Lincoln’s old friend Norman Judd called on the president the evening of the annual address. He speculated that, given the radical tone of the document, Blair and Bates “must walk the plank.” On the contrary, Lincoln assured him, both “acquiesced in it without objection. The only member of the Cabinet who objected to it was Mr. Chase.”
Chase had obstinately demanded a requirement for states to prove their “sincerity” by changing their constitutions to perpetuate emancipation. This legitimate objection had the felicitous effect of allowing Chase to stay in front of Lincoln on Reconstruction in order to cement his standing in radical circles. While Republicans of all stripes praised the message, Chase expressed disappointment. Writing to the abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, he said he had tried but failed to get Lincoln to make it “more positive and less qualified…. But I suppose I must use Touchstone’s philosophy & be thankful for skim milk when cream is not to be had.”
LINCOLN APPROACHED the Christmas season in high spirits. As he said in his annual message, he detected a more hopeful mood in the country after the “dark and doubtful days” following the Emancipation Proclamation. The fall elections had been “highly encouraging”; the rebels had been defeated in a series of recent battles; and the opening round in the debate over Reconstruction had gone surprisingly well.
Early in December, Lincoln translated his rhetoric about forgiveness and reconciliation into action when he invited his sister-in-law, Emilie Helm, to stay at the White House. Emilie’s husband, Ben, had disappointed Lincoln in the early days of the war by taking a commission in the Confederate Army instead of Lincoln’s offer of the Union Army paymaster’s position. Helm was fatally wounded in Tennessee at the Battle of Chickamauga, where he commanded the First Kentucky Brigade. Judge Davis saw Lincoln shortly after he received the news of Helm’s death. “I never saw Mr. Lincoln more moved than when he heard that his young brother-in-law, Ben Hardin Helm, scarcely thirty-two years of age, had been killed,” Davis said. “I saw how grief-stricken he was…so I closed the door and left him alone.”
Emilie had been living with her young daughter in Selma, Alabama, when she learned that her wounded husband had been taken to Atlanta. She reached the hospital minutes too late. Alone in Atlanta, she had no desire to return to Selma, where she had moved only for its proximity to her husband’s post. Now she desperately wanted to see her mother in Kentucky. Confederate general Braxton Bragg unsuccessfully sought through Grant to secure a pass for her through Union lines. Helm’s father then wrote to Betsy Todd, Mary’s stepmother, in Lexington, Kentucky. “I am totally at a loss to know how to begin. Could you or one of your daughters write to Mrs. Lincoln and through her secure a pass?”
Four days later, Lincoln personally issued a pass allowing Mrs. Todd “to go south and bring her daughter…with her children, North to Kentucky.” When Emilie arrived at Fort Monroe, however, the officials demanded that she take the oath of allegiance to the United States. Unable to contemplate such a momentous step so soon after her husband’s death in the Confederate cause, she refused. The officials sent a telegram to the president, explaining the dilemma. They received a prompt directive: “Send her to me.”
After weeks of uncertainty, the young widow was received at the White House by the president and first lady “with the warmest affection.” The three of them, Emilie wrote in her diary, were “all too grief-stricken at first for speech.” The Lincolns had lost Willie, Emilie had lost her husband, and the two sisters had lost three brothers in the Confederate Army—Sam Todd at Shiloh, David Todd from wounds at Vicksburg, and little Alexander, Mary’s favorite baby brother, at Baton Rouge.
Families rent apart by the Civil War abounded in border states such as Missouri or Kentucky, the ancestral home of the Todds. The reality of “brother fighting brother” lent an intimate horror to the idea of a nation divided. “Often the boundaries separating people of opposing loyalties,” the historian John Shaffer writes, “were nothing more than the property line between two farms, or a table over which members of the same family argued and ultimately chose sides.”
