“Dispatch received” Ibid., 146-48.
“Send no more troops” George W. Brown and Thomas H. Hicks to AL, April 20, 1861, ALPLC.
“Now, and ever,” AL to Thomas H. Hicks, April 20, 1861, CW, 4:340.
“The streets were full” John Hay, Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, ed. Tyler Dennett (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1939), 4-5.
“Your citizens attack” AL, Reply to Baltimore Committee, April 22, 1861, CW, 4:341-42.
“I began to believe” Nicolay and Hay, 4:153.
“created much enthusiasm” Taft, Diary, April 25, 1861.
“In every great crisis” New York Times, April 25, 1861.
“suspend the writ” AL to Winfield Scott, April 25, 27, 1861, CW, 4:344, 347.
suspension of habeas corpus Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), xiv—xvii; Daniel Färber, Lincoln’s Constitution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 157-58.
reorganized the Sixtieth Regiment Ruth Painter Randall, Colonel Elmer Ellsworth: A Biography of Lincoln’s Friend and First Hero of the Civil War (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1960), 3—6. In the early summer of 1860, Ellsworth published a Manual of Arms for the U. S. Zouave Cadets.
“Excuse me” Randall, Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, 262.
“In the untimely loss” AL to Ephraim D. and Phoebe Ellsworth, May 25, 1861, CW, 4:385-86.
Mary decided to restore Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, 184—85.
“For all the detestable places” Strong, Diary, July 15, 1861, 3:164.
“the Washington National Monument Cattle Yard” Mark E. Ruane, “Smithsonian Dig Unearths Quirky Traces of History,” Washington Post, August 30,
2007.
“softening the expression” Douglas L. Wilson, Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power oj’Words (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 94-95.
“all peaceful measures” AL, “Message to Congress in Special Session,” July 4, 1861, CW, 4:425-26.
“the attention of the country” Ibid., 429—31. Mark E. Neely, Jr., asserts that Lincoln’s discussion of habeas corpus revealed “the work of a fledgling president, uncertain of his legal ground and his audience.” See Neely, Fate of Liberty, 11—13.
“they commenced by an insidious debauching” Paul M. Angle, “Lincoln’s Power with Words,” Abraham Lincoln Association Papers (Springfield, 111.: The Abraham Lincoln Association, 1935), 80.
“lacked the dignity” Roy Basier, “Lincoln’s Development as a Writer,” A Touchstone for Greatness: Essays, Addresses, and Occasional Pieces About Abraham Lincoln (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), 90.
“message was the most truly” Edward Cary, George William Curtis (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1894), 147.
“In the late Message” Douglass’ Monthly, August 1861, 497.
“When would the army” Van Deusen, Horace Greeley, 276—78.
Forward to Richmond! Henry Luther Stoddard, Horace Greeley: Printer, Editor, Crusader (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1946), 213-14.
the army was unprepared for war McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 313.
“You are green” William C. Davis, Battle at Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977), 77.
“Look, men, there is Jackson” For Bull Run and the role of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, see James I. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1997), 259-68.
“Our army is retreating” David Homer Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recolledions of the United States Military Telegraph Corps During the Civil War (New York: The Century Company, 1907), 91.
“The day is lost” Ibid., 251.
“Boys, we will stop” Hans L. Trefousse, Benjamin Franklin Wade: Radical Republican from Ohio (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1963), 150—51.
Yankee Doodle, near Bull Run Burton E. Stevenson, ed., Poems of American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1922), 425.
“which gave expression” Congressional Globe, 37th Cong., 1st sess., 222—23, 258-62.
“Today will be known” Strong, Diary, July 22, 1861, 4:169.
“Sir, I am the greatest coward” Nicolay and Hay, 4:358—59.
CHAPTER 19. The Bottomh Out of the Tub: July 1861-January 1862
Lincoln challenged Hay, Inside, April 21, 1861, 5.
attention to military strategy I am grateful to James McPherson, who allowed me to see his book Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), in manuscript form. McPherson makes the case, “In the vast literature on our sixteenth president, the amount of attention devoted to his role as commander in chief is disproportionately far less than the actual percentage of time that he spent on that task.”
