For most of the preceding three years, Lincoln had put into place an organization that would help him win reelection, but like Jackson and Clay, he renamed his party to serve his purposes. But some things had not changed. Browning and Stuart both continued to visit, albeit not as frequently, and the Blairs, particularly Jackson’s old friend Frank Blair, peppered Lincoln with advice. The Jackson portrait never moved.
A remarkable feat in Lincoln’s final year in office was congressional approval of the joint resolution to submit the Thirteenth Amendment to the states for ratification. Though not formally required for the amendment process in the Constitution, Lincoln signed a copy of the Thirteenth Amendment to emphasize his approval and the responsibility he felt. If things turned around for Lincoln and the country during the last year of his presidency, it is because Lincoln, the people in his administration and in the army, and the voters who stood by them all helped to turn them around.
Lincoln’s reelection brought him unprecedented relief and a new boost of confidence. For the first time, he consulted almost no one on his major speeches, including his last. Long attentive to the lessons his mentors had set for him, now he sometimes ignored them. Had he paid closer attention, he might have lived longer.
I
* * *
By March 1864, Lincoln had had enough. No matter how much experience his commanding generals had, they were not hastening the war’s end. Even though it was an election year, he again had to make a change at the top. Voters needed to know that he was not passively waiting for fate to turn his way, in spite of his remark that his “policy was to have no policy.”4 This comment did not mean Lincoln was clueless but rather, like Taylor, determined to be flexible and not going to commit himself to say or do anything more than he needed to. He was not going to telegraph his strategy to the enemy, and he was determined not to share his final plans with the Cabinet or members of Congress until ready.
Henry Halleck had been the general in chief since 1862, but Lincoln—and many Republicans in Congress—had wanted Halleck out for some time. Lincoln told John Hay that after McClellan’s failure Halleck had requested that he “be given full power and responsibility to run the Union army on that basis till [Major General John] Pope’s defeat [at the second Battle of Bull Run August 28–30, 1862]; but ever since that event, [Halleck] had shrunk from the responsibility whenever it was possible.”5 In the interim, one name for Halleck’s replacement repeatedly came to the attention of the President. It was certainly not Meade, whom Lincoln never forgave for not chasing Lee’s army when it was in retreat. It was the commanding general of the Army of Mississippi, Ulysses Grant. Grant had graduated from West Point but left the army when it appeared he could rise no higher than second lieutenant after the Mexican War. He tried his hand at business but had no better luck there. When the war broke out, he persuaded his congressman, Eli Washburne, to find a place for him in the army, and Washburne did. Grant had been working his way up since then, steadily rising in the ranks because of a string of victories and his stubbornness to keep at it until the enemy relented or was crushed.
Before making any final decision, Lincoln reached out to Washburne for confirmation that Grant was up to the task. “All I know of Grant,” Lincoln told Washburne, “I have got from you. I have never seen him. Who else besides you knows anything about Grant?”6 In particular, Lincoln wanted a sense of his personal ambitions, particularly whether he was inclined to mount a presidential run.
Washburne told the President that he should talk to J. Russell Jones, the U.S. Marshal for Chicago, who was from Grant’s hometown, Galena, Illinois, and corresponded regularly with Grant. Jones wrote Grant and asked him whether he had interest in running for the presidency, as many members of Congress were hoping. Grant answered directly, “I already have a pretty big job on my hands, and my only ambition is to see this rebellion suppressed. Nothing could induce me to think of being a presidential candidate, particularly so long as there is a possibility of having Mr. Lincoln re-elected.”7 When Jones visited Lincoln in February 1864, Lincoln asked him whether Grant wanted to be president. Jones showed him Grant’s letter. “My son,” Lincoln responded, “you will never know how gratifying that is to me.”8
Assured that Grant’s focus would be on winning the war and not his political fortunes, Lincoln lent his support to the bill circulating in Congress to revive the rank of lieutenant general. It was a rank that no American commander other than George Washington ever had. The measure passed the House (117–19) on February 1, 1864 and the Senate (31–6) on February 26, and Lincoln signed it into law on February 29, 1864. Halleck then wrote to Grant to inform him that Lincoln had signed his commission as lieutenant general and to “report in person to the War Department as soon as practicable.”9
Grant immediately headed east from his headquarters in Nashville, and his arrival in Washington on March 8, 1864, was characteristic of the man, turning up with his son but with no fanfare, fancy uniform, or welcoming committee. Once he signed into his hotel, the word spread so quickly that by the time he returned to his room from dinner an invitation to the White House was waiting for him. Grant immediately ventured back out still wearing the rumpled clothes that he had traveled in. He was quickly rushed into the East Room, where a reception was taking place. The room fell silent when he arrived, as all eyes turned toward him. Lincoln feigned surprise, exclaiming, “Why, here is General Grant! Well, this is a great pleasure, I assure you.”10 Grant blushed as the esteemed guests, including Seward and the First Lady, greeted him warmly. He followed Seward’s suggestion to stand on a sofa to acknowledge the applause. “For once at least,” a newspaper reporter wrote, “the President of the United States was not the chief figure of the picture. The little, scared-looking man who stood on the crimson-covered sofa was the idol of the hour.”11
After the ceremony, Lincoln took Grant upstairs for a private meeting. Lincoln explained, with some humility, that he had not been a soldier and had no special expertise in military affairs. He told Grant of his impatience with the procrastination of previous commanders and the pressure from Congress that had forced him into issuing direct orders to them, as he had done with both McClellan and Halleck. As Grant recalled, Lincoln said,
He did not know but they were all wrong, and did know that some of them were. All he wanted or had ever wanted was someone who would take the responsibility and act, and call on him for all of the assistance needed, pledging himself to use all the power of the government in rendering such assistance. Assuring him that I would do the best I could with the means at hand, and avoid annoying him or the War Department, our first interview ended.12
The next day, Lincoln held a small ceremony for Grant to meet the Cabinet. He met Lincoln again two weeks later, after he had had a chance to visit his generals in the field and assess their readiness to do what Lincoln wanted—take the war to the enemy and never cease hounding them until the war was done.