That night, as Mary and Emilie dined alone, they carefully avoided mention of the war, which “comes between us,” Emilie acknowledged, “like a barrier of granite closing our lips.” They talked instead of old times and of old friends. Emilie marveled at Mary’s “fine tact,” which allowed her to “so quickly turn a dangerous subject into other channels.” In the days that followed, Mary did her utmost to deflect her sister’s mind from her sorrow. She gave her the Prince of Wales guest room, took her for long carriage rides, made sure Emilie’s little daughter was entertained, and sat with her at night in the drawing room before the light and warmth of a blazing fire.
Emilie’s visit provided solace for both sisters. One night after Emilie had gone to her room, Mary knocked on the door, intending to share an experience that she could not readily discuss with others. She wanted Emilie to know that in her own grief over Willie’s death, she now was comforted by the belief that his spirit was still present. “He comes to me every night,” she told Emilie, “with the same sweet, adorable smile he has always had; he does not always come alone; little Eddie is sometimes with him and twice he has come with our brother Alec, he tells me he loves his Uncle Alec and is with him most of the time.”
The vision of spiritual harmony between Willie and Alec seemed to promise a day when the Todd family would again be united, and the devastating divisions between North and South would be dissolved by history. Then Mary herself would no longer be “the scape-goat” for both sides. “You cannot dream of the comfort this gives me,” she told her sister, speaking “with a thrill in her voice” that Emilie would long remember.
Sadly for Mary, her reconciliation with her Confederate sister had some troubling consequences. Lincoln had tried to keep Emilie’s visit a secret, knowing that it would give rise to intense criticism at a time when Northerners were still punished for fraternizing with the enemy. On December 14, he confided her presence to Browning but cautioned that “he did not wish it known.” When two of Mary’s friends, General Daniel Sickles and Senator Ira Harris, called on her one night, however, Mary let down her guard and invited Emilie to join them. Both men were loyal to Lincoln and had been regulars at Mary’s drawing room salons. Lincoln had personally attended Sickles when Sickles returned to Washington after losing a leg at Gettysburg. Sickles had been in severe pain at the time, but Lincoln’s cheerful presence at his bedside had helped to restore his spirits. Mary also considered Harris a special friend, recalling years later how he invariably brightened her drawing room with his merriment.
Still, neither Sickles nor Harris could tolerate the presence of a traitor in the home of the commander in chief. Emilie recorded the events in her diary. No sooner had she entered the room than Senator Harris turned to her, a triumphant tone in his voice. “Well, we have whipped the rebels at Chattanooga and I hear, madam, that the scoundrels ran like scared rabbits.” Emilie replied, “It was the example, Senator Harris, that you set them at Bull Run and Manassas.”
The conversation degenerated rapidly. Mary’s face “turned white as death” when Senator Harris asked why Robert Lincoln had not joined the army. “If fault there be, it is mine,” Mary replied. “I have insisted that he should stay in college a little longer.” She did not state her underlying terror that she would lose another son. “I have only one son and he is fighting for his country,” Harris countered. “And, Madam,” he said, turning to Emilie, “If I had twenty sons they should all be fighting the rebels.”
“And if I had twenty sons,” Emilie coldly replied, “they should all be opposing yours.” This brought the evening to an abrupt close. Emilie fled the room with Mary close behind. The sisters threw their arms around each other and wept. The hot-tempered General Sickles insisted on reporting directly to Lincoln on what had happened. John Stuart, who was present, recalled that after Lincoln heard the tale, his “eyes twinkled,” and he told the general, “The child has
a tongue like the rest of the Todds.”
Lincoln’s remark apparently infuriated Sickles, who said “in a loud, dictatorial voice, slapping the table with his hand, ‘You should not have that rebel in your house.’”
“Excuse me, General Sickles,” Lincoln replied, “my wife and I are in the habit of choosing our own guests. We do not need from our friends either advice or assistance in the matter.”
The nasty confrontation in the Red Room prompted Emilie to leave, despite the protestations of Lincoln and Mary. “Oh, Emilie,” Mary lamented, “will we ever awake from this hideous nightmare?”
