Alongside other black regiments, they started down a hill and into a wheat field, driving the enemy into woods. Moving on, Charles was under "a withering fire from the rebel batteries." Trying to push forward, he kept tripping on the underbrush. He was in the second line. His colonel ordered Charles's line to fix bayonets and take on the rebel defense that had turned back the first wave. The officer yelled, "Come on, brave boys of the Fifth!" as he was struck in the shoulder. Under this deadly fire, Charles charged forward through the Confederate breastworks. He not only lived, but also helped to capture a piece of artillery. As Charles looked around, he saw only about twenty of the men from his company with whom he had started this two-mile rush. The worst wound he had was the skin of his shoulder ground raw from his bag.20
His brother Lewis was not as lucky. Recovered, Lewis rejoined his company; they were supporting a Maine Heavy Artillery unit pounding the Confederate side of the Petersburg siege. In the confusion of the barrage, Lewis mistakenly walked next to the tremendous discharge of a hundred-pound Parrot gun. Lewis felt "as though something inside my head had burst." Though nothing hit him, his head was so close to the exploding cannon that the impact felt as if he had taken a piece of lead. All Lewis could hear was a deafening hum. A watery substance started dripping from his ears and did not stop for days. Friends moved him to his tent, where intense pain in his head continued. A rapidly rising fever soon accompanied it. Lewis would be lying there near the siege, battling for equilibrium, for months to come.21
CHAPTER 13
Revolutionary Dialogue
while moderates and conservatives all across the North, particularly in the Midwest, lamented the length and conduct of the war, radical abolitionists too had grievances against Abraham Lincoln. Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase had long coveted the presidency and was angling behind the scenes for the nomination. But Lincoln observed every move his officious cabinet member was making, and with finesse and infinite subtlety, laid the trap of overambition. Samuel Pomeroy, the Kansas senator who had shown Douglass around Washington when he had come to meet Lincoln, wrote a circular to promote Chase's candidacy. But this poorly executed and excessively derogatory pamphlet effectively killed his nomination before it had even begun, and the Republican Baltimore convention stuck with Lincoln.
In Rochester, Douglass observed police trying to deal with army deserters lingering around the city.1Their presence was a sign of a war dragging on and outlasting a public's will to fight it. With the tidal wave of summer's casualties and the evident blunting of Grant's advance, the North seemed to turn against the seemingly ill-fated president, and Frederick Douglass was no exception. Some abolitionists attached their hopes to General John Fremont, who had so audaciously defied Lincoln on emancipation in areas under his command in 1861. When the name of the failed general, but still beloved figure to abolitionists, arose as yet another challenger to Lincoln, Douglass did not dismiss the possibility he would support him. When those exasperated with Lincoln invited Douglass to attend a radical convention in Cleveland, Ohio, Douglass issued this signed public response:
I mean to complete abolition of every vestige, form and modification of Slavery in every part of the United States, perfect equality for the black man in every State before the law, in the jury-box and on the battle-field; ample and salutary retaliation for every instance of enslavement or slaughter of prisoners of any color. I mean that in the distribution of officers and honors under this Government no discrimination shall be made in favor of or against any class of citizens, whether black or white, of native or foreign birth. And supposed that the convention which is to meet at Cleveland means the same thing, I cheerfully give my name as one of the signers of the call.2
One reason Douglass opposed Lincoln only months after a historic meeting with him was the situation in Louisiana, the first southern state Lincoln could play an active role in reconstructing. For Douglass, this revealed much about Lincoln's vision for the nation if the Union were to win this war. This debate had roots in diverging opinions of the nature of this rebellion. Senator Charles Sumner believed in a concept he called "state suicide." He believed that states in rebellion had forfeited their previous status as democratic bodies within the country, and it would be Congress's duty to reconfigure them in ways that they determined to be best. This meant emancipation and black suffrage.
Lincoln, however, had never legally recognized the southern states' secession, believing this war was the work of certain misguided individuals who had seized control of these governments. When the government put down the rebellion, Lincoln expected states to adhere to the laws that governed them before. As this applied to Louisiana, Lincoln wanted a new state constitution drafted, to be approved by 10 percent of people in the state who would take an oath of loyalty to the Union. He saw this as reestablishing order and ending slavery as quickly as possible. Although Lincoln wished that black men with property or literacy would have the right to vote, "this was a question which they must decide for themselves." He did not think humanitarians should overrule states and constitutional rights.3Louisiana scheduled a constitutional convention for April 1864, with no indication that participants would incorporate equal suffrage for black men.
Leaders of the black community drew up a petition pleading for the right to vote based on their military service, their ownership of property, and the fact that many of them had been born free. The community selected Jean Baptiste Roudanez, a sugar plantation engineer, and Arnold Bertonneau, a wine merchant, to bring this document, signed by more than a thousand, to President Lincoln. Both had called for black military service early in the war, and Bertonneau eventually served.
