It was quite clear that the Confederates wanted things their own way, and Stanton answered Black tartly that he had no intention of conveying his advice to the President. Moreover, he resented Black’s tying him in so closely with his visit to Thompson, as a result of which the newspapers were making it appear that Black had acted under authorization from the government. “The upshot of it all is,” he wrote, “that you go for an Armistice, which is nothing more and nothing else than South Carolina wanted when the rebellion began; you and I then opposed it as fatal to the government and our national existence. I still oppose it on the same ground.”
Black, in hot anger, challenged his former friend’s veracity, going on for eight pages, defending the desirability of an armistice and carping at Stanton. With these amenities, their long friendship ended. Black had helped Stanton get his start as a Washington lawyer; they had worked hard and fruitfully together on the California cases and in Buchanan’s cabinet; Stanton had loaned Black money to help his friend out of serious personal difficulties. Now it was over, and Black was to become one of Stanton’s bitterest foes.10
So the hopes of victory that had budded so brightly in the spring wilted in the hot, dry summer. Grant was at a standstill. Early again erupted from the Shenandoah Valley. Sherman apologized for his slow rate of advance. Stanton, though weary, regained his unwonted mildness. He answered Sherman: “Do not imagine that we are impatient at your progress.” The War Department would provide him everything he needed; “take your time,” Stanton encouraged, “and do your work your own way.”
But with most of the fall elections coming on, Republican politicians became fretful at the slow progress of the war. Chase made his peace with Lincoln. But the schism with the Frémont faction remained unhealed and many of Stanton’s radical friends continued to scheme against Lincoln. Stanton himself remained wholeheartedly for the President’s re-election. Some persons felt that Lincoln would improve his chances by dismissing his crusty War Secretary, but the President did not agree. Answering a petition inquiring whether the rumors were true that Stanton had resigned, Lincoln said that the reports were “all a mistake.”
Most Union Republicans regarded Stanton as an indispensable asset to the President. One Ohio politician heard rumors that Stanton was resigning, and pleaded with him not to do so. “If, in this crisis, you should leave, Ohio is gone,” he said. “For God’s sake, stand to your post. Don’t give an inch. Your name in Ohio is a tower of strength for Lincoln.”11
The resignation rumors grew in certainty and detail. There was little real food for them to feed on, however, and Stanton would be “one of the very last to quit, and never except on compulsion,” Welles thought.
Others were less contemptuous of Stanton. Samuel Shellabarger, onetime Republican congressman from the Columbus district, and now trying for a comeback, hoped that Stanton could make speeches in his behalf in Ohio, and a premature announcement that Stanton would campaign for Republicans in that state had, one party stalwart wrote, “created great enthusiasm.” The Young Men’s Republican Union and the General Committee of War Democrats asked him to speak in New York City to “accomplish vast good,” and Sumner’s aid was enlisted to get the Secretary there. Frank W. Ballard, secretary of a New York businessman’s war association, thought a Stanton speech “would reduce McClellan’s ratio in this city alone from ten or fifteen thousand votes” and “aid us in … exploding his gunboat.”12
But Stanton had to decline these appeals for personal appearances because of the pressure of war duties. His reticence convinced McClellan, among others, that Lincoln and Stanton were close to a complete break, which was not true.
It seems clear that most Northerners, Republican or Democrat, felt that Lincoln and Stanton were for the same things and hoped to reach their goals by agreed means. “Both of you rise and fall with the cause of the country,” Stanton heard from a New York supporter who believed that the triad of Lincoln, Stanton, and Union were “inseparable” and “unconquerable.” Stanton was soon to show his devotion to the President and to the Republican-Union party, which he envisaged as the political institution that would make the sacrifices of “his” Army worth while.13
On August 29 the Democrats nominated McClellan, with George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, as his running mate. The platform called for the immediate cessation of hostilities and a negotiated peace on the “basis of the Federal Union of the States.” McClellan renounced the peace plank but tried to reap benefit from the deep discouragement in the North. Despite his refusal to endorse a peace-at-any-price policy, the election would determine whether the war would be fought to a finish. That was enough to stir Stanton to action, over and above his own detestation of the Democratic candidate.
