Chase began to realize that his position was untenable and wrote out his resignation as Secretary of the Treasury. The next morning when Lincoln summoned him to the White House, he brought the letter with him. He, along with Stanton and Welles, was already in the executive office when the President arrived. Turning at once to the Treasury Secretary, Lincoln said: “I sent for you, for this matter is giving me great trouble.” Chase stammered that he, too, had been painfully affected by the meeting the previous night and that he had prepared his resignation.
“Where is it?” asked Lincoln quickly. “I brought it with me,” said Chase, taking a paper from his pocket. “I wrote it this morning.”
“Let me have it,” said Lincoln, his long arm and fingers reaching out for the document, which Chase was apparently reluctant to release. Evidently the Secretary intended to say more, but Lincoln took the letter and opened it. “This ... cuts the Gordian knot,” he said with a triumphant laugh. “I can dispose of this subject now.”
Then Stanton offered his resignation, but Lincoln brushed him aside. “You may go to your Department,” he told the Secretary of War. “I don’t want yours.” Then he ended the interview abruptly: “I will detain neither of you longer.”
Having both Seward’s resignation and Chase’s in his hand, the President declined to accept either and insisted that both men remain in his cabinet. They balanced each other, he told Senator Ira Harris of New York. Remembering how as a boy in Indiana he had worked out a way to carry pumpkins while he was on horseback, he told the senator: “I can ride on now. I’ve got a pumpkin in each end of my bag!”
By the end of the week the cabinet crisis was over. In one sense not much had been solved. Yet there were lessons from the crisis. Radicals learned that, no matter how carefully they planned and intrigued, they lacked the power to take control of the government from the President. Lincoln told Browning firmly that “he was master, and they should not do that.” Chase’s reputation had suffered a serious blow. When the crisis was over, senators asked Collamer how Chase, after alleging that the President had no system and failed to consult his advisers, could have told the group that the cabinet was harmonious. The blunt Vermont senator replied, “He lied.” Fessenden accurately assessed the results: “He will never be forgiven by many for deliberately sacrificing his friends to the fear of offending his and their enemies.” Seward’s place was secure, and to some, like Nicolay, it seemed that the Secretary had “achieved a triumph over those who attempted to drive him out, in this renewed assurance of the President’s confidence and esteem.” But reflection suggested that Seward now, more than ever, owed his place to the goodwill of the President, and in the months ahead the Secretary became more discreet in his utterances and meddled less in the affairs of other departments.
Lincoln, too, learned from the experience. He now realized that he had not been either very businesslike or even courteous about consulting his cabinet colleagues. For a time, he meticulously invited their opinions on controversial issues. For instance, at the very end of the year he requested all of them to submit to him in writing their opinions as to whether he should veto or approve the bill that carved the new state of West Virginia out of the territory of Virginia. At a cabinet meeting on December 30 he made a point of distributing copies of his draft of the edict of emancipation to be issued on January 1, asking each member to offer suggestions. Ignoring most of the substantive changes that cabinet members proposed, he accepted several stylistic improvements, and he added to his final Emancipation Proclamation a concluding paragraph, embodying an idea Chase proposed at the instigation of Charles Sumner: “And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”
But more than anything else, the crisis taught Lincoln his own strength. Looking back on his handling of the affair nearly a year later, he told John Hay: “I do not now see how it could have been done better. I am sure it was right. If I had yielded to that storm and dismissed Seward the thing would all have slumped over one way and we should have been left with a scanty handful of supporters. When Chase sent in his resignation I saw that the game was in my own hands and I put it through.” Proud that he was able to keep together an administration dominated neither by Radicals nor by Conservatives, he confided his final assessment of the crisis to Leonard Swett: “I may not have made as great a President as some other men, but I believe I have kept these discordant elements together as well as anyone could.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
What Will the Country Say!
Throngs attended the White House reception on New Year’s Day of 1863. First came the members of the diplomatic corps, in full court dress, who were presented to the President by the Secretary of State. Lincoln shook hands with everyone in a cordial but businesslike manner, which reminded some observers of a farmer sawing wood. Then he passed the guests along to Mrs. Lincoln, who wore a rich dress of velvet, with lozenge trimming at the waist; it was black since she was still in mourning for Willie. Members of the cabinet followed the diplomats, and then came officers of the army and navy. In their wake what young Fanny Seward, daughter of the Secretary of State, called “people generally” passed through the reception line. Not until after noon could Lincoln escape upstairs to his office, where Seward and his son Frederick, the assistant secretary of state, presently brought him the duly engrossed copy of the final proclamation of emancipation. Excepting Tennessee and portions of other Southern states that were already under the control of Union armies, it declared that all slaves in the states or portions of states still in rebellion “are, and henceforward shall be free.” For this “act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity,” the President invoked “the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.” “I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper,” Lincoln remarked, but he added ruefully that his arm was so stiff and numb from so many handshakes that he was not sure he could control a pen. “Now, this signature is one that will be closely examined,” he said, “and if they find my hand trembled, they will say ‘he had some compunctions.’ But, any way, it is going to be done!” Then, grasping the pen firmly, he slowly and carefully wrote his name at the end of the proclamation.