On March 3, they followed Douglass's example and met with the president. Lincoln was again polite but unable to fulfill their hopes. "I regret, gentlemen, that you are not able to secure all your rights," a journalist quoted Lincoln as saying, "and that circumstances will not permit the government to confer them upon you." Their voting rights would not be Lincoln's perquisite for Louisiana's readmission to the Union. He wished them the best, but their fate was up to loyal people of Louisiana. Lincoln spoke as if he had no power of influencing the result.4
They may have left the White House discouraged, but Lincoln did take some action to assist them. He wrote to Michael Hahn, governor of the new free state of Louisiana, with a suggestion in anticipation of this constitutional convention. Lincoln asked if some black people, especially intelligent ones and those who had fought for the Union, could be awarded the vote. This was "only a suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone."5Lincoln, by referencing the "intelligent," was endorsing what would later become a hallmark of the Jim Crow era, literacy poll tests. On the other hand, supporting any black voters at all was ahead of many Americans and many northern states, including his home state of Illinois. As tepid and moderate as it was, this suggestion was also a clear step forward from Lincoln's prewar beliefs.
But for Frederick Douglass, action was more important than sentiment. In this case, he did not believe Lincoln was doing all he could. Douglass met Roudanez and Bertonneau a few days after their meeting in Washington, when they traveled to Boston for a dinner in honor of their cause. He was for the radical remaking of southern states by any means. In his "Mission of the War" speech, he had outlined his vision: "The New England schoolhouse is bound to take the place of the Southern whipping-post. Not because we love the negro, but the nation." Douglass believed that anything short of creating this reality would represent Lincoln's abandonment of those he was emancipating.
Douglass had been writing about the reconstruction of Louisiana for more than a year. General Nathaniel Banks, commander of the Department of the Gulf, had issued rules in the wake of the emancipation regulating black people in the region. If the white people were loyal to the Union, Banks supported black people going back to their original plantation, provided the land owner reasonably compensated them. He forbid the wandering about of those without employment, making it necessary for bl
acks not on a plantation to carry a pass. Douglass found this edict far too close to slavery and asked, "What is freedom? It is the right to choose one's own employment." Controlling all the factors of a person's work and punishing them when they do not obey was slavery. Douglass thought, "It defeats the beneficent intentions of the government, if it has beneficent intentions, in regard to the freedom of our people."6
Lincoln made no effort to amend this new—though strangely familiar— order. Half a year later, however, he did write to Banks: "Education for young blacks should be included in the plan." Without many other objections, he approved of Banks's work. Yet, by calling it "sufficient for this probationary period," Lincoln suggested that he might not endorse this as a permanent arrangement. For the moment, he was more concerned that Louisiana reentered the Union without slavery in its constitution, as the Emancipation Proclamation in fact did not apply to much of the state.7For Douglass, rules like these and the prevailing passivity on voting rights might, despite Union victory, pave the way for a perpetual slavery-like society.
In July, Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill, which would have required 50 percent (instead of Lincoln's low percentage of 10) of a state's population to take an oath to the Union, slowing the process that Lincoln wanted to expedite. The Wade-Davis Bill also required immediate emancipation in these places. Lincoln pocket-vetoed it, fearing the damage it would do to his ongoing work in Louisiana and other states. Abolitionist anger soared.
Frederick Douglass's passionate speeches were heard or read by thousands every month, but made a particular impact on John Eaton, a young chaplain. General Ulysses Grant had plucked Eaton from an obscure regimental post in late 1862 to organize the dispossessed black people around the Union lines in Tennessee and extending into Mississippi. The thirty-five-year-old from quiet New Hampshire farmland had light brown hair, soft, boyish eyes, and a sharp mind. His reputation had grown out of following the battle action so closely that rebels captured the young minister, though they soon released him. With Grant's new assignment, he was faced with "men, women, and children in every stage of disease or decrepitude, often barely naked, with flesh torn by the terrible experiences of their escapes." Eaton had to keep them alive. Yet, he wanted to tackle a bigger question, that of self-sufficiency and ultimately citizenship. For Eaton, this boiled down to, "How was the slave to be transformed into a freeman?" This meant everything from organizing the labor of these thousands to more personal aspects of life. He loved seeing the eager former slave couples marry legally; a colleague once had presided over 119 weddings in an hour.8
Around the time of Douglass's first visit to the White House, Eaton had also sought an interview, believing Lincoln should know what he was learning about these freedmen. Lincoln was keenly interested in questions such as, "How far did they understand the changes that were coming to them, and what were they able to do for themselves?" He clearly wanted to absorb every detail of what Eaton knew, even asking him to come back the next morning.9
In late July 1864, almost exactly a year later, Eaton returned to the White House with more information. On his way east, he stopped in Toledo, Ohio, to see his brother. During his brief stay, he heard Douglass speak. He was so captivated that he sought Douglass out afterward to talk more about the abolitionist's views. By the time he reached Washington, Douglass was still on his mind.
