While Grant was moving on Fort Donelson, an amphibious force under General Ambrose E. Burnside and Commodore L. M. Goldsborough captured Roanoke Island, off the North Carolina coast. And now came word that Buell had seized Bowling Green and that General Samuel R. Curtis, another of Halleck’s commanders, had virtually ended the threat to Missouri by routing a Confederate army at Pea Ridge, Arkansas. Five Union victories in a little more than a week! But elation turned a bit sour for Stanton when the Washington Star lauded the military genius of McClellan: utilizing the telegraph, he had brought about these remarkable achievements at points far distant from one another as though sitting face to face with his generals over a single table. Stanton, anxious for credit to be given where it was due, wrote disgustedly to Dana that, as a matter of fact, McClellan had cut a ridiculous figure in the telegraph office, making a great show of energy and “by sublime military combinations capturing Fort Donelson six hours after Grant & Smith had taken it sword in hand & had victorious possession. It would be a picture worthy of Punch.”
Before receiving this note, Dana had published an editorial giving Stanton the chief credit for organizing the recent Union victories. Stanton immediately protested that no one could “organize victory.” Battles are to be won “now and by us in the same and only manner that they were won by any people, or in any age, since the days of Joshua,” he wrote Dana, “by boldly pursuing and striking the foe.” Grant’s message to rebel General Buckner—“I propose to move immediately upon your works”—seemed to Stanton to embody the needed spirit of victory, and he made it clear by inference that he wished McClellan would show some of that spirit, too.
Dana published Stanton’s letter along with another editorial. The War Secretary’s modest disclaimer, Dana wrote, did him honor. If Stanton had not organized victory, he had at least unbound it and set it in motion.5
Public reaction to this exchange was as partisan as the participants, for this was the first open test of Stanton’s position on McClellan. Stanton’s “admirable” letters excited George Templeton Strong to note in his diary: “No high official in my day has written a dozen lines half as weighty and telling. If he is not careful, he will be our next President.”
McClellan’s supporters were no less quick to take sides. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Fox, an intimate of the Blairs and McClellan, insisted that “no other man in the U. S. would have accomplished in ‘organizing victory’ … what McClellan has.” And the Washington Star, which had started the inky tempest, editorialized that the whole affair represented an abolitionist attempt to pit Stanton against McClellan, and declared that Stanton’s declarations as published were fictions and that he and McClellan were fast friends.6
Events would again set Secretary and commanding general against each other. Meanwhile, the unceasing pressure continued at the War Department, as did the grinding mass of work and the endless, accumulating horror at the human cost of the war represented in the casualty lists that passed over Stanton’s desk.
The West kept Stanton’s attention. Commodore Foote took Clarksville. The Confederate commander, Albert Sidney Johnston, abandoned Nashville and fell back on Columbus, forty miles to the south. Halleck felt sure that the way into the interior of the Confederacy lay open before him. With those fifty thousand troops from the Army of the Potomac and over-all command, he wired McClellan, he could end the war in the West. When McClellan refused to act, Halleck went over his head and appealed to Stanton. The ambiguities of the army command structure were again creating trouble, and not for the last time.
Stanton could not act without consulting Lincoln, but the President’s eleven-year-old son, Willie, was so critically ill, and the father “so much depressed by anxiety,” Stanton informed Chase, that he could not obtain an appointment with him. And Stanton got nowhere with McClellan about sending troops to the West; or about another scheme he had conceived—having “Mac” go to the West himself, so that Lincoln could replace him with a more active man and still avoid a political explosion. In hopes that McClellan would agree to send a force to the West, Stanton nevertheless began to prepare the necessary transportation.
