Lincoln's Mentors

by Michael J. Gerhardt

  Lincoln said nothing for a week but then sent Chase a note saying he did not “perceive occasion for a change” at the Treasury Department.33 He added that he had not read the circulars but only had heard of them. He told Chase that his friends “bring the documents to me, but I do not read them—they tell me what they think fit to tell me, but I do not inquire for more.”34 Lincoln did not need to make any further inquiries, since, as he had done before in outfoxing Chase in Chicago, his team was already laboring hard to secure his renomination at the national convention and support in the Northern and border states.

  On February 22, 1864, the National Committee of the Republican Party met in Washington. Four-fifths of its members, most of whom had worked in the Lincoln administration, enthusiastically expressed support for his reelection. In closing his remarks thanking party leaders for their “renewed confidence” in him, the president said, “But I do not allow myself to suppose that either the [Republican National] Convention have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or best man in America, but rather they have concluded that it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap.”35 Yet again it was characteristic humility and self-deprecation, reinforcing the image he relentlessly burnished of “old Abe Lincoln,” the country lawyer, self-made man, as common as the rest of America.

  On February 24, Lincoln’s friends in Ohio rammed through a resolution at their party convention endorsing his reelection. On February 27, Lincoln’s friend Frank Blair Jr., on leave from the army, launched an attack on the floor of the House against corruption in the Treasury Department and blamed Chase for it. On March 5, Chase withdrew his name for further consideration as an alternative nominee. In a transparent effort to make clear to voters what the party stood for (and to get around the resistance he faced from Radical Republican leaders), Lincoln worked with national Republican Party committee members to rename themselves the National Union Party for the 1864 election. They proclaimed themselves committed to prioritizing not party but the preservations of the Union and the Constitution. Unsure whether Chase was still trying behind the scenes to steal the nomination from Lincoln and weaken his support from within the party, Blair returned to the floor in late April again to denounce the Treasury Secretary’s tolerance of corruption within his department and illicit efforts to “work there in the dark as he is now doing, and running the Pomeroy machine on the public money as vigorously as ever.”36

  While Lincoln had Blair keep Chase off balance, he secured the party’s formal renomination for president. In late May, a convention of nearly two hundred disgruntled Republicans fizzled in its efforts to settle on an alternative, and on June 7, the party’s convention in Baltimore unanimously renominated Lincoln. (Though he was now on the Supreme Court, David Davis managed Lincoln’s reelection campaign but was so confident the convention would renominate that he didn’t bother to come.) Two days later, a committee of delegates from the convention told Lincoln the news. “I will neither conceal my gratification, nor restrain the expression of my gratitude, that the Union people, through their convention [have] deemed me not unworthy to remain in my present position,”37 Lincoln said. It was a typical display of humility, even though he had been planning for that result for some time.

  When informed that the convention had endorsed a constitutional amendment banning slavery, Lincoln became more circumspect, noting that he could not endorse it “before reading and considering what is called the Platform.”38 He did not mention that, behind the scenes, he had been urging the convention to adopt that very amendment.

  Securing the party’s nomination gave Lincoln the upper hand in dealing with his Cabinet, particularly Chase. Less than a month after Lincoln was renominated, Chase failed to consult with him before nominating a friend of his, Maunsell Field, to replace John Cisco, who had resigned from his powerful post as the assistant treasurer of the United States in New York City. Lincoln was unhappy with Chase’s failure to run appointments by him. When Chase asked to meet with him personally to discuss the matter, Lincoln declined. Instead, he wrote a candid letter to Chase acknowledging that the “difficulty does not, in the main part, lie within the range of a conversation between you and me. As the proverb goes, no man knows so well where the shoe pinches as he who wears it.” This was not the congenial bumpkin Chase had long complained about and figured he could always outwit. It was a president who held all the cards, but Chase did not know it or refused to see it. Instead, Chase wrote back as if this time were no different than the others when he had gotten on the wrong side of Lincoln. He told Lincoln that Cisco, at his urging, agreed to withdraw his nomination, even though he reminded Lincoln, he only tried “to get the best men for the places” in his department.39 The lack of congeniality in Lincoln’s letter and the absence of any indication that Lincoln appreciated Chase’s position prompted him to offer his resignation, for what turned out to be the last time. Lincoln’s patience and support were at an end, and he responded, “Of all that I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity, I have nothing to unsay; and yet 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.”40 Chase was stunned, but there was no turning back. He was out, and he had done it himself, his scheming used by Lincoln to justify his removal.

