Rise to Greatness

by David Von Drehle

  remaining squabbles over patronage: Chase diary, Aug. 31, 1862.

  “singularly defiant tone”: Hay diary, Sept. 1, 1862.

  “McClellan ought to be shot”: Welles diary, Sept. 1, 1862.

  Welles was surprised: ibid.

  “Mr. Hay, what is the use”: Hay diary, undated.

  “he broke down”: RW, p. 224.

  “I beg of you”: Halleck to McClellan, Aug. 31, 1862, 10:07 P.M.

  Making matters worse: Marszalek, Commander of All Lincoln’s Armies, pp. 146–53.

  “Pope should have been sustained”: RW, p. 472.

  Lincoln began the meeting: Welles diary, Sept. 2, 1862.

  “a good engineer”: ibid.; also Chase diary, Sept. 2, 1862.

  Never … so “disturbed”: Welles diary, Sept. 2, 1862.

  “giving Washington to the rebels”: Chase diary, Sept. 2, 1862.

  “the confidence of the army”: Welles diary, Sept. 2, 1862.

  “There has been a design”: ibid., Sept. 7, 1862.

  “Who shall save it?”: Dahlgren diary, Sept. 2, 1862.

  10: SEPTEMBER

  “it is to be my lot”: RW, p. 373.

  “What is to be”: quoted in Carwardine, Lincoln, p. 39.

  “the weightiest question of his life”: Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 6, pp. 341–42.

  “The will of God prevails”: CW, Vol. 5, pp. 403–4.

  jabbed with such velocity: An image of the document was examined at http://dl.lib.brown.edu/catalog/.

  Second Inaugural Address: CW, Vol. 8, pp. 333–34.

  Slavery … was like a tumor: CW, Vol. 5, p. 327.

  “We have no carbines”: Halleck to Thomas Ewing, Sr., Aug. 14, 1862, Ewing Family Papers, Box 14, No. 5098, Library of Congress Manuscript Division.

  “exciting, vague, and absurd”: Welles diary, Sept. 3, 1862.

  “There are McClellan parties”: Gustavus V. Fox to James Grimes, Sept. 6, 1862, in Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Vol. 2, p. 369.

  “I want to consult you”: RW, p. 440.

  “Our late campaign … has failed”: Seward to Adams, Sept. 8, 1862.

  “wise or not”: Welles diary, Sept. 5, 1862.

  “like shoveling fleas”: Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 6, p. 142.

  “permitted themselves to be captured”: Welles diary, Sept. 5, 1862.

  “He went out, as of old”: Chase diary, Sept. 3, 1862.

  “a manifesto, a narrative”: Welles diary, Sept. 4, 1862.

  “Kentuckians!”: Quoted in McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam, the Battle That Changed the Course of the Civil War, p. 77.

  Bragg entered the state: Foote, The Civil War, Vol. 1, p. 584; Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 6, pp. 273–76.

  Lee had significant concerns: Lee to Jefferson Davis, Sept. 3, 1862, Papers of Jefferson Davis, Rice University, available online at http://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=111.

  “throwing off … yoke”: McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 536.

  Lee … banned enlisted men: The War of the Rebellion, Series 1, Vol. 19, Part 2, pp. 603–4.

  Lee was able to scrape up: ibid., pp. 605, 602.

  Whittier composed a ballad: Whittier, The Complete Poetical Works of Whittier, pp. 342–43.

  Davis would later explain: Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 2, pp. 276–77.

  “these discordant elements”: RW, p. 441.

  he would “inflict injury”: Lee to Davis, Sept. 8, 1862, in The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee, p. 301.

  Palmerston and Russell agreed: Crook, Diplomacy During the American Civil War, pp. 86–88.

  “perhaps his finest hour”: McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom, pp. 87–88.

  “There was design”: Welles diary, Sept. 6, 1862.

  “reckless and untameable”: ibid., Sept. 8 and 10, 1862.

  Chase was furious at Welles: ibid., Sept. 7, 1862.

  Welles suspected Stanton: ibid., Sept. 11, 1862.

  Smith … turned on Seward: ibid., Sept. 10, 1862.

  Blair set on Stanton: ibid., Sept. 12, 1862.

  “you want … Seward out”: Chase diary, Sept. 10, 1862.

  “humiliating submissiveness”: ibid., Sept. 12, 1862.

  As usual: Sears, George B. McClellan, pp. 273–78.

  credence to mistaken reports: CW, Vol. 5, p. 409.

