ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Abraham Lincoln
A Life
VOLUME TWO
Michael Burlingame
© 2008 The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Abraham Lincoln : a life / Michael Burlingame.
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1. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809–1865. 2. Presidents—United States—Biography. I. Title
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For Lewis E. Lehrman, Lincolnian extraordinaire
CONTENTS
19 “The Man Does Not Live Who Is More Devoted to Peace Than I Am, But It May Be Necessary to Put the Foot Down Firmly”: From Springfield to Washington (February 11–22, 1861)
20 “I Am Now Going to Be Master”: Inauguration (February 23–March 4, 1861)
21 “A Man So Busy Letting Rooms in One End of His House, That He Can’t Stop to Put Out the Fire That Is Burning in the Other”: Distributing Patronage (March–April 1861)
22 “You Can Have No Conflict Without Being Yourselves the Aggressors”: The Fort Sumter Crisis (March–April 1861)
23 “I Intend to Give Blows”: The Hundred Days (April–July 1861)
24 Sitzkrieg: The Phony War (August 1861–January 1862)
25 “This Damned Old House”: The Lincoln Family in the Executive Mansion
26 “I Expect to Maintain This Contest Until Successful, or Till I Die, or Am Conquered, or My Term Expires, or Congress or the Country Forsakes Me”: From the Slough of Despond to the Gates of Richmond (January–July 1862)
27 “The Hour Comes for Dealing with Slavery”: Playing the Last Trump Card (January–July 1862)
28 “Would You Prosecute the War with Elder-Stalk Squirts, Charged with Rose Water?”: The Soft War Turns Hard (July–September 1862)
29 “I Am Not a Bold Man, But I Have the Knack of Sticking to My Promises!”: The Emancipation Proclamation (September–December 1862)
30 “Go Forward, and Give Us Victories”: From the Mud March to Gettysburg (January–July 1863)
31 “The Signs Look Better”: Victory at the Polls and in the Field (July–November 1863)
32 “I Hope to Stand Firm Enough to Not Go Backward, and Yet Not Go Forward Fast Enough to Wreck the Country’s Cause”: Reconstruction and Renomination (November 1863–June 1864)
33 “Hold On with a Bulldog Grip and Chew and Choke as Much as Possible”: The Grand Offensive (May–August 1864)
34 “The Wisest Radical of All”: Reelection (September–November 1864)
35 “Let the Thing Be Pressed”: Victory at Last (November 1864–April 1865)
36 “I Feel a Presentiment That I Shall Not Outlast the Rebellion. When It Is Over, My Work Will Be Done.”: The Final Days (April 9–15, 1865)
Acknowledgments
Note on Sources
Notes
Index
Illustrations follow pages 270 and 558
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
19
“The Man Does Not Live Who Is More
Devoted to Peace Than I Am,
But It May Be Necessary to Put the Foot
Down Firmly”
From Springfield to Washington
(February 11–22, 1861)
The ever-obliging Lincoln agreed to undertake a taxing, circuitous, 1,900-mile train journey from Springfield to Washington in order to accommodate Republican friends in various states where they wanted him to speak. There were obvious drawbacks: the trip would be tiring, he would be exposed to potential assassins, and such a journey would not suit Lincoln’s taste for simplicity and aversion to any form of pomp. Moreover, though he would have to speak often, he could say little, for he wished to postpone until the inauguration any mention of his policy regarding the swiftly evolving secession crisis. Because the journey would be indirect—Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Pittsburgh, then a detour through Cleveland, Buffalo, Albany, New York, Trenton, Philadelphia, and Harrisburg—it would consume twelve days. To demonstrate his indifference to assassination threats, Lincoln would have preferred a more direct route than the roundabout one finally selected. (John W. Garrett, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, said that Lincoln “abandoned the idea of coming to Washington via Wheeling [Virginia], in consequence of certain alleged threats of violence from parties in Virginia and Maryland.”)1
These considerations did not deter Lincoln, for he believed that official invitations from state legislatures could not be ignored. John Hay, perhaps reflecting Lincoln’s thoughts, offered another reason for his decision: “The progress of the President elect cannot but be fortunate in its influence upon the tone of public feeling in the Union. The devotion which men in general feel for their government is a rather vague and shadowy emotion. This will be intensified, and will receive form and coloring, by personal interviews of the people themselves with their constitutional head.”2 The trip would also divert attention from the secession crisis and might enhance Lincoln’s legitimacy if huge crowds turned out to welcome him. “It is important to allow full scope to the enthusiasm of the people just now,” Salmon P. Chase told Lincoln upon learning of his proposed itinerary.3
Other concerns doubtless influenced Lincoln as he pondered whether to take a long, slow journey to the nation’s capital. In selecting a cabinet, he told Thurlow Weed, he “had been much embarrassed” by “his want of acquaintance with the prominent men of the day.”4 The train trip would allow him to consult with Republican leaders outside Illinois about patronage and policy matters. Moreover, he might inspire the people he addressed in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York with the same kind of confidence that he had generated among juries and voters in the Prairie State. Lincoln understood that those who elected him were eager to see what he looked like, and he was willing to satisfy their curiosity.
