Instead, Lincoln simply stopped corresponding with the editor of the New York Tribune. “Poor Greeley is nearly played out,” Gideon Welles later observed with unconcealed joy. “He has a morbid appetite for notoriety. Wishes to be noted and forward in all shows. Four years ago was zealous—or willing—to let the States secede if they wished. Six months later was vociferating, ‘On to Richmond.’ Has been scolding and urging forward hostile operations. Suddenly is for peace, and ready to pay the Rebels four hundred millions or more to get it.” Welles probably spoke for the entire administration when he summed up the veteran editor this way: “He craves public attention. Does not exhibit a high regard for principle. I doubt his honesty about as much as his consistency. It is put on for effect. He is a greedy office-hunter.”54
Earlier that summer, without invitation, Greeley had indeed paid a visit to Washington, even summoning the nerve to call at the White House to have a look at artist Francis Carpenter’s First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, then hanging on temporary exhibit at the mansion. Greeley could always be counted on to tout his own role in the historical drama the picture celebrated, and he spent a good deal of time that day peering closely at the canvas for evidence of his own acknowledgment. Carpenter remembered that the editor’s initial comments “were not particularly gratifying,” and at first attributed it to his being “near-sighted.” Greeley insensitively remarked that the engravings in his own recently published Civil War history, The American Conflict, far surpassed Carpenter’s artistry. Then, in a moment of inspiration, the painter drew Greeley’s attention to the image of a newspaper he had introduced within the foreground of his canvas, “symbolizing,” Carpenter patiently explained, “the agency of the ‘Press’ in bringing about Emancipation.” The painter pronounced that the accessory “was studied from a copy of the ‘Tribune.’ ” Hearing this, Greeley brightened noticeably. “I would not object,” he declared, “to your putting in my letter to the President on that subject.”55
Then, as Greeley occupied himself in reappraising the painting, Carpenter bounded up to the president’s office on the second floor of the White House to inform him that the editor had unexpectedly turned up “below stairs,” and might usefully be flattered if Lincoln paid his respects. Lincoln barely glanced up from his work and then icily replied: “Please say to Mr. Greeley that I shall be very happy to see him, at his leisure.”56 Greeley would not call on Lincoln, and Lincoln would not invite him up. The breach was complete.
Lincoln now felt most comfortable when he was able to address issues directly to the people through the press, without the intervention of editors like Greeley. With his previous messages to Conkling, and Corning, and of course to Greeley himself, Lincoln had transformed newspapers into personal sounding boards, introduced language ordinary Americans could understand, and broke past traditional barriers that had long separated presidents from the people. He could now afford to cut Greeley off.
Another potentially useful opportunity for outreach arose shortly after the Niagara Falls episode, when Charles D. Robinson, the Democratic but pro-war editor of Wisconsin’s Green Bay Advocate, read the recently published Lincoln-Greeley correspondence. Concerned that it had too casually introduced a radical new policy, Robinson wrote to ask the president for an “interpretation” of his sudden insistence that peace could not come “unless accompanied with an abandonment of slavery.” The Wisconsin newspaperman had long taken at face value Lincoln’s assertion, as expressed in his reply to the “Prayer of Twenty Millions,” that if he could save the Union without freeing any slaves, he would do so. Now the president’s improvidently published “To Whom it may concern” letter had clearly identified emancipation as a prerequisite for peace. “This puts the whole war question on a new basis,” Robinson fretted, “and takes us War Democrats clear off our feet, leaving us no ground to stand upon.”57 Here was a chance for Lincoln to publish a rationale for his refusal to contemplate peace without black freedom.
In the draft he prepared for a reply, Lincoln acknowledged the Union-first tone of his 1862 Greeley letter, but reminded Robinson that it had also contained the vow: “I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.” As Lincoln saw matters, the situation had since changed, and now indeed required more. “The way these measures were to help the cause, was not by magic, or miracles,” he pointed out, “but by inducing the colored people to come bodily over from the rebel side to ours. . . . Take from us, and give to the enemy, the hundred and thirty, forty, or fifty thousand colored persons now serving us as soldiers, seamen, and laborers, and we can not longer maintain the contest.” Lincoln concluded with a startling offer: “If Jefferson Davis wishes, for himself, or for the benefit of his friends at the North, to know what I would do if he were to offer peace and re-union, saying nothing about slavery, let him try me.”58 Lincoln no doubt thought there was little danger that Davis would indeed “try” him on such terms.
Nevertheless, he prudently put the Robinson manuscript aside, waited for some time to elapse, probably shared it with confidants, and then reconsidered it. Whatever the reason, since no record of a final letter exists, Lincoln presumably decided not to send it after all—although some of its sentiments soon leaked out in the press. The Niagara Falls affair may have temporarily knocked Lincoln off balance, leaving him so uncertain about popular sentiment that he backed away from deploying his most potent communications innovation: the public letter.