LINCOLN REFUSED TO LET the unpleasant experience destroy his good humor. As Emilie and Mary said their goodbyes, he took Nicolay and Hay to Ford’s Theatre to see James Hackett play Falstaff in Henry IV. Afterward, he engaged his aides in a lively conversation about the play. The next day, at the regular Tuesday cabinet meeting, Welles found him “in fine spirits.” Eager for distraction, Lincoln returned to Ford’s Theatre two days later for The Merry Wives of Windsor. The following evening, he “was greeted with loud applause” at Willard’s Hall as he arrived for a lecture on Russia by the diplomat Bayard Taylor.
The next week, Lincoln related a peculiarly pleasant dream. He was at a party, he told Hay, and overheard one of the guests say of him, “He is a very common-looking man.” In the dream, he relished his reply: “The Lord prefers Common-looking people that is the reason he makes so many of them.” His dreamed response still amused him as he recalled it the next day.
The holiday season found most of the cabinet in cheerful spirits as well. Seward entertained the members of the visiting Russian fleet in his usual lavish style: a four-course meal, served with an unlimited supply of the best wine. As the ladies took tea in the parlor, the men adjourned to the sitting room, where Fred Seward recalled that “the conversation would often be continued for two or three hours in a cloud of smoke.”
Edward Bates, too, had reason to be gladdened. Though he remained despondent over the defection of his son Fleming to the Confederate Army, the rest of his large brood were doing well. Coalter had fought at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and remained on General Meade’s staff. Woodson would soon graduate from West Point. Barton and Julian were both in Missouri, where Barton was a judge of the state Supreme Court and Julian a surgeon in the Missouri militia. His two daughters lived with the family at home. Even Dick, his troubled eighth child, who had struggled with alcoholism, seemed to be improving.
Of all the causes for holiday thanksgiving, Bates was most grateful for his wife’s complete return to health after her stroke. After forty years of marriage, he still believed that “no man has been more blessed.” He was proud to make the rare claim that “in all that time,” Julia had never committed “an unkind act” toward him, nor spoken a disparaging word against him. On Christmas Day, he attended a funeral for the wife of one of his closest friends. The couple had been married for more than half a century. “I know not how he can bear the loss of such a companion,” he wrote, speaking for himself as well as for his friend. “I am prepared to see him sink rapidly and die soon.”
Christmas Day found Welles rejoicing at his son Edgar’s return from Kenyon College, though holiday festivities immediately brought back memories of the children he had lost. “The glad faces and loving childish voices that cheered our household with ‘Merry Christmas’ in years gone by are silent on earth forever.” His mood was lightened, however, by the situation in the country. “The year closes more satisfactorily than it commenced,” he wrote; “the heart of the nation is sounder and its hopes brighter.” Although the president still faced “trying circumstances,” Welles predicted that his leadership would “be better appreciated in the future than now.”
The Stantons’ domestic life had brightened with the birth of a new baby girl, Bessie, eleven months after the death of their infant son, James. As Ellen prepared for the baptismal celebration, Stanton spent Christmas visiting wounded soldiers. He shared with the men his renewed faith that “when the next anniversary of the day you are now celebrating occurs, this war will be ended, and you will have returned to your homes and your firesides. When you shall have so returned, you will be considered as honored guests of the nation.”
Lincoln invited Stanton to accompany him “down the river” to visit the Union prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland. He had heard that a significant number of the rebel prisoners had expressed willingness to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and swear acceptance of emancipation in return for a full presidential pardon. The general in charge of the prison confirmed this hopeful intelligence when Lincoln and Stanton arrived, prompting Stanton to make plans for carrying Lincoln’s “10% plan” into the Deep South, where it might spur further disaffection in Confederate strongholds.
