Lincoln's Mentors

by Michael J. Gerhardt

  The composition of Lincoln’s Cabinet should have left no doubt about his determination to be inclusive and his confidence in managing a group that included men who looked down on him. (When told that Chase thought he was bigger than Lincoln, Lincoln said, “Well, do you know of any other men who think they are bigger than I am? Because I want to put them all in my cabinet.”) It also showed his intent to follow Jackson and his strong stance against secession. To remove any lingering doubt, one of Lincoln’s first decisions upon entering the presidential office was to choose a portrait to hang over the mantelpiece. He asked for the official portrait of Andrew Jackson to be placed there. For the rest of Lincoln’s presidency, Jackson looked down upon the long table where the Cabinet met every Tuesday and Friday. The choice of Jackson was obvious; it underscored Lincoln’s recognition of Jackson’s impassioned and effective commitment to preserving the Union. Lincoln used the portrait to great effect throughout his presidency.

  Lincoln hung no portraits of Henry Clay. He didn’t need any. He walked, talked, and thought about Clay nearly all the time; he had told Clay’s son as much, and nearly anyone else who listened, as he quoted Clay at length. If Lincoln needed any further reminder of his mentor, he had his collected speeches nearby on his desk, alongside his beloved Shakespeare, available whenever he needed comfort or inspiration from either.

  As people looked to the White House, they saw something never seen before—a president who was committed to following Jackson and Clay. The question they all had was, could he pull it off?

  IV

  * * *

  Two days after Lincoln’s inauguration, the Senate confirmed all seven members of his Cabinet, as well as John Nicolay’s nomination as Lincoln’s principal secretary. As had been done in prior administrations, the Cabinet met at a twenty-five-by-forty-foot hard walnut table in the president’s office. Lincoln’s third secretary, William Stoddard, described what visitors saw when they entered his office: “Folios of maps leaned against the walls or hid behind the sofas. Volumes of military history and literature came and went from various libraries and had their days of lying around the room or on the President’s table.”81 The Jackson portrait hung just to Lincoln’s left whenever he sat at the head of the Cabinet table. On the same wall hung a photograph of John Bright, a staunch supporter of the United States in Parliament since he entered in 1843 and a steadfast opponent of slavery. Lincoln said of Bright, “I believe he is the only British statesman, who has been unfaltering in his confidence in our success.” (His admiration for Bright was evident when, after his assassination, his wallet was found to contain a clipping of a letter Bright sent to Horace Greeley about Lincoln’s reelection, praising it for showing that “Republican institutions, with an instructed and patriotic people, can bear a nation safely and steadily through the most desperate perils.”)

  Lincoln called the Cabinet into his office for their first meeting on March 6. He did not mention Fort Sumter. On March 9, he brought the Cabinet back together to share new information he had just received on the growing threat in South Carolina. After a vigorous discussion, every Cabinet member except Montgomery Blair urged Lincoln to abandon the fort.82

  Blair was unhappy, a circumstance that came as no surprise to anyone who knew him. Lincoln had long counted among his friends Blair’s father, Francis Sr., the stern head of a political dynasty. In spite of their long attachment to the Democratic party, the Blairs had fled the party in opposition to slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Buchanan hired him to serve as the government’s top lawyer for the Court of Claims but then fired him because of his strident opposition to the administration’s proslavery positions. Though he opposed slavery, Blair was not sufficiently extreme in his support of the rights of African Americans to appease Radical Republicans, nor was he as conservative as many other Republicans who were less absolutist in opposing slavery and more eager to avoid war. As a result, Blair ended up as postmaster general, not in the center of power but near it. Noah Brooks reported, “Blair, though a good Postmaster General, was the meanest man in the whole government.”83

  True to form, Blair did not hesitate to take advantage of Lincoln’s trust. After the March 9 Cabinet meeting in which he found himself virtually alone on the question of how to handle Sumter, he threatened to resign. As Navy Secretary Welles related, Blair was “determined not to continue in the Cabinet if no attempt were made to relieve Fort Sumter.”84 Welles was as close to a natural ally to Blair as there could be. Like Blair, he had been a Jacksonian Democrat who had left the party to oppose slavery and had enthusiastically supported Lincoln during the 1860 election. Both men distrusted Seward: In the 1860 convention, Welles, who’d led the Connecticut delegation, had been unsettled by Seward’s continuing attempts to undermine Lincoln throughout the convention, even after Lincoln had secured the nomination. Blair agreed with Welles that Seward was more interested in promoting his own career than in helping Lincoln succeed or protecting the Union. Now, with the Cabinet favoring appeasement and opposing any effort to salvage the fort, Blair told Welles he was disgusted and was considering resigning.

