By this point, Lincoln had little doubt that Frémont should be discharged. In addition to the impressions of Meigs, Monty Blair, and Cameron, he had received a blistering report from Adjutant General Thomas detailing the sorry “constitution of Fremont’s army, its defective equipment and arming, its confusion and imbecility, its lack of transportation,” a catalogue of items leading to the unassailable conclusion that “its head is wholly incompetent and unsafe to be instructed with its management.” Yet Lincoln still “yielded to delay,” Bates angrily confided in his diary, holding Seward responsible when the president hesitated a few days longer. “The President still hangs in painful and mortyfying doubt,” Bates wrote. “And if we persist in this sort of impotent indecision, we are very likely to share his fate—and, worse than all, deserve it.”
The Attorney General’s impatience was understandable, but Lincoln’s reasoning behind the delay was far shrewder than Bates realized. Two days after Bates made his angry entry, Lincoln dispatched his friend Leonard Swett to hand-carry a removal order to Frémont. Before Swett reached St. Louis, however, the War Department released the damning report of Adjutant General Thomas to the press. Published on October 31, the detailed report was considered by the New York Times “the most remarkable document that has seen the light since the beginning of the present war.” So damning were the revelations about Frémont, the Times continued, that it was mystifying why the Lincoln administration had allowed their publication.
In fact, the decision to publicize the report was both calculated and canny. By the time the message was delivered to Frémont, the public had been primed with powerful arguments for his dismissal. Had Lincoln acted earlier, people might have concluded that Frémont was sacrificed to the Blairs or, worse still, cashiered because of his proclamation emancipating the slaves. By leaking the facts in the report, Lincoln had adroitly prepared public opinion to support his decision.
When Swett reached Missouri, he wisely anticipated that Frémont would suspect his mission and refuse him entry into camp. So he gave the dismissal order to an army captain, who disguised himself as a farmer. With the document sewed into the lining of his coat, the messenger reached Frémont in person shortly after dawn on November 1, the same day that General Scott’s resignation was announced. When Frémont opened the order, the captain recalled, a “frown came over his brow, and he slammed the paper down on the table and exclaimed, ‘Sir, how did you get admission into my lines?’”
By November 2, when the news was made public, the general reaction was that Lincoln was “justified” in his decision. Frémont no longer had “apologists or defenders” in Washington, the correspondent for the New York Times wrote; “the evidences of his unfitness for command have naturally so accumulated here—the headquarters of the army—that no defence of him is possible.” The Philadelphia Inquirer agreed. “Slowly and reluctantly we are forced to the conviction that General Fremont is unequal to the command of the Western army. The report of Adjutant-General Thomas, which we publish this morning, settles the question in our judgment.” In an unusually pro-administration editorial, the Democratic New York Herald noted with approval that while “Lincoln is not the man to deal unjustly or ungenerously with any public officer,” his firing of Frémont “had become a public necessity, to which the President could no longer shut his eyes; and this tells the whole story.”
Even Chase had to admit that Lincoln had handled the tangled situation admirably. “I am thoroughly persuaded,” he wrote a friend, “that in all he has done [concerning] Gen. F. the Prest. has been guided by a true sense of publ[ic] duty.”
ONE WEEK AFTER the resignation of General Scott and the dismissal of General Frémont, the administration faced a pressing new dilemma. Seward had received word that the Confederacy had dispatched two prominent Southerners, James Mason and John Slidell, to England to argue its case for formal recognition. Seward hoped to intercept the Confederate ship carrying the two former senators, but they had escaped the Union blockade in Charleston and reached Cuba, where they boarded the Trent, a British mail ship. On November 8, Union captain Charles Wilkes, in command of an armed sloop, encountered the Trent. Acting without official orders, he fired a shot across the bow and then proceeded to search the vessel. When Mason and Slidell were found, they were courteously escorted back to the Union sloop San Jacinto and taken to prison at Fort Warren in Boston. The British ship was allowed to continue its journey.
