Stanton

by Benjamin P. Thomas

  Many cases of unauthorized arrests of civilians still occurred. When they came to Stanton’s notice, he ordered the parties discharged from custody. But under an authoritarian policy abuses were inevitable, frequent, and sometimes tragic. Personal animosities, political ambitions, and excessive zeal on the part of subordinates, and occasionally Stanton’s own impetuosity, made innocent Americans suffer.

  Early in November 1862, Stanton freed all civilian prisoners against whom no evidence existed and who were citizens of states that had filled their draft quotas, and he paroled individual offenders elsewhere on promise of good behavior. Defending his security policy, he said: “It has been the aim of the Department to avoid any encroachment upon individual rights, as far as it might be consistent with public safety and the preservation of the Government.”

  But the apprehensive and resentful Democrats could not see it quite that way, and during the election campaign they brought a steady drumbeat of complaint against the administration for its alleged assaults on civil rights. Many persons in the North found fault with the Emancipation Proclamation. A large number of Republican party leaders moped because of Lincoln’s refusal to get rid of McClellan and for failing to prosecute the war more vigorously. As a result of the general discontent, the Republicans could scarcely have fared worse in the balloting. The Democrats took Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, New York, and Pennsylvania away from them, kept control in New Jersey, and gained a split in Wisconsin to increase their representation in Congress from 44 to 75. Stanton’s hand-picked New York candidate, Wadsworth, lost decisively to Seymour. Even in those states that the Republicans carried, their majorities fell off sharply from those of 1860. They would still carry a narrow margin of 18 votes in the House, owing chiefly to Stanton’s use of the Army in the border slave states to overawe opposition. It was a thundering defeat.20

  “Discouraged but not despairing,” Stanton had once described himself to Greeley, and he shrugged off the despondency he felt at the Republican party’s losses. At least McClellan and Buell were out of the picture, and the President had come to accept the need for emancipation.21 Stanton hoped that oncoming events would regain for the Republican party the ground it had lost.

  1 Gorman to Wilson, Dec. 22, 1861, Wilson Papers, LC; Bancroft to son, July 17, 1862, Bancroft-Bliss Papers, LC; to Swett, Oct. 1, 1862, in “Civil War Letters of W. W. Orme,” ISHS Journal, XXIII, 254. On McCook, see New York Tribune, Aug. 23, 1862.

  2 Welles, “The History of Emancipation,” Galaxy, XIV, 839; Butler, Correspondence, II, 37–8; Flower, Stanton, 184; Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln (rev. ed., Urbana, 1951), 342–70.

  3 The Mitchell-Stanton exchange, and the newspaper items, are in Dudley Taylor Cornish, The Sable Arm (New York, 1956), 31–3; Bates to Gov. A. W. Bradford, May 10, 1862, Letterbook B-5, 92, RG 60, NA.

  4 Holt in Wilson, “Jeremiah S. Black and Edwin M. Stanton,” loc. cit., 470–1; on Holt’s abolitionism, Mary Bernard Allen, Joseph Holt (Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1927); Lieber’s memorandum and a relevant letter to Halleck, Aug. 10, 1862, are in Lieber Papers, HL.

  5 Ingersoll to Andrew, July 7, 1862, Andrew Papers, MHS; Congressional Globe, 37th Cong., 2d sess., 3121–8; Letter of the Secretary of War, Sen. Exec. Doc. 67, 37th Cong., 2d sess.; Lincoln, Works, V, 219–23; Chase, Diary, 99; O.R., ser. 3, II, 147–8, 196–8.

  6 Lincoln, Works, V, 255; O.R., VI, 263–4; ser. 3, II, 50–60; Hunter to Stanton, Jan. 29, 1862, Stanton MSS.

  7 Flower, Stanton, 184; Chase, Diary, 96; Report of the Military Services of Gen. David Hunter, U.S.A., during the War of the Rebellion (New York, 1873), 20; O.R., XIV, 363; Halleck to Lieber, Oct. 15, 1865, Lieber Papers, HL.

  8 Cutting to E. L. Stanton, Feb. 20, 1867, Stanton MSS; Sumner to Andrew, May 28, 1862, Andrew Papers, MHS; Morse, Welles Diary, I, 70–1.

  9 Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, VI, 128; Chase, Diary, 99–100.