  Blair’s father, Francis, from whom Montgomery undoubtedly got his stubbornness, was apoplectic. On March 11, Francis Blair barged past Lincoln’s secretaries to speak with Lincoln. He was determined that Lincoln not accept Montgomery’s resignation but to resolutely stand by Fort Sumter. Lincoln knew Francis well enough to understand why he was agitated, and he anticipated what was coming. Everyone knew that the old man revered Jackson; Francis had been not only one of his earliest supporters but also a close adviser to President Jackson. After leaving the Democratic Party in 1854, Francis became one of the first prominent figures to join the founding of the Republican Party. In the 1860 Republican convention, the elder Blair initially supported his fellow Missourian Bates but quickly threw his support behind Lincoln when it became clear Bates had no chance. He was also, like Clay and Jackson, a strong advocate of gradual emancipation as a solution to the problem of slavery.

  Now, with Jackson peering down from his portrait on Lincoln and Blair, and with Gideon Welles taking notes, the elder Blair “entered his protest against the non-action, which he denounced as the offspring of intrigue.”85 Francis told the president bluntly that doing nothing to save Fort Sumter was “virtually a surrender of the union.”86 Not mincing words, he told Lincoln, “It would be treason to surrender Sumter, sir. . . . If you abandon Sumter, you will be impeached!”87 Welles observed that Blair’s “earnestness and indignation aroused and electrified the President; and when, in his zeal, Blair warned that the abandonment of Sumter would be justly considered by the people, by the world, by history, as treason to the country, he touched a chord that responded to his invocation.”88 As Welles recalled, “The President decided from that moment that an attempt should be made to convey supplies to Major Anderson, and that he would reinforce Sumter.”89 It was the same basic plan that Browning had proposed to Lincoln in February before the president-elect left Illinois for his inauguration in Washington.

  A letter Francis wrote to his son Montgomery the next day, March 12, confirms that Jackson was on his mind when he urged Lincoln to be firm. Though expressing misgivings about having spoken so bluntly to the president, Francis mentioned Jackson twice. First, he told Montgomery that the current situation demanded an “exposition” from the president “even more than the one faced by Genl Jackson” in 1832.90 He also stressed that “there never was an occasion when an eloquent appeal by the President to the people like that of Genl Jackson in the crisis of 1832, could be of more use.”

  Lincoln agreed. On March 13, he met with Montgomery and his brother-in-law Gustavus Fox, a former Navy lieutenant. Fox had tried but failed to persuade President Buchanan to let him lead a reconnaissance expedition to learn firsthand the best ways to resupply Fort Sumter. Fox asked for permission to do this now. Lincoln said he would consider it.

  Two days later, on March 15, the president requested each Cabinet officer to respond in
writing to the question of whether it was “wise to attempt” to deliver provisions to Fort Sumter.91 Blair was the only Cabinet member to unequivocally answer yes.92 Seward and Chase were not alone in worrying Lincoln had “no conception of his situation.”93

  Lincoln was determined not to authorize any “hasty action” but instead wanted, as Welles noted, “time for the Administration to get in working order and its policy to be understood.”94 Lincoln talked further with Fox, then sent him to Charleston to get a look firsthand at Fort Sumter and the environs, get a sense of its vulnerability to attack, and assess the most feasible way to resupply it. Because Seward had insisted that the people of South Carolina might not want war, Lincoln asked Stephen Hurlbut, an old friend and fellow lawyer from Illinois, and Ward Hill Lamon, a former law partner who opposed abolition, to travel to Charleston and assess public opinion as best they could.95 Lincoln understood the utility of spies, as George Washington had relied on Native Americans for intelligence during the French and Indian War and put together an underground spy network to track the British forces during the Revolutionary War. Winfield Scott had used a band of Mexican outlaws and army engineers to collect intelligence on the enemy’s movements during the Mexican War, and Lincoln himself had served for twenty days with a special company of spies and scouts doing reconnaissance during the Black Hawk War.