At Lincoln's request, Eaton would be staying for a week so he could have more time to discuss the issue of newly freed black people, usually after Lincoln had finished his daily work. In their conversations, Lincoln once brought up John Brown and the ill-fated raid to liberate slaves. Lincoln admitted that he was revolted by the bloodshed at the time, but now he was ruminating on "every possible means by which the Negro could be secured in his freedom, and at the same time provide a source of strength to the Union." He wondered what sort of "grapevine telegraph" there was to inform enslaved people that freedom lay at Union lines. If such a system of communication could be developed or strengthened, the Confederacy would lose labor and the Union would gain soldiers. He asked Eaton what he thought, but the chaplain did not know enough about the slave community to say.
The tired president told the younger man that he knew there was an unforgiving torrent of criticism swirling outside his gates. Eaton agreed and recounted what he could remember from the Douglass speech. Though he had been talking about this issue for over a year, Douglass had been particularly dismayed that "The Confederates had threatened not to treat as prisoners of war any captured colored soldiers or their officers." The point hit home for Eaton because "I was one of those officers." He elaborated, "The Negro orator felt keenly that our measures of retaliation against cruelty to Negro soldiers were not sharp enough." It was four months since Fort Pillow, and no Confederate executions had ensued from Lincoln's harsh order. Eaton continued, "My heart was heavy with the mistreatment and suffering of the Negroes in the conquered territory over which my supervision extended." This was an issue where Eaton and Douglass could learn from each other. Douglass went far enough to decry that summer "the swindle by which our (the Federal) Government claims the respect of mankind for abolishing slavery— at the same time that it is practically re-establishing that hateful system in Louisiana."10
In a powerful letter sent to an English friend at this time, Douglass made one of the harshest statements he would ever make about Lincoln: "The President has virtually laid down this as the rule of his statesmen: Do evil by choice, rightfrom necessity"" He had asked why the black man was good enough to die for the government but not to elect it. When peace would come, Douglass believed, the plan was to "hand the negro back to the political power of the master, without a single element of strength to shield himself from the vindictive spirit sure to be roused against the whole colored race." Douglass's opinions that Eaton related to the president were similar in nature.11
Lincoln, only moments before comfortably accepting critiques of himself, seemed taken aback. Eaton perceived Lincoln to be hurt to an extent that surprised the minister. He asked if Douglass knew what he had written to the new governor of Louisiana about black suffrage. Eaton could only say that Douglass had not mentioned this letter. Lincoln rose from his chair as he spoke. He went over to his desk, picked up a copy of the letter and read,
I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as the first Free State Governor of Louisiana. Now you are about to have a convention, which among other things, will probably define the elective franchise, I barely suggest for your private consideration whether some of the colored people may not be let in—as for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom.12
Lincoln was proud of lending support for black voting rights. The letter showed the effect black soldiers had upon him—he believed that they had earned the ballot.
The Louisiana Constitutional Convention, however, had not chosen to include black people in the franchise. Had Lincoln made black voting a requirement instead of a suggestion, maybe that would not have been the case. Lincoln knew the result, and a day before had written to General Banks, "I have just seen the new Constitution adopted by the Convention of Louisiana, and I am anxious that it shall be ratified by the people."13
After reading his letter, Eaton recalled, "The President of the United States and the greatest man of his time asked me, with that curious modesty characteristic of him, if I thought Mr. Douglass could be induced to come to see him." Eaton replied that he thought Douglass could.
Why was Lincoln so concerned about what this one man thought of him? In abolitionist circles, and particularly within the black community, Douglass's views would have sway in a time when Lincoln would be needing every vote he could muster. Still, no black man in 1864 could be considered terribly important politically. However, Lincoln said something else suggesting a more personal quality to why he valued Douglass's assessments. Lincoln
said to Eaton, in his only considered comment about Frederick Douglass that we have, that there was some tie between them, and "considering the condition from which he had arisen and the obstacles that he had overcome, and the position to which he had attained he regarded him one of the most meritorious men, if not the most meritorious man in the United States."14
Douglass had clearly made quite an impression on the president. It was now Lincoln himself prompting a second meeting. In thinking about the ease and evident lack of prejudice that marked his meetings with Lincoln, Douglass maintained that this connection was forged in their both being self-made men. Though it might seem audacious to compare a president's early days with his own, Douglass was well aware of the grinding poverty of Lincoln's childhood, and he later pondered that this commonality was a source of their ease with one another. Douglass concluded, "I account partially for his kindness to me because of the similarity with which I had fought my way up, we both starting at the lowest rung of the ladder." So when receiving the invitation, Douglass resolved to go "most gladly."15
With the promise of victory and emancipation, not to mention Douglass's faith in Lincoln, in grave condition, the stakes could not have been higher.
It was August and Douglass was again in Washington. The temperature was pitched to its usual ferocity. Reporter Noah Brooks, friend of the beleaguered president, wrote "those days will appear to be the darkest of the many dark days through which passed the friends and lovers of the Federal Union." Grant's arrival in the East raised expectations that were now dashed, with the only movement in Virginia from the lengthening lists of the dead; "a deadly calm prevailed where so lately resounded the shouts of victory."16
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