Team of Rivals

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  “I want to dance…he certainly did”: Katherine Helm, The True Story of Mary, Wife of Lincoln (New York and London: Harper & Bros., 1928), p. 74.

  children born, and one buried in Springfield: AL, “Farewell Address at Springfield, Illinois,” February 11, 1861, in The Collected Works of Lincoln, Vol. IV, ed. Roy P. Basler (8 vols., New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 190.

  “two-story”…no garden: New York Evening Post, reprinted in Albany Evening Journal, May 24, 1860 (quote); Utica Morning Herald, reprinted in NYTrib, July 9, 1860; Frances Todd Wallace interview, [1865–1866], in HI, p. 486.

  “The adornments…chastely appropriate”: Utica Morning Herald, reprinted in NYTrib, July 9, 1860.

  “the customary little table”: Carl Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz. Vol. II: 1852–1863 (New York: McClure Co., 1907), p. 188.

  “Everything tended to represent…showy display”: Springfield [Mass.] Republican, May 23, 1860.

  “moving heaven & Earth”: David Davis and Jesse K. Dubois to AL, May 15, 1860, Lincoln Papers.

  “a big brain and a big heart”: Mrs. John A. Logan, quoted by Allan Nevins in foreword to Willard L. King, Lincoln’s Manager: David Davis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. xi.

  Norman Judd: Ibid., pp. 128–29.

  he knew Lincoln “as intimately”: Leonard Swett, quoted in Osborn H. Oldroyd, Lincoln’s Campaign, or The Political Revolution of 1860 (Chicago: Laird & Lee, 1896), p. 70.

  the “circuit”: Henry Clay Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, introduction and notes by Paul M. Angle (Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxon Printers, 1940), pp. 61–88; see “Travelling on the Circuit,” chapter 15 in Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I (New York: S. S. McClure Co., 1895; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917), pp. 241–56.

  Lincoln…the center of attention: Henry C. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen. Vol. I of A Life of Lincoln (1892; New York: Baker & Taylor Co., 1908), pp. 190–91; William H. Herndon, A Letter from William H. Herndon to Isaac N. Arnold Relating to Abraham Lincoln, His Wife, and Their Life in Springfield (privately printed, 1937).

  crowds of villagers: Francis Fisher Browne, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln (New York: N. D. Thompson Publishing Co., 1886; Lincoln, Nebr., and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), p. 158.

  emboldened his quest for office: David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 106.

  “broke down…mutual trust”: Robert H. Wiebe, “Lincoln’s Fraternal Democracy,” in John L. Thomas, ed., Abraham Lincoln and the American Political Tradition (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), p. 19.

  disparate elements of…Republican Party: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Old Northwest. Harvard Historical Studies, Vol. VI (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1897; New York: Russell & Russell, 1967), p. 1; William Lee Miller, Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), p. 317.

  “Of strange, discordant… fought the battle through”: AL, “A House Divided”: Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858, in CW, II, p. 468.

  when speech-making prowess: Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow / Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 36.

  “from sun-up til sun-down”: Christine Ann Fidler, “Young Limbs of the Law: Law Students, Legal Education and the Occupational Culture of Attorneys, 1820–1860.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1996, p. 165.

  attendance at Cooper Union speech: Benjamin P. Thomas, Abraham Lincoln: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), p. 202.

  “one of the happiest…New York audience”: NYTrib, February 28, 1860.

  state convention at Decatur: Press and Tribune, Chicago, May 11, 1860; Don E. Fehrenbacher, Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962), p. 148.

  “the Rail Candidate for President”: NYH, May 24, 1860.

  “with no clogs…rights of the South”: Press and Tribune, Chicago, May 15, 1860. The Press and Tribune became the Tribune on October 25, 1860.

  “new in the field…very great many”: AL to Sam Galloway, March 24, 1860, in CW, IV, p. 34.

  “in a mood to come…their first love”: Ibid.

  “We are laboring…for any result”: Nathan M. Knapp to AL, May 14, 1860, Lincoln Papers.

  “Am very hopeful…be Excited”: David Davis to AL, May 17, 1860, Lincoln Papers.

  Lincoln stretched…“and practice law”: Conkling, “How Mr. Lincoln Received the News,” Transactions (1909), pp. 64–65.

  Seward typically rose: Frederick W. Seward, William H. Seward: An Autobiography from 1801 to 1834, with a Memoir of His Life, and Selections from His Letters, 1831–1846 (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1877), p. 658 [hereafter Seward, An Autobiography]; Frederick W. Seward, Seward at Washington, as Senator and Secretary of State. A Memoir of His Life, with Selections from His Letters, 1846–1861 (New York: Derby & Miller, 1891), p. 203.

  description of Seward mansion: Interview with Betty Mae Lewis, curator of Seward House, Auburn, N.Y., 1999 [hereafter Lewis interview]; The Seward House (Auburn, N.Y.: The Foundation Historical Association, 1955); NYH, August 27, 1860.