“Wars, commotions, and revolutions” Julian M. Sturtevant, “The Lessons of our National Conflict,” New Englander 19 (October 1861): 894.
“Circumstances make your presence” General Lorenzo Thomas to George B. McClellan, July 22, 1861, McClellan, Civil War Papers, 66.
“seemed more amused” George B. McClellan, McClellan’s Own Story: The War for the Union, the Soldiers Who Fought It, the Civilians Who Directed It, and His Relations to It and to Them (New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1887), 55.
“I find myself” George B. McClellan to Ellen McClellan, July 27, July 30, 1861, McClellan, Civil War Papers, 70, 71.
“quite overwhelmed” McClellan, McClellan’s Own Story, 66.
“It is an immense task” Stephen W. Sears, George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon (New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1988), 44-47.
tactics used in the Crimean War Ibid.
seeds of future difficulties Sears makes this suggestion, but there is nothing in the record to support this interpretation.
“Young Napoleon” Sears, George B. McClellan, 101.
“Little Mac” New York Tribune, August 1, 1861.
pledged no more retreats Sears, George B. McClellan, 97.
“to move into the heart” George B. McClellan to AL, August 2, 1861, McClellan, Civil War Papers, 74.
“making the Blockade effective” “Memoranda of Military Policy Suggested by the Bull Run Defeat,” July 23, 27, 1861, CW, 4:457-58.
“The President is himself” Lincoln’s Journalist: John Hay’s Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860—1864, ed. Michael Burlingame (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998), November 2, 1861, 130.
“gave himself “ Nicolay and Hay, 5:155—56.
“The poor President!” Russell, My Diary, North and South, October 9, 1861, 317.
“The political objective” Carl von Clausewitz, On War, cited in McPherson, Tried by War, forthcoming.
“If the Secretary of War” AL to Simon Cameron, May 13, 14, 16, 20, 21, 24
[26?], 1861, CW, 4:367, 369, 370, 374, 380-81, 384.
“quite independent” AL to Edwin D. Morgan, May 20, 1861, CW, 4:375.
“I am for it” AL to Simon Cameron, May 13, 21, 1861, CW, 4:367, 380.
“information from spies” McPherson, Tried by War, 73—74.
“I feel confident” Sears, George B. McClellan, 104.
“I yield” George McClellan to AL, August 10, 1861, McClellan, Civil War Papers, 82-83.
“patriotic purpose” McPherson, Tried by War, 73—74; Sears, George B. McClellan, 104.
“The Presdt is an idiot” George McClellan to Ellen McClellan, August 16, October 11, 1861, McClellan, Civil War Papers, 85.
“I found” George B. McClellan to Ellen McClellan, October 16, November 17, 1861, McClellan, Civil War Papers, 107, 135.
“Drawon me” Hay, Inside, [November 1861], 30.
“As Delaware was the first” Patience Essah, A House Divided: Slavery and Emancipation in Delaware, 1638—1865 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996), 161.
“that if quiet was kept” Hay, Inside, May
1, 1861, 16.
“the Stars and Stripes” Kentucky Statesman, June 14, 1861, cited in Lownsend, Lincoln and the Bluegrass, 281.
Lincoln had stayed in touch Lownsend, Lincoln and the Bluegrass, 273—74.
“he contemplated” Garrett Davis, April 23, 1861, Fehrenbacher, Recollected Words, 133-34.
“We have beaten them” Joshua Speed to AL, May 27, 1861, ALPLC.
“I have given you” Allan Nevins, Fremont: Pathmarker of the West (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1939), 477.
“I think there is great danger” AL to John C. Fremont, September 2, 1861, CW, 4:506-7.
“Now, at once” AL to Mrs. John C. Frémont, September 10, 1861, CW, 4:515.
“It was a war” Nevins, Fremont, 515—19.
“taxed me so violently” Hay, Inside, December 9, 1863, 123.
“an impetus” Nevins, Fremont, 507.
“How many times are we” Ibid.
“Slavery is the bulwark” Douglass’ Monthly, September 1861.
raised Fremont James M. McPherson, The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964), 72-73.
“I have been so distressed” Joshua Speed to AL, September 3, 1861, ALPLC.
