THE PRESIDENT’S REELECTION CAMPAIGN received a significant boost when the long-delayed Democratic Convention finally met on August 29,1864. Until this moment, when a candidate would be chosen and a platform written, Nicolay wrote, anxious Republicans had imagined “giants in the airy and unsubstantial shadows of the opposition.” Brooks, who had traveled to Chicago to cover the convention, agreed. He attributed the despondent mood that had overtaken Republicans in July and August to the fact that “we have had nothing to solidify and compact us; a platform and candidate from here will materially change all this.”
Although Democrats had cheerfully capitalized all summer long on dissensions within the Republican camp, their own party was rent by the anger between War Democrats who supported a continuation of the war until reunion (though not abolition) was assured and Peace Democrats, who called for an immediate armistice at any cost. “They have a peace leg and a war leg,” New York Herald editor James Gordon Bennett noted, “but, like a stork by a frog pond, they are as yet undecided which to rest upon.” When the convention opened, Noah Brooks reported, it seemed as if the Peace Democrats had the upper hand. “It was noticeable that peace men and measures and sentiments were applauded to the echo, while patriotic utterances, what few there were, recieved no response from the crowd.” The playing of “Dixie” was cheered, while Union tunes were met with virtual silence.
Though the peace wing commanded the emotions at the convention hall, it was generally assumed that War Democrat George McClellan would be the nominee. “His partisans are united and have plenty of money,” Brooks observed, “while his opponents are divided as to their own choice.” The peace wing, led by New York governor Horatio Seymour, Congressman Fernando Wood, and former congressman Clement Vallandigham, who had returned from his exile in Canada, floated several possible names but with no consensus. As a result, when the balloting began, McClellan easily won.
If McClellan’s victory “was expected,” George Templeton Strong confided to his diary, “the baseness of the platform on which he is to run was unexpected. Jefferson Davis might have drawn it. The word ‘rebel’ does not occur in it. It contemplates surrender and abasement.” Pressed upon the party by the peace contingent, the platform declared that “after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war,” the time had come to “demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities.” Strong predicted that if McClellan agreed to represent this dishonorable platform, “he condemns his name to infamy.” Indeed, it was rumored that he would “decline a nomination on such terms.” For Democrats, the capitulation called for in their platform proved to be exceedingly ill timed.
Three days later came the stunning news that Atlanta had fallen. “Atlanta is ours, and fairly won,” Sherman wired Washington on September 3. This joyous news, which followed on the heels of Admiral David Farragut’s capture of Mobile Bay, Alabama, prompted Lincoln to order that one hundred guns be fired in Washington and a dozen other cities to celebrate the victories. Jubilant headlines filled Northern newspapers. “Atlanta is ours,” the New York Times repeated. “The foundries, furnaces, rolling-mills, machine-shops, laboratories and railroad repair-shops; the factories of cannon and small arms; of powder, cartridges and percussion caps; of gun carriages, wagons, ambulances, harnesses, shoes and clothing, which have been accumulated at Atlanta, are ours now”—although, unbeknownst to the Times, the departing Confederates had set fire to nearly “everything of military value.” Still, George Templeton Strong instantly understood the importance of Atlanta’s fall. “Glorious news this morning,” he exulted, “it is (coming at this political crisis) the greatest event of the war.”
Seward received the news from the War Department while seated in his library in Auburn, where he had finally escaped for a few days to see his family. He had barely finished reading Stanton’s telegram before a crowd gathered at his house to celebrate. As the news spread, the crowd swelled until it spilled over to the park adjoining his residence. “Flags were hoisted in all parts of the city,” a local correspondent reported, “all the bells commenced ringing, and a salvo of one hundred guns was fired.” At the request of the spirited assemblage, which included “several hundred volunteers, who were waiting to be mustered in,” Seward delivered a spontaneous talk that lasted more than an hour.
Seward’s extemporaneous words were considered by one reporter present to be “one of his most impressive and effective speeches.” He remarked that the twin victories should help inspire the three hundred thousand more men—“volunteers, if you will, drafted men if we must”—necessary “to end the war.” He paid homage not only to the sailors and soldiers but to “the wisdom and the energy of the war Administration,” pointing out that “Farragut’s fleet did not make itself, nor did he make it. It was prepared by the Secretary of the Navy. And he that shall record the history of this war impartially will write that, since the days of Carnot [the military organizer of the French Revolution], no man has organized war with ability equal to that of Stanton.” Seward ended with a moving tribute to his friend and president, telling the crowd that nothing was more important than Lincoln’s reelection. “If we do this, the rebellion will perish and leave no root.” The crowd roared its approval.
When Gideon Welles read Seward’s speech, with its generous praise for the Navy Department, he professed himself delighted. “For a man of not very compact thought…often loose in the expressions of his ideas,” Seward had set forth an argument, Welles believed, that would serve as “the keynote” of the upcoming campaign. Welles understood that Atlanta’s fall would wreak havoc on the plans of his old party, the Democrats. “This intelligence will not be gratifying to the zealous partisans who have just sent out a peace platform, and declared the war a failure…. There is a fatuity in nominating a general and warrior in time of war on a peace platform.”
