Cameron’s dismissal electrified both the public and Congress. “Washington has not been in such a ferment since the day after Bull Run,” reported one journalist. “The crowds who are here for good or evil still stand agape at the great change which has darted across the political firmament like a meteor.”363 The president’s bold act prompted calls for a further shakeup in the cabinet. A Maine resident insisted that there “should be more changes immediately,” for “[w]e have so signally failed in our Cabinet.”364 Criticism of the navy and interior secretaries was especially harsh. “Everybody knows that the heads of those Departments are not the men for these times,” remarked a Washingtonian.365 Welles was denounced for lacking “energy, decisiveness, system, organization, [and] prescience.”366 But when urged to dump the navy secretary, Lincoln replied that “when I was a young man I used to know very well one Joe Wilson, who built himself a log-cabin not far from where I lived. Joe was very fond of eggs and chickens, and he took a great deal of pains in fitting up a poultry shed.” Late one night, hearing loud squawks and the fluttering of wings, Wilson arose to see what caused the fuss. He observed half a dozen skunks circling the shed. Angrily he reached for his musket and banged away at the pests, managing to kill only one. When he told this story to his neighbors, Wilson held his nose at this point. They asked why he didn’t shoot the other skunks. “Blast it,” he rejoined, “why it was eleven weeks before I got over killin’ one. If you want any more skirmishing in that line you can just do it yourselves!”367
In the spring of 1862, when the House of Representatives censured Cameron, Lincoln defended him, much to the Congress’s surprise. With his customary magnanimity, the president assumed much of the blame for mistakes made at the beginning of the war, when contracts were let without the usual precautions. Lincoln’s defense of Cameron antagonized many Republicans, including several senators who manifested their dissatisfaction by voting not to confirm the Chief as minister to Russia. Samuel Galloway of Ohio “was shocked at the assumption of the responsibility of Cameron’s odious acts by Lincoln.” Incredulously, Galloway asked: “Does he suppose that any sane man is so stupid as to suppose that the President anticipated that any government officer would employ scoundrels to execute its wishes and orders.” The president “must have been persuaded by Chase to throw his mantle over Simon’s ‘multitude of sins.’ ”368 Some wondered why Lincoln waited till Cameron had left for Europe to defend him. Others praised his forbearance and pointed out that the president assumed responsibility only for the emergency expenditure of $2 million by Cummings et al., and not for Cameron’s other peccadilloes. The president’s gesture won him Cameron’s unflagging gratitude, which would prove significant in later elections.
To replace the Chief, Lincoln wanted to name Joseph Holt, who had served with distinction as war secretary in the latter days of the Buchanan administration. Lincoln so trusted Holt that he told a Kentucky Republican seeking a favor that he should call on Holt. “If he says you ought to be attended to I will do it.”369 But Holt was too conservative for the Radicals, whose support Lincoln regarded as vital. When the president asked Cameron about possible successors, the Chief mentioned Edwin M. Stanton, a celebrated lawyer who as attorney general had, like Holt, helped stiffen Buchanan’s backbone during the final stages of the secession crisis.
Chase, who regarded himself as the ablest man in the cabinet, took a hand in the selection of a new war secretary, maneuvering to have Stanton named. The two men had known each other as young attorneys and political activists; Chase may have thought the gruff, irascible Pennsylvanian would be an ideological ally, for Stanton had opposed slavery and his father had been an abolitionist. Evidently, Chase was unaware that in 1860 Stanton supported John C. Breckinridge for president. Calling on Seward, the treasury secretary speculated that Holt or Stanton would be chosen. Holt, he feared, could embarrass the administration on the slavery issue “and might not prove quite equal to the emergency.” He praised Stanton as “a good lawyer and full of energy.” Seward also regarded Stanton highly, calling him a man “of great force—full of expedients, and thoroughly loyal.”370 The secretary of state may have believed that as a War Democrat, Stanton might well side with him and the other Moderates in the cabinet. Seward lobbied actively on behalf of Stanton, with whom he had worked in secret during the winter of 1860–1861. At that time, Stanton had leaked inside information to the New York senator. Thus, Chase and Seward, who opposed each other on virtually every question, helped engineer Stanton’s appointment. Lincoln probably rejoiced to observe these antagonists cooperate for a change.
