All along, Lincoln had questioned his authority as president to abolish slavery in those states where it was protected by law. His Republican advisors argued that in time of war, with the nation in peril, the president did have the power to outlaw slavery. He could do it in his capacity as commander in chief of the armed forces. Such an act would be justified as a necessary war measure, because it would weaken the enemy. If Lincoln really wanted to save the Union, Senator Sumner told him, he must act now. He must wipe out slavery
The war had become an endless nightmare of bloodshed and bungling generals. Lincoln doubted if the Union could survive without bold and drastic measures. By the summer of 1862, he had worked out a plan that would hold the loyal slave states in the Union, while striking at the enemies of the Union.
On July 22, 1862, he revealed his plan to his cabinet. He had decided, he told them, that emancipation was "a military necessity, absolutely essential to the preservation of the Union." For that reason, he intended to issue a proclamation freeing all the slaves in rebel states that had not returned to the Union by January 1, 1863. The proclamation would be aimed at the Confederate South only. In the loyal border states, he would continue to push for gradual, compensated emancipation.
Some cabinet members warned that the country wasn't ready to accept emancipation. But most of them nodded their approval, and in any case, Lincoln had made up his mind. He did listen to the objection of William H. Seward, his secretary of state. If Lincoln published his proclamation now, Seward argued, when Union armies had just been defeated in Virginia, it would seem like an act of desperation, "the last shriek on our retreat." The president must wait until the Union had won a decisive military victory in the East. Then he could issue his proclamation from a position of strength. Lincoln agreed. For the time being, he filed the document away in his desk.
A month later, in the war's second battle at Bull Run, Union forces commanded by General John Pope suffered another humiliating defeat. "We are whipped again," Lincoln moaned. He feared now that the war was lost. Rebel troops under Robert E. Lee were driving north. Early in September, Lee invaded Maryland and advanced toward Pennsylvania.
Lincoln again turned to General George McClellan—Who else do I have? he asked—and ordered him to repel the invasion. The two armies met at Antietam Creek in Maryland on September 17 in the bloodiest single engagement of the war. Lee was forced to retreat back to Virginia. But McClellan, cautious as ever, held his position and failed to pursue the defeated rebel army. It wasn't the decisive victory Lincoln had hoped for, but it would have to do.
Because cameras required long exposures, Civil War photographers could not take clear action shots. This photograph, taken at Antietam by Mathew Brady in September 1862, is believed to be the only actual battle picture of the entire war.
Dead soldiers lie where they fell on the battlefield at Antietam.
On September 22, Lincoln read the final wording of his Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. If the rebels did not return to the Union by January 1, the president would free "thenceforward and forever" all the slaves everywhere in the Confederacy. Emancipation would become a Union war objective. As Union armies smashed their way into rebel territory they would annihilate slavery once and for all.
The next day the proclamation was released to the press. Throughout the North, opponents of slavery hailed the measure, and black people rejoiced. Frederick Douglass, the black abolitionist, had criticized Lincoln severely in the past. But he said now: "We shout for joy that we live to record this righteous decree."
When Lincoln delivered his annual message to Congress on December 1, he asked support for his program of military emancipation:
"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves....In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve."
On New Year's Day, after a fitful night's sleep, Lincoln sat at his White House desk and put the finishing touches on his historic decree. From this day forward, all slaves in the rebel states were "forever free." Blacks who wished to could now enlist in the Union army and sail on Union ships. Several all-black regiments were formed immediately. By the end of the war, more than 180,000 blacks—a majority of them emancipated slaves—had volunteered for the Union forces. They manned military garrisons and served as front-line combat troops in every theatre of the war.
The traditional New Year's reception was held in the White House that morning. Mary appeared at an official gathering for the first time since Willie's death, wearing garlands in her hair and a black shawl about her head.
Lincoln reads the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. Engraving by Edward Herline.
During the reception, Lincoln slipped away and retired to his office with several cabinet members and other officials for the formal signing of the proclamation. He looked tired. He had been shaking hands all morning, and now his hand trembled as he picked up a gold pen to sign his name.
Ordinarily he signed "A. Lincoln." But today as he put pen to paper, he carefully wrote out his full name. "If my name ever goes into history," he said then, "it will be for this act."
Union soldiers wait in their trenches during the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, 1865.
SIX
This Dreadful War
"When I think of the sacrifice yet to be offered and the hearts and homes yet to be made desolate before this dreadful war is over, my heart is like lead within me, and I feel at times like hiding in a deep darkness."
Many people rejoiced when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. But many others denounced the president. The proclamation infuriated thousands of Northern Democrats who cared nothing about freeing the slaves. They had supported a war to save the Union as it was, with slavery intact, and they weren't willing to fight for black liberation.