  Chase’s allies lobbied Lincoln to change his mind, but he refused and moved quickly to find a replacement he could work with. Without consulting anyone else (a striking departure for Lincoln), he nominated former Ohio governor David Tod, a Democrat who had supported his nomination in 1860. When Tod’s nomination reached the Senate Finance Committee, its powerful chair, William Fessenden of Maine, was flabbergasted. He immediately came to see Lincoln. He told Lincoln that Tod knew nothing about finances and was opposed to the paper currency with which the administration had been conducting the war. He urged Lincoln to drop Tod, but Lincoln refused. Here again was Lincoln asserting the independence he thought to be embodied by Jackson. Fortuitously, Tod withdrew his nomination because of poor health.

  The Tod debacle showed Lincoln’s greater resolve not to bend to the will of either his Cabinet or the Senate. Particularly with his reelection at risk, he was determined to do what he had to do to get reelected. Yet being more independent did not mean Lincoln was less shrewd. The next morning, he nominated Fessenden to be his next Treasury Secretary. Fessenden was horrified. He let everyone know he had no desire to leave the Senate and immediately wrote a letter to Lincoln asking him to withdraw the nomination. Lincoln refused—he needed someone as soon as possible, and he knew that senators would likely be inclined to support a colleague’s nomination. It was a clever move to coopt the Radical Republicans and appear to be appeasing the Senate at the same time.

  Fessenden turned for advice to Stanton, telling Stanton that he feared that the job would kill him. Stanton, by this time fully in concert with Lincoln, responded, “Very well, you cannot die better than in trying to save your country.”41 When Fessenden asked for Lincoln’s assurances that he would not interfere with Fessenden’s administration of the department, Lincoln agreed to put down in writing that Fessenden was to have “complete control of the [Treasury] department.”42 In return, Fessenden agreed that in appointing subordinates he would “strive to give his willing consent to [Lincoln’s] wishes in cases when [Lincoln] may let him know that [he had] such wishes.”43 One day later, on July 5, 1864, the Senate confirmed Fessenden as the new Treasury Secretary.

  Lincoln was not done reconfiguring the Cabinet. While he made some concessions to conservatives in removing subordinates—like Hiram Barney, the collector of the port of New York City—Lincoln continued to feel unremitting pressure to appease Radical Republicans. Vetoing the Wade-Davis bill had alienated the powerful Radical Republican senator Benjamin Wade of Maryland. Wade agreed to back Lincoln’s reelection but, a
s Senator Zachariah Chandler conveyed to Lincoln, only if Lincoln sacked his old friend Montgomery Blair. Lincoln had given Henry Davis control of the patronage in Maryland after he had passed him over for the Cabinet, but Davis blamed Blair for his failure and demanded his ouster to rid the administration of the Blair family influence—and to force Lincoln to prove to the world that he was nothing but a “mean and selfish dog who sacrificed his friend to his prospects.”44

  Lincoln’s admiration for the Blair family was second to none. He had considered their support pivotal to his nomination, election, and administration thus far, and he resisted the pressure to fire Blair for as he long as he could. Sensing Lincoln’s possible receptivity, Davis pushed harder. He found the fulcrum he needed when he suggested that if Lincoln got rid of Blair, Davis could get Frémont to drop his interest in the Radical Democratic Party’s nomination for president, removing someone who could split votes in ways that might hurt Lincoln in the general election. Faced with a choice between reelection and his loyalty to a friend, adviser, and fellow partisan, Lincoln chose to protect his reelection. He could be ruthless when he had to be—after all, no president had been more ruthless than Jackson, about whose reelection he did not have to be reminded. He dismissed Blair in a letter that he left on Blair’s desk, telling him that the dismissal was effective immediately.