“Fremont’s proclamation” Orville Browning to AL, September 11, 1861, ALPLC.
“Coming from you” AL to Orville Browning, September 22, 1861, CW, 4:531-33.
“with bowed head” Charles Carlton Coffin, in Rice, Reminiscences of Lincoln, 172-73.
There was no patriot like Baker Blair and Tarshis, Colonel Edward D. Baker, 167.
“went up stairs” Hay, Inside, November 13, 1861, 32.
“I was favourably impressed” Browning, Diary, December 19, 1861, 515—16.
compensated emancipation Essah, House Divided, 162—72.
“cheapest and most human” H. Clay Reed, “Lincoln’s Compensated Emancipation Plan,” Delaware Notes (Newark: University of Delaware, 1931), 65.
“deeply convinced and faithful” David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), 17.
“Mr. President” Ibid, 48.
“Noble little Delaware” AL, “Annual Message to Congress,” December 3, 1861, CW, 5:50.
“eight times as great” Ibid., 53.
most problematic member of Lincoln’s cabinet Fred A. Shannon, The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861—1865 (Cleveland, Ohio: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1928), 26.
“was quite offended” Chase, Diaries, January 12, 1862, 61.
“to gratify your wish” Erwin Stanley Bradley, Simon Cameron: Lincoln’s Secretary of War (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966), 205—9.
“simultaneous movement” AL to Henry W. Halleck and Don C. Buell, December 31, 1861, CW, 5:84.
“I have never received” Henry W. Halleck to AL, January 1, 1862, CW, 5:84.
“Mr. President, you are murdering” Trefousse, Benjamin Franklin Wade, 159.
“For some months” Bates, Diary, December 31, 1861, 218—20.
“It is exceedingly discouraging” AL to Simon Cameron, January 10, 1862, CJ^5:95.
“I feared” Russell Frank Weigley, Quartermaster General of the Union Army: A Biography of M. C. Meigs (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 131—32.
“General, what shall I do?” “General M. C. Meigs on the Civil War,” The American Historical Review 26, no. 2 (January 1921): 292.
CHAPTER 20. We Are Coming Father Abraham: January 1862-July 1862
“The inauguration is over” Thomas and Hyman, Stanton, 118.
“The political horizon” Ibid., 149.
“The new Secy of War” Bates, Diary, February 2, 1862, 228.
“accomplished in a few days” Speed’s letter to Joseph Holt cited in Thomas and Hyman, Stanton, 161.
“a wagon load” Strong, Diary, January 29, 1862, 3:203.
“We maybe obliged” Thomas, Abraham Lincoln, 296.
“would be master” Chase, Diary, January 28, 1862, 64—65.
“fond of power” Welles, Diary, 67. Welles’s observation, written sometime later, needs to be refracted through his strained relationship with Stanton. Lhomas and Hyman, Stanton, 151.
“should threaten all” Browning, Diary, January 12, 1862, 523.
“the insurgent forces” AL, “President’s General War Order No. 1,” January 27, 1862, CW, 5:111-12.
“immediate object” AL, “President’s Special War Order No. 1,” January 31, 1862, CW, 5:115.
“affords the shortest” George B. McClellan to Edwin M. Stanton, February 3, 1862, McClellan, Civil War Papers, 167, 170.
“I will stake my life” Joseph T. Glatthaar, Partners in Command: The Relationship Between Leaders in the Civil War (New York: The Free Press, 1994), 69—70.
“Does not your plan” AL to George B. McClellan, February 3, 1862, CW, 4:118-19.
“I told you so” Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office, 113.
“No terms except” Jean Edward Smith, Grant (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 162-63.
“shook the old walls” Brooks Simpson, Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity, 1822-1865 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000), 119.
instant hero McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 394—402; Thomas and Hyman, Stanton, 172—73.
Willie became sick Ruth Painter Randall, Lincoln’s Sons (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1956), 128—30.
“a social innovation” “The President’s Party,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper 13 (February 22, 1862).
could not enjoy the evening David H. Donald, Lincoln at Home: Two Glimpses of Abraham Lincoln’s Family Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 37—38.
“been to see him” Taft, Diary, February 20, 1862.