  “consist of their oldest regiments”: McClellan to Halleck, Sept. 11 [Sept. 10], 1862.

  “How does it look now?”: CW, Vol. 5, p. 418.

  “fall into the hands”: Chase diary, Sept. 12, 1862.

  “a long and free discussion”: Welles diary, Sept. 12, 1862.

  “There was bluster”: ibid.

  Weed … called on Chase: Chase diary, Sept. 15, 1862.

  “Seward was supple”: Welles diary, Sept. 17, 1862.

  “freeing all the apprentices”: Chase diary, Sept. 12, 1862.

  “Alas, poor country”: Sumner to Francis Lieber, Sept. 16, 1862.

  Nast sketched the … scene: Harper’s Weekly 6, no. 301 (Oct. 4, 1862), p. 1.

  “I was nearly overwhelmed”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Sept. 14, 1862.

  Tubs of lemonade: Sears, Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam, pp. 108–11.

  beauty of the countryside: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Sept. 12, 1862.

  “Please do not let him get off”: CW, Vol. 5, p. 418.

  latest estimate was ludicrously high: Chase diary, Sept. 13, 1862.

  “I shall follow”: McClellan to Halleck, Sept. 12, 1862, 5:30 P.M.

  a twist so unlikely: Sears, Landscape Turned Red, pp. 112–13.

  “Now I know”: ibid.

  debate with … Chicago ministers: CW, Vol. 5, pp. 420–25.

  eventually debunked: William P. Rigge, “The Pope and the Comet,” Popular Astronomy 16 (October 1908), pp. 481–83.

  “I have not decided”: CW, Vol. 5, pp. 420–25.

  “I will do it”: ibid.

  “study the plain physical facts”: ibid.

  “Here is a paper”: Gibbon, Personal Recollections of the Civil War, p. 73.

  “hope for a great success”: McClellan to Lincoln, Sept. 13, 1862.

  “so dark, so obscure”: quoted in McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom, p. 117.

  the same “strange dream”: RW, p. 486.

  “No tongue can tell”: quoted in Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 243.

  planned to renew the battle: McClellan to Halleck, Sept. 18, 1862, 8 A.M.; McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Sept. 18, 1862, 8 A.M.

  “I am aware of the fact”: McClellan, Report of Major-General George B. McClellan, pp. 149–50.

  stunned and partially decapitated: ibid.

  “Few and foggy dispatches”: Welles diary, Sept. 18, 1862.

  “Antietam was fought Wednesday”: Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 6, pp. 164–65.

  president “could not but feel”: ibid., p. 146.

  “When Lee came over”: RW, p. 38.

  too busy writing: Chase diary, Sept. 21, 1862.

  “I let them have it”: Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 6, pp. 164–65.

  “there was some general talk”: Chase diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

  “High-handed Outrage”: Artemus Ward: His Book, pp. 34–35.

  “The ‘neigh’ of a horse”: Carpenter, The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln, pp. 150–51.

  “Why don’t you laugh?”: RW, p. 417.

  the president grew serious: Chase diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

  he “had made a vow”: Welles diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

  Lincoln hesitated: Chase diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

  “God had decided this question”: Welles diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

  “I am here”: Chase diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

  This revised version: Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, pp. 172–73.

  Seward … offered a proposal: Chase diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

&
nbsp; Welles was impressed: Welles diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

  Chase spoke next: Chase diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

  Welles also endorsed: Welles diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

  Blair now spoke up: Chase diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

  hand the Democrats “a club”: Welles diary, Sept. 22, 1862.

  “in great doubt myself”: RW, p. 314.

  Sumner … Douglass … Hamlin: quoted in Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, pp. 157–62.

  “Hoop de-dooden-do”: ibid.

  he “knew more”: Hay diary, Sept. 24, 1862.

  “our harpoon”: Carpenter, The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 75.

  “environed with difficulties”: CW, Vol. 5, p. 438.

  “The stocks have declined”: ibid., p. 444.

  a second … dangerous decree: ibid., pp. 436–37.

  “such an accursed doctrine”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Sept. 25, 1862.

  later told Lincoln: Hay diary, Sept. 25, 1864.

  “That is not the game”: Welles diary, Sept. 24, 1862.

  He cashiered Key: CW, Vol. 5, pp. 442–43.

  11: OCTOBER

  “Dr. Zacharie has operated”: CW, Vol. 5, p. 436.

  “put his foot down firmly”: ibid., p. 436n.

  helped to muffle: ibid., p. 225.