McClellan, meanwhile, remained secluded at his home in Orange, New Jersey. He found himself under tremendous pressure from both factions of his divided party as he tried to draft his letter of acceptance. War Democrats warned that unless he repudiated the peace platform, his candidacy would be stillborn. Peace Democrats threatened that if he wavered on the proposed armistice, they might “withdraw their support.” He went through six drafts before he finally delivered his letter to the Democratic Nominating Committee at midnight on September 8.
He began with a nod to the peace wing. Had the war been conducted for the sole purpose of preserving the Union, McClellan argued, “the work of reconciliation would have been easy, and we might have reaped the benefits of our many victories on land and sea.” Were he in power, he would “exhaust all the resources of statesmanship” to yield peace. This said, he went on to disavow aspects of the strident demand for peace at any cost, insisting that hostilities would not end without the restoration of the Union. “I could not look in the face of my gallant comrades of the Army and Navy, who have survived so many bloody battles, and tell them that their labors, and the sacrifice of so many of our slain and wounded brethren had been in vain.” The peace men were furious but had no alternative candidate. The stage was set for the fall election.
The fall of Atlanta produced a remarkable transformation in the mood of Republicans. “We are going to win the Presidential election,” Lincoln’s longtime critic Theodore Tilton wrote Nicolay. “All divisions are going to be healed. I have never seen such a sudden lighting up of public mind as since the late victory at Atlanta. This great event, following the Chicago platform—a most villainous political manifesto known to American history!—has secured a sudden unanimity for Mr. Lincoln.” Even he, “never having been a partisan for Mr. Lincoln’s re-election, but the reverse,” was intending to advise everyone he knew “to unite on Mr. Lincoln.”
Leonard Swett, who only weeks before had warned Lincoln that his reelection looked doubtful, believed that God had given the Union its glorious victory to make the floundering ship of state “right itself, as a ship in a storm does after a gre
at wave has nearly capsized it.” Relieved, Thurlow Weed informed Seward that with military success, the “conspiracy against Mr. Lincoln collapsed.”
The changed public mood took Salmon Chase by surprise. He had spent the summer traveling through New England, meeting with abolitionist friends, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Massachusetts governor John Andrew, the writer Richard Henry Dana, Jr., and Congressman Samuel Hooper. He had maintained contact with organizers of the secret meetings being held to pursue the possibility of a new convention to draft an alternative to Lincoln. He had done his best, according to Gideon Welles, “to weaken the President and impair confidence in him…expressing his discontent, not in public speeches but in social intercourse down East.” Now that support for Lincoln had revived, Welles observed, Chase “is beginning to realize that the issue is made up, and no new leaders are to be brought forward, and he will now support Lincoln.”
Deciding to return to Washington to offer his services to Lincoln, Chase stopped en route in New York. There, he had an unsettling conversation with a “gentleman who thought Lincoln very wise—if more radical would have offended conservatives—if more conservative the radicals.” Would this, Chase asked himself, be the “judgment of history?”
When he reached the capital, Chase called on Fessenden, who told him the president would like to see him. News of their meeting spread quickly. “Mr. Chase had a long confab in his visit to the President yesterday after abusing him every where at the north,” Elizabeth Blair told her husband. Two days later, Chase accompanied Stanton to the Soldiers’ Home, where he once again spoke with Lincoln. “I have seen the President twice since I have been here,” Chase told Kate. “Both times third persons were present & there was nothing like private conversation. His manner was evidently intended to be cordial & so were his words: and I hear of nothing but good will from him.”
Graciousness did not satisfy Chase, however. He wanted the president to be more “demonstrative” toward him after an absence of two months. Chase still acknowledged no responsibility for sundering their relationship, believing it was he who had been “wronged and hurt” by the events surrounding his resignation. “I never desired any thing else than his complete success,” Chase insisted, “and never indulged a personal feeling incompatible with absolute fidelity to his Administration.”
Proud of his own magnanimity, Chase professed a “conviction that the cause I love & the general public interests will be best promoted by his election, and I have resolved to join my efforts to those of almost the whole body of my friends in securing it.”
In the weeks that followed, Chase remained true to his word. He traveled by train, boat, and horseback to Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri, delivering dozens of speeches in support of Lincoln’s reelection before overflowing crowds. Meanwhile, the state elections in Vermont and Maine revealed larger Union majorities than the previous year. After the Vermont election, Nicolay wrote a cheery letter to Therena: “Three weeks ago, our friends everywhere were despondent, almost to the point of giving up the contest in despair. Now they are hopeful, jubilant, hard at work and confident of success.”
More good news greeted Republicans on September 19, when Philip Sheridan, having finally caught up with Jubal Early in the Shenandoah Valley, fought a brutal but successful battle that destroyed more than a quarter of Early’s army. The “shouting of Clerks” could be heard in every government department when the news became known. “This will do much to encourage and stimulate all Union loving men,” Welles recorded in his diary.