• • •
For most of the summer of 1864, the presidential race played out against the bloody backdrop of frustrating military stalemate and achingly high, relentlessly reported casualties on the battlefield. The clamor for peace continued unabated. With the Democratic convention postponed, Lincoln and his first-term record dominated the conversation for months—and generated a torrent of press criticism. “Mr. Lincoln had his periods of depression,” John Wein Forney admitted of this period. The Washington editor was present when reports of carnage at the Battle of the Wilderness arrived at the White House in May. Lincoln reacted with “an outburst of uncontrollable emotion,” crying out: “My God! my God! . . . twenty thousand poor souls sent to their final account in one day. I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it.” Forney never told his newspaper readers of the episode. Nor did he reveal that he found Lincoln in an even darker mood a few nights later, “ghastly pale” with “dark rings . . . round his caverned eyes.” Holding up a volume of Shakespeare, the president murmured: “Let me read you this from ‘Macbeth’ . . . it comes to me to-night like a consolation: ‘To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow/ Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, / To the last syllable of recorded time; / And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! / Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more: it is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.’ ”59
Four years earlier, Lincoln had kept himself aloof from the sound and fury of the campaigns by relying on old speeches and new campaign biographies to make his case to the people. Tradition had not changed since, and the president kept close to the White House during the summer and fall of 1864, turning down speaking invitations (“I believe it is not customary for one holding the office” or “being a candidate for re-election,” he told the host of one rally), and instead sending a letter to be read aloud to attendees. As in 1860, he encouraged surrogates to orate, and editors to write, in his behalf. Lincoln did hit upon one ingenious new way to “campaign” without appearing to do so: by making informal appearances on the White House grounds to greet battle-scarred army veterans with inspiring reminders of why the war was worth fighting. With reporters invariably on hand to transcribe these gems and see to their publication, the seemingly casual remarks had the full impact of campaign speeches. “We are striving to maintain the government and institutions of our fathers,” Lincoln told one Ohio regiment, “to enjoy them ourselves, and
transmit them to our children and our children’s children forever.” And then, in an obvious slap at his critics, he added: “I beg of you not to allow your minds or your hearts to be diverted from the support of all necessary measures for that purpose, by . . . inflammatory appeals made to your passions or your prejudices. . . . Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions. The present moment finds me at the White House, yet there is as good a chance for your children as there was for my father’s.” Those remarks promptly appeared in the New York Tribune, as did similar morale-building lectures to soldiers, black freedmen, and other visitors.60
One formerly potent campaign weapon all but vanished from his arsenal. Not surprisingly, fewer Lincoln biographies appeared in 1864 than in 1860: there was less demand now, far less need to introduce a candidate who had become the best known man in the country. New life stories did come from former Sandusky Daily Register editor Orville J. Victor and from Philadelphia journalist David Brainerd Williamson, along with an updated edition of his 1860 Lincoln biography by Joseph H. Barrett.61 But these were the exceptions, not the rule. Unquestionably the most influential title among this spare new round of biographies appeared under the byline of Henry J. Raymond.
From its inception, Raymond’s History of the Administration of President Lincoln was officially sanctioned—and aided—by the White House. By February, its publisher, James C. Derby, sent John Nicolay “a sett [sic] of proof sheets” so “errors in name or incident” could be corrected.62 When in March the president issued a poorly publicized letter thanking a New York workingmen’s group for its support, Derby assured Nicolay that he would add “Mr. Lincoln’s admirable words” to “the Volume of Gov. Raymond.” And the following month, Raymond determined to include the president’s unpublished wartime messages to McClellan prodding the sluggish general into action, noting that they “would add greatly to the usefulness of the History of Your Administration which I am compiling.” After New York Times war correspondent William Swinton brought copies to New York, Derby predicted that the administration would be pleased “to read how Gov Raymond’s [manuscript] squelches ‘Little Mac.’ ”63
Later that April, Derby thanked Nicolay for a “revise of the Gettysburgh Speech,” too, signaling that after neglecting Lincoln’s masterpiece when it was first delivered the year before, Raymond had determined to feature it in his new book. The alliance among the White House, the Times, and Raymond’s publishing house—down to the smallest detail of research, distribution, and cost—was never clearer than when Derby encountered difficulty procuring some “hard to get” back issues of the New York Tribune that Raymond needed for research. When an unnamed stranger offered to sell the old papers for twenty-five cents a copy, five times their street value, Derby actually felt compelled to ask Nicolay to authorize the expenditure, asking “how high shall I go in payment of same[?]” The collaboration intensified further once Raymond’s book appeared in May. The publisher asked the White House to send him “the names of such Lincoln men, as will interest themselves in its Circulation,—in Washington, Illinois & everywhere.” That the book was still, for Derby, a commercial venture, became apparent when he fretted about competition—one “miserable catch penny” biography that appeared around the same time, he reported dismissively, as well as a “hotch-potch [of] ‘Old Abes [sic] Jokes’ ”—neither project, like his, written by the editor of the New York Times and blessed, financed, and distributed by the White House.64