  Just as Lincoln’s agents left to gather the intelligence he needed to firm up his plans, Lincoln heard again from Francis Blair. The senior Blair could not refrain from pushing Lincoln again. On March 18, he wrote the president to reiterate his demands that Lincoln should stand firmly by Fort Sumter, and he warned Lincoln that Seward was a “thoroughly dangerous counselor.”96

  Lincoln barely had time to digest Blair’s opinions. He received more compelling news from both Fox and Hurlbut. Fox reported the logistics required to reinforce Sumter, while Hurlbut shared the disquieting news that the South Carolinians whom he had seen and spoken with “had no attachment to the Union.”97

  As the time for action grew short, Lincoln had to work with what he had. After a state dinner on March 28, he asked his Cabinet to remain so that he could update them on the Sumter situation. He shared a letter he had received from General Scott suggesting that it would be necessary to abandon Fort Sumter as well as Fort Pickens on the Florida coast in order to “soothe and give confidence to the eight remaining slave-holding States, and render their cordial adherence to the Union perpetual.”98 Montgomery Blair “smelled a rat.” He erupted, denouncing Scott for “playing politician” rather than acting as a general.99 Everyone present understood Blair’s reference was really directed at the secretary of state.100 By the end of the meeting, Seward alone stood by the general, while the rest of the Cabinet, much to Blair’s surprise, agreed with him.101

  On March 30, Lincoln reassembled the Cabinet to hear his plan to shore up the fort. With his mind made up, Lincoln marched back and forth at the front of the room as if he were addressing a jury, musing aloud about the arguments for and against his authorizing Fox to lead a clandestine expedition to bring supplies to the fort. The presentation worked. Over the objections of Seward and Interior Secretary Caleb Smith, who’d chaired Indiana’s delegation at the Republican convention, the Cabinet approved the plan, though some members were concerned about whether Lincoln was up to the job ahead.

  V

  * * *

  The execution of the plan was less than perfect. Lincoln bypassed Simon Cameron, the aging war secretary, who had missed most of the important meetings of the Cabinet and seemed clueless when it came to talking substance or strategy. Instead, Lincoln turned to Seward, Welles, and Blair, all men of action. The problem was that Seward and Welles disliked each other, while no one much liked talking with Blair. Lincoln still did not trust Seward, but he insisted on being involved, and Lincoln saw no problem with allowing him a say.

  Seward was convinced Sumter was a lost cause. At the March 30 Cabinet meeting, he had proposed as an alternative to Fox’s expedition that a separate one, led by Captain Montgomery Meigs, the army engineer in charge of the construction of the Capitol, should be sent to reinforce Fort Pickens as a base in Florida. Seward followed up the meeting with a memorandum pressing Lincoln to abandon the Fox expedition in favor of the Pickens expedition.102

  Lincoln stuck by his commitment to Fox’s resupply effort. On his own volition, Seward reached out to the official commissioners that the Confederate States of America (the name adopted by the eleven secessionist states) had sent to Washington, in order to determine if any peaceful settlement was possible. Nothing came of the scheme, except for distancing Seward even further from the Navy venture Welles was organizing.

  On April 1, Lincoln directed Fox to lead an expedition down to Charleston to deliver supplies to Fort Sumter.103 Unfortunately, Lincoln did not realize that he had already ordered the ship he was intending to be sent with Fox down to Florida—the Powhatan, the most powerful in the Navy. Shortly after the March 30 Cabinet meeting, Seward had brought a large stack of papers for Lincoln to sign, but Lincoln was busy and signed them without carefully looking. One authorized the Powhatan down to Florida.

