closing sentence the word "maintenance "
is significant. So far as the restoration of Union
went, the Proclamation had done nearly all that
could be done. This amendment was to ensure
the future maintenance of the Union by cutting
out the cause of disunion.
The President did not rest content with merely
reiterating sentiments which every man had long
known that he held. Of such influence as he could
properly exert among members of the House he
was not chary. The debate began on January 6,
1865, and he followed it closely and eagerly. On
the 27th it was agreed that the voting should take
place on the following day. No one yet felt sure
of the comparative strength of the friends and op-
ponents of the measure, and up to the actual tak-
ing of the vote the result was uncertain. We
knew, says Arnold, "we should get some Demo-
cratic votes; but whether enough, none could
tell." Ex-governor English, of Connecticut, a
EMANCIPATION COMPLETED. 327
Democrat, gave the first Aye from Ms party;
whereupon loud cheers burst forth; then ten oth-
0rs followed his example. Eight more Democrats
gave their indirect aid by being absent when their
names were called. Thus both the great parties
united to establish the freedom of all men in the
United States. As the roll-call drew to the end,
those who had been anxiously keeping tally saw
that the measure had been carried. The Speaker,
Mr. Coif ax, announced the result; ayes 119, noes
56, and declared that "the joint resolution is
passed." At once there arose from the distin-
guished crowd an irrepressible outburst of trium-
phant applause; there was no use in rapping to
order, or trying to turn to other business, and
a motion to adjourn, "in honor of this immortal
and sublime event " was promptly made and car-
ried. At the same moment, on Capitol Hill,
artillery roared loud salutation to the edict of
freedom.
The crowds poured to the White House, and
Mr. Lincoln, in a few words, of which the simpli-
city fitted well with the grandness of the occasion,
congratulated them, in homely phrase, that "the
great job is ended." Yet, though this was sub-
stantially true, he did not live to see the strictly
legal completion. Ratification by the States was
still necessary, and though this began at once, and
proceeded in due course as their legislatures came
into session, yet the full three quarters of the
whole number had not passed the requisite resolu-
328 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
tions at the time of his death. This, however,
was mere matter of form. The question was
really settled when Mr. Colfax announced the vote
of the Bepresentatives. 1
1 Thirteenth Amendment. First: Neither slavery nor invol-
untary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Second:
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation*
CHAPTER XHL
THE PALL OP BICHMOND, AND THE ASSASSINATION
OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
FROM the Capitol, where he had spoken his
Inaugural on March 4, 1865, Mr. Lincoln came
back to the White House with less than five weeks
of life before him; yet for those scant weeks most
men would have gladly exchanged their full life-
times. To the nation they came fraught with all
the intoxicating triumph of victory; but upon the
President they laid the vast responsibility of rightly
shaping and using success; and it was far less
easy to end the war wisely than it had been to con-
duct it vigorously. Two populations, with num-
bers and resources amply enough for two powerful
nations, after four years of sanguinary, relentless
conflict, in which each side had been inspired and
upheld by a faith like that of the first crusaders,
were now to be reunited as fellow-citizens, and
to be fused into a homogeneous body politic based
upon universal suffrage. As if this did not verge
closely enough on the impossible, millions of peo-
ple of a hitherto servile race were suddenly estab-
lished in the new status of freedom. It was very
plain that the problems which were advancing with
330 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
approaching peace were more perplexing than
those which were disappearing with departing war.
Much would depend upon the spirit and terms of
the closing of hostilities.
If the limits of the President's authority were
vague, they might for that very reason be all the
more extensive; and, wherever they might be set, he
soon made it certain that he designed to part with
no power which he possessed. On the evening of
March 3, he went up, as usual, to the Capitol, to
sign bills during the closing hours of the last ses-
sion of the Thirty-eighth Congress. To him thus
engaged was handed a telegram from General
Grant, saying that General Lee had suggested an
interview between himself and Grant in the hope
that, upon an interchange of views, they might
reach a satisfactory adjustment of the present
unhappy difficulties through a military convention.
Immediately, exchanging no word with any one,
he wrote:
"The President directs me to say that he wishes
you to have no conference with General Lee, un-
less it be for the capitulation of General Lee's
army, or on some minor or purely military matter.
He instructs me to say that you are not to decide,
discuss, or confer upon any political questions.
Such questions the President holds in his own
hands, and will submit them to no military con-
ferences or conventions. Meanwhile, you are to
press to the utmost your military advantages."