A sympathetic recounting of Lincoln’s life with an emphasis on his White House record, Raymond’s book overflowed with orations, proclamations, and Lincoln’s now famous newspaper letters (“the most remarkable state papers of modern times,” claimed one advertising circular). Raymond ended the tome with a restrained but patriotic case for not changing horses in midstream: “If . . . the measures which President LINCOLN has inaugurated for quelling the rebellion and restoring the Union, are permitted to work out their natural results, unchecked by popular impatience and sustained by public confidence, we believe they will end in re-establishing the authority of the Constitution, in restoring the integrity of the Union, in abolishing every vestige of slavery, and in perpetuating the principle of democratic government upon this continent and throughout the world.”65 Acknowledging Raymond’s ability to write “without much emotion” but “always without fatigue,” the New York World smirked: “If the cause of Mr. Lincoln shall appear weak in the hands of so shifty and versatile and, truth compels us to say, so really able an advocate, it must be intrinsically weak indeed.”66
The 492-page opus, which enjoyed what its publisher called “a moderate sale,”67 proved to be but one of Raymond’s signal contributions to the campaign. Few journalists ever assumed such enormous political responsibilities at such a high level. Not only did Raymond wield the gavel at the party’s June convention at Baltimore, he also became a Republican candidate for Congress from New York, conducting his own election campaign while speaking throughout the state in behalf of Lincoln.68 Finally, Raymond cemented his position as the administration’s official journalist by assuming the powerful role of chairman of the National Union Party’s Executive Committee—in effect, the political boss of the newly rebranded Republicans. The onetime Greeley acolyte had come a long way, and no one (but Greeley) seemed to take exception. Raymond’s multitude of political and editorial responsibilities amounted to business as usual in the fully integrated world of press and politics—albeit at the highest level yet attempted. Besides, Raymond’s new status could be called fitting and proper for another reason, for the co-owner of the New York World, August Belmont, concurrently served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Raymond took his responsibilities as Republican leader seriously. Taking on the role of fundraiser-in-chief with relish, he made it clear that he expected employees of the federal customs houses, along with those working at the Treasury, War, Navy, and Post Office departments, to ante up with contributions to Lincoln’s campaign. Perceiving no conflict of interest in the demand, Raymond explained to cabinet officers, “we must have the whole power and influence of the government this coming fall, and if each Department will put forth its whole strength and energy in our favor we shall be successful.” Stanton and William Pitt Fessenden—Chase’s successor as secretary of the treasury—readily agreed to place a levy on their subordinates, but Welles, who continued to suspect that Raymond was a Seward agent masquerading as a Lincoln supporter, contended that it was improper for “an assessment . . . to be laid on certain officials and employees of the government for party purposes.”69
Caustically acknowledging that “parties did strange things in New York,” Welles expressed particular outrage when Raymond attempted to launch his fundraising efforts by assessing workers at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. “I am amazed that Raymond could debase himself so far as to submit such a proposition,” the navy secretary fumed, “and more that he expects me to enforce it.” Warned Welles: “They would remove any man who is not openly with us and of our party organization” and “would employ no doubtful or lukewarm men in the yard, whatever may be their qualifications or ability in their trade.” Unmoved, Raymond responded by insisting that the fundraising appeal actually be expanded to include other Union navy yards as well. Welles blustered that he “could not be instrumental in any such abuse,” and that he would have said the same thing to Raymond himself, “had he possessed the manliness to call on me.” But Raymond found Welles to be “unapproachable, a wall that he cannot penetrate or get over.” So the editor ignored him and pressed his plan directly with Lincoln and other, more receptive, members of the administration.70
Well into September, Welles waged his lonely fight to keep the Navy Department beyond the reach of politics. By mid-month he broke entirely with the Times editor over the fundraising issue. “Raymond has in party matters neither honesty nor principle himself,” he
raged in his diary, unwilling to make his concerns public, “and believes that no one else has. He would compel men to vote, and would buy up leaders. Money and office, not argument and reason, are the means which he would use.” Welles feared that Raymond, trained in “the vicious New York school of politics,” was “working upon the President secretly, trying to poison his mind and induce him to take steps that would forever injure him.” It took another month more for Welles to realize he was waging an unwinnable campaign. Lincoln sympathized with the secretary’s scruples, but made it obvious that he favored “not interfering,” which was tantamount to blessing the fundraising scheme Raymond introduced. In October, Lincoln solidified political control over the Brooklyn Navy Yard by asking Welles to assign one of its ships to head off to meet the Mississippi Squadron and gather absentee votes from sailors for the forthcoming election.71 The policy was soon replicated by all the squadrons, and as an initiative designed to maximize Republican turnout at sea, was the equivalent of allowing soldiers to vote in camp.
Lincoln and the Power of the Press The War for Public Opinion Page 69