  Seward’s interest in gardening: Seward, An Autobiography, pp. 368, 657–58.

  “a lover’s interest”: WHS to [TW?], April 12, 1835, in ibid., p. 257.

  “came in to the table…that was exhausted”: Ibid., pp. 658, 461, 481; Lewis interview.

  “The cannoneers…joyful news”: Auburn Democrat, reprinted in the Atlas and Argus, Albany, N.Y., May 28, 1860.

  weather conditions: WHS to FAS, December 17, 1834, reel 112, Seward Papers; Patricia C. Johnson, “Sensitivity and Civil War: The Selected Diaries and Papers, 1858–1866, of Frances Adeline [Fanny] Seward.” Ph.D. diss, University of Rochester, 1963, pp. 1–2.

  Visitors had come…Weedsport to the north: Henry B. Stanton, Random Recollections, 3rd edn. (New York: Harper & Bros., 1887), p. 215.

  Local restaurants had stocked up: NYH, August 27, 1860; Auburn Democrat, reprinted in the Atlas and Argus, Albany, N.Y., May 28, 1860.

  the vigorous senator: See Glyndon G. Van Deusen, William Henry Seward (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 255–57, 263.

  New York Herald…“dauntless and intrepid”: NYH, August 27, 1860.

  slender frame…“most glorious original”: Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., December 9, 1860, in Letters of Henry Adams (1858–1891), Vol. I., ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1930), p. 63.

  physical description of Seward: John M. Taylor, William Henry Seward: Lincoln’s Right Hand (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 17; Burton J. Hendrick, Lincoln’s War Cabinet (Boston, Little, Brown, 1946), p. 8; Johnson, “Sensitivity and Civil War,” pp. 11, 56–57; Frederic Bancroft, The Life of William H. Seward, Vol. I (New York: Harper & Bros., 1899; Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1967), p. 184.

  “school-boy elasticity…slashing swagger”: Murat Halstead, Three Against Lincoln: Murat Halstead Reports the Caucuses of 1860, ed. William B. Hesseltine (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1960), p. 120.

  Every room…by Washington Irving: Lewis interview; The Seward House, pp. 5–6, 12, 16, 23, 26; Seward, An Autobiography, pp. 440, 677; Susan Sutton Smith, “Mr. Seward’s Home,” University of Rochester Library Bulletin 31 (Autumn 1978), pp. 69–93.

  “the honor in question…of its principles”: National Intelligencer, Washington, D.C., May 19, 1860.

  “No press has opposed…leadership of the man”: Atlas and Argus, Albany, N.Y., May 19, 1860.

  valedictory speech to the Senate: Bancroft, The Life of William H. Seward, Vol. I, p. 522; Van Deusen, William Henry Seward, p. 222; entry for May 13, 1860, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, reel 75, microfilms of The Adams Papers owned by the Adams Manuscript Trust and deposited in the Massachusetts Historical Society, Part I (
Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1954) [hereafter Charles Francis Adams diary].

  love of Auburn: Seward, An Autobiography, p. 744.

  “free to act…to die”: Auburn Journal, December 31, 1859, reprinted in Albany Evening Journal, Albany, N.Y., January 3, 1860.

  Auburn in the 1860s: Johnson, “Sensitivity and Civil War,” pp. 2–3.

  Seward had arrived…Cayuga County: Van Deusen, William Henry Seward, pp. 6–7.

  description of Frances: Ibid., p. 10; Taylor, William Henry Seward, pp. 18–19.

  death of Cornelia: Van Deusen, William Henry Seward, p. 37.

  slow to take up the Republican banner: Clarence Edward Macartney, Lincoln and His Cabinet (New York and London: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931), pp. 94–95.

  “would inspire a cow…language”: Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., December 9, 1860, Letters of Henry Adams (1858–1891), Vol. I, p. 62.

  the “leader of the political…pass-words of our combatants”: Schurz, Reminiscences, Vol. II, pp. 173–74.

  his exuberant personality…yellow pantaloons: Hendrick, Lincoln’s War Cabinet, p. 8; Johnson, “Sensitivity and Civil War,” p. 57.

  an aura of inevitability: Halstead, Three Against Lincoln, p. 120.

  “Men might love…ignore him”: Glyndon G. Van Deusen, “Thurlow Weed: A Character Study,” American Historical Review XLIX (April 1944), p. 427.