This reply he showed to Seward, then handed it
THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 331
to Stanton and ordered him to sign and dispatch
it at once.
About this same time General Lee notified Mr.
Davis that Petersburg and Eichmond could not be
held many more days. Indeed, they would prob-
ably have been evacuated at once, had not the cap-
ital carried so costly a freight of prestige as well
as of pride. It was no surprising secret which was
thus communicated to the chief rebel; all the com*
mon soldiers in the Confederate army had for a
long while known it just as well as the general-in-
chief did; and they had been showing their appre-
ciation of the situation by deserting and coming
within the Union lines in such increasing numbers
that soon General Grant estimated that the Con-
federate forces were being depleted by tihe equiva-
lent of nearly a regiment every day. The civilian
leaders had already suggested the last expedients
of despair, the enrolling of boys of fourteen
years and old men of sixty -five, nay, even the
enlistment of slaves. But there was no cure for
the mortal dwindling. The Confederacy was dy-
ing of anaemia.
Grant understood the situation precisely as his
opponents did. That Petersburg and Richmond
were about to be his was settled. But he was
reaching out for more than only these strongholds,
and that he could get Lee's army also was by no
means settled. As March opened he lay down
every night in the fear that, while he was sleep-
ing, the evacuation might be furtively, rapidly, in
332 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
progress, and the garrison escaping. He dreaded
that, any morning, he might awake to find delusive
picket lines, guarding nothing, while Lee and his
soldiers were already well in the lead, marching
for the South. For him, especially, it was a period
of extreme tension. Since the capture of Savan-
nah and the evacuation of Charleston several weeks
ago, Sherman with his fine army had been moving
steadily northward. In front of Sherman was
Johnston, with a considerable force which had been
got together from the remnants of Hood's army
and other sources. At Bentonsville a battle took
place, which resulted in Johnston's falling back,
but left him still formidable. General Grant had
not yet been able to break the Richmond and Dan-
ville railroad, wliich ran out from Eichmond in a
southwesterly direction; and the danger was that
by this and the "South Side " railroad, Lee might
slip out, join Johnston, and overwhelm Sherman
before Grant could reach him. In time, this peril
was removed by the junction of Schofield's army,
coming from Wilmington, with that of Sherman at
Goldsboro. Yet, even after this relief, there re-
mained a possibility that Lee, uniting with Johns-
ton, and thus leading a still powerful army of the
more determined and constant veterans, might
prolong the war pidefiqiJ' ely.
Not without good rpaspji was Grant harassed by
this thought, for in f^ct it was precisely this thing
that the good soldier in Petersburg was scheming
to do. The closing days of the month brought the
THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 333
endeavor and the crisis. To improve Ms chances
Lee made a desperate effort to demoralize, at least
temporarily, the left or western wing of the Union
army, around which he must pass in order to get
away, when he should actually make his start.
March 25, therefore, he made so fierce an assault,
that he succeeded in piercing the Union lines and
capturing a fort. But it was a transitory gleam
of success ; the Federals promptly closed in upon
the Confederates, and drove them back, capturing
and killing 4000 of them. In a few hours the
affair was all over; the Northern army showed the
dint no more than a rubber ball; but the Confed-
erates had lost brave men whom they could not
spare.
On March 22 Mr. Lincoln went to City Point;
no one could say just how soon important proposi-
tions might require prompt answering, and it was
his purpose to be ready to have any such business
transacted as closely as possible in accordance with
his own ideas. On March 27 or 28, the famous
conference l was held on board the River Queen,
on James Kiver, hard by Grant's headquarters,
between the President, General Grant, General
Sherman, who had come up hastily from Golds-
boro, and Admiral Porter. Not far away Sheri-
dan's fine body of 13,000 seasoned cavalrymen,
fresh from their triumphs in the Shenaadoah Yal-
ley, was even now crossing the James River, on
their way into the neighborhood of Dinwiddie
1 See ante, pp. 236-241 (chapter on Keconstmeiaon).
334 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Court House, which lies southwest of Richmond,
and where they could threaten that remaining
railroad which was Lee's best chance of escape.
General Sherman reported that on April 10 he
should be ready to move to a junction with Grant.
But Grant, though he did not then proclaim it,
did not mean to wait so long ; in fact he had the
secret wish and purpose that the Eastern army,
which had fought so long and so bloodily in Vir-
ginia, should have all to itself the well-deserved
glory of capturing Richmond and conquering Lee,
a purpose which Mr. Lincoln, upon suggestion
of it, accepted. 1 The President then returned to
City Point, there to stay for the present, awaiting
developments.