Captain Wilkes became a national hero to a North desperate for good news. “We do not believe the American heart ever thrilled with more genuine delight than it did yesterday, at the intelligence of the capture of Messrs. Slidell and Mason,” the New York Times reported. “If we were to search the whole of Rebeldom, no persons so justly obnoxious to the North, could have been found.” Wilkes was fêted at Faneuil Hall in Boston, and a great banquet was given in his honor. Cameron appeared before a throng of happy Washingtonians and led “three cheers for Captain Wilkes.” Bates recorded “great and general satisfaction” in his diary, while Chase reportedly said he regretted only that the captain had not gone one step further and seized the British ship.
Lincoln, too, seemed pleased at first. In a letter to Edward Everett, he spoke happily of “the items of news coming in last week,” first the Union victory at Port Royal, and “then the capture of Mason & Slidell!” His gratification was soon mingled with anxiety, however, when Britain’s furious reaction to the incident became known. It took nearly three weeks for news of Mason and Slidell’s capture to reach London, but, as The Times reported, the “intelligence spread with wonderful rapidity.” The complex situation was promptly reduced to a slogan: “Outrage on the British flag—the Southern Commissioners Forcibly Removed From a British Mail Steamer.” The London press fulminated against the incident as an explicit violation of the law of nations, demanding “reparation and apology.” Fabricated details of the capture depicted a brutal removal of the Southern commissioners.
Looking to give the supposed transgression a face, the British press focused upon Seward. Though the secretary of state told British officials confidentially that Wilkes had “acted without any instructions from the Government,” thereby sparing the government “the embarrassment which might have resulted if the act had been specially directed by us,” he decided not to speak publicly on the matter. The first public response should come from the British government, Seward maintained. Seward’s silence troubled Thurlow Weed, whom Seward had sent to Europe as an unofficial representative. In one of his daily letters to Washington, Weed warned his oldest friend that “if the taking of the rebels from under the protection of the British flag was intended, and is avowed, and maintained, it means war.” Newspapers reported that steamers in every dockyard were being equipped with troops and supplies, ready to leave at the government’s order. The press continued “fanning the popular flame by promising to clear the sea of the American navy in a month; acknowledge the Southern Confederacy; and, by breaking the blockade, letting out cotton, and letting in British manufactures.” Secessionists in Europe, Weed reported, were “certainly jubilant.”
Moreover, Weed anxiously wrote, word circulated in “high places” that Seward hoped “to provoke a war with England for the purpose of getting Canada.” Animosity toward Seward was widespread, he continued, “how created or why, I know not. It has been skillfully worked. I was told yesterday, repeatedly, that I ought to write the President demanding your dismissal.”
Agitated by the vituperative attacks by the British press, Seward burst into Lincoln’s office on Sunday afternoon, December 15. Orville Browning, who was taking tea with the president at the time, dismissed Seward’s worries, insisting that England would not do “so foolish a thing” as to declare war. Lincoln was not so sure. He recalled a ferocious bulldog in his hometown. While neighbors convinced themselves that they had nothing to fear, one wise man observed: “I know the bulldog will not bite. You know he will not bite, but does the bulldog know he will not bite?”
/> The American press hounded Seward with questions about the affair, but both he and Lord Lyons, the British minister to Washington, remained silent as they awaited the official British response. On December 19, nearly six weeks after the initial incident, “Her Majesty’s Government” finally declared the seizure of the envoys from the British ship “an affront to the national honor,” which could be restored only if the prisoners were freed and returned to “British protection.” In addition, Britain demanded “a suitable apology for the aggression.” If the United States did not agree within a few days, Lyons and the entire British delegation were to pack up and return to Britain. Lyons carried the document to the secretary of state’s office, where he discussed the inflamed situation with Seward. Before presenting the document formally, he agreed to leave a copy so that the secretary and the president might have more time to consider their response. “You will perhaps be surprised to find Mr. Seward on the side of peace,” Lord Lyons wrote to the British foreign minister.