His energy further convinced Lincoln that “Stanton’s familiarity with all the existing complications in the War Department would render [it] difficult to part with him at this juncture.” Lincoln, in order to placate the radicals who still smarted at Chase’s dismissal, and to show defiance to McClellan, who seemed to consider the presidential race as a contest between himself and Stanton as well as with Lincoln, decided that the radicals must be placated, and that Postmaster General Montgomery Blair was more expendable than War Secretary Stanton. The President dismissed Blair, naming Dennison to his place, and Stanton’s most active enemy was gone from the cabinet. Frémont renounced his candidacy. The radicals reluctantly concluded that Lincoln was their lone hope. Just in time, the Republicans achieved the needed unity.14
Three pivotal Northern states—Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania—had local and congressional elections scheduled for October 11, and the result of the presidential contest in November might hinge upon their outcome. The campaign in Ohio seemed placid compared with that of 1863, when Vallandigham ran for governor, but the determination of the Indiana Democrats to overthrow Governor Morton made the situation crucial in the Hoosier state. For more than a year now Morton had avoided calling the hostile legislature into session, fearing that the copperheads would gain control. As no appropriation bills had been enacted, he had been obliged, in order to pay state expenses and the interest on the state debt, to rely on gifts from loyal individuals and levies on certain counties plus the proceeds from the sale of the output of a state arsenal which Stanton bought at a high price for the federal government in order to ease Morton’s financial stress.
These sources of state income proving insufficient, Morton had come to Washington to ask for outright federal aid. Lincoln referred him to Stanton. Back in July 1861, Congress had appropriated $2,000,000 for the President to spend to furnish arms to loyal citizens in states threatened with rebellion. The law was broad enough to enable Stanton to pay military expenses incurred by Morton, but not the interest on the state debt. But the Secretary threw legality to the winds and advanced $90,000 to Morton for military purposes together with a loan to prevent the state from defaulting on its interest payments.15
Complicating the election picture, Grant’s method of warfare ground up manpower at an appalling rate. Lincoln issued a call for 500,000 more troops and set September 5 as the date when drafting would begin, to make up deficiencies in state quotas unfilled by volunteers. Throughout the North party officials complained to Stanton that a forced levy on the eve of the election would cost Lincoln the presidency.
Just at this juncture, Seward inadvisedly stated in a public speech that volunteers were filling the ranks so rapidly that no new draft would be needed. Stanton assured Grant that Seward’s declaration had been “wholly unauthorized and most unhappy,” having caused a sharp drop in enlistments. He had persuaded the President to refuse to delay the draft call, for he believed that if Lincoln modified it in the slightest degree, the Army would turn against him; a conviction supported by impressive evidence. The draft would not be postponed a single day, he promised Grant, at the same time asking the general to send him a telegram for publication urging the necessity of immediately filling up the Army by draft.
Grant readily came
to Stanton’s assistance, and in phrases which exactly mirrored the Secretary’s views on the need for pushing the conscription through. All the men called for were needed, Grant wrote. “A draft is soon over, and ceases to hurt after it is made.… Prompt action in filling our armies will have more effect upon the enemy than a victory over them. They profess to believe, and make their men believe, that there is such a party North in favor of recognizing Southern independence that the draft cannot be enforced. Let them be undeceived.” When, again at Stanton’s instigation, Sherman protested that if the President should modify the draft “to the extent of one man,” the Army would vote against him, Stanton forwarded his telegram to the northwestern governors as proof that conscription must be enforced.
Determined to go ahead with the draft, Stanton gave way to the protestants only to the extent of granting them a four-day delay to revise some state quotas and rearrange some draft districts. Department commanders were instructed to be ready to meet resistance, and special precautions were taken in Indiana. The firm policy paid off, and the opposition collapsed. Resistance was negligible.
