Lincoln

by David Herbert Donald

  331 “look much better”: Francis Fessenden, Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden (Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1907), 1:260.

  332 “mildness towards... traitors”: Hans L. Trefousse, Benjamin Franklin Wade: Radical Republican from Ohio (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1963), p. 186.

  332 “regard to slavery”: Trefousse, The Radical Republicans, p. 184.

  332 “feasting and dancing”: Allan Nevins, Frémont: Pathmarker of the West (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1955), p. 552.

  332 Lincoln was President: William Jayne to William Butler, Mar. 21, 1861, Butler MSS, Chicago Historical Society. In time, Lincoln came to have “no doubt that Judge Trumbull is not his friend.” David Davis to Leonard Swett, Nov. 26, 1861, Davis MSS, ISHL.

  332 spread of liberty: David Herbert Donald, “Abraham Lincoln and the American Pragmatic Tradition,” in Lincoln Reconsidered, pp. 128–143.

  333 “hostile to me”: Hay, Diary, p. 235.

  333 mortally offended them: John Hay to WHH, Sept. 5, 1866, HWC.

  333 whom he succeeded: The authoritative biography is Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold M. Hyman, Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln’s Secretary of War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962).

  333 “whom he fears”: Welles, Diary, 1.128—129.

  333 “and of loyalty”: Joseph Holt to AL, Jan. 15, 1862, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  334 “a while first”: Thomas and Hyman, Stanton, p. 151.

  334 “Secretary of War”: CW, 6:312.

  334 “he sometimes does”: Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered, p. 71.

  334 “rein on me”: CW, 5:284.

  334 “it be done”: CW, 5:206. In this case Lincoln subsequently withdrew his directive, claiming that it was “plainly no order at all.” CW, 5:229.

  334 carrying out the order: CW, 5:111.

  334 “the one weakened”: Browning, Diary, 1:523. He recommended the same strategy to General Buell. CW, 5:98.

  335 in eastern Kentucky: See the excellent account of this engagement in Gerald J. Prokopowicz, “All for the Regiment: Unit Cohesion and Tactical Stalemate in the Army of the Ohio, 1861—1862” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1994), chap. 3.

  335 “a grievous mistake”: Helen Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary: A Biography of John G. Nicolay (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1949), pp. 131–132.

  335 cannon to Kentucky: Joshua F. Speed to Joseph Holt, Feb. 4, 1862, Holt MSS, LC.

  336 “ever seen here”: This description follows, with minor changes, my account in “‘This Damned Old House’: The Lincolns in the White House,” in Frank Freidel and William Pencak, eds., The White House: The First Two Hundred Years (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994), p. 63.

  336 probably typhoid fever: This is the most probable diagnosis of Willie’s illness, but Dr. Milton H. Shutes believed that it was “broncho-pneumonia (or pneumonitis) with damaged kidneys as a possible, determinate factor.” Shutes, “Mortality of the Five Lincoln Boys,” LH 57 (Spring-Summer 1955), p. 6.

  336 of his recovery: John G. Nicolay, Diary, Feb. 18, 1862, Nicolay MSS, LC.

  336 “is actually gone!”: Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, pp. 132–133.

  336 “loved him so”: Ruth Painter Randall, Lincoln’s Sons (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1955), p. 131.

  336 and he wept: LeGrand B. Cannon to WHH, Oct. 7, 1888, HWC. The quotation is from King John, act 3, scene 4.

  337 “died—never before”: WHH, interview with Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, Sept. 5, 1866, HWC.

  337 “I cannot succeed”: CW, 4:190.

  337 “never deserted us”: CW, 4:199.

  337 “of the Universe”: CW, 4:226.

  337 “this favored land”: CW, 4:271.

  337 lived in heaven: Edgar DeWitt Jones, Lincoln and the Preachers (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), pp. 35–38.

  337 “a process of crystallization”: Carpenter, Six Months, p. 189.

  337 veils and crepes: Randall, Mary Lincoln, pp. 284–288.

  338 “necessary to us”: Ibid., p. 296.

  338 “not get invitations”: Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, p. 215.

  338 “notions of life”: David Davis to William W. Orme, Feb. 23, 1862, Orme MSS, Illinois Historical Survey.

  338 “gambler and drunkard”: E. A. Hitchcock to “Cox,” Apr. 1862, Hitchcock MSS, LC.

  339 “of our cause”: CW, 5:119–125. The quoted words are italicized in the source.

  339 “to do anything”: John G. Nicolay, Diary, Feb. 27, 1862, Nicolay MSS, LC. Nicolay discreetly recorded Lincoln’s explosion as “Why in the——nation.”

  340 of the engagement: Welles, Diary, 1:62–65.

  340 “word of it”: McClellan, McClellan’s Own Story, pp. 195–196.

  340 “one we adopt”: Williams, Lincoln and His Generals, p. 67.