In the months ahead he would frequently need to exhibit the same care and firmness, for his administration was beset from all sides. Union armies were defeated or immobilized. Union naval expeditions were spectacular failures. The border states were in turmoil, and Missouri was the scene of a guerrilla war. Foreign powers offered to mediate the conflict between the Union and the Confederacy. Discontent was on the rise in the North, and confidential sources told the President that secret pro-Confederate societies were plotting to overthrow the administration. Within the Republican party factional lines sharpened, and both Conservatives and Radicals agreed that Lincoln was a failure as President. Whatever self-assurance Lincoln had gained from the cabinet crisis of December 1862 was sorely tested during the first six months of 1863, for he found that the shrewdness, tact, and forbearance that had served him so well in face-to-face disagreements were not easily applied to large groups in conflict. In short, Lincoln still had much to learn about how to be President.
I
The year began with little good news from the armies. To be sure, in eastern Tennessee Rosecrans’s army more than held its own against Bragg’s in the protracted and costly battle of Stones River (December 30-January 2), and Lincoln praised the general’s “skill, endurance, and da[u]ntless courage.” But when the Confederates withdrew from the field, Union forces did not follow. For the rest of the winter Rosecrans remained immobile at Murfreesboro, ignoring the President’s prompting to advance against Chattanooga. Like Buell, Rosecrans found the roads impassable, supplies too hard to collect, and his lines of communication with Nashville and Louisville too tenuous. When Lin
coln gently pointed out that the Confederates faced similar difficulties but still were able to do much damage with small raids, “harrassing, and discouraging loyal residents, supplying themselves with provisions, clothing, horses, and the like,” and proposed mounting “counter-raids,” Rosecrans ignored his letter, doubtless resenting civilian interference in military decisions. Instead of acting against the enemy, he brooded over perceived slights. He complained bitterly that he was outranked because Grant was issued a commission as major general that antedated his own. The President was finally obliged to tell him bluntly: “Truth to speak, I do not appreciate this matter of rank on paper, as you officers do. The world will not forget that you fought the battle of ‘Stone River’ and it will never care a fig whether you rank Gen. Grant on paper, or he so, ranks you.” Still, Rosecrans would not move.
Farther west, the outlook for the Union forces was even bleaker. On January 1 the federal garrison at Galveston, Texas, surrendered to attacking Confederates. In Louisiana, General Benjamin F. Butler proved so rapacious that the President had to replace him, and the new commander, N. P. Banks, had yet to demonstrate his ability. Most serious of all was Grant’s failure to capture Vicksburg. After an unsuccessful attempt to proceed overland through central Mississippi, Grant entrusted the offensive to W. T. Sherman, who led his troops on December 29 in a disastrous assault on the Chickasaw Bluffs defending Vicksburg that was reminiscent, on a smaller scale, of Burnside’s fiasco at Fredericksburg. Recognizing how vital Vicksburg was, the President watched these operations closely, but in the months after Sherman’s defeat he heard mostly complaints about Grant. The general, reported Murat Halstead of the Cincinnati Commercial, “is a jackass in the original package. He is a poor drunken imbecile. He is a poor stick sober, and he is most of the time more than half drunk, and much of the time idiotically drunk.” Further controversy rose over Grant’s ill-conceived order banning “Jew peddlers” from his lines. The President promptly revoked it “as it... proscribed an entire religious class, some of whom are fighting in our ranks.”
Most troubling of all was the situation of the Army of the Potomac, demoralized after Fredericksburg. Burnside gained some credibility from his manly acknowledgment that he alone, and not the President nor the War Department, was responsible for the defeat. Greatly pleased at this statement, because he was used to being blamed for his subordinates’ failures, Lincoln told Burnside “he was the first man he had found who was willing to relieve him of a particle of responsibility.” But the general had lost the confidence of his subordinate officers and his troops. Learning that Burnside was preparing another assault on the impregnable Confederate defenses at Fredericksburg, two of his major generals, William B. Franklin and William F. Smith, violated military protocol by writing directly to the President, warning that “the plan of campaign already commenced will not be successful.” But when Halleck complained of the “very disheartening” inactivity of the Army of the Potomac, Burnside pushed ahead and began organizing a wide flanking movement to cross the Rappahannock River below Fredericksburg.
At this point discontent in the Army of the Potomac bubbled over. Many of the officers, convinced of Burnside’s incompetence, were despondent almost to the point of mutiny. Anticipating another disaster, Generals John Newton and John Cochrane on December 30 made a quick trip to Washington to alert the President of the danger. Though Lincoln distrusted the reports of all these subordinates, because he was convinced their real purpose was to restore McClellan to command, he ordered a halt to Burnside’s advance: “I have good reason for saying you must not make a general movement of the army without letting me know.”