But Morton was still extremely doubtful of how Indiana would vote, and to assure a Union majority, he and Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives, asked Stanton to grant furloughs to 15,000 Indiana troops of voting age so that they could come home at election time. Former Governor Morgan, of New York, warned Stanton that a movement had been set afoot in the Empire State to corral the soldier vote for McClellan, and added: “You … will know how to apply the remedy better than I do.” Stanton did. He dismissed twenty quartermaster clerks who had been touting McClellan. Answering a protest from one of them, he said: “When a young man receives his pay from an administration and spends his evenings denouncing it in offensive terms, he cannot be surprised if the administration prefers a friend on the job.” Pro-McClellan talk in the Army became measurably muted.
Stanton meanwhile approved a levy upon the salaries of Department personnel for Republican party purposes. He and Holt, agreeing that only pro-Lincoln newspapers should enjoy government favors, combed reports of provost marshals and accusations by local Republican workers to sift the worthy faithful from the anti-Lincoln recipients of patronage. Stanton was determined that, from the Secretary’s office on down, the Army was to support Lincoln if possible, or at least not to oppose him.16
The busy Secretary condoned Governor Morton’s retention of volunteers in Indiana until after the election, and persuaded Sherman to furlough Indiana officers to make speeches there; General Logan spoke in Illinois; General Blair in Missouri. Convinced that the soldier sentiment was overwhelmingly Republican, Stanton sent home all sick and wounded Indiana troops capable of leaving the hospitals at election time, first promising Grant and Sherman that all these men would return as soon as they had cast their votes.
He had asked Grant’s opinion of the desirability of allowing soldiers to vote in the field. The general favored it, feeling that men fighting the country’s battles had more right to determine the choice of its rulers than the stay-at-homes. Stanton followed Grant’s recommendations in prescribing rules for army voting.
Information came to the War Department that Confederate agents in Canada were planning depredations in the northernmost states of the Union to add weight to McClellanite charges of Union weakness, and were also slipping persons across the border and colonizing them at various points so that they could vote the Democratic ticket. Stanton ordered Dix, at New York City, and Hooker, now commanding at Columbus, to establish “a perfect cordon” on the Canadian border, “through which the miscreants will not be able to escape.”
A sensational victory by Admiral Farragut in Mobile Bay and Sherman’s capture of Atlanta lifted Northern spirits. Sheridan won two encounters at Opequon Creek and Fisher’s Hill. Stanton sent him congratulations and the information that Lincoln had promoted him to brigadier general in the regular army, but this, too, was partially for its effect on the election. General Wool commended Stanton for the “electric” impact on the public of his telegram to Sheridan.17 But was all this enough?
On the night of October 11, when the Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania contests were to be decided, Lincoln walked over to the War Department to scan the returns as they came in on the military telegraph. Stanton was highly excited; the President seemed serene as they sat alone in Stanton’s office, where Eckert, passing through the crowded outer room, brought them numerous telegrams as they came off the wire. The early returns seemed encouraging. In the camps around Washington the Union majorities were running as high as ten to one, though at Carver Hospital, which Stanton and Lincoln passed daily in the summer on their way to the Soldiers’ Home, the majority was smaller, only three to one. Lincoln said jocularly: “That’s hard on us, Stanton—they know us better than the others.”
At about eight-thirty Dana came into Stanton’s office. Lincoln drew a thin, yellow-covered pamphlet from his pocket and asked Dana if he ever read Petroleum V. Nasby. When Dana claimed only slight familiarity with the work of the humorist, the President told him to pull up a chair and favored him with a reading. Lincoln and Dana enjoyed some good laughs, while Stanton, obviously disapproving, especially when Lincoln paid scant heed to Eckert’s telegrams, glowered in a corner. When Lincoln finally put the book aside to read an especially important telegram, Stanton motioned to Dana to come into Eckert’s room. He shut the door behind them.
