The Missouri Radicals’ simmering discontent with Lincoln came to a boil in the summer of 1863, when atrocities along the border with Kansas grew exceptionally lethal. Though conflict had begun there in 1854, when Missouri Border Ruffians and Kansas Jayhawkers first clashed, the level of violence soared with the outbreak of war. Bushwhackers on both sides pillaged, looted, and committed arson as well as cold-blooded murder. On August 21, the notoriously brutal Confederate officer, Captain William Clarke Quantrill, led a raid against Lawrence, Kansas, where his guerrilla band, acting upon orders to “[k]ill every man big enough to carry a gun” and to “[b]urn every house,” slaughtered 182 men and boys and torched a like number of buildings. This act of wanton terrorism, the greatest single atrocity against civilians in the war, shocked the North.
Shortly thereafter, General Thomas Ewing, Jr., Union commander of the District of the Border, issued his notorious Order No. 11, banishing approximately 20,000 residents of four Missouri counties bordering Kansas. Except for the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, this constituted the most repressive action ever undertaken by the government against American citizens on the grounds of military necessity. It caused immense hardship for the families of loyal Unionists as well as guerrilla supporters. From the vicinity of Kansas City, a Unionist reported observing many “poor people, widows and children, who, with little bundles of clothing, are crossing the river to be subsisted by the charities of the People amongst whom they might find shelter.” A federal colonel told his wife that it was “heartsickening to see what I have seen. … A desolated country and men & women and children, some of them all most naked. Some on foot and some in old wagons.”63
Lincoln tacitly authorized this stern measure. On August 3, Ewing had asked Schofield for permission to deport the civilians and to free their slaves. Schofield, in turn, requested Frank Blair to consult with Lincoln about the matter. On August 12, Blair called at the White House and reported back to Schofield: “I had a conversation with the President on the topic suggested by you. He said in regard to the Guerrillas in Lafayette and Jackson counties of whom you propose to dispose & at the same time remove the causes of their organization, that his position could be very well illustrated by an anecdote. An Irishman once asked for a glass of soda water and remarked at the same time that he would be glad if the Doctor could put a little brandy in it ‘unbeknownst to him.’ The inference is that old Abe would be glad if you would dispose of the Guerrillas and would not be sorry to see the negroes set free, if it can done without his being known in the affair as having instigated it. He will be certain to recognize it afterward as a military necessity.”64 On August 14, Schofield approved of Ewing’s plan, which was implemented four days after Quantrill’s raid. Union troops under the notorious Charles “Doc” Jennison carried out this assignment so brutally—pillaging and torching homes of the dispossessed residents—that the affected counties became known as the Burnt District.
On October 1, Lincoln informed Schofield that he would not interfere with the deportations. “With the matters of removing the inhabitants of certain counties en masse; and of removing certain individuals from time to time, who are supposed to be mischievous, I am not now interfering, but am leaving to your own discretion.” Although the general was enjoined to “expel guerrillas, marauders, and murderers, and all who are known to harbor, aid, or abet them,” he was also to “repress assumptions of unauthorized individuals to perform the same service; because under pretence of doing this, they become marauders and murderers themselves. To now restore peace, let the military obey orders; and those not of the military, leave each other alone; thus not breaking the peace themselves.”65
Lincoln’s willingness to approve such a draconian measure reflected his awareness that dealing with guerrillas required unorthodox tactics, and that hard-and-fast rules like those laid out in General Order No. 100 (Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field, written by Francis Lieber at the behest of General Halleck) had to be applied flexibly. He probably understood the situation in much the same way as Schofield, who explained the necessity of deportations: “The evil which exists upon the border of Kansas and Missouri is somewhat different in kind and far greater in degree than in other parts of Missouri. It is the old border hatred intensified by the rebellion and by the murders, robberies, and arson which have characterized the irregular warfare carried on during the early period of the rebellion, not only by the rebels, but by our own troops and people. The effect of this has been to render it impossible for any man who openly avowed and maintained his loyalty to the Government to live in the border counties of Missouri outside of military posts. A large majority of the people remaining were open rebels, while the remainder were compelled to abstain from any word or acts in opposition to the rebellion at the peril of their lives. All were practically enemies of the Government and friends of the rebel guerrillas. The latter found no difficulty in supplying their commissariat wherever they went, and … they obtained prompt and accurate information of every movement of our troops, while no citizen was so bold as to give us information in regard to the guerrillas. In a country remarkably well adapted by nature for guerrilla warfare, with all the inhabitants practically the friends of guerillas, it has been found impossible to rid the country of such enemies. At no time during the war have these counties been free of them. No remedy short of destroying the source of their great advantage over our troops could cure the evil.”66
The deportation order was, in fact, necessitated by the circumstances Schofield enumerated. Confederate General Joseph O. Shelby acknowledged that if Order No. 11 had not been issued, Rebel forces “would shortly have found their way through the district into Kansas” and would have “not only cut off a large amount of supplies, but … removed a large number of our friends and sympathizers. … The order was fully justified and Ewing did a wise thing when he issued it.”67 The following year, Grant approved similar measures to deal with Virginia guerrillas.