On New Year’s Day, before the public reception, Burnside came to the White House to explain and defend his plans. With an army of 120,000 men immediately confronting the enemy in Virginia, he thought it imperative to begin an advance, whether below or above Fredericksburg, but since not one of his division commanders supported his plan he was willing to give it up, and with it the command of the Army of the Potomac and even his commission in the United States Army. In announcing that he would “most cheerfully give place to any other officer,” Burnside suggested that Lincoln ought to look not just at the ability of the commanding general but at the honesty and loyalty of both Secretary of War Stanton and General-in-Chief Halleck. He warned that they had not given the President the “positive and unswerving support in [his] public policy” or assumed “their full share of the responsibility for that policy.”
Lincoln was in a quandary. Not knowing what else to do, he asked Halleck’s opinion of Burnside’s planned operation. The general declined to give one, making it clear, as he had on a previous occasion, “that a General in command of an army in the field is the best judge of existing conditions.” Impatiently the President then directed Halleck to go to Burnside’s headquarters, examine the ground, talk with the officers, and, after forming his own opinion, tell Burnside either that he approved or disapproved of his planned advance. “If in such a difficulty as this you do not help, you fail me precisely in the point for which I sought your assistance,” he wrote sharply. “Your military skill is useless to me, if you will not do this.”
Halleck’s response was to offer his resignation as general-in-chief, on the ground that “a very important difference of opinion in regard to my relations toward generals commanding armies in the field” made it impossible to perform the duties of his office “satisfactorily at the same time to the President and to myself.”
Lincoln felt he had no alternative but to rescind his order, endorsing it “Withdrawn, because considered harsh by Gen. Halleck.” Heading an administration which he had barely saved from collapse, after the two principal members had offered their resignations and others had been prepared to follow, and facing the likelihood of a change of command in the almost mutinous Army of the Potomac, the President could not permit further evidence of dissension among his advisers. But it was not a decision that he made readily, and in the future he spoke of Halleck as little more than “a first-rate clerk.”
It was harder to know what to do with Burnside. Lincoln was always reluctant to dismiss a faithful subordinate, however unsuccessful; perhaps the President remembered that at times he himself had seemed to most people a failure. He genuinely liked Burnside’s modesty and loyalty. While recognizing the general’s limitations, he admired his fighting spirit, and he respected the “consummate skill and success with which [he] crossed and re-crossed the river, in face of the enemy.” He tended to distrust the generals critical of Burnside, suspecting they were McClellan partisans. Anyway, there was no obvious successor to Burnside, and Lincoln wrote him candidly: “I do not yet see how I could profit by changing the command of the A[rmy of the] P[otomac].”
The general was given one more chance. With Halleck’s blessing he planned to cross the Rappahannock west of Fredericksburg, hoping to flank Lee’s army. Lincoln approved the advance but instructed the general, “Be cautious, and do not understand that the government, or country, is driving you.” On January 19 the Army of the Potomac lumbered out of camp on a mission that most of Burnside’s division commanders felt was doomed to failure. The weather reinforced their objections. As heavy rain turned to sleet, the army bogged down, and after three days Burnside called off what reporters scornfully called the “Mud March.”
Back in camp Burnside boiled over. Blaming the failure on the disloyalty of his subordinates, he drafted an order dismissing four of his major generals from the army and relieving four other generals from their commands. Taking the order to Washington, he told Lincoln he could not continue in command unless the order was approved. “I think you are right,” Lincoln said, but he reserved a decision until he could talk with Stanton and Halleck. The next morning, when Burnside returned to the White House, Lincoln told him he was to be replaced as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
The President had difficulty in choosing a successor. Despite considerable public pressure, he gave no thought to restori
ng McClellan to command. He could have brought in either Rosecrans or Grant, though neither had yet been notably successful, but to impose a Western commander would have been insulting to the Army of the Potomac. Of Burnside’s subordinates, E. V. Sumner was too old, Franklin and Smith were thought to be McClellan partisans, and others had yet to prove they could command a huge army.
Rather uncertainly Lincoln turned to Joseph Hooker. The general had some decided negatives. He was known to be a hard drinker. He had been outspoken almost to the point of insubordination in his criticisms of Burnside’s incompetence, and he let it be known that he viewed the President and the government at Washington as “imbecile and ‘played out.’” “Nothing would go right,” he told a newspaper reporter, “until we had a dictator, and the sooner the better.” But the handsome, florid-faced general had performed valiantly in nearly all the major engagements of the Peninsula campaign and at Antietam, where he had been wounded, and his aggressive spirit earned him the sobriquet “Fighting Joe.” Lincoln decided to take a chance on him.
Calling Hooker to the White House, he gave the general a carefully composed private letter, which commended his bravery, his military skill, and his confidence in himself. At the same time, he told Hooker, “there are some things in regard to which, I am not quite satisfied with you.” He lamented Hooker’s efforts to undermine confidence in Burnside and mentioned his “recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator.” “Of course,” he continued, “it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command.” “Only those generals who gain successes, can set up dictators,” he reminded the new commander. “What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.” Promising the full support of the government, he warned, “Beware of rashness.”
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