  “pestilent sheet”: William Goodell to Lincoln, July 9, 1862, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division.

  “I do very believe”: James Gordon Bennett to Lincoln, Aug. 11, 1862, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division.

  “accept this proclamation”: Fermer, James Gordon Bennett and the New York Herald: A Study of Editorial Opinion in the Civil War Era, 1854–1867, pp. 221–25.

  “your kind note”: Mary Lincoln to James Gordon Bennett, Oct. 4, 1862.

  “satisfy himself personally”: “Conversation with Hon. O. M. Hatch, Springfield, June 1875,” in An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln, p. 16.

  “Compel the enemy”: McClellan to Halleck, Oct. 1, 1862; McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Oct. 2, 1862.

  “His ostensible purpose”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Oct. 2, 1862.

  Gardner … “brought bodies”: New York Times, Oct. 20, 1862.

  “very kind personally”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Oct. 5, 1862.

  at least four letters: “Conversation with Hon. O. M. Hatch, Springfield, June 1875,” p. 16.

  Lincoln … “regarded his position”: RW, pp. 275–76.

  Hatch recalled the encounter: quoted in Browne, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln: A Narrative and Descriptive Biography with Pen-Pictures and Personal Recollections by Those Who Knew Him, pp. 529–30.

  “Sing one of your sad … songs”: Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847–1865, pp. 145–48.

  “he would be a ruined man”: RW, p. 132.

  disappointed a cheering crowd: CW, Vol. 5, p. 450.

  “I will back General McClellan”: RW, p. 425.

  “most desperately contested”: Foote, The Civil War, Vol. 1, pp. 726–38.

  the effects of Bragg’s retreat: Duke, Reminiscences of General Basil W. Duke, p. 333.

  “overwhelmed with the crowd”: Nicolay to Therena Bates, Oct. 9, 1862.

  his monthly paycheck: Miers, Lincoln Day by Day, Vol. 3, Oct. 6, 1862.

  “The President directs”: CW, Vol. 5, p. 452n.

  “disgust, discontent … disloyalty”: Sears, George B. McClellan, p. 325.

  “a fatal error”: ibid., pp. 326–27.

  transportation magnate William Aspinwall: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Oct. 5, 1862.

  “remedy for political error”: Williams, Lincoln and His Generals, p. 171.

  “hope the indignant people”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Sept. 29, 1862; see also McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Sept. 25, 1862.

  lacked “shoes, tents, blankets”: Rafuse, McClellan’s War, pp. 353, 358.

  “quiet & pleasant time”: McClellan to Samuel Barlow, Oct. 17, 1862.

  “It is humiliating”: Welles diary, Oct. 13, 1862.

  “Three times round and out”: RW, p. 256.

  “effect upon the popular mind”: Adams to Seward, Oct. 3, 1862.

  “full of difficulty”: Foreman, A World on Fire, pp. 319–20.

  “they have made a nation!”: Crook, Diplomacy During the American Civil War, pp. 87–92.

  Adams was angry: Adams to Seward, Oct. 10, 1862.

  “merely … lookers-on”: Crook, Diplomacy During the American Civil War, p. 98.

  Now was the moment: Owsley, King Cotton Diplomacy, pp. 331–33.

  Napoleon took this letter: ibid.

  take the plunge: ibid.

  “Nothing,” he replied: Dayton to Seward, Nov. 5, 1862.

  Lincoln took up pen: CW, Vol. 5, pp. 460–61.

  he would fire McClellan now: Sears, George B. McClellan, p. 335.

  cavalry was no match: McClellan to Halleck, Oct. 14, 1862; Lincoln’s reaction is found in Halleck to McClellan, The War of the Rebellion, Series 1, Vol. 19, Part 2, p. 421.

  “take things so leisurely!”: Nicolay to Therena Bates, Oct. 16, 1862.

  “He does not understand”: Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 6, p. 280.

  “all blue here”: Nicolay to Therena Bates, Oct. 16, 1862.

  “twice our usual majority”: J. W. Grimes to G. V. Fox, Oct. 24, 1862, in Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Vol. 2, pp. 410–11.

  “a little gun”: CW, Vol. 5, p. 463.

  “butcher-day”: Herndon and Weik, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, p. 245.

  sparing three lives: CW, Vol. 5, pp. 475–76.

  “No man but he”: Herndon and Weik, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, pp. 212–15.

  a combination of considerations: Donald, “We Are Lincoln Men,” pp. 122–27.

  “I am not wedded”: McClellan to Lincoln, Oct. 17, 1862.