  10 Smith, Garfield, I, 238; Wolcott and Cutting in Wolcott MS, 186; Gurowski to Andrew, Aug. 5, 1862, Andrew Papers, MHS; Carpenter, Six Months at the White House (New York, 1867), 20–2.

  11 O.R., ser. 3, II, 445; Watson to Gurowski, March 22, 1863, Gurowski MSS, LC; Gurowski, Diary, II, 104, 133; Quarles, op. cit., 113–14.

  12 Letter of the Secretary of War, Sen. Exec. Doc. 67, 37th Cong., 2d sess.; O.R., XIV, 377–8, 439–42, 486; XVII, pt. 1, 470–1; John M. Schofield, Forty-Six Years in the Army (New York, 1897), 57–8; Wolcott MS, 187.

  13 Cornish, op. cit., 57–68; Stanton’s endorsement in W. E. Cole to Stanton, Nov. 20, 1862, NYHS; Arnold, op. cit., 573; Halleck to Lieber, Feb. 24, 1865, HL; O.R., ser. 3, II, 910–12.

  14 Atkinson to “Ned,” June 10, 1862, Atkinson Papers, MHS; Bancroft to son, Dec. 10, 1862, Bancroft-Bliss Papers, LC.

  15 Ms report on West Bogan, Holt Papers, LC; on Buford and the Minnesota soldiers, see Letter of the Secretary of War, Sen. Exec. Docs. 24 and 51, 38th Cong., 1st sess.; Doster, op. cit., 26–7, on the Maryland slave.

  16 Shannon, op. cit., I, 278–92; O.R., ser. 3, II, 479–80.

  17 Dahlgren, op. cit.; Chase, Diary, 149–52.

  18 To Greeley, Oct. 4, 1862, Lincoln Papers, LMU; Andrews, op. cit., 315.

  19 Wood Gray, The Hidden Civil War (New York, 1942), 91–2, 99–100; Frank L. Klement, The Copperheads in the Middle West (Chicago, 1960), 1–39; Henry Greenlief Pearson, James S. Wadsworth of Geneseo (New York, 1913), 151; Chase to Hiram Barney, Oct. 26,1862, Chase Papers, LC.

  20 Lincoln, Works, V, 436–7; O.R., ser. 3, II, 902–3; Randall, The Civil War and Reconstruction (New York, 1937), 600–1.

  21 To Greeley, Oct. 4, 1862, Lincoln Papers, LMU.

  CHAPTER XII

  MY WAY IS CLEAR

  THE NEW commander of the Army of the Potomac, Burnside, claimed Stanton’s primary attention. He was only thirty-eight years old. After graduating from West Point, he had served in the artillery near the close of the Mexican War, and then resigned from the Army to become a manufacturer and later a railroad official. Volunteering immediately on the outbreak of war, he fought at Bull Run, captured Roanoke Island on the North Carolina coast, then New Bern, and performed ably during Pope’s Virginia campaign and at South Mountain. He had been slow getting into action at Antietam, through no fault of his own, Stanton believed. Friendly, open, striking in appearance, popular with fellow officers and with the troops, he seemed a promising man.1

  On November 5, 1862, Halleck asked Burnside to report at once his plan of operations. The new commander answered that he would feint from Warrenton toward Culpeper and Gordonsville, then move his whole force to Fredericksburg and drive on to Richmond from there. Although Halleck, Stanton, and Lincoln all favored Burnside’s advancing by way of Culpeper and Gordonsville, instead of merely feinting in that direction and attacking by way of Fredericksburg, Halleck on November 14 wired Burnside: “The President has just assented to your plan. He thinks that it will succeed, if you move rapidly; otherwise not.”

  Burnside arrived at Fredericksburg on schedule. Then a hitch developed; pontoons for bridging the river had not come. It was no fault of the War Department; certain field officers had fouled things up. And Stanton heard that there were other indications that all might not be well.

  After the battle of Antietam, General Joe Hooker, of Burnside’s command, had been hospitalized in Washington. He was ambitious and fond of publicity. When he returned to the army, his corps was stationed near the United States Ford, some twelve miles above Fredericksburg. Hooker, on November 19, asked Stanton’s permission to cross the ford and strike for Bowling Green before the enemy concentrated. He would avoid tarrying before the enemy’s defensive works, “which, God knows, we had enough of under McClellan.”