Fred Seward recalled that his father shut himself off from all visitors and “devoted one entire day” to drafting a reply. The astute secretary understood the dilemma perfectly. As a practical matter, the United States could not afford to go to war with Britain. “With England as an auxiliary to rebellion,” Weed had forewarned, “we are ‘crushed out.’” It was necessary that the government release the prisoners and allow them to continue their journey to England. Yet, overwhelming popular support in the North for the seizure of the rebels had to be taken into consideration. “They can never be given up,” one newspaper protested. “The country would never forgive any man who should propose such a surrender.” Lincoln himself, though resolved to avoid war with England, was reportedly unhappy about submitting to the British demands, which many considered humiliating.
Seward composed an ingenious response, arguing that while Captain Wilkes had acted lawfully in searching the Trent, the legality of seizing contraband prisoners should have been decided by an American Prize Court. He recognized, he wrote, that he appeared to be taking “the British side” of the dispute “against my own country,” but he was “really defending and maintaining, not an exclusively British interest, but an old, honored, and cherished American cause.” The principle of referring such disputes to a legal tribunal, he reminded Britain, had been established nearly six decades earlier by Secretary of State James Madison when Britain had seized contraband from American ships in similar fashion. To “deny the justice” of the present British claim would be to “reverse and forever abandon” the very rationale upon which the United States had proudly stood in those earlier disputes. Therefore, in defense of “principles confessedly American,” the government would “cheerfully” free the prisoners and turn them over to Lord Lyons.
Seward presented his arguments in an extraordinary cabinet session on Christmas morning. The discussion continued for four hours. “There was great reluctance on the part of some of the members of the cabinet—and even the President himself” to accept Seward’s argument, Bates recorded. They feared “the displeasure of our own people—lest they should accuse us of timidly truckling to the power of England.” The prospect of returning the prisoners was “gall and wormwood” to Chase. “Rather than consent to the liberation of these men,” he wrote, “I would sacrifice everything I possess.” Only Monty Blair, the consummate realist, stood firmly with Seward at the start. At Lincoln’s invitation, Charles Sumner joined the session. As chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he had conferred with Lincoln frequently during the crisis, asserting that the government should not risk war with England. Sumner had read letters from two respected London officials to Lincoln and Seward, revealing that Britain did not want war and that “if the present dispute were settled amicably Britain would not interfere further in the North’s problems.” The presentations by Seward and Sumner gained some support; but the cabinet, unable to reach a conclusion, decided to meet again the following day to hear Seward present a new draft.
As the meeting adjourned, Lincoln turned to his secretary of state. “Governor Seward, you will go on, of course, preparing your answer, which, as I understand it, will state the reasons why they [the prisoners] ought to be given up. Now I have a mind to try my hand at stating the reasons why they ought not to be given up. We will compare the points on each side.”
Seward finished his twenty-six-page dispatch that night and read it to Chase at his house the next morning before the cabinet convened. After brooding through the night, Chase had concluded that Seward was right. “I am consoled by the reflection that while nothing but severest retribution is due to them, the surrender under existing circumstances, is but simply doing right,” he recorded in his diary.
When the cabinet met the following day, Seward presented his final draft. Though disturbed by the prospect of surrendering the prisoners, the members were relieved that no apology had been rendered and, as Seward boasted, “a great point was gained for our Government.” The dispatch was unanimously adopted. After the meeting, Seward asked Lincoln why he had not presented “an argument for the other side?” With a smile, Lincoln replied, “I found I could not make an argument that would satisfy my own mind, and that proved to me your ground was the right one.”