Grant’s ambition was to emulate Zachary Taylor. No one admired Taylor more than Ulysses Grant. Nearing the end of his life in 1883, he confided in his memoirs, “There was no man living who I admired and respected more highly” than Zachary Taylor.13 During the Mexican War, Grant served directly under Taylor and ever since modeled himself on the future president. Jean Edward Smith, notable biographer of Grant’s, wrote, “What few recognized was that Grant’s attitude had been nurtured fifteen years earlier in Mexico watching the way Zachary Taylor operated.”
Similarly, Grant’s biographer Ron Chernow observed, “In describing Taylor, Grant provided a perfect description of his own economical writing style: ‘Taylor was not a conversationalist, but on paper he could put his meaning so plainly that there could be no mistaking it. He knew how to express what he wanted to say in the fewest well-chosen words.’”14 Like Taylor, Grant was not disposed to making fancy, high-sounding pronouncements; both men were direct, succinct, to the point. “He is a copious worker and fighter,” Lincoln said, “but a very meager writer, or
telegrapher.”15 In 1850, he had noted that “General Taylor’s battles were not distinguished for military maneuvers; but in all, he seems rather to have conquered by a sober and steady judgment, coupled with a dogged incapacity to understand that defeat was possible. His rarest military trait, was a combination of negatives—absence of excitement and absence of fear. He could not be flurried, and he could not be scared.”16 If there was a difference between Grant and Taylor, it was that Grant, for many years, loved having a drink or several. That never seemed to bother Lincoln, who made his confidence well known, saying Grant “doesn’t worry and bother me. He isn’t shrieking for reinforcements all the time. He takes what troops we can safely give him . . . and does the best he can with what he has got.”17 In 1863, there arose a story, probably apocryphal, that when commanders asked Lincoln to remove Grant because of his excessive drinking, Lincoln said that “if anyone could find out what brand of whiskey Grant drank, he would send a barrel of it to all the other commanders.”18
In addition to how he framed his orders, Grant admired Taylor’s style, because he didn’t trouble
the administration much with his demands, but was inclined to do the best he could with the means given him. If he had thought that he was sent to perform an impossibility, he would probably have informed the authorities and left them to determine what should be done. If the judgment was against him he would have gone on and done the best he could . . . without parading his grievance before the public.19
Grant also admired Taylor’s understanding of the role of the soldier; Taylor, he said, “considered the administration accountable for the war, and felt no responsibility resting on himself other than the faithful performance of his duties.”20 He even donned a linen duster and a battered civilian hat, like those that Taylor liked to wear.
George Meade, who had served with Grant under Taylor, observed that Grant “puts me in mind of old Taylor, and sometimes I fancy he models himself on old Zac.”21 Perhaps most important, Grant had witnessed firsthand how Taylor carried the fight to the enemy, precisely what Lincoln wanted and what he intended to do. Grant’s sense of duty was evident in his unquestioning acceptance of Lincoln’s policies on emancipation and the recruitment of Negro troops. Unlike McClellan and Buell, Grant dismissed whatever personal doubts he may have had and pitched in wholeheartedly. When Halleck instructed him to assist Lorenzo Thomas, the adjutant general, in enlisting freed slaves, Grant said frankly, “I never was an abolitionist, nor even what could be called antislavery. [However,] you may rely upon it I will give him all the aid in my power. I would do this whether arming the negro seemed to me a wise policy or not, because it is an order that I am bound to obey and I do not feel that in my position I have a right to question any policy of the government.”22
Once in charge, Grant did what Taylor would have done, wasting no time or words. Grant wanted the entire Union Army to move in a coordinated fashion after the enemy, squeezing and chasing them relentlessly so that Lee and Joseph Johnston couldn’t use their troops to help each other. He told Meade, “Lee’s army will be your objective point.”23 Taking over Grant’s former command was his friend William Sherman, whose foster father was the powerful Ohio politician Thomas Ewing, who had been a close friend of Clay’s. Grant told Sherman “to move against [Joseph] Johnston’s army in the south, to break it up and get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their resources.”24 Sherman summarized the simple strategy: “He was to go for Lee and I was to go for Joe Johnston. That was the plan.”25
The next year would be the busiest and bloodiest of the war. Grant and the Union Army would be tested as Lee’s forces again brought the fight northward. Like other commanders before him, Grant faced organizational, structural, and personnel problems, including the fact that many units in the army were constrained to reporting directly to the secretary of war, not the commanding general. Lincoln assured Grant that, although he could not turn over control of these forces directly to Grant, “there is no one but myself that can interfere with your orders, and you can rest assured that I will not.”26
Other than that, as Grant told his friend Jones, he knew he had “a pretty big job on my hands.”27
II
* * *
From even before his first day in office, Lincoln worried about how the war might end, and if his army was victorious, how to mend the Union. Nearly a year before his second inaugural, on March 26, 1864, at a time when he expected to lose reelection, he met with a trio of Kentucky dignitaries—Albert Hodges, editor of the Frankfort Commonwealth, Archibald Dixon, a former senator from Kentucky, and Kentucky’s governor, Thomas Bramlette. They came to protest the enlistment of former slaves as soldiers. Lincoln gave them “a little speech,” explaining why he felt obligated to change from his inaugural promise not to interfere with slavery to his decision to issue an emancipation proclamation. Acknowledging they had been persuaded by his remarks, Hodges asked Lincoln for a copy of what he had said. Lincoln’s remarks were extemporaneous, but he promised to send a letter with his thoughts written down.