  Hooker had no right whatever to bypass Burnside and take his case to Stanton, and his offense was all the more rank in that he had not even waited for Burnside to approve or disapprove his plan. Burnside, meanwhile, informed Hooker that he considered his plan premature. When heavy rains deluged the country
, Hooker had reason to be thankful that he was not isolated on the far side of the river.

  Burnside’s pontoons began arriving on November 24, a week later than he had expected. The next day Stanton accompanied Lincoln to Aquia. Both of them warned Burnside that an attack at Fredericksburg would be hazardous now that Lee had concentrated his force. Burnside felt sure he would cross the river and defeat Lee, although he admitted the movement would be risky.

  Their visit with Burnside favorably impressed Lincoln and Stanton, who liked his aggressive spirit. With Burnside taking hold in the East and Rosecrans ready to move decisively in Kentucky, the future seemed bright to Stanton.

  But a second complaining letter from Hooker chilled Stanton’s optimism. As soon as the enemy learned that the movement toward Gordonsville was no more than a feint, wrote Hooker, Burnside “should not have lost a moment in taking possession of Fredericksburg.” The Union army would now be holding the town if Hooker had been allowed to have his way. Now Burnside faced a perilous undertaking.

  Stanton learned that friends of Chase were rallying to Hooker as a general without political ambitions who would support Chase’s aspirations to the presidency—whatever general could bring the war to a victorious close would have enormous influence. Hooker unquestionably wanted to command the Army of the Potomac and was furthering the intrigue by finding fault with Burnside. This, together with Hooker’s heavy drinking, counted against him with Stanton. But Burnside, not Hooker, received his full attention.2

  On December 11, the Union army started to throw its pontoons across the river in the face of a galling fire. News came to the War Department on the morning of the thirteenth that the two armies had come to grips. Welles surmised from the strict censorship clamped on by Stanton that things were not going well, but little by little the news came out. Union troops had been slaughtered in futile charges against the formidable Confederate breastworks. The casualty list mounted to more than 10,000; the Confederates lost less than half that number. Burnside wanted to renew the attack the next day. His commanders argued that to do so would mean another appalling loss of life. Reluctantly he ordered the army to withdraw across the river.

  Newspapers charged Stanton and Halleck with mismanaging the whole campaign by peremptorily ordering Burnside to cross the Rappahannock. Loud demands for a shake-up in the government were common.

  Burnside frankly admitted that he had acted contrary to the advice of Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck, and accepted full responsibility. The hostile press, however, asserted that Stanton forced Burnside to take the blame for the Fredericksburg fiasco. Diarist Strong, uncertain concerning the truth of this charge, feared that something would burst somewhere unless Stanton was speedily shelved. He noted that even loyal Republicans, mourning dead sons, relatives, and friends “sacrificed to the vanity and political schemes of this meddling murderous quack,” felt that Stanton’s “name is likely to be a hissing, till it is forgotten, and … Honest Old Abe must take care lest his own fare no better.”3

  Republican radicals, on the other hand, blamed Seward for the administration’s shortcomings and, spurred on by Chase, met in caucus to consider a resolution calling for Seward’s resignation, which they planned to present to the President. Conservative senators refused to support the resolution until, in amended form, it omitted specific mention of Seward and brought Stanton within its purview by calling for a reorganization of the cabinet. But the radicals obtained a majority of the committee that would present the resolution to the President, thus making sure that Seward would be the main target of their attack. On learning of the action of the caucus, Seward tendered his resignation, and Stanton, not going quite that far, offered to tender his.

  Lincoln listened to the complaints of the senatorial committeemen in a long morning meeting on December 20, then brought them back to the White House that night after arranging for all the cabinet members except Seward to be present. Neither group had expected to be confronted in person by the other. Lincoln defended the absent Seward and avowed (inaccurately) that in important matters the cabinet was consulted and acted as a unit. He asked the cabinet members to corroborate his statements. Chase, angry and embarrassed, but not daring to contradict the President in the presence of his cabinet colleagues, failed to support the senators’ complaints as they had expected him to do. Blair and Bates vigorously defended Seward and denied the legislators’ right to dictate to the President in the choice of his advisers. Stanton remained close-mouthed through the interview. To enter into the discussion would be to invite the conservative members of the committee to turn their fire on him.