  “the question of time”: CW, Vol. 5, p. 460.

  “Your Excellency”: McClellan to Lincoln, Oct. 17, 1862.

  “fear that he was playing false”: Hay diary, Sept. 25, 1864.

  “fine dry weather”: Nicolay to Therena Bates, Oct. 20, 1862.

  “pardon me for asking”: CW, Vol. 5, p. 474.

  “dirty little flings”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Oct. 26, 1862.

  “so rejoiced” … “wretched innuendo”: CW, Vol. 5, p. 477; McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Oct. 29, 1862.

  “never was a truer epithet”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Oct. 29, 1862.

  “holding a prayer-meeting”: Nicolay to Therena Bates, Oct. 26, 1862.

  “a fiery trial”: CW, Vol. 5, p. 478.

  “last grain of sand”: RW, pp. 380–81.

  12: NOVEMBER

  first snow: Bates diary, Nov. 7, 1862.

  passed the camp twice a day: Pinsker, Lincoln’s Sanctuary, pp. 66–68.

  twenty-five refugees a week: Joseph P. Reidy, “‘Coming from the Shadow of the Past’: The Transition from Slavery to Freedom at Freedmen’s Village, 1863–1900,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 95, no. 4 (October 1987), pp. 403–28.

  “The cause of humanity”: Mary Todd Lincoln to Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 3, 1862.

  Grant … was forced to think: Grant, Memoirs and Selected Letters, pp. 284–85.

  news so startling: CW, Vol. 5, p. 487.

  The president drafted a reply: ibid., pp. 502–3.

  “the life of the nation”: ibid., pp. 512–13.

  “men absent on furlough”: ibid., p. 484.

  “hard desperate fighting”: ibid.

  “A deeper gloom”: Livermore, My Story of the War: Four Years Personal Experience in The Sanitary Service of the Rebellion, pp. 555–61.

  “hanging from the post”: Donald, Lincoln, p. 384.

  “see clearly and persist”: Shenk, Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness, p. 189.

  “indulge in no d
elusions”: Schurz to Lincoln, Nov. 20, 1862, in Schurz, Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, pp. 213–19.

  “I ought to be blamed”: CW, Vol. 5, pp. 509–11.

  “You are re-elected”: ibid., p. 487.

  “no next presidency”: RW, p. 400.

  Lincoln would not resist: Barnes, The Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 428.

  Under Governor Seymour: Mitchell, Horatio Seymour of New York, pp. 318–19.

  “The heavens were red”: Anonymous, Chronicle of the Union League of Philadelphia: 1862–1902, pp. 45–50.

  “worse … than the bloodiest”: Sumner to Lincoln, Nov. 8, 1862.

  far from disastrous: McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom, pp. 153–54.

  shift of this magnitude: For purposes of comparison, the party composition of each U.S. Congress can be accessed at http://artandhistory.house.gov/house_history/index.aspx.

  “Halleck would be an indifferent”: Welles diary, Nov. 4, 1862.

  “The President’s patience”: Nicolay to Therena Bates, Nov. 5, 1862.

  Montgomery Blair rode out: Pinsker, Lincoln’s Sanctuary, pp. 87–88.

  No ordinary courier: Sears, George B. McClellan, p. 340.

  Rectortown with McClellan’s replacement: Rafuse, McClellan’s War, p. 376.

  “Another interruption”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Nov. 7, 1862.

  “a dreadful mistake”: ibid.

  “Gray-haired men”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Nov. 10, 1862.

  “the romance of war”: quoted in Catton, Mr. Lincoln’s Army, pp. 329–30.

  “we always understood each other”: James Longstreet, “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 3, p. 70.

  Grant … let Halleck know: The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Vol. 6, pp. 199–201.

  intended to clear the Rebels: ibid., p. 243.

  “unvexed to the sea”: CW, Vol. 6, p. 410.

  out of Grand Junction: Grant, Memoirs and Selected Letters, p. 284.

  John McClernand: Christopher C. Meyers, “John Alexander McClernand,” in Heidler and Heidler, eds., Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, pp. 1277–79.

  the orders he coveted: CW, Vol. 5, pp. 468–69.

  “Two commanders”: Grant, Memoirs and Selected Letters, p. 285.

  “Am I to … lay still”: The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Vol. 6, p. 288.

  “You have command”: ibid.

  Grant promptly sent his cavalry: Grant, Memoirs and Selected Letters, p. 286.

  trying to thwart McClernand: ibid., p. 288.