Stanton was politically attractive, for, like Cameron, he lived in Pennsylvania and had been a Democrat. In addition, his service in Buchanan’s cabinet had made him famous as a staunch Unionist. Lincoln decided to pass over other candidates for the War Department portfolio, including Holt, Montgomery Blair, John A. Dix, and Benjamin F. Wade, and name the lawyer who had humiliated him during the McCormick reaper trial in 1855. Lincoln consulted with George Harding, a Philadelphia patent attorney whom he had gotten to know during that trial. When asked his opinion about a successor to Cameron, Harding replied: “I have in mind only one man, but I know you could not and would not appoint him after the outrageous way he has insulted you and behaved towards you in the Reaper case.”
“Oh,” replied Lincoln, “you mean Stanton. Now, Mr. Harding, this is not a personal matter. I simply desire to do what will be the best thing for the country.”371
Stanton’s appointment was one of the most magnanimous acts of a remarkably magnanimous president.
When informed that he would be offered the War Department portfolio, Stanton said: “Tell the President I will accept, if no other pledge than to throttle treason shall be exacted.”372
At Lincoln’s invitation, Stanton visited the White House with Harding, who recalled that the president and his secretary-of-war-designate greeted each other with little embarrassment: “The meeting was brief but friendly and Lincoln and Stanton shook hands cordially at parting, both thanking him [Harding] for the trouble he had taken in bringing them together.”373
Before announcing Stanton’s appointment, Lincoln asked Congressman Henry L. Dawes, who served on a committee looking into government transactions during the secession crisis, “whether any thing appeared in that investigation reflecting on the integrity” of Stanton. The president explained that he did not doubt Stanton’s probity, but “it is necessary that the public as well as I should have confidence in the man I appoint to office, whatever may be my own opinion.” Later, when Dawes congratulated Lincoln on his choice, he replied “that it was an experiment which he had made up his mind to try, and that whenever a Union man was willing to break away from party affiliations, and stand by the government in this great struggle, he was resolved to give him an opportunity and welcome him to the service.” Lincoln added “that he had been warned against this appointment, and had been told that it never would do; that ‘Stanton would run away with the whole concern, and that he would find he could do nothing with such a man unless he let him have his own way.’ ” Lincoln “then told a story of a minister out in Illinois who was in the habit of going off on such high flights at camp meetings that they had to put bricks in his pockets to keep him down. ‘I may have to do that with Stanton; but if I do, bricks in his pocket will be better than bricks in his hat. I guess I’ll let him jump a while.’ ”374 Dawes reported that Stanton’s appointment “makes everybody breathe easier,” for the new war secretary “is an earnest man and believes that this is a war to be fought like any other war with all our might.”375
Although he consulted with many men before selecting Stanton, Lincoln had not spoken with McClellan. On the day after the appointment, he told the general-in-chief that he knew Stanton was a friend of McClellan whom he would probably be happy to have in the War Department, and that he was afraid if he had informed the general ahead of time, Radical Republicans would allege that McClellan had inveigled him into ma
king that choice. In early January, Stanton said “he regarded McClellan as the greatest military genius upon the continent.”376 That opinion would soon change.