Nine days later, Lincoln sent the letter. He explained the series of events that had “driven [him] to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it, the Constitution,” or of arming Southern slaves.28 He said, “I hoped for greater gain than loss; but of this, I was not entirely confident.”29 At the end of his missive, he wrote, “I add a word which was not in the verbal communication.” He emphasized, “In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly events have controlled me.” He added further that “after the end of three years struggle the nation’s condition is not what either party or any man devised or expected. God alone can claim it.”30 His addendum reflects Lincoln at his best, manifesting both humility and piety in “telling this tale” of everything he had done thus far as president. Casting himself in the tale as an instrument of God could do him no harm in Kentucky.
Lincoln’s two overriding concerns throughout 1864—ending the war and winning reelection—informed his judgment and leadership in virtually everything he did. It was no accident that Lincoln was the first incumbent president to be renominated by his party for president since Martin Van Buren in 1840. He had used his patronage to bolster party support, and he now decided to reorganize his Cabinet to solidify his support within the Republican Party.
Salmon Chase had been a thorn in Lincoln’s side since joining the Cabinet. In 1863–1864, he was angling for the Republican nomination. Given that it was the custom for a sitting president not to openly campaign for reelection, Lincoln in those years avoided making public statements, openly soliciting support, or making campaign-related appearances. Instead, he had to work behind the scenes to stem the efforts of Radical Republicans to push him aside. Lincoln understood that the Radical Republicans did not just disapprove of his politics, but were also committed to the Jacksonian principle that he had championed as president, rotation in office. Neither Stuart nor Browning could be of any help since their connections were with the more conservative elements in Congress and the Republican Party. The most obvious choice for Radical Republicans was Chase, who gladly welcomed the attention and support. It was no secret that Chase resented Lincoln’s partnership with Seward. Chase continued to believe he was superior to Lincoln both as a statesman and as an administrator, and he was not shy about expressing such sentiments. And Lincoln was aware of how, after almost each and every time he had a run-in with someone in the party—such as Frémont—Chase quickly found a way to befriend him.
Subtlety and self-awareness were not among Chase’s strengths, however, whereas Lincoln always prided himself on his ability to read people. Under the tutelage of Stuart and with years of experience of outmaneuvering his opposition in elections and the state legislature, Lincoln had become adept at both recognizing and planning against subterfuge. The man who debated Douglas and outmaneuvered Chase and
Seward to get the Republican Party’s nomination in 1860 could do it again in 1864. Indeed, Lincoln had placed Chase in his Cabinet in part to keep an eye on him. Lincoln gave Chase ample room to make appointments from his cohort, because, as he said, he preferred to let “Chase have his own way in these sneaking tricks [rather] than getting into a snarl with him by refusing him what he asks.”31
While Chase schemed with his friends in Congress and Ohio, Lincoln had his associates working on behalf of his renomination. Union Leagues were founded throughout the country to support the Union Army, and Lincoln succeeded in having them declare their support for his reelection. The first Union League, founded in Philadelphia, set an example for the other cities, which followed suit. In response, Chase’s backers, particularly in Ohio, began pushing for public endorsements of their man, and circulated pamphlets urging Chase over Lincoln.
Public campaigning was a breach of etiquette not only for the president but also for a member of his Cabinet, as both Lincoln and Chase knew. Once newspapers caught wind of the pamphlets being circulated on Chase’s behalf, including one signed by Senator Samuel Pomeroy of Kansas endorsing Chase, they reported it. Chase immediately wrote to Lincoln to assure him that he was only a reluctant candidate and that his friends had not consulted with him beforehand. When one Treasury Department official disputed Chase’s statement, Chase offered his resignation, not for the first time, to Lincoln. He assured Lincoln, “I do not wish to administer the Treasury Department one day without your entire confidence.”32
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