The following night, Seward hosted a dinner party to which he invited Senators Crittenden and Conkling and their wives, Orville Browning, Charles Sumner, Preston King, and English novelist Anthony Trollope, whom Fanny described as “a great homely, red, stupid faced Englishman, with a disgusting beard of iron grey.” The conversation at dinner was lively and contentious. Kentucky’s Crittenden became enraged when Seward pronounced John Brown “a hero.” Fanny was upset when Crittenden criticized Florence Nightingale, the celebrated British nurse of the Crimean War, saying, “he thought it a very unwomanly thing for a gentle lady to go into a hospital of wounded men.” Fanny saved her retort for her diary. “That was enough of you, Mr. C. if I hadn’t seen you at the table turn your head an[d] spit on the floor cloth.” After dinner, Seward took the men into the cloakroom, where he read his Trent dispatch. The listeners generally commended Seward’s handling of the crisis, though at the end of the reading, Crittenden “swore vehemently.” Everyone assumed the public would be infuriated by the decision and that the publication of the dispatch would “doom [Seward] to unpopularity.”
In the end, the public greeted the dispatch with relief, not anger. Compared to the prospect of fighting both a civil war and a foreign war at the same time, the release of the two prisoners seemed inconsequential. “The general acquiescence in this concession is a good sign,” George Templeton Strong observed. “It looks like willingness to pass over affronts that touch the democracy in its tenderest point for the sake of concentrating all our national energies on the trampling out of domestic treason.”
Lincoln himself finally recognized both the diplomatic logic and the absolute necessity of giving up the prisoners. And he was willing to admit that, in this case, his secretary of state had pursued the right course all along—a characteristic response that Fred Seward fully appreciated. “Presidents and Kings are not apt to see flaws in their own arguments,” he wrote, “but fortunately for the Union, it had a President, at this critical juncture, who combined a logical intellect with an unselfish heart.”
WITH THE RETURN OF CONGRESS for the winter session, the pace of social life in Washington quickened. “Houses are being fitted for winter gayeties, rich dresses and laughing faces pass on every side,” reported Iowa State Register columnist Mrs. Cara Kasson, wife of the assistant postmaster general, who wrote under the pseudonym of “Miriam.” The city is “thronged with strangers, every nook and corner is occupied with…lookers-on at this swiftly-moving Panorama of life in the Capital.”
The crowds who streamed into the White House receptions that winter found a mansion transformed by Mary Lincoln’s tireless efforts. Peeling walls had been stripped and covered with elegant Parisian wallpaper. New sets of china adorned the tables. Magnifice
nt new rugs replaced their threadbare predecessors. Even one of Mary’s severest critics, Mary Clemmer Ames, grudgingly admitted that the new rugs were magnificent. She considered the velvet one in the East Room the “most exquisite carpet ever” to cover the historic floor. “Its ground was of pale sea green, and in effect looked as if [the] ocean, in gleaming and transparent waves, were tossing roses at your feet.” A California journalist praised the finished product highly: “The President’s house has once more assumed the appearance of comfort and comparative beauty.”
The historian George Bancroft reported favorably to his wife about a visit with the first lady, who was able with equal charm to discuss her plans for the “elegant fitting up of Mr. Lincoln’s room” and to “discourse eloquently” on a recent military review. Bancroft “came home entranced.” Mary “is better in manners and in spirit than we have generally heard: is friendly and not in the least arrogant.”
As the bills came in, however, Mary discovered that she had overspent the $20,000 allowance by more than $6,800. Afraid to inform her husband, she inveigled John Watt, the White House groundskeeper, to inflate his expense accounts and funnel the extra money over to her. She had replaced her first Commissioner of Public Buildings after he refused to pay for an elaborate White House dinner from the manure account. She exchanged her patronage influence for reduced bills, and accepted gifts from wealthy donors. At one point, she asked John Hay to turn over the White House stationery fund for her use, and later to pay her as the White House steward. “I told her to kiss mine,” Hay jokingly informed Nicolay. “Was I right?” Mary was irate when Hay denied her requests. She tried to have him fired, forever losing his goodwill. “The devil is abroad, having great wrath,” he confided to Nicolay. “His daughter, the Hell-Cat…is in ‘a state of mind’ about the Steward’s salary.”
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