From all over the North came cries that the president was a tyrant, an abolitionist dictator. Democratic newspapers called the proclamation unconstitutional, "A wicked, atrocious, and revolting deed." When Lincoln's critics demanded that he change his emancipation policy, he replied: "I am a slow walker, but I never walk backward."
Opposition to Lincoln's wartime policies was growing. Early in the war he had imposed measures to deal with the "enemy in the rear"—Northerners who sympathized with the South and threatened to sabotage the war effort. He had allowed army commanders to declare martial law in some areas. And he had suspended the right of habeas corpus, which meant that the army could arrest and jail suspected traitors without trial.
As if that weren't bad enough, the president had introduced a military draft to overcome manpower shortages. And now he was enlisting blacks in the armed forces, allowing them to carry guns and wear the Union uniform.
Antiwar feelings were boiling over. Early in 1863, Northern Democrats launched a peace movement to stop the war and bring the boys home. Calling themselves Peace Democrats, they demanded an immediate truce and a constitutional amendment that would guarantee slavery in the South. They attacked Lincoln's policies right down the line—the draft, the military arrests, the use of Negro troops, and above all, the Emancipation Proclamation.
Lincoln reminded his critics that thousands of black soldiers were now fighting and dying in the Union ranks: "You say you will not fight to free Negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you.... Why should they do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept."
Republicans charged that the Peace Democrats were poisonous "Copperheads." They branded them disloyal, accused them of aiding the rebels and undermining the war effort. Lincoln took a firm stand. He authorized army officers to jail anyone who obstructed the draft or otherwise helped the rebellion. By the summer of 1863, more then thirteen thousand opponents of the war had been crowded into Northern prison
s. When Lincoln was criticized for jailing a prominent Ohio Democrat who had denounced the draft, he snapped back, "Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts while I must not touch a hair of the wily agitator who induces him to desert?"
Black infantrymen photographed at Fort Lincoln by Mathew Brady.
Pvt. Abraham Brown, 54th Massachusetts Regiment, 1863.
That summer, violent draft riots flared up in several Northern cities. In New York, a rampaging mob burned down the draft office, attacked the mayor's house, and surged into the city's Negro district, clubbing and whipping blacks to death, and killing policemen and other whites who tried to interfere. More than five hundred people had died before federal troops could restore order.
The governor of New York demanded that Lincoln suspend the draft and revoke the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln replied that he would never abandon emancipation. And the draft would continue, because the Union needed men to see the war through to victory. His secretary, John Hay was impressed by how tough the president had become. "He will not be bullied," said Hay, "even by his friends."
Yet victory was nowhere in sight. For months the fighting had continued with a mounting death toll. Lincoln was still having bad luck with his generals. At Antietam, McClellan had stopped Lee's advance into Maryland, but he hadn't gone after the rebels. Instead, he dug in at Antietam, complaining about his lack of supplies and his footsore horses while the president tried to prod him into action. "McClellan has got the slows," Lincoln muttered. By the time McClellan finally started in pursuit of Lee, the rebels had crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains and reached safety in central Virginia. Lincoln's patience was exhausted. In November, 1862, he dismissed McClellan from his command, ending the cautious general's troubled military career.
McClellan was replaced by General Ambrose E. Burnside, who promptly marched south into Virginia and lost twelve thousand men at Fredericksburg. Burnside was so humiliated, he asked to be relieved of his command.
Lincoln confers with General George McClellan at Antietam, October 3, 1862.
His replacement was General "Fighting Joe" Hooker, who began to plan a new campaign against the rebel forces in Virginia. "My plans are perfect," Hooker announced, "and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on General Lee, for I shall have none." But Hooker, like Burnside, lasted for just one battle. Early in May, 1863, he went down to defeat at Chancellorsville, losing seventeen thousand men as Lee routed the demoralized Union troops.
Lee was determined to carry the war into the North. In June, his troops pushed northwards from Virginia, marched across Maryland, and invaded Pennsylvania, throwing the North into a panic. Lincoln had replaced Hooker with a new commander, General George Gordon Meade, who rushed his forces to Pennsylvania to stop the rebels. The two armies met on July 1 at the little country town of Gettysburg, where 170,000 troops clashed in the most spectacular battle of the war.
On July 4, after three days of fierce fighting, with more than fifty thousand casualties on both sides, Lee's broken and defeated army started back to Virginia. When news of the victory reached Lincoln, he ordered Meade to go after Lee and destroy his army once and for all. "Do not let the enemy escape," Lincoln cabled. But Meade hesitated, allowing Lee to move his retreating troops safely across the Potomac. "We had them within our grasp," the president wailed. "We had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours."
Lincoln had not yet found the commander he needed. He feared now that the war would go on indefinitely. "What can I do with such generals as we have?" he asked. "Who among them is any better than Meade?"
Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle in American history.
Union and Confederate dead on the battlefield at Gettysburg.