News of Stanton’s appointment exploded like an artillery round among the Republicans, including Senator William P. Fessenden, who reported that it “astounded every body.”377 When some protested against the selection of a prominent Democrat as secretary of war, Lincoln replied: “If I could find four more democrats just like Stanton, I would appoint them.”378 He said “he knew him to be a true and loyal man, and that he possessed the greatest energy of character and systematic method in the discharge of public business.”379
Democrats like New York editor James Brooks were gratified. In choosing Stanton, Lincoln “shows that he means to administer the Government, not alone upon a narrow Chicago Platform, but upon the Constitutional National Platform,” Brooks declared.380 August Belmont, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, thought Stanton’s appointment indicated that Lincoln understood the necessity of adding conservative Democrats to his administration. The Democratic former mayor of New York, Fernando Wood, praised Lincoln extravagantly: “Your highly patriotic, and conservative course meets with the hearty concurrence of the Democratic masses in this state—We will sustain you fully, and you may rely upon my best exertions in behalf of the administration of which you are the noble head—The late change in the cabinet was opportune—It has given the best proof of your own ability to govern, and also of your executive power and will.”381
Westerners were also pleased. “The West will look to Mr. Stanton … as her guardian and representative in the voyage of the Cabinet in these perilous times,” the Cincinnati Enquirer predicted. “He is identified with us by birth, feelings and interests, and by all his aspirations.”382
Physically, the new secretary cut an unimpressive figure. General John Pope thought Stanton “was in no sense an imposing person, either in looks or manner.” Relatively short, “stout and clumsy,” with “a broad, rather red face, well covered with a heavy black beard, which descended on his breast and was scarcely sprinkled with gray,” he “had a mass of long hair, pushed off toward the back of his head from a broad, massive brow and large, dark eyes, which looked even larger behind a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, seemingly of unusual size.” With a “rather squat figure, surmounted by the leonine bust and head above it,” he seemed “shaggy” and “belligerent.”383
Former California Senator William M. Gwin, who had known Stanton years before, predicted that the new war secretary “will tomahawk them all.”384 But most observers approved of the choice, among them George Templeton Strong of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, who said Stanton was worth “a wagon load of Camerons.” Although Strong did not admire Stanton’s “rather pigfaced,” “Luther-oid” appearance, the new war secretary was, in his view, “[i]ntelligent, prompt, clear-headed, fluent without wordiness, and above all, earnest, warm-hearted, and large-hearted,” and thus represented “the reverse in all things of his cunning, cold-blooded, selfish old predecessor.”385 Journalist D. W. Bartlett called Stanton “a very able man, a pushing, all-alive man.”386 The conservative New York Herald predicted that “what Carnot was to the first French republic, as Minister of War, Stanton will be to ‘Honest Abe Lincoln’ ” and “that he will be the man to bring order out of confusion, efficiency out of inaction, and an invincible army out of raw recruits, dispirited by frequent disasters, delays and disappointments.”387 Senator Fessenden hoped that Stanton would “be of great benefit in stiffening the Cabinet—a thing which it much needs.”388 Some senators, however, were reluctant to confirm Stanton unless the president assured them that the war would be prosecuted vigorously.
Lincoln’s preferred candidate for the war portfolio, Joseph Holt, thanked the president for choosing Stanton: “In him you will find a friend true as steel, & a support, which no pressure from within or from without, will ever shake. It was my fortune to know him during the darkest days of the late administration & I think I know him well. With his great talents, he is the soul of honor, of courage, & of loyalty. In the progress of the terrible events inseperable from the struggle for the life of our country, in which you are heroically engaged, you can assign to Edwin M. Stanton no duty however stern, or solemn or self-sacrificing, which he will not nobly & efficiently perform.”389 New York attorney Edwards Pierrepont described to Lincoln “the reviving confidence which your appointment of Mr Stanton had given us. The whole nation thanks God, that you had the wisdom and the courage to make the change.”390
In the New York Tribune, managing editor Charles A. Dana lauded his good friend Stanton as a man who cared deeply about the preservation of the Union: “If slavery or anti-slavery shall at any time be found obstructing or impeding the nation in its efforts to crush out this monstrous rebellion, he will walk straight on the path of duty, though that path should lead him over or through the impediment, and insure its annihilation.” The energetic Stanton would infuse energy into the War Department, Dana predicted, and would be a “zealous cooperator” rather than “a lordly superior” in dealing with McClellan.391