Willie Lincoln died in the last days of February, but Stanton thought the matter sufficiently urgent to break in on Lincoln with it. Lincoln gave it full consideration but decided against a change in the organization of the military departments at the moment. McClellan put the seal on Halleck’s hopes with a terse telegram to Scott: “At present no troops will move from East. Ample occupation for them here. Rebels still hold at Manassas Junction.”7
Stanton sympathized deeply with Lincoln in the loss of his son, for his own youngest child, James, was desperately ill at this time. He had been a hearty, thriving baby until he was vaccinated. The vaccine had caused a hideous eruption, and he was not expected to survive. Ellen had almost worn herself out watching over the baby night and day, and Stanton had been able to spend but little time at home. “Every minute has its call,” he wrote to Oella. Stanton’s increasing brusqueness toward McClellan may be partially explained by his concern over his sick son.
The rift between Stanton and McClellan widened as a result of the supposedly secret railroad conference which the two men attended on February 20. According to the pro-McClellan Washington Star, Stanton expressed “the utmost confidence” in McClellan, “whose military schemes, gigantic and well-matured, were now exhibited to a rejoicing country.” The account depicted Stanton as praying, with upraised hands, for God’s aid to the general.
Dana, incredulous, asked Stanton to verify it. He replied that the item was “a ridiculous and impudent effort to puff the General.” He would not dignify the false publication with a public retraction, but he kept digging until he learned that Barlow, the Associated Press, and the New York World were responsible for the fabrication.8
This incident, together with the impending movement of McClellan’s army down Chesapeake Bay, pointed up the necessity for a stricter censorship. On February 25, Stanton ordered that any newspaper publishing military information “not expressly authorized by the War Department, the general commanding, or the generals commanding armies in the field in the several departments,” should be deprived of the privilege of receiving news reports by telegraph and shipping copies of their publications by rail. The press protested so vigorously that Stanton immediately modified this order so as to permit the publication of “past facts,” provided they did not reveal the strength or whereabouts of military forces.
A month later, Postmaster General Blair, at Stanton’s instigation, issued an order barring offending newspapers from the mails. The order was most ambiguously worded, and journalist Horace White reported navy man Fox’s jibe that “Stanton had taken possession of the Navy & Post Office Depts. & was playing H—l generally.… Stanton is a kind of Mephistopheles & the only good thing about him is that he hates McClellan profoundly.”
The Secretary’s growing antipathy to the general was becoming increasingly evident. Three days after Grant’s victory at Fort Donelson, Senators Wade and Johnson, acting as a subcommittee of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, called on Stanton to see what could be done about driving off the Confederate batteries that still menaced the Potomac River and regaining possession of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at Harpers Ferry. Stanton said that he had been trying to persuade McClellan to do something ever since he took over the Department, but “he was not the head and could not control the matter.”
McClellan, called into the conference, told the members of the subcommittee that he planned soon to clear the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad line by moving troops across the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry on a temporary bridge, and then advancing up the Shenandoah Valley to Winchester. But he could not do so until a possible retreat had been provided for.
Wade growled that with 150,000 good troops already on the other side of the river there was no need for a bridge, and if they had to recross the river, let them do it in their coffins. In reporting to the full committee, Johnson stated
that Wade used “pretty strong and emphatic language” to McClellan and that Stanton “endorsed every sentiment he uttered. The Secretary feels as strongly upon this subject as this committee does.”9
A few days later, McClellan left to direct the operation in person. Stanton went to the White House on the night of February 27 to read Lincoln two dispatches. The first one reported that McClellan had bridged the Potomac with pontoons and that some of his troops had crossed. Wagons, artillery, and other heavy equipment would be taken over on a bridge to be made of canalboats, which were being sent to Harpers Ferry through the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. McClellan suggested that some of his officers be brevetted for their splendid achievement.
Stanton then closed the door to Lincoln’s office and turned the key in the lock. “The next is not so good,” he said. The operation had stalled when the canal locks proved to be too narrow for the passage of the boats. McClellan would try to protect his pontoon bridge, but he had abandoned his plan to move on Winchester.
“What does this mean?” Lincoln asked.
“It means,” said Stanton, “that it is a damned fizzle. It means that he doesn’t intend to do anything.”