Order Number 11 aroused such vehement protests that it was suspended in November. Two months thereafter, deported loyalists were permitted to return to what was left of their homes, much to the dismay of Ewing, who complained that “the President has treated me rather unkindly in practically removing me.”68 The policy failed to reduce guerrilla violence in Missouri, though no more Quantrill-style raids were made into Kansas. Over a year later, Lincoln gave Missouri Governor Thomas C. Fletcher the same sort of advice he had dispensed to his predecessor (Gamble died in January 1864) and to the military authorities in Missouri: “It seems that there is now no organized military force of the enemy in Missouri and yet that destruction of property and life is rampant every where. Is not the cure for this within easy reach of the people themselves? It cannot but be that every man, not naturally a robber or cut-throat would gladly put an end to this state of things. A large majority in every locality must feel alike upon this subject; and if so they only need to reach an understanding one with another. Each leaving all others alone solves the problem. And surely each would do this but for his apprehension that others will not leave him alone. Can not this mischievous distrust be removed? Let neighborhood meetings be every where called and held, of all entertaining a sincere purpose for mutual security in the future, whatever they may heretofore have thought, said or done about the war or about anything else. Let all such meet and waiving all else pledge each to cease harassing others and to make common cause against whomever persists in making, aiding or encouraging further disturbance. The practical means they will best know how to adopt and apply. At such meetings old friendships will cross the memory; and honor and Christian Charity will come in to help. Please consider whether it may not be well to suggest this to the now afflicted people of Missouri.”69
But in Missouri the depth of hatred and the intensity of vengeful feelings were too great for such a solution. Even after the war, guerrillas like Jesse James and Bloody Bill Anderson continued their lawless ways.
Radicals objected to the way Schofield had acted that summer during a fateful session of the Missouri state convention, which had originally been elected to consider secession and had been acting more or less as a legislature for over two years. There the Claybanks defeated the Charcoals and adopted a measure abolishing slavery in 1870, much to the chagrin of immediate emancipationists. Radicals denounced Schofield for supporting a Lincoln-like scheme involving compensation and gradualism. During the debates, Schofield had asked Lincoln if loyal slaveholders could count on the administration to protect their rights for the short time that slavery would continue in Missouri. On June 22, Lincoln replied positively: “Desirous as I am, that emancipation shall be adopted by Missouri, and believing as I do, that gradual can be made better than immediate for both black and white, except when military necessity changes the case, my impulse is to say that such protection would be given. I can not know exactly what shape an act of emancipation may take. If the period from the initiation to the final end, should be comparatively short, and the act should prevent persons being sold, during that period, into more lasting slavery, the whole would be easier. I do not wish to pledge the general government to the affirmative support of even temporary slavery, beyond what can be fairly claimed under the constitution. I suppose, however, this is not desired; but that it is desired for the Military force of the United States, while in Missouri, to not be used in subverting the temporarily reserved legal rights in slaves during the progress of emancipation. This I would desire also. I have very earnestly urged the slave-states to adopt emancipation; and it ought to be, and is an object with me not to overthrow, or thwart what any of them may in good faith do, to that end.”70
Shortly before the seventy Missourians arrived at Washington, along with a smaller delegation of Kansans, Lincoln said that “if they can show that Schofield has done anything wrong & has interfered to their disadvantage with State politics—or has so acted as to damage the cause of the Union and good order their case is made.” But he suspected that “it will be found that Schofield is a firm competent energetic & eminently fair man, and that he has incurred their ill will by refusing to take sides with them in their local politics.” Moreover, Lincoln did “not think it in the province of a military commander to interfere with the local politics or to influence elections actively in one way or another.”71
The eyes of the North focused on the White House meeting, with Radicals everywhere regarding the Missourians as their surrogates. Not since the cabinet imbroglio of the previous December had factionalism so seriously threatened to tear the Republican coalition apart. The utmost tact and diplomacy were required to damp down Radical discontent without alienating Moderates and Conservatives. More specifically, the Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Illinois delegations to the next Republican national convention would be profoundly affected by Lincoln’s treatment of the aggrieved parties.