  “as a hen does its chicks”: Hendrick, Lincoln’s War Cabinet, p. 17.

  an exceptional team: Richard L. Watson, Jr., “Thurlow Weed, Political Boss,” New York History 22 (October 1941), p. 415.

  “Seward is Weed”: WHS, quoted in Gideon Welles, Lincoln and Seward Remarks Upon the Memorial Address of Chas. Francis Adams, on the Late Wm. H. Seward… (New York: Sheldon & Co., 1874), p. 23.

  Weed certainly understood…created jealousy: Van Deusen, William Henry Seward, pp. 216, 222–23.

  Weed believed…emerge the victor: TW to WHS, May 20, 1860, reel 59, Seward Papers.

  Members…confirmed Weed’s assessment: Mary King Clark, “Lincoln’s Nomination As Seen By a Young Girl from New York,” Putnam’s Magazine 5 (February 1909), pp. 536–37.

  “no cause for doubting…to the result”: James Watson Webb to WHS, May 16, 1860, reel 59, Seward Papers.

  “Your friends…a few ballots”: Elbridge Gerry Spaulding to WHS, May 17, 1860, reel 59, Seward Papers.

  “All right…today sure”: Telegram from Preston King, William M. Evarts, and Richard M. Blatchford to WHS, May 18, 1860, reel 59, Seward Papers.

  Gothic mansion…State and Sixth Streets: “History of the Chase House,” article in the Central Ohio Buildings File, Local History Room, Columbus Metropolitan Library, Columbus, Ohio; William Dean Howells, Years of My Youth (New York and London: Harper & Bros., 1916; 1917), p. 153.

  Brass bands…were revealed: Daily Ohio Statesman, Columbus, Ohio, May 19, 1860.

  Chase’s height, physical description: Albert Bushnell Hart, Salmon P. Chase, introduction by G. S. Boritt. American Statesmen Series (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1899; New York and London: Chelsea House, 1980), p. 415; Hendrick, Lincoln’s War Cabinet, p. 32.

  “looked…statesman to look”: Schurz, Reminiscences, Vol. II, p. 34.

  “he is one of…splendor and brilliancy”: Troy [N.Y.] Times, October 18, 1860, quoted in Columbus Gazette, November 2, 1860.

  “an arresting duality…the world”: Thomas Graham Belden and Marva Robins Belden, So Fell the Angels (Boston: Little, Brown, 1956), p. 4.

  dressed with meticulous care: Hart, Salmon P. Chase, p. 415.

  so nearsighted: John Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 79, 173, 193.

  man of unbending routine: Virginia Tatnall Peacock, Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century (1900; Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1970), p. 211; Demarest Lloyd, “The Home-Life of Salmon Portland Chase,” Atlantic Monthly 32 (November 1873), pp. 528, 530–31, 536, 538; Niven, Salmon P. Chase, pp. 203–05; J. W. Schuckers, The Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase, United States Senator and Governor of Ohio; Secretary of the Treasury, and Chief-Justice of the United States (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1874), p. 595; Schurz, Reminiscences, Vol. II, pp. 169–70.

  On the rare nights: Lloyd, “Home-Life of Salmon Portland Chase,” Atlantic Monthly, pp. 529 (quote), 531; Peacock, Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century, pp. 211–12; Ishbel Ross, Proud Kate: Portrait of an Ambitious Woman (New York: Harper & Bros., 1953), p. 37.

  items in Chase home: SPC to KCS, December 3, 4, 5, and 6, 1857, reel 11, Chase Papers.

  dogs…“designed and posed”: Doster, Lincoln and Episodes of the Civil War, p. 173.

  description of Columbus in 1860: Howells, Years of My Youth, pp. 134, 169, 181 (quote); Francis Phelps Weisenburger, Columbus during the Civil War (n.p.: Ohio State University Press for the Ohio Historical Society, 1963), pp. 3–4.

  new Capitol building: Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. I, Ohio Centennial Edition (Norwalk, Ohio: Laning Printing Co., 1896), p. 621 (quote); Writers’ Program of the Works Projects Administration, comps., The Ohio Guide, sponsored by Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1940; 1948), pp. 251, 254.

  contrast between Seward and Chase: Hendrick, Lincoln’s War Cabinet, p. 36; Johnson, “Sensitivity and Civil War,” pp. 58–59.

  recoiled from all games of chance: SPC to KCS, September 15, 1854, reel 10, Chase Papers; Lloyd, “Home-Life of Salmon Portland Chase,” Atlantic Monthly, pp. 529, 531.

  “he seldom…without spoiling it”: Lloyd, “Home-Life of Salmon Portland Chase,” Atlantic Monthly, p. 536.