Lincoln was utterly despondent. Stanton tried to cheer him up. But as he left he could not resist saying: “Mr. Lincoln, how about those brevets?” Lincoln swore under his breath. He abandoned his usual reticence and told Sumner that “Genl. M. should have ascertained this [the width of the boats] in advance, before he promised success.” The President, according to General R. B. Marcy, McClellan’s father-in-law and chief of staff, was “in a hell of a rage.” Lincoln conspicuously failed to see McClellan after the general’s return to Washington, and General Patrick heard that “McClellan’s influence is good for nothing.”
As McClellan viewed the situation, Stanton was behind his troubles. The commanding general confided to Patrick that he was prepared for a blow from the White House, for Stanton, having “sold out to the Tribune,” was helping the radical Republicans gain control over Lincoln.10
On March 7, General Marcy was asked by Patrick “how much McClellan knows of the plots against him.” Marcy’s reply satisfied Patrick that McClellan “knows them all, evidently, and this very day has done something … to bring matters to a head.” The commanding general had finally come to grips with the President and the Secretary of War on the question of reorganizing the Army of the Potomac into corps. Stanton, following the advice of his war council, insisted that an army of 150,000 men was too unwieldy when organized only by divisions and brigades. McClellan had, weeks before, agreed in principle, but had procrastinated, claiming that he wished to test his generals in battle before deciding which of them were competent to be corps commanders. Because, out of a jealous determination to keep all control in his own hands, he had delegated as little authority as possible, McClellan was easily able to deny his subordinates’ capacities for independent commands.
Lincoln, after long conferences with the radical leaders of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, and with Stanton’s firm concurrence, decided to force the change. On March 8 the President issued an order organizing the Army of the Potomac into corps and specified the officers to command them. McClellan was also enjoined to make no change of base without leaving a force in and around Washington which in his opinion and that of the corps commanders would render the city “entirely secure.”11 And there was still worse to come for McClellan; but an intervening crisis delayed the moment of climax.
While Stanton was ill in February, he received reports concerning the construction by the rebels of an ironclad vessel, the Merrimac. The information was hazy, but Stanton advised Lincoln of the possible dread consequences if such a ship contested the Union naval blockade. Then, on Sunday, March 9, at about 10:30 a.m., Captain John A. Dahlgren, commander of the Washington Navy Yard, learned that the President was waiting to see him outside his door. Lincoln brought Senator Orville H. Browning, of Illinois, into the office with him. There was “frightful news,” he said. The day before, at Hampton Roads, where the James River empties into Chesapeake Bay, the formidable Merrimac had nosed out from the Confederate navy yard at Norfolk, smashed the U. S. warships Cumberland and Congress, and driven the Minnesota aground. The government had nothing but wooden ships with which to meet this juggernaut, and they were helpless against it. Lincoln wanted Dahlgren to come to the White House with him.
Arriving there, they found Stanton, McClellan, Welles, Seward, Meigs, Watson, and Nicolay waiting in the President’s office. Everyone started to talk at once, regardless of rank. Stanton was the most excited of them all, according to Welles, who described him as pacing back and forth, going to the window every few minutes to gaze down the Potomac, uttering warnings and imprecations, and casting baleful glances at the Navy Secretary as though he were to blame for it all. Hay, too, recorded that Stanton was “fearfully stampeded. He said they would capture our fleet, take Ft. Monroe, be in Washington before night.” Lincoln also had been unnerved at first receipt of the dire news, “but blew less than Stanton.” Like him, Stanton soon calmed down.
Dahlgren most accurately described the mood of this meeting. “We were too much interested here to be mortified or dejected at the loss of vessels …,” he wrote to his son, “for it behooved us to take care of the consequences.” Welles offered a measure of hope. On the way to Hampton Roads was a new type of ship, the Monitor, which might be a match for the Merrimac. She, too, was an ironclad, Welles explained, her deck almost flush with the water and surmounted by a revolving turret housing two guns. Stanton, with the landlubber’s ignorance of naval matters, snorted at the mention of only two guns, and, to second Stanton’s pessimism, navy man Dahlgren suggested that a steamer be sent to scout near the mouth of the Potomac and that boats filled with rocks be sunk in the channel if the Merrimac approached.