On April 1, General Sheridan fought and won
the important battle at Five Forks. Throughout
that night, to prevent a too vigorous return-assault
upon Sheridan, the Federal batteries thundered all
along the line; and at daybreak on the morning
of April 2 the rebel intrenchments were fiercely
assaulted* After hard fighting the Confederates
were forced back upon their inner lines. Then
General Grant sent a note to City Point, saying:
"I think the President might come out and pay us
a visit to-morrow;" and then also General Lee,
upon his part, sent word to Jefferson Davis that
the end had come, that Petersburg and Richmond
must be abandoned immediately.
The news had been expected at any moment by
1 Grant, Memoirs, ii. 460.
THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 335
the Confederate leaders, but none the less it pro-
duced intense excitement. Away went Mr, Davis,
in hot haste, also the members of his Cabinet and
of his Congress, and the officials of the rebel State
of Virginia, and, in short, every one who felt him-
self of consequence enough to make it worth his
while to run away. The night was theirs, and
beneath its friendly shade they escaped, with ar-
chives and documents which had suddenly become
valuable chiefly for historical purposes. Grant had
ordered that on the morning of April B a bombard-
ment should begin at five o'clock, which was to be
followed by an assault at six o'clock. But there
was no occasion for either; even at the earlier hour
Petersburg was empty, and General Grant and
General Meade soon entered it undisturbed. A
little later Mr. Lincoln joined them, and they
walked through streets in which neither man nor
animal, save only this little knot, was to be seen. 1
At quarter after eight o'clock, that same morn-
ing, General Weitzel, with a few attendants, rode
into the streets of Richmond. That place, how-
ever, was by no means deserted, but, on the con*
trary, it seemed Pandemonium. The rebels had
been blowing up and burning war-ships and stores;
they had also gathered great quantities of cotton
1 Giant, Memoirs, ii. 469. This differs from tiie statement of
IT. and H., x. 216, that " amid the -wildest enthusiasm, the Presi-
dent again reviewed the victorious regiments of Grant, marching
through Petersburg in pursuit of Lee." Either picture is good;
perhaps that of the silent, deserted city is not the less effective.
336 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
and tobacco into the public storehouses and had
then set them on fire. More than 700 buildings
were feeding a conflagration at once terrible and
magnificent to behold, and no one was endeavoring
to stay its advance. The negroes were intoxicated
with joy, and the whites with whiskey; the con-
victs from the penitentiary had broken loose; a
mob was breaking into houses and stores and was
pillaging madly. Erelong the Fifth Massachusetts
Cavalry, a negro regiment under Colonel C. IP.
Adams, Jr., paraded through the streets, and then
the Southern whites hid themselves within doors
to shun the repulsive spectacle. It may be that
armed and hostile negroes brought to them the
dread terror of retaliation and massacre in the wild
hour of triumph. But if so, their fear was ground-
less; the errand of the Northern troops was, in fact,
one of safety and charity; they began at once to
extinguish the fires, to suppress the riot, and to
feed the starving people.
On the following day President Lincoln started
on his way up the river from City Point, upon
an excursion to the rebel capital. Obstructions
which had been placed in the stream stopped the
progress of his steamer; whereupon he got into a
barge and was rowed to one of the city wharves.
He had not been expected, and with a guard of ten
sailors, and with four gentlemen as comrades, he
walked through the streets, under the guidance of
a "contraband," to the quarters of General Weit-
ael. This has been spoken of as an evidence of
THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 337
bravery; but, regarded in this light, it was only
superfluous evidence of a fact which no one ever
doubted; it really deserves better to be called fool-
hardiness, as Captain Fenrose, who was one of the
party, frankly described it in his Diary. The walk
was a mile and a half long, and this gentleman
says: "I never passed a more anxious time than
in this walk. In going up [the river] ... we ran
the risk of torpedoes and the obstructions; but I
think the risk the President ran in going through
the streets of Richmond was even greater, and
shows him to have great courage. The streets of
the city were filled with drunken rebels, both offi-
cers and men, and all was confusion .... A
large portion of the city was still on fire." Prob-
ably enough the impunity with which this great
risk was run was due to the dazing and bewilder-
ing effect of an occasion so confused and exciting.