While willing to hear them out, the president was determined not to appease them. He told John Hay, “I think I understand this matter perfectly and I cannot do anything contrary to my convictions to please these men, earnest and powerful as they may be.”72 He was particularly disturbed by one of Charles D. Drake’s speeches accusing him of tyrannical behavior. Lincoln reasonably concluded that the visitors were not friendly to the administration, their protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. Horace White reported that “[n]othing will convince him that there is anything serious in the Missouri question until civil war actually begins.” Moreover, Lincoln suspected that the committee had an ulterior motive: to replace him with Benjamin Butler in 1864.73 Reinforcing his negative view were letters from Missouri Conservatives and Edward Bates’s opinion that the Committee of Seventy was a “Jacobin Delegation.”74 Lincoln complained to Bates that he “had no friends in Missouri.”75
An ally who urged Lincoln to deal with the delegation in a cordial manner gloomily left the White House on September 27 thinking there was no hope for an amicable meeting of the minds. In fact, the bitterness of the Charcoals and Claybanks was so great that no compromise was possible. Reflecting Lincoln’s views, Halleck told Schofield in late September that “[n]either faction in Missouri is really friendly to the President and administration, but each one is striving to destroy the other, regardless of all other considerations. In their mutual hatred they seem to have lost all sense of the perils of the country and all sentiment of national patriotism.”76
The Committee of Seventy approached the interview with an unbending attitude. As one of them stated: “It is for the President to decide whether he will ride in their wagon or not.”77 As they proceeded toward Washington, they received a warm welcome from antislavery elements in several cities. Upon arrival at the nation’s capital, they drew up a nineteen-page formal address praising the Emancipation Proclamation, endorsing immediate abolition in their state, and condemning Governor Gamble’s course as proslavery. “From the antagonisms of the radicals to such a policy,” the address stated, “have arisen the conflicts which you, Mr. President, have been pleased heretofore to term a ‘factional quarrel.’ ” Like Gamble, they took vigorous exception to the notion that they constituted a faction. “With all respect we deny that the radicals of Missouri have been or are, in any sense, a party to any such quarrel. We are no factionists; but men earnestly intent upon doing our part toward rescuing this great nation from the assaults which slavery is aiming at its life.” Schofield, the delegates complained, “has disappointed our just expectations by identifying himself with our state administration, and his policy as department commander has been, as we believe, shaped to conform to Gov. Gamble’s proslavery and conservative views. … [F]rom the day of Gen. Schofield’s accession to the command of that department, matters have grown worse and worse in Missouri, till now they are in a more terrible condition than they have been at any time since the outbreak of the rebellion. This could not be if Gen. Schofield had administered the affairs of that department with proper vigor and a resolute purpose to sustain loyalty and suppress disloyalty. We, therefore, respectfully pray you to send another general to command that department; and, if we do not overstep the bounds of propriety, we ask that the commander sent there be Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler. We believe that his presence here would restore order and peace to Missouri in less than sixty days.” In closing, their appeal grew melodramatic: “Whether the loyal hearts of Missouri shall be crushed is for you to say. If you refuse our requests, we return to our homes only to witness, in consequence of that refusal, a more active and relentless persecution of Union men, and to feel that while Maryland can rejoice in the protection of the government of the Union, Missouri is still to be the victim of a proslavery conservatism, which blasts wherever it reigns.”78
Before meeting with the Committee of Seventy, Lincoln spoke with its secretary, Emil Preetorius, a refugee from the German Revolution of 1848 and editor of the St. Louis Westliche Post. By exempting Missouri from the Emancipation Proclamation, said Preetorius, Lincoln had punished the Radicals, who felt that they must combat three administrations: Jefferson Davis’s, Hamilton Gamble’s, and Abraham Lincoln’s. The president replied: “We need the border states. Public opinion in them has not matured. We must patiently educate them up to the right opinion.”79
On Septe
mber 30, the president spent over two hours with seventy angry Missourians and eighteen unhappy Kansans, led by Charles D. Drake and Senator James Lane. Lincoln seemed anxious and depressed. He had good reason, for the public mood was growing sour. Ten days earlier the Union army had suffered its first major defeat in the western theater when Confederates under Braxton Bragg badly whipped William S. Rosecrans’s Army of the Tennessee at Chickamauga, Georgia. The bad news caused gloom and anxiety to envelop the White House.
Entering the spacious East Room at 10:30 A.M., Lincoln beheld a rather scruffy group, which John Hay described as an “ill combed, black broadcloth, dusty, longhaired and generally vulgar assemblage of earnest men.”80 Some of them were battle-scarred from guerrilla warfare; one had his arm in a sling fashioned from a red handkerchief. The president offered no special greeting and shook no hands.
The committee had disposed itself around three sides of the East Room. Lincoln ambled to the open end of the room, impressing one delegate as “a great, ungainly, almost uncouth man.” There he stood, a little more erect than usual, and bowed to his callers. Stiffly and respectfully, they returned the bow. A few applauded, but when their colleagues failed to join in, they stopped.
Pompously and slowly, Drake delivered the committee’s formal address, which had been hammered out over the preceding three days. When the deep-voiced Missourian finished reading, Lincoln said he would consider the document “without prejudice, without pique, without resentment,” and provide a written response soon.
There followed a long, desultory conversation. One member of the delegation, St. Louis attorney Enos Clarke, recalled that Lincoln “began to discuss the address in a manner that was very disappointing to us. He took up one phase after another and talked about them without showing much interest. In fact, he seemed inclined to treat many of the matters contained in the paper as of little importance. The things which we had felt to be so serious Mr. Lincoln treated as really unworthy of much consideration.” The president “was almost impatient, as if he wished to get through with something disagreeable. When he had expressed the opinion that things were not so serious as we thought he began to ask questions, many of them. He elicited answers from different members of the delegation. He started argument, parrying some of the opinions expressed by us and advancing opinions contrary to the conclusions of the Committee of Seventy. This treatment of our grievances was carried so far that most of us felt a sense of deep chagrin.”81
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