The plan was accepted over Welles’s objections. He thought it was absurd. The rebels had recently withdrawn the batteries which menaced the Potomac, and now Stanton and Dahlgren proposed to block the river on their own account, he said.
As the President approved the operation, Welles was powerless to stop it, but he insisted that it would have to be carried out by the War Department at its own expense. Stanton replied crisply that the War Department would bear both the expense and the responsibility. “The passages were sharp and pungent,” Welles recorded.12
Early that same evening, Stanton, Seward, and Dahlgren put out on a steamer to find a likely place to sink the rock-laden boats. At 9 p.m., Dahlgren informed Lincoln that preparations had begun. Meanwhile, Stanton had been flashing messages to governors of seaboard states urging them to block their harbors. He took measures to organize a committee of marine engineers in New York City, urging them to devise some speedy means of capturing or destroying the Confederate leviathan.
Later that night the telegraph brought news that the Monitor, arriving at Hampton Roads ahead of schedule, had met the Merrimac when she came out a second time to finish off the remaining Union ships. Neither ship suffered serious damage, but the Merrimac finally drew off and returned to Norfolk.
Next morning the cabinet met again, with Meigs and Dahlgren also present. Wounded, bandaged Commander John L. Worden, of the Monitor, was ushered in, and gave a spirited account of the battle between the ironclads. Stanton and Meigs still wanted to block the Potomac channel, but Welles again argued against it. Lincoln, belatedly convinced that the Monitor could immobilize the Merrimac, ordered Stanton to wait.
A few weeks later, when Lincoln, Stanton, and other officials went down the river in a steamer, they passed a long line of rock-filled boats drawn up along the shore. “That is Stanton’s navy,” Lincoln said, according to Welles. “That is the fleet concerning which he and Mr. Welles became so excited in my room.… Stanton’s navy is as useless as the paps of a man to a suckling child. They may be some show to amuse the child, but they are good for nothing for service.”
If Welles’s account is correct, then Lincoln had uncha
ritably forgotten his own uneasiness over the Merrimac. To be sure, everyone, including Stanton, was nervous, but not so much so that the War Secretary neglected his primary responsibility to seek measures to counter the threat. This was not a situation calling for physical courage on the part of anyone in the cabinet. Stanton, as well as Dahlgren, McClellan, and Meigs, in underestimating the Monitor, guessed wrong. And it should be noted that with McClellan preparing to move his army down Chesapeake Bay, the possibility of new forays by the Merrimac was still a legitimate cause of worry to the Army’s bureau chiefs, upon whose advice Stanton had to lean.
He offered Welles, at their suggestion, a number of hulks to be sunk in the Norfolk channel so the Merrimac could not come out again. The Navy now seemed unconcerned, though Lincoln was worried enough to have Fox and Stanton in to discuss the matter. Reporting this to his war board, Stanton was obviously stung by the Navy’s scornful attitude toward his defensive activities.
“Is Mr. Welles to remain in the Cabinet?” Meigs asked. That was up to Lincoln, Stanton replied. “He leans to the judgment of Mr. Fox, who he seems to think is in possession of the entire amount of knowledge in the naval world. Not being a sailor myself, I do not pretend to know anything about such matters.”
Stanton called Charles Ellet to another meeting of the war board. Builder of the Wheeling Bridge and a railroad expert, he had been summoned into council by both sides during the Crimean War. Ellet offered the opinion that the Monitor could not be relied on. General Totten said he had received a letter suggesting the use of a sort of raft alongside a vessel to ward off the attack of rebel steam rams, and wondered whether he should refer it to the Navy Department. “It might as well be put in the fire,” Stanton commented sourly.
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