Originally, Lincoln had intended to have his wife and younger sons join him in New York for only the final leg of the trip. He evidently wanted to spare them the fatigue of the longer journey. On February 9, he changed plans because General Scott advised that his wife’s “absence from the train might be regarded as proceeding from an apprehension of danger to the President.”5 This must have pleased Mary Lincoln, who was eager to accompany her husband. At the last minute, however, the plan was again altered, for reasons that are not entirely clear, and Mrs. Lincoln was not aboard when the train left Springfield. (She joined it at Indianapolis the next day.)
En route from the Illinois capital to the U.S. cap
ital, Lincoln ended months of public silence with a flurry of speeches foreshadowing his eagerly awaited inaugural address. But as his train zigged and zagged its way eastward over the tracks of two dozen different railroads, his rhetoric seemed to zig and zag between confrontation and conciliation. Was he a hawk or a dove? Some days he seemed to be the former, other days the latter.
The Trip Begins
The train consisted of three ordinary coaches and a baggage car; Lincoln occupied the rear car. The entourage included his eldest son, Robert, and his two secretaries (John G. Nicolay and John Hay), as well as journalists, political allies, and friends. For protection, a military escort was arranged, but to avoid a bellicose appearance, some of its members joined the party later. Among those guarding the president-elect were army officers who volunteered for that duty while on leave, including Colonel Edwin V. Sumner, Captain John Pope, Captain William B. Hazen, Major David Hunter, and Captain George Whitfield Hazzard. Assisting them were James M. Burgess, whom the governor of Wisconsin detailed to Springfield as a bodyguard; Thomas Mather, adjutant general of Illinois; Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln’s burly colleague at the bar and close personal friend; and Elmer E. Ellsworth, a young militia leader who had achieved national renown and was a surrogate son to Lincoln. The president-elect denied the necessity for such an escort, insisting that “there was no danger whatsoever.”6 He wanted to avoid appearing as though he traveled under guard.
In charge of travel arrangements was William S. Wood, a one-time jeweler and hotel manager who came to Springfield in January 1861 at the suggestion of Seward, Weed, and their friend Erastus Corning, a railroad manager, prominent New York Democrat, and relative of Wood. Seward claimed that Wood had had vast experience with railroads, had organized long excursions, and knew many railroad officials. Wood was handsome, self-important, and condescending. On the trip he paid close attention “to the whims and caprices of Mrs. Lincoln.”7 (She could be difficult on trains. Returning from a shopping trip to New York earlier that winter, she used free passes on each leg of the journey. In Buffalo, she found herself without a pass for one stretch and indignantly protested when she was asked to pay. Her son Robert appealed to the superintendent of that company: “the old woman is in the cars raising h—l about her passes—I wish you would go and attend to her!”)8
As the train rolled eastward on the morning of February 11, Lincoln took a pencil and on a large pad wrote out a speech that he was to deliver in Indianapolis later that day. As he filled the sheets, his secretaries took them and made copies. John Hay reported that “[s]omething of the gloom of parting with neighbors and friends, bidding farewell to the community in the midst of which he has lived for a quarter of a century,” seemed to affect him. “He was abstracted, sad, thoughtful, and spent much of his time in the private car appropriated to his use.”9 Lifting his spirits briefly were large crowds cheering him vociferously as the train passed through hamlets like Cerro Gordo, Sadorous, and Iresdale. At Decatur, thousands had gathered to pay him honor. When he descended from the train, they insisted on shaking his hand, embracing him, and showering him with blessings. At the second stop (in Tolono), the crowd badgered him into giving a speech, which amounted to little more than a polite acknowledgment of their warm welcome. Their response was as intensely wild as if he had read them his inaugural address. The brakeman on the train found it “soul stirring to see these white whiskered old fellows, many of whom had known Lincoln in his humbler days, join in the cheering.”10
And so it went for the next twelve days. As Nicolay recalled, it “is hard for anyone who has not had the chance of personal observation to realize the mingled excitement and apprehension, elation and fatigue which Mr. Lincoln and his suite underwent, almost without intermission for the period of nearly two weeks during this memorable trip.”11 Hay recollected that there “was something of religious fervor in the welcome everywhere extended to him, and the thronging crowds that came out under the harsh skies to bid him God-speed.”12 Repeatedly Lincoln ascribed such enthusiasm to the office he would soon occupy and to the nation he would lead rather than to himself personally. If the crowds were impressed, Henry Villard was not. “Lincoln always had an embarrassed air” on such occasions and he resembled “a country clodhopper appearing in fashionable society, and was nearly always stiff and unhappy in his off-hand remarks,” Villard wrote.13