“God damn it to hell,” he burst out in a fury. “Was there ever such nonsense? Was there ever such inability to appreciate what is going on in an awful crisis? Here is the fate of this whole republic at stake, and here is the man around whom it all centers, on whom it all depends, turning aside from this monumental issue to read the God damned trash of a silly mountebank!”
Another occurrence soon caused Stanton to blow off again. A messenger brought in a card and handed it to the President, who said, as he passed it on to Stanton: “Show him in!” Stanton read the card and muttered to Dana: “God in Heaven, it is WHITELAW REID!” The Secretary so detested Reid, a correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette, that he had instructed the doorkeepers to bar him from the War Department.18
By this time the returns showed a safe Union majority in Ohio. A dispatch from Indianapolis predicted that Morton would win by 30,000. It was signed “McKim.” “Who is that?” asked Hay, who had joined the group. “A quartermaster of mine,” said Stanton in smug satisfaction. “He was sent there to announce that.”
Then, warming to this theme, Stanton recounted how he had assigned officers to attend all Republican meetings in Ohio and Kentucky to oversee the party loyalty of uniformed speakers and local workers. “A nephew of Brough’s that I placed at Louisville and made a Colonel, I reduced to Captain and ordered him South the other day,” Stanton smilingly admitted; “he was caught betting against Morton.” A murmur of approval filled the room. Hay remarked that Colonel George B. Dandy’s New York regiment was reported to be strongly pro-McClellan, and added that Dandy wanted a promotion. Stanton drew deeply on his cigar, puffed a long spiral of smoke heavenward, and said sarcastically: “He will get it.” Hay observed to his diary: “Colonel Dandy’s dream of stars passed away in that smoke.”19
The complete returns, when compiled a few days later, showed that the Union ticket had won in all three states. In Ohio the party’s majority amounted to 54,000. It took 17 of 19 congressional seats; three congressional districts had been gained by the soldier vote. In Pennsylvania the Unionists would now hold 16 congressional seats to 8 for the Democrats. The Union state ticket won by 13,000 ballots, with soldier votes contributing materially to the victory. Morton won in Indiana by more than 20,000, and the Unionists recaptured the state legislature.
In Maryland, meanwhile, a new state constitution prohibiting slavery was submitted to the people. The home folk rejected it, 29,536 to 27,541, but soldier ballots altered these figures to 30,174 for the constitution and 29,699 against it. Henry Winter Davis credited Stanton with helpi
ng to change the outcome of the balloting.20
The victory in the October state elections brought comfort to Republican leaders, but a charge of fraud in Indiana and the close vote in Pennsylvania chilled their optimism. Stanton was determined to make the most of the Unionist sentiment that prevailed in the Army in the November presidential election. Nevertheless, his temper flared when politics intruded on military security.
New York’s legislature set up machinery to allow its thousands of troops to vote in the field. Arrangements were made for agents of each party to distribute and collect ballots and transmit them to each man’s home precinct to be tallied. The procedure made it necessary for the agents to know the whereabouts of New York regiments, and Chauncey M. Depew, the New York secretary of state, came to Washington to obtain the information from the War Department.
Day after day he called on Stanton only to be rebuffed in the most insolent manner. To divulge such information to a bunch of loose-mouthed politicians, said the Secretary, would be the same as giving it to the enemy. But Lincoln, who wanted those soldier votes so badly that he would be willing to take a carpetbag and collect them himself, intervened, and Stanton, all politeness now, called Depew to the War Department. That night the New Yorker left for home with a paper listing the location of every New York unit.21
Stanton, unperturbed, decided to gain advantage from this defeat. High army officers soon found themselves under pressure to aid the Republican state agents and to place obstacles in the way of Democratic vote-counters. Marsena Patrick, provost marshal general of the Army of the Potomac, an influential New Yorker and Democrat, received a telegram from Dana accusing him of favoring the Democratic agents. “The insolence of the Secretary and of the Administration generally, is intolerable,” Patrick wrote in his diary, and pressured Meade to protest against what was going on, for when the New York agents reached Baltimore, the three Democrats among them were arrested for “gross frauds and forgeries.”
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