Four months later, a ceremony was held at Gettysburg to dedicate a national cemetery for the soldiers who had died there. The main speaker was to be Edward Everett of Massachusetts, the most celebrated orator of the day. The president was asked to deliver "a few appropriate remarks" after Everett had finished.
Lincoln wanted to make a brief statement about the larger meaning of the war, which was now well into its third year. He started work on his speech in Washington, but it was not yet finished when he rode a special train to Gettysburg the day before the ceremony. After dinner that evening, he retired to his room to work on the speech again. He added the final touches after breakfast the next morning. He had written it out on two pieces of lined paper. There were about 270 words. "It is what I would call a short, short speech," he said.
That morning, wearing his familiar black suit and silk stovepipe hat, Lincoln rode on horseback to the cemetery on the outskirts of Gettysburg, accompanied by politicians and other dignitaries, by brass bands and marching soldiers. The official party paraded across the battlefield, where dead horses still lay stiffly on their sides among scattered autumn leaves. A crowd of fifteen thousand had assembled in front of the speaker's platform, which faced the unfinished cemetery's temporary graves and the famous battlefield beyond.
Edward Everett spoke for two hours as many in the crowd grew restless and wandered off to explore the battleground. Finally it was Lincoln's turn. He rose from his seat, took two bits of paper from his pocket, put on his spectacles, and in his reedy voice said: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
A photographer in the crowd fiddled with his camera, preparing to take a picture of the president as he spoke. But before he could get the camera ready, the speech was finished.
Lincoln spoke for two minutes. Some of his listeners were disappointed. Opposition newspapers criticized the address as unworthy of the occasion, and some papers didn't mention it at all. Lincoln himself felt that the speech was a failure. He certainly didn't realize that the words he spoke at Gettysburg on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, would be remembered all over the world as an American classic more than a hundred years later.
The war was being fought, Lincoln had said, to preserve America's bold experiment in democracy. A new kind of government had been created by the Founding Fathers in 1776. It was based on the idea that all men have an equal right to liberty that they can govern themselves by free elections. The war was a test to determine if such a government could endure. Thousands of men had fought and died at Gettysburg so that the nation and its idea of democracy might survive. Now it was up to the living to complete their unfinished work, to make sure that "those dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom—and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Worry and fatigue had become etched into the president's features. As the war dragged on, Lincoln could not forget that the conflict involved human lives. The entrance hall to the White House was always jammed with people who wanted to see him, and he saw them all, sitting in his office day after day as he listened to their pleas and complaints.
He found it difficult to sleep and was usually up at dawn, so he could work quietly in his office before breakfast. Afterwards he returned to his desk for another hour before opening his door to visitors. He would put them at ease with a joke or story, ask "What can I do for you?" and then lean forward to listen, stroking his chin or clasping his knee with his hands as they talked. His secretaries complained that he was wearing himself out. But Lincoln would not give up the "public opinion baths" that brought him face-to-face with the citizens who came to his office in an endless stream.
One visitor was the influential black leader, Frederick Douglass. While Douglass differed with Lincoln on many issues, he had come to respect the president and like him personally. The two men were to meet several times. "In all my interviews with Mr. Lincoln," Douglass said later, "I was impressed with his entire freedom from popular prejudice against the colored race. He was the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely,
who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color, and I thought that all the more remarkable because he came from a state where there were black laws."
Lincoln wrote out six copies of the Gettysburg Address, and five are known to survive, all with slight differences. The copy shown here is on display at the Old State Capitol in Springfield.
Born a slave, Frederick Douglass escaped to freedom and became the most influential black leader of his time.
After a quick lunch, Lincoln would read for a while, then turn to the piles of paperwork on his desk. One of his toughest jobs was reviewing court-martial sentences of Union soldiers—sleeping sentries, homesick runaways, cowards, deserters, and the like. He wanted to see that justice was done, yet he looked for excuses to pardon soldiers. He was reluctant to approve the death penalty especially when a soldier had been sentenced to die before a firing squad for running away in the face of battle.
"Do you see those papers crowded in those pigeonholes [in my desk]?" Lincoln asked a visitor to his office. "They are the cases you call by that long title, 'cowardice in the face of the enemy.' I call them, for short, my 'leg cases.' I put it to you, and I leave it to you to decide for yourself: if Almighty God gives a man a cowardly pair of legs, how can he help their running away with him?"
Lincoln became famous for his last-minute pardons and reprieves. "The generals always wanted an execution carried out before it could possibly be brought before the president," a friend observed. "He was as tenderhearted as a girl."
Lincoln referred to himself as "pigeon-hearted." Even so, he tried to perform his duty as he saw it, and he did not always intervene. Large numbers of court-martialed soldiers actually were executed during the Civil War. But when he could think of a good reason to pardon, he pardoned, saying, "It rests me, after a hard day's work, that I can find some excuse for saving some poor fellow's life."
Lincoln: A Photobiography Page 6