Meantime, Lee, abandoning Petersburg, but by
no means abandoning "the Cause," pushed his
troops with the utmost expedition to gain that
southwestern route which was the slender thread
whence all Confederate hope now depended. His
men traveled light and fast; for, poor fellows, they
had little enough to carry! But Grant was an
O J
eager pursuer. Until the sixth day that desperate
flight and chase continued. Lee soon saw that he
could not get to Danville, as he had hoped to do,
and thereupon changed his plan and struck nearly
westward, for open country, via Appomattox
Court House. All the way, as he marched. Fed-
338 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
eral horsemen worried the left flank of his columns,
while the infantry came ever closer upon the rear,
and kept up a ceaseless skirmishing 1 . It had be-
come "a life and death struggle with Lee to get
south to his provisions;" and Grant was strug-
gling with not less stern zeal, along a southerly
line, to get ahead of him in this racing journey.
The Federal troops, sanguine and excited, did their
part finely, even marching a whole day and night
without rations. On April 6 there was an engage-
ment, in which about 7000 Southerners, with six
general officers, surrendered; and perhaps the cap-
tives were not deeply sorry for their fate. Sheri-
dan telegraphed: "If the thing is pressed, I think
that Lee will surrender." Grant repeated this to
the President, who replied: "Let the thing be
pressed," not that there was any doubt about
it! Yet, April 7, General Lee was cheered by an
evanescent success in an engagement. It was tri-
fling, however, and did not suffice to prevent many
of his generals from uniting to advise him to
capitulate. Grant also sent to him a note say-
ing that resistance was useless, and that he de-
sired to shift from himself the responsibility of
further bloodshed by asking for a surrender. Lee
denied the hopelessness, but asked what terms
would be offered. At the same time he continued
his rapid retreat. On April 8, about sunset, near
Appomattox Station, his advance encountered
Sheridan's cavalry directly across the road. The
corral was complete. Nevertheless, there ensued
TEE FALL OF RICHMOND. 339
a few critical hours; for Sheridan could by no
means stand against Lee's army. Fortunately,
however, these hours of crisis were also the hours
of darkness, in which troops could march but could
not fight, and at dawn, on April 9, the Southern-
ers saw before them a great force of Federal sol-
diery abundantly able to hold them in check until
Grant's whole army could come up. "A sharp
engagement ensued," says General Grant, "but
Lee quickly set up a white flag." He then notified
Sheridan, in his front, and Meade, in his rear,
that he had sent a note to General Grant with a
view to surrender, and he asked a suspension of
hostilities. These commanders doubted a ruse,
and reluctantly consented to hold their troops back
for two hours. That was just enough; pending
the recess Grant was reached by the bearer of the
dispatch, and at once rode in search of Lee.
The two met at the house of a villager and easily
came to terms, for Grant's offer transcended in
liberality anything which Lee could fairly have
expected. General Grant hastily wrote it out in
the form of a letter to Lee: The Confederates,
officers and men, were to be paroled, "not to take
up arms against the government of the United
States until properly exchanged; " arms, artillery,
and public property were to be turned over to the
Federals, except the side-arms of the officers, their
private horses and baggage. "This done, each
officer and man will be allowed to return to their
homes, not to be disturbed by United States author*
340 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ity so long as they observe their parole and the
laws in force where they may reside." This clos-
ing sentence practically granted amnesty to all
persons then surrendering, not excluding even the
rebel general-in-chief . It was afterward severely
criticised as trenching upon the domain of the
President, and perhaps, also, on that of Congress.
For it was practically an exercise of the pardon-
ing power; and it was, or might be, an element
in reconstruction. Not improbably the full force
of the language was not appreciated when it was
written; but whether this was so or not, and
whether authority had been unduly assumed or
not, an engagement of General Grant was sure to
be respected, especially when it was entirely in
harmony with the spirit of the President's policy,
though it happened to be contrary to the letter of
his order.
General Lee had no sooner surrendered than he
asked for food for his starving troops; and stated,
by way of estimate, that about twenty-five thou-
sand rations would be needed. The paroles, as
signed, showed a total of 28,231. To so trifling a
force had his once fine army been reduced by the
steady drain of battles and desertions. 1 The vet-
erans had long since understood that their lives
were a price which could buy nothing, and which
therefore might as well be saved.
1 Between March 29 and the date of surrender, 19,132 Con-
federates had been captured, a fate to which it was shrewdly
suspected that many were not averse.
THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 341
The fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee
were practically the end of the war. Remnants of
secession indeed remained, of which Mr. Lincoln
did not li 