  On the day of Blair’s dismissal, Welles and Edward Bates walked out of the White House with him, and Welles recorded the conversation for his daily diary of events. He recalled that, upon joining them, Blair said, “I suppose you are both aware that my head is decapacitated,—that I am no longer a member of the Cabinet.”45 Welles and Bates were surprised. Welles asked Blair to explain what happened and if he had had any warning he might be removed. According to Welles, Blair “said never until to-day; that he came in this morning from Silver Spring and found this letter from the President for him. He took the letter from his pocket and read the contents,—couched in friendly terms,—reminding him that he had frequently stated he was ready to leave the Cabinet when the President thought it best, etc., etc., and informing him the time had arrived.”46 Welles continued: “The remark that he was willing to leave I have heard both from him and Mr. Bates more than once. It seemed to me unnecessary, for when the President desires the retirement of one of his advisers, he would undoubtedly carry his wishes into effect. There is no Cabinet officer who would be willing to remain against the wishes or purposes of the President.”47

  “I asked Blair what led to this step,” Welles later wrote, “for there must be a reason for it.”48 Blair responded that he was being sacrificed in retaliation for Frémont’s resignation from the army and noted that Frémont had apparently told Lincoln “the Administration was a failure,” except for both Bates and Welles.49 “As Blair and myself walked away together toward the western gate,” Welles added, “I told him the suggestion of pacifying the partisans of Fremont might have been brought into consideration, but it was not the moving cause; that the President would never have yielded to that, except under the pressing advisement, or deceptive appeals and representations of someone to whom he had given his confidence.”50 To remove all doubt what he meant, Blair told Welles that he had “no doubt Seward was accessory to this, instigated and stimulated by Weed.”51 Welles noted, “This was the view that presented itself to my mind, the moment he informed me he was to leave, but on reflection I am not certain that Chase has not been more influential than Seward in this matter.”52

  Welles later reflected, “In parting with Blair the President parts with a true friend, and he leaves no adviser so able, bold, sagacious. Honest, truthful, and sincere, he has been wise, discriminating, and correct.”53 Welles did not add loyal, but, in spite of the fact that Blair never stopped grousing about his removal, he campaigned vigorously for Lincoln until the day of the election. The rest of the family remained loyal, too. Blair’s wife consoled him that Lincoln had acted “from the best motives” and that “it is for the best all round.”54 Neither Frank Sr. nor Frank Jr. pressed the matter with Lincoln; instead, they campaigned hard for Lincoln’s reelection. They were not just shrewd political operators, but they trusted Lincoln and considered his reelection indispensable for preservation of the Union. They also knew that if Lincoln and his party lost, they would have no clout with McClellan; their political careers would likely be at an end. But if the Union won the war and Lincoln were reelected, the door to the president’s office would always be open to them, as it had been the past four years.

  III

  * * *

  For much of 1864, nearly everyone, including Lincoln, expected McClellan to win the election. Everyone understood that Lincoln could reshuffle his Cabinet as much as he liked and orchestrate conventions, even his renomination, but none of that mattered if the Union failed to win the war. All eyes therefore were focused more on the new general in chief than Lincoln. If Lincoln won, it would be because of the difference Grant made in taking the fight to Lee.

  It was not until late summer of 1864 that the tide began shifting decisively in favor of the Union. Throughout the year, everyone in the Union Army, from Grant on down, understood their instructions from Lincoln. Their tenacity and sacrifice—rebels would say their butchery and relentlessness—seemed limitless. The Confederate response was increasingly ferocious. As a result, the war turned, but at the cost of even more casualties than the army had faced before in a single year.

  From 1861 through 1863, there had been less than eighteen major military engagements, but in 1864 there were nearly twice as many. In the first months after Grant’s elevation to lieutenant general, Confederate forces had overwhelmed the Union garrison at Fort Pillow, Tennessee (where General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s men slaughtered African American troops after they had surrendered), and had defeated Union forces in the Battle of the Wilderness (May 4–5, 1864), the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse (May 8–21), the Battle of Yellow Tavern (where confederate General J.E.B. Stuart was mortally wounded), the Battle of Cold Harbor (June 1–3, 1864), and the siege of Petersburg (June 15–18, 1864). Fueled by the flush of repeated victory, Lee ordered troops north to Washington, where the Army of the Potomac arrived just in time to rebuff the attack.