MILITARY SUCCESS MAY have substantially cleared Lincoln’s road to victory, but a serious obstacle remained in the form of John Frémont’s candidacy. Time and again, a divided party had lost elections when a third-party candidate swayed the final result. To ensure party unity, Lincoln needed the support of the radicals. His task was made difficult by the dissatisfaction of men like Wade and Davis over his conciliatory policy on Reconstruction. In addition, the radicals objected to the continuing presence of Montgomery Blair in the cabinet while Chase had been allowed to resign.
Blair was aware that he had become the target of the radicals’ wrath. When the Baltimore convention passed its resolution essentially calling for his dismissal, he had offered his resignation to Lincoln. Later that summer, his father had repeated Monty’s offer during a visit with Lincoln at the Soldiers’ Home. He assured Lincoln that to heal the party, Monty “would very willingly be a martyr to the Radical phrenzy or jealousy, that would feed on the Blairs, if that would help.” At the time, Lincoln had declined to take action, saying that “he did not think it good policy to sacrifice a true friend to a false one or an avowed enemy.” But the pressure to remove Blair continued to build. Henry Wilson warned Lincoln in early September that “tens of thousands of men will be lost to you or will give a reluctant vote on account of the Blairs.”
The feud between the Blairs and the radicals had rendered cabinet life increasingly unbearable. Monty Blair detested Stanton. He believed the war secretary was in league with Wade and Davis against both the Blair family and the president. He spoke publicly of Stanton with what John Hay considered “unbecoming harshness,” calling him “a liar” and “a thief.” When these intemperate words reached Stanton, he refused to sit in cabinet meetings if Blair was present. In mid-August, Welles observed that the two embittered colleagues had not “interchanged words for weeks.”
Lincoln had no patience for such personal contention. He had warned his cabinet members in July to refrain from criticizing one another in public. He decided that when the opportunity arose, he would take Monty Blair up on his offer to resign. That moment arose when Michigan senator Zachariah Chandler informed him that Blair’s resignation would elicit the support of Wade and Davis for Lincoln’s reelection. Chandler later asserted that the radical senator and congressman were only part of a larger bargain that included Frémont’s agreement to withdraw his candidacy if Blair were removed. Historians have debated the extent of Chandler’s influence on Frémont. By September, the Pathfinder had no hope of winning in any case and realized that his reputation would be sullied if he stayed in the race.
Two facts are clear: On September 22, Frémont announced his withdrawal from the race. Then, on the morning of September 23, Lincoln sent a letter to Monty’s office asking for his resignation. “You have generously said to me more than once,” he began, “that whenever your resignation could be a relief to me, it was at my disposal. The time has come. You very well know that this proceeds from no dissatisfaction of mine with you personally or officially. Your uniform kindness has been unsurpassed by that of any friend.” Moreover, “in the three years and a half during which you have administered the General Post-Office, I remember no single complaint against you in connection therewith.”
Despite his offer to resign, Blair was surprised to find the dismissal letter on his desk. Later that morning, he encountered Welles and Bates coming out of the White House. “I suppose you are both aware that my head is decapitated,” he told them. “I am no longer a member of the Cabinet.” Welles was so stunned that he asked Blair to repeat himself, at which point Blair took the letter from his pocket and read it aloud to his two colleagues. Blair said “he had no doubt he was a peace-offering to Frémont and his friends.” Welles was uncertain, telling Blair that while “pacifying the partisans of Frémont might have been brought into consideration…the President would never have yielded to that.” Welles thought it more likely that Blair had been sacrificed to restore balance to the cabinet after Chase’s resignation. Chase’s partisans clearly “felt wounded” that their man was gone while his assailant remained. The removal of Blair would allow Lincoln to “reconcile all parties, and rid the Administration of irritating bickerings.” Lincoln chose the former governor of Ohio, William Dennison, to succeed Blair.
Welles was saddened by Blair’s departure. “In parting with Blair,” Welles recorded in his diary, “the President parts with a true friend, and he l
eaves no adviser so able sagacious. Honest, truthful and sincere, he has been wise, discriminating and correct.” In the days that followed, Welles came to view “the removal of Montgomery from our counsels as the greatest misfortune that had befallen the Cabinet.” Bates was equally distressed. Though he did not consider himself so intimate with Blair, he respected his straight-speaking colleague and believed Lincoln had erred in making a bargain for Wade and Davis. “I think Mr. Lincoln could have been elected without them and in spite of them. In that event, the Country might have been governed, free from their malign influences.”
Although Blair was hurt by a dismissal that he felt was “an unnecessary mortification,” he remained certain, he told his wife, that Lincoln had acted “from the best motives” and that “it is for the best all around.” His father wholeheartedly agreed. “In my opinion it is all for the best,” he told Frank, no doubt worried that his fiery son would make some regrettable public remark. The patriarch suggested that Monty himself had “pressed this matter” by intimating to Frémont’s friends that he would resign if Frémont withdrew. In the end, the senior Blair concluded, “if it tends to give a greater certainty of the defeat of McClellan, which I look upon as the salvation of the Republic, it is well…. I hope you will concur with the views I have taken. The true interests of the Country require the reelection of Lincoln.”
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