  Kate’s education: Belden and Belden, So Fell the Angels, p. 15; Ross, Proud Kate, pp. 19–22, 34.

  “In a few years…anything else”: SPC to KCS, December 20, 1853, reel 9, Chase Papers.

  absolutely essential: Belden and Belden, So Fell the Angels, pp. 16, 18, 21–22; Niven, Salmon P. Chase, pp. 202–03.

  “She did everything…another Mrs. Chase”: Belden and Belden, So Fell the Angels, p. 22.

  Chase treated his…younger daughter: Peacock, Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century, p. 207.

  Chase was actually more radical than Seward: Hart, Salmon P. Chase, pp. 423, 429.

  “There may have been…ideas as he”: Ibid., p. 434.

  “In the long run…than did Chase”: William E. Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852–1856 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 192.

  “A very large body…spontaneous growth”: SPC to Gamaliel Bailey, January 24, 1859, reel 12, Chase Papers.

  “I arrived early…he should be President”: Schurz, Reminiscences, Vol. II, pp. 169–72.

  “desirable…our best men”: SPC to Robert Hosea, March 18, 1860, reel 13, Chase Papers.

  “No man…more competent”: Ohio State Journal, Columbus, Ohio, March 12, 1860.

  “steady devotion…beyond the State”: Ibid., May 21, 1860.

  refused to engage in the practical methods: Niven, Salmon P. Chase, pp. 214–17; Hart, Salmon P. Chase, p. 428.

  “if the most cherished…could prevail”: SPC to Edward S. Hamlin, June 12, 1856, reel 11, Chase Papers.

  “Now is the time…topmost wave”: Calvin Ellis Stowe to SPC, March 30, 1858, reel 12, Chase Papers.

  “There is reason to hope”: SPC to James A Briggs, from Wheeling, Va., May 8, 1860, reel 13, Chase Papers.

  Judge Edward Bates awaited: Marvin R. Cain, Lincoln’s Attorney General: Edward Bates of Missouri (Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1965), p. 115.

  Grape Hill: Entry of September 28, 1859, Orville H. Browning, The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning. Vol. I: 1850–1864, ed. Theodore Calvin Pease and James G. Randall. Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, Volume XX (Springfield, Ill.: Illinois State Historical Library, 1925), p. 380; Cain, Lincoln’s Attorney General, p. 59.

>   general information on Bates family: Introduction, The Diary of Edward Bates, 1859–1866, pp. xv–xvi; Missouri Republican, St. Louis, Mo., March 26, 1869.

  The judge’s orderly life: EB to Julia Bates, January 1, 1835; January 5, 1828; November 7, 1827; Edward Bates Papers, 1778–1872, mss 1 B3184a, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Va. [hereafter Bates Papers, ViHi]; entry for April 9, 1860, in The Diary of Edward Bates, 1859–1866, p. 120 (quote).

  description of St. Louis: “Lecture of Edward Bates,” St. Louis Weekly Reveille, February 24, 1845, typescript copy, St. Louis History Collection, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Mo. [hereafter MoSHi]; William C. Winter, The Civil War in St. Louis: A Guided Tour (St. Louis, Mo.: Missouri Historical Society, 1995), p. 3; James Neal Primm, Lion of the Valley: St. Louis, Missouri, 1764–1980, 3rd edn. (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1998), pp. 192, 182 (quote).

  “the quaintest looking…youth of twenty”: Alban Jasper Conant, “A Visit to Washington in 1861–62,” Metropolitan Magazine XXXIII (June 1910), p. 313.

  descriptions of Bates: Hendrick, Lincoln’s War Cabinet, pp. 46–47; Cain, Lincoln’s Attorney General, pp. 1, 64.

  Lincoln noted the striking…“more than his head”: AL quoted in Hendrick, Lincoln’s War Cabinet, p. 46.

  “unaffected by…little bonnet”: Conant, “A Visit to Washington in 1861–62,” Metropolitan Magazine, p. 313.

  “How happy is my lot!…so freely gives”: Edward Bates diary, November 27, 1851, Edward Bates Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Mo. [hereafter Bates diary].

  “a very domestic, home, man”: Ibid., May 2, 1852.

  speech at the River and Harbor Convention: “Bates, Edward,” Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. I: Abbe-Brazer, ed. Allen Johnson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927; 1957), p. 48; James Shaw, “A Neglected Episode in the Life of Abraham Lincoln,” Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, no. 29 of the Illinois State Historical Library (1922), pp. 52, 54.

  as the 1860 election neared: Cain, Lincoln’s Attorney General, pp. 95–96.