  To avoid any chance of capture, or worse, by Lee’s raging troops, Lincoln dashed into a carriage and headed straight to Fort Stevens in Maryland, led by a cavalry escort shouting for soldiers and civilians to make way for the president. He arrived in time to see the fort’s valiant rebuff of Lee’s offensive on July 11–12, 1864. John Hay recorded that as Lincoln stood as high as he could to peer over the parapet at the attacking army, “a soldier roughly ordered him to get down or he would have his head blown off.”55 (Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes later claimed to have been that soldier.) With the fort secured, Lincoln ordered Generals Horatio Wright and Alexander McCook to pursue the fleeing Confederate troops, but they moved their forces too slowly. Once again, the enemy got away.

  On August 23, 1864, eight days before the Democratic convention nominated McClellan as their presidential candidate, Lincoln drafted a private memorandum. “This morning, as for some days past,” he wrote, “it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be re-elected. 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.”56 (The Democratic Party platform opposed continuing the war and restoring the Union, but Lincoln did not foresee that as soon as he became the party’s nominee, McClellan would reject the party’s platform.) Lincoln brought the document to a meeting of the Cabinet that afternoon, at which time he asked each member of the Cabinet to sign the back. It became known as the Blind Memorandum, because the Cabinet had signed it blind, without ever reading it. Lincoln placed the document in a safe so that it could be read by his successor once he was in office. It was an unprecedented move, but Lincoln recalled how Buchanan had declared
in his last Annual Message that the federal government lacked the authority to prevent the Southern states from seceding, a declaration and stance that made Lincoln’s presidency much harder than it would have been had Buchanan taken steps to protect the Union. Unlike Buchanan, he was determined to put the interests of the Union above his own.

  Through it all, Grant’s forces kept coming at the rebels. As Civil War historian James McPherson explained, Grant “did not think in terms of victory or defeat in single set-piece battles, which had been the previous pattern in this theater, but rather in terms of a particular stage in a long campaign.”57 His army followed Lee’s men wherever they went. In the Battle of the Wilderness, May 5–7, 1864, in Virginia, Grant telegraphed Lincoln “there is no turning back.”58 Two days later, he added, “I intend to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.”59 Though he walked the White House halls at night worrying aloud over the war’s progress, Lincoln told others he was pleased. “The great thing about Grant,” Lincoln said, “is his perfect coolness and persistency of purpose. [He] has the grit of a bull-dog! Once let him get his ‘teeth’ in, and nothing can shake him off.’”60 Having praised Zachary Taylor in 1850 in similar terms, he now said, “It is the dogged pertinacity of Grant that wins.”

  Lincoln was equally pleased with Grant’s order placing General Philip Sheridan, who had led the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry, in charge the Army of the Shenandoah, pointedly admonishing Grant that Sheridan should “put himself South of the enemy and follow him to the death.”61 He added, “I repeat to you it will neither be done nor attempted unless you watch it every day, and hour, and force it.”62

  “Force it,” they did. General Sherman’s troops drove southward. On September 1, he notified Lincoln and Grant, “Atlanta is ours, and fairly won.”63 The day before, Democrats nominated George McClellan as their candidate for president. Earlier, on August 5, the Union fleet under the command of Admiral William Farragut captured one of the best-defended and most important ports in the South, Mobile, Alabama, which had rebuffed several earlier attacks. The Confederacy’s navy never recovered. The Union was on a roll. Besides Sherman’s march, Sheridan’s men prevailed in the Third Battle of Winchester (September 19) and the Battle of Fisher’s Hill (September 22). Then Union forces overwhelmed Fort Harrison outside of Richmond (September 29–30), and Sheridan’s troops won a protracted contest for control of the Shenandoah Valley (October 19).