At each stop, enthusiastic committees greeted Lincoln on behalf of legislatures, governors, Wide Awakes, workingmen’s clubs, and many other organizations, each one anxious to shake hands, deliver speeches, extend invitations, and exchange stories. Lincoln’s friends, concerned for his safety and comfort, grew alarmed when he submitted himself to the mercy of these well-meaning but often inept committeemen. The resulting confusion was dangerous, as Nicolay remembered: amid “the push and crush of these dense throngs of people, in this rushing of trains, clanging of bells, booming of guns, shouting and huzzas of individuals and crowds, it was difficult to instantly determine which call was the more important or more proper, and a false start might not only bring on an irretrievable waste of time and a derangement of official programmes and processions, but a false step even might bring danger to life or limb under wheels of locomotives or carriages.” The impatient committees would occasionally “tumble pell-mell into a car and almost drag Mr. Lincoln out before the train had even stopped, and habitually, after stoppage, before the proper police or military guards could be stationed about a depot or stopping place to secure necessary space and order for a comfortable open path to the waiting carriages.” For a while Lincoln “could not resist the popular importunings,” for his “sympathy with and for the people made him shrink, not as a matter of reasoning but apparently upon some constitutional impulse, from any objection to or protest against the over eagerness and over officiousness of these first greetings.” Only “after some days of experience and several incidents of discomfort” did he conquer that impulse, “but having mastered it he kept it for the remainder of the journey under perfect control, and would remain seated in his car until he received the notice agreed upon that preparations outside had been deliberately completed.”14
Mary Lincoln also found the committees a trial. Halfway through the trip, Captain Hazzard, part of the military escort, reported that “Mr. & Mrs. Lincoln are worried almost out of their lives by visiters of both sexes. Every village sends a reception committee of twenty or thirty, and some of them bring their wives, so that not only are all the seats in the cars taken but the pass way is filled with people standing. Neither the President nor his wife have one moment’s respite and they are evidently tired of it.”15 The Lincolns enjoyed little privacy outside their sleeping area, for people came and went at will.
At Lafayette, Indiana, Lincoln offended some listeners with his impromptu remark that “we are bound together, I trust[,] in Christianity, civilization, and patriotism.”16 Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise of Cincinnati took umbrage: “We do not believe there is a German infidel, American eccentric, spiritual rapper or atheist in the northern states who did not vote for Mr. Lincoln. Let us see how much benefit he will derive from their Christianity.”17
Hard-Line Speech in Indianapolis
That evening at Indianapolis, where a thirty-four-gun salute and thousands of vehemently hurrahing Hoosiers greeted him, Lincoln pleased stiff-backed opponents of appeasement with a startling preview of his inaugural address. He began his remarks, delivered from the balcony of the Bates House to an audience of 20,000, by analyzing the words “coercion” and “invasion.” “Would the marching of an army into South Carolina, for instance, without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them, be coercion or invasion?” he asked. (Although he did not mention it, Lincoln may well have been thinking of George Washington’s dispatch of 12,000 troops to crush the Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.) Yes, he conceded, “it would be invasion, and it would be coercion too, if the people of that country were forced to submit.” At the same time, if the federal government “sim
ply insists upon holding its own forts, or retaking those forts which belong to it,—[cheers,]—or the enforcement of the laws of the United States in the collection of duties upon foreign importations,—[renewed cheers,]—or even the withdrawal of the mails from those portions of the country where the mails themselves are habitually violated; would any or all of these things be coercion? Do the lovers of the Union contend that they will resist coercion or invasion of any State, understanding that any or all of these would be coercing or invading a State? If they do, then it occurs to me that the means for the preservation of the Union they so greatly love, in their own estimation, is of a very thin and airy character. [Applause.]” If they became ill, “they would consider the little pills of the homoeopathist as already too large for them to swallow.” They regarded the Union not “like a regular marriage at all, but only as a sort of free-love arrangement,—[laughter,]—to be maintained on what that sect calls passional attraction. [Continued laughter.]” (A Southern paper sarcastically queried, “Is not this a chaste and elevated comparison? Is it not on a level with the dignity of the subject?”18 In later years, Lincoln might have likened secession to a no-fault divorce.)
Lincoln then asked: “By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a State, have the right to break up and ruin that nation as a matter of original principle? Now, I ask the question—I am not deciding anything—[laughter,]—and with the request that you will think somewhat upon that subject and decide for yourselves, if you choose, when you get ready,—where is the mysterious, original right, from principle, for a certain district of country with inhabitants, by merely being called a State, to play tyrant over all its own citizens, and deny the authority of everything greater than itself. [Laughter.] I say I am deciding nothing, but simply giving something for you to reflect upon.”19
Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2 Page 1