  When Welles discovered on April 1 that Seward had tricked Lincoln, he hauled Seward to the White House. It was midnight, but the president had not yet gone to bed. Welles demanded Seward explain himself to Lincoln. Seward reminded the president of his plan to send reinforcements to Fort Pickens and of the fact that the president had signed the paper authorizing them. Welles recalled Lincoln “took upon himself the whole blame, said it was carelessness, heedlessness on his part” and that “he ought to have been more careful and attentive.”104 Then, with both Seward and Welles beside him, Lincoln directed that the Powhatan be redirected so that it could support Fox’s expedition.105

  Seward kept hedging his bets. He telegraphed Lieutenant David Porter, who was in command of the Powhatan, to change course from sailing to help Fort Pickens in Florida and instead go to Charleston to support Fox and Fort Sumter. But he signed the telegraph “Seward,” and Porter declined to follow the direction, since an order from the secretary of state could not countermand the original order, which had been signed by the president. As a result, the Powhatan remained on its path to Fort Pickens. This left Fox’s Sumter expedition so seriously weakened that Fox’s wife, Virginia, the daughter of Levi Woodbury, a former Navy secretary and Supreme Court justice, later described Seward’s actions as “cruel treachery.”106

  On April 6, with Fox hoping in vain that his expedition could have been kept secret, President Lincoln agreed to follow Browning and Seward’s counsel to send a messenger from the State Department to inform the governor of South Carolina of Lincoln’s intention to send supplies, but not arms and ammunition, to Fort Sumter. Lincoln had no illusions about the response. His spies had informed him about the local population’s and government’s hostility toward the Union. Still fresh in his mind was Browning’s prediction, made a month before his inauguration, that South Carolina would attack any effort to resupply the fort. Other advisers agreed that such an attack was highly likely under the circumstances.

  On April 12, the governor of South Carolina did just as Lincoln and Browning had predicted and Seward feared. With Fox and his two hundred reinforcements watching helplessly, South Carolina began bombarding Fort Sumter with heated cannonballs and Fort Moultrie with shots from forty-three guns and mortars. Thirty-six hours later, Major Anderson and his garrison at Sumter surrendered.

  The bombardment of Fort Sumter signified the beginning of the Civil War, though many people hoped reconciliation was still possible. Over the next few weeks, newspapers and politicians from both parties, including Seward, pressed Lincoln not to engage Southern forces. But Lincoln knew the die had been cast. When a delegation from Maryland, including the governor and the mayor of Baltimore, urged him to avoid war, he pointed to the portrait of Jackson and praised the former president as an exemplar of the firmness he now needed to emulate. Lincoln vowed to emulat
e Jackson’s “manliness” in doing whatever was necessary to protect the Union and the fort.107

  On April 22, Lincoln responded to the Maryland delegation’s letter, pointing out that they were urging him to “ask for peace on any terms, and yet you have no condemnation for those who are making war on us.”108 He told them, “You would have me break my oath and surrender the Government without a blow. There’s no Washington in that—no Jackson in that—no manhood nor honor in that.”109 Now that war was imminent, Jackson was Lincoln’s north star, not Clay.

  South Carolina’s attack rallied both sides to their respective causes. On April 15, Lincoln had implemented a draft for seventy-five thousand recruits and called for a special session of Congress to convene on July 4 to discuss the impending war.110 While support for Lincoln and the Union was never stronger throughout the North, each of the four Southern states that had not yet seceded promptly did so—North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, and Tennessee. They joined the Confederacy, which moved its capital to Richmond. Meanwhile, Lincoln communicated with governors throughout the North and met with state delegations, as well as on April 14, for several hours, with Stephen Douglas, who was eager to help the president put down the rebellion of the secessionist states. Lincoln read Douglas the proclamation calling for conscripting seventy-five thousand troops. Douglas said, “Mr. President, I cordially concur in every word of that document, except instead of a call for seventy-five thousand men I would make it two hundred thousand. You do not know the dishonest purposes of those men [the rebels] as I do.”111 He then showed Lincoln “the strategic points which” needed to be “strengthened for the coming contest.”112