Willie Lincoln died Ruth Painter Randall, Lincoln’s Sons, 102 ff.
“My poor boy” John Nicolay, With Lincoln Inside the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860—1865, ed. Michael Burlingame (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), 71.
“A fine boy” Bates, Diary, February 20, 1862, 235.
dark cloud of mourning Nicolay, With Lincoln Inside the White House, 131.
“It is well for us” Phineas D. Gurley, “Funeral Address on the Occasion of the Death of William Wallace Lincoln” (Washington: n.p., 1862), 3—4.
“Please keep the boys” Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, 213.
“Driver, my friend” Wilson, Intimate Memories of Lincoln, 422.
Lincoln enjoyed Seward Burton Jesse Hendrick, Lincoln’s War Cabinet (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946), 186; Hay, Inside, October 12, 1861, 26; Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 387—88.
“What does this mean?” Nicolay, With Lincoln in the White House, February 27, 1862, 72.
“Well, anybody!” There are a number of versions of this story. See Bruce Tap, Over Lincoln’s Shoulder: The Committee on the Conduct of the War (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998), 113.
“giving over to the enemy” The only account of this conversation is in McClellan, McClellan s Own Story, 195-96.
“We can do nothing else” T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), 67.
“in, and about Washington” AL, “President’s General War Order No. 2,” “President’s General War Order No. 3,” March 8, 1862, CW, 5:149-51.
“You now have over one hundred” AL to George B. McClellan, April 6, 1862, CW, 5:182.
fired off a telegram George B. McClellan to AL, April 7, 1862, McClellan, Civil War Papers, 233.
“I was much tempted” George B. McClellan to Ellen McClellan, April 8, 1862, McClellan, Civil War Papers, 234.
“After you left” AL to George B. McClellan, April 9, 1862, CW, 5:184.
“Your call for Parrott guns” AL to George B. McClellan, May 1, 1862, CW, 5:203.
“Abe was rushing about” Henry Williams to parents, May 6, 1862, in Stephen Sears, To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign (New York: Licknor and Fields, 1992), 90.
“It is extremely fortunate” William Keeler to his wife, May 9, 1862, cited in William Frederick Keeler, Aboard the USS Monitor, 1862: The Letters of Acting Paymaster William Frederick Keeler, ed. Robert W. Daly (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute, 1964), 113, 115.
“So has ended a brilliant week’s” Salmon P. Chase to Janet Chase, May 11, 1862, The Salmon P. Chase Papers, ed. John Niven (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1996), 3:197.
“If there is an honest man” William Marvel, Burnside (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 93.
“I prefer Lee to Johnston” George B. McClellan to AL, July 7, 1862, McClellan, Civil War Papers, 344—45.
“It should not be a war” Sears, George B. McClellan, 227—29.
“really seems quite incapable” George B. McClellan to Ellen McClellan, July 9, 1862, McClellan, Civil War Papers, 348.
“What would you do” AL to Cuthbert Bullitt, July 28, 1862, CW, 5:344-46.
“This government cannot much longer” AL to August Belmont, July 31, 1862, CW, 5:350.
a crucial decision McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 502—3.
the Soldier’s Home For the story of the Soldiers’ Home, see Matthew Pinsker, Lincoln’s Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers’ Home (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); and Elizabeth Smith Brownstein, Lincoln’s Other White House: The Untold Story of the Man and His Presidency (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2005).
“She seemed to be in excellent” Benjamin B. French, Witness to the Young
Republic: A Yankee’s Journal, 1828—1870 (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England), diary entry, June 16, 1862, 399-400.
“We are truly delighted” Mary Lincoln to Mrs. Charles [Fanny] Eames, July26 [1862], in MTL, 130-31.
“reading the Bible” David V. Derickson, “The President’s Guard,” a recollection cited in Pinsker, Lincoln’s Sanctuary, 5, 205.
“read Shakespeare more” John Hay, “Life in the White House in the Lime of Lincoln,” Century Magazine 90 (November 1890): 35—36.
“I expect to maintain” AL to William H. Seward, June 28, 1862, CW, 5:291-92.
A. Lincoln Page 82