As 1863 drew to a close, even the carping Count Gurowski had to admit that the Union’s position had improved. “Oh! dying year! you will record that the American people increased its sacrifices in proportion to its dangers; that blood, time, and money were cheerfully thrown into the balance against treason—inside and outside. And brighter hopes dawn.” The surly count remained unwilling to acknowledge the president’s role in the improved situation, but other former critics revealed a new appreciation of Lincoln. Charles Francis Adams, the American minister to Britain, had been unimpressed by his first encounter with Lincoln in 1861, describing him as “a tall, illfavored man, with little grace of manner or polish of appearance.” After several awkward meetings, the haughty Adams had concluded that Lincoln did not belong to the same “sphere of civilization” as the rest of official Washington. The first six months of the administration further confirmed this low estimation. Adams saw in Lincoln no “heroic qualities” whatsoever and was convinced that he was “not equal to the gravity of his position.” But by the end of 1863, Adams had drastically altered his assessment.
At a festive dinner for loyal Americans in St. James’s Hall in London, Adams delivered an eloquent speech praising Lincoln’s leadership. He reminded his listeners of the dire situation the new president had faced arriving in Washington when “the edifice of Government seemed crumbling around him.” Treachery reigned in every department. Traitors at Treasury had undermined the country’s credit, the foreign service was replete with secessionists, and both the army and the navy had to be completely rebuilt. Few believed that this novice, who “came to his post with less of practical experience in the Government than any individual,” was equal to the task. Nevertheless, the past three years had seen treason excised from the government; European nations had come to look upon the North with respect; the Treasury was flush with funds to support the armed forces; the army had grown to “half a million men,” and the navy was now “respected upon every sea in all parts of the globe.” All this had been accomplished, Adams acknowledged, with a remnant tinge of condescension, not because Lincoln possessed “any superior genius” but because he, “from the beginning to the end, impressed upon the people the conviction of his honesty and fidelity to one great purpose.”
James Russell Lowell, a Harvard professor considered the “foremost American man of letters in his time,” revealed a more incisive view of Lincoln’s qualities. In a long article for the North American Review, which Lincoln read with pleasure, Lowell traced the progress of the Lincoln administration. “Never did a President enter upon office with less means at his command,” he began. “All that was known of him was that he was a good stump-speaker, nominated for his availability,—that is, because he had no history.” For many months, Lowell observed, the untried president seemed too hesitant—on military engagements, on emancipation, on recruiting black troops. Increasingly, it was becoming evident that this Abraham Lincoln was “a character of marked individuality and capacity for affairs.” In a democratic nation, Lowell added, “where the rough and ready understanding of the people is sure at last to be the controlling power, a profound common-sense is the best genius for statesmanship.” Lincoln
had demonstrated a perfectly calibrated touch for public sentiment and impeccable timing in his introduction of new measures. While some thought he had delayed his decision on emancipation too long, he undoubtedly had a “sure-footed understanding” of the American people. Similarly, when the first black regiments were formed, many feared that “something terrible” would happen, “but the earth stood firm.”
“Mr. Lincoln’s perilous task has been to carry a rather shackly raft through the rapids, making fast the unrulier logs as he could snatch opportunity,” concluded Lowell, “and the country is to be congratulated that he did not think it his duty to run straight at all hazards, but cautiously to assure himself with his setting-pole where the main current was, and keep steadily to that.”
Despite the remarkable transformations of the previous three years, Lowell understood that the raft was “still in wild water.” So, of course, did Lincoln. The president recommended the Lowell piece to Gideon Welles, telling him it presented a “very excellent” discussion of the administration’s policy, but that it “gave him over-much credit.”
CHAPTER 23
“THERE’S A MAN IN IT!”
NEW YEAR’S DAY, 1864, dawned “fearfully cold and windy,” Noah Brooks recorded, and “the morning newspaper and the milkman were alike snapped up by the nipping frosts.” Eventually, a bright sun scattered the clouds, and a mood of good cheer enveloped the city as the National Republican headlined the long list of Union victories during the previous year—“Murfreesboro, Vicksburg, Morris Island, Gettysburg, Port Hudson, Chattanooga, Knoxville.”
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