In thanking Dana, Stanton expressed the hope that all Unionists would support him. “Bad passions, and little passions, and mean passions gather around and hem in the great movements that should deliver this nation,” he said. But he sensed a new determination in his department. “We have no jokes or trivialities,” he assured Dana, “but all with whom I act show that they are now in dead earnest. … As soon as I can get the machinery of the office working, the rats cleaned out, & the ratholes stopped, we shall move.”392
Joseph Medill of the Chicago Tribune spoke for many Northerners when he told Stanton that the “country looks to you to infuse vigor, system, honesty, and fight into the services. The army has lost more men in the past four months from inaction and ennui than it would have done from ten bloody pitched battles.”393 John Hay described Stanton as “an energetic and efficient worker, a man of initiative and decision, an organizer, a man of administrative scope and executive tact” who “is personally friendly” with all the members of the cabinet.394
Hay reckoned without Montgomery Blair, who expressed doubt about Stanton’s integrity and opposed his appointment. Attorney General Bates also distrusted Stanton, and Gideon Welles complained that Stanton’s “remarks on the personal appearance of the President were coarse, and his freely expressed judgment on public measures unjust.” The navy secretary believed Stanton “was engaged with discontented and mischievous persons in petty intrigues to impair confidence in the Administration.”395 (Indeed, Stanton had criticized Lincoln severely in private, and the Washington rumor mill spread his caustic comments far and wide. McClellan recalled the “extreme virulence” with which Stanton “abused the President, the administration, and the Republican party. He carried this to such an extent that I was often shocked by it. He never spoke of the President in any other way than as the ‘original gorilla.’ ”)396 Welles also objected to the way Stanton curried McClellan’s favor. Later, the navy secretary wrote that Stanton “took pleasure in being ungracious and rough towards those who were under his control, and when he thought his bearish manner would terrify or humiliate those who were subject to him. To his superiors or those who were his equals in position, and who neither heeded nor cared for his violence, he was complacent, sometimes obsequious.”397
Despite those unfortunate qualities, Stanton proved to be a remarkably capable war secretary who worked well with the president. Whereas the selection of his first secretary of war was one of Lincoln’s greatest mistakes, the choice of a successor turned out to be one of his most inspired appointments. Shortly after Stanton assumed control of the War Department, Joshua Speed praised the way he transformed it: “Instead of that loose shackeling way of doing business in the war office, with which I have been so much disgusted & which I have had so good an opportunity of seeing—there is now order regularity and precision. … I shall be much mistaken if he does not infuse into
the whole army an energy & activity which we have not seen heretofore.”398
Unlike the president, Stanton had little trouble saying “no.” Early in his tenure at the War Department, the new secretary was approached by a man who wanted an army appointment and said he had received Lincoln’s endorsement. “The President, sir, is a very excellent man and would be glad if he had an appointment for every man who applied, which, unfortunately for his good nature, is not the case,” Stanton explained.399 Later, when Judge Joseph G. Baldwin of California requested a pass to visit his brother in Virginia, Lincoln suggested he see Stanton. The judge replied that he had done so and was refused. With a smile Lincoln observed, “I can do nothing; for you must know that I have very little influence with this administration.”400 By assuming the unpleasant but necessary duty of denying requests, Stanton thus helped the president seem accommodating. His gruffness was useful, for, as General Pope observed, no one “can compute what was the value to the government, of this terse, not to say abrupt treatment of men and business by the Secretary of War in the times when Mr. Stanton held that office. No politician nor suave man of any description could have disposed of such a mass of business and such a crowd of people as pressed on the Secretary of War from morning until night and until far into the early hours of the next day, for months together.”401
With Stanton’s assistance, Lincoln now began to assert himself more forcefully in dealing with his generals and to take charge of the war effort more decisively. The new war secretary’s first directive to McClellan was signed by order of “the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy,” a not-so-subtle message to the Young Napoleon. Lincoln had been studying strategy and tactics whenever he could find the time. Among the books he read was Henry W. Halleck’s Elements of Military Art and Science. William Howard Russell of the London Times observed him scuttling from the White House to the War Department and to the homes of his generals. “This poor President!” Russell exclaimed. “He is to be pitied; … trying with all his might to understand strategy, naval warfare, big guns, the movements of troops, military maps, reconaissances, occupations, interior and exterior lines, and all the technical details of the art of slaying. He runs from one house to another, armed with plans, papers, reports, recommendations, sometimes good humored, never angry, occasionally dejected, and always a little fussy.”402
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