  Next morning, however, Stanton told Senator William Pitt Fessenden that the meeting “was the most impressive he had ever witnessed” and that he had been struck by the dignity and propriety exhibited by the senators and was disgusted with the cabinet; that what the senators said about the manner of doing business in the cabinet was true, “and he did not mean to lie about it; that he was ashamed of Chase, for he knew better.” Stanton felt sure that Seward had brought about the change in the original caucus resolution in order to divert senatorial hostility to him. But he had not tendered his resignation, he said, and did not intend to be driven from the cabinet by Seward. His relationships with the Treasury head and the Secretary of State, once cordial, had noticeably cooled.

  In claiming that he had not tendered his resignation, Stanton was stating the truth but creating a false impression, for he had offered to do so. And before the morning was over he would offer to do so again.

  Welles was a witness to this second tender when he stopped by Lincoln’s office. The President had stepped out and Stanton and Chase were there waiting for him. Welles stated emphatically that Lincoln should not accept Seward’s resignation. Neither of the others offered any comment, though Welles thought “both wished to be understood as acquiescing.” Lincoln came in. Chase said he was so distressed by the happenings of the previous night that he had prepared his resignation. Lincoln’s eyes lighted and he reached out for the paper Chase held in his hand. Chase seemed reluctant to let go of it, but Lincoln pulled it away from him, and reading it hurriedly, stole a grin at Welles and said: “This cuts the Gordian knot.”

  Stanton said solemnly: “Mr. President, I informed you the day before yesterday that I was ready to tender my resignation. I wish you, sir, to consider my resignation at this time in your possession.” Lincoln answered: “You may go to your Department. I don’t want yours. This is all I want,” and he held out Chase’s letter. “This relieves me, my way is clear; the trouble is ended. I will detain neither of you longer.”4

  Lincoln saw his way clearly indeed. With the resignations of Chase and Seward in his hands he declined to accept either of them. He had foiled the scheme of the radicals, kept the factional balance of the cabinet undisturbed, vindicated his right to choose his own advisers, and won the grudging respect of the senators by his political astuteness. In short, Lincoln had performed a substantial political operation. But his patients—the cabinet, the Army, and the country—were still far from the best of health.

  The intra-cabinet feuding was beyond Lincoln’s power to prevent, but he let it go on much too long. Further, his willingness to let cabinet officers run their departments almost without supervision, except for the war office, had permitted vexatiously contradictory and independent policies to go on at the same time. Though Stanton and Seward had learned better, Lincoln’s slipshod ways encouraged Chase and Blair to assume viceregal attitudes when it pleased them and their ambitions to do so. As an administrator, Lincoln had a long way to go to excellence and he never tried very hard to get there.

  In Stanton’s case this resulted in the Secretary’s taking on a crushing burden of responsibility in default of Lincoln’s or Halleck’s assumption of it, yet having to bear with Lincoln’s habit of deciding matters without consulting him. The President had brought Halleck into the Army’s command structure, and though he had proved himself unwilling to lift his share, so that
Stanton had to carry him in policy matters, Lincoln kept the general on. Stanton had been pressing for centralization in the command responsibility of the Army. Eight separate field forces existed. They were nominally under Halleck’s control but actually were almost autonomous unless, like McClellan, the generals competed with Lincoln for power.

  The Army needed a center for decisions and harmony in its command structure. While Lincoln and Stanton lacked full confidence in staff and field officers and therefore refrained from delegating total powers to any general, the civilians had to continue poking their noses into strategy matters. So long as no one knew what the functions of the President, Secretary of War, and commanding general were, then harmony was elusive.5 However, the war was slowly, painfully, fitfully pushing the nation toward a military structure capable of exerting the concerted pressure needed for success.

  Stanton had also continued advocating to Lincoln the need for the enlistment of Negroes into the Union armies as a military necessity and as a logical consequence of emancipation. By the end of November, Lincoln had come to agree with him. The President decided that on January 1, 1863, he would add to his Emancipation Proclamation the news that he was planning to put arms in the hands of the erstwhile slaves of rebel masters. Lincoln told his friend T. J. Barnett that he viewed this as a conservative move which by hastening peace might forestall more extreme proposals and more immediately succor loyal Southern whites. Therefore, Lincoln expected the Army’s commanders to enforce strictly all the provisions of the proclamation.