  341 plan of campaign: Samuel P. Heintzelman, Diary, Mar. 8, 1862, Heintzelman MSS, LC. N. P. Banks was named to command a Fifth Army Corps, to be composed of his own division and that of James Shields, which was to operate in the Shenandoah Valley. CW, 5:149–150.

  341 to the field: Bates, Diary, p. 239.

  341 to army administration: CW, 5:155.

  341 “my public duties”: George B. McClellan to AL, Mar. 12, 1862, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  342 “been at Manasses”: Browning, Diary, 1:552.

  342 “of universal liberty”: Congressional Globe, 38 Cong., 2 sess., p. 441.

  342 “was never played”: J. G. Randall, Lincoln the Liberal Statesman (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1947), p. 72.

  342 “in the White House”: The Liberator, Jan. 31, 1862.

  342 “Slave-holders rebellion”: Joseph Medill to AL, Feb. 9, 1862, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  342 “did the President”: Randall, Lincoln the Liberal Statesman, p. 67.

  342 “to think so”: Segal, Conversations, p. 168.

  342 “somehow” the cause: In his second inaugural Lincoln said that the slaves “constituted a peculiar and powerful interest” that was “somehow, the cause of the war.” CW, 8:332.

  342 the nefarious traffic: CW, 5:128–129.

  343 “remorseless revolutionary struggle”: CW, 5:48–49.

  343 of ultimate extinction: Robert W. Johannsen, ed., The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 265.

  343 “to our armies”: Browning, Diary, 1:477–478.

  343 of Henry Clay: Lincoln’s ideas on colonization were actually closer to Jefferson’s than to Clay’s. Like Jefferson, Lincoln always advocated voluntary emigration, while Clay endorsed forcible deportation of blacks. Marvin R. Cain, “Lincoln’s Views on Slavery and the Negro: A Suggestion,” The Historian 26 (Aug. 1964): 502–520.

  343 “congenial to them”: CW, 5:48.

  344 the race problem: Of the many studies of Lincoln and colonization, I have found the following most useful: Warren A. Beck, “Lincoln and Negro Colonization in Central America,” ALQ 6 (Sept. 1950): 162–183; Gabor S. Boritt, “The Voyage to the Colony of Linconia: The Sixteenth President, Black Colonization, and the Defense Mechanism of Avoidance,” Historian 37 (Aug. 1975): 619–632; N. A. N. eleven, “Some Plans for Colonizing Liberated Negro Slaves in Hispanic America,” Journal of Negro History 11 (Jan. 1926): 35–49; Walter A. Payne, “Lincoln’s Caribbean Colonization Plan,” Pacific Historian 7 (May 1963): 65–72; Paul J. Scheips, “Lincoln and the Chiriqui Colonization Project,” Journal of Negro History 37 (Oct. 1952): 418–453; and Michael Vorenberg, “Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Black Colonization,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 14 (Summer 1993): 23–45. A fascinating essay by William W. Freehling, “‘Absurd’ Issues and the Causes of the Civil War: Colonization as a Test Case,” in his Reintegration of American History: Slavery and the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 138–157, suggests that colonization was not an entirely impracticable scheme.

  344 to Central America: George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character
and Destiny, 1817–1914 (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 148–149.

  344 “among us” was inevitable: Francis Preston Blair, Sr., to AL, Nov. 16, 1861, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  344 together in peace: Montgomery Blair to AL, Nov. 21, 1861, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  344 were fully verified: N. W. Edwards to AL, Aug. 9, 1861, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  344 “by the prospects”: S. P. Chase to AL, Nov. 12, 1861, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  345 “has passed by”: Edward Everett Hale, Memories of a Hundred Years (New York: Macmillan Co., 1904), 2:190–191.

  345 introduced as bills: CW, 5:28–29; George P. Fisher, typed essay on “The Trial of John H. Surratt for the Murder of President Lincoln,” Fisher MSS, LC.

  345 “with human freedom”: Donald, Sumner, p. 47.

  346 “latitudes and countries”: Frederick J. Blue, Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1987), pp. 83–84.

  346 filed away unused: Salmon P. Chase, draft of a proposed presidential message on compensated emancipation, Mar. 6, 1862, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  346 matter of policy: For an astute review of the relationship between the two men, see John Niven, “Lincoln and Chase, a Reappraisal,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 12 (1991): 1–15.

  346 “of his dept.“. Hay, Diary, p. 145.

  346 “anything about ‘money’”.: Gabor S. Boritt, Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1978), p. 203.

  346 “it in to-day”: Donald, Sumner, p. 51.

  347 “may follow it”: CW, 5:144–146.

  347 “the right place”: San Francisco, Daily Alta California, Apr. 8, 1862.

  347 “wise a ruler”: Herbert Mitgang, ed., Abraham Lincoln: A Press Portrait (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), pp. 290, 293.

  347 District of Columbia: CW, 5:152–153.

  347 “and sound policy”: Henry J. Raymond to AL, Mar. 15, 1862, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  347 “about the matter”. John G. Nicolay, Diary, Mar. 9, 1862, Nicolay MSS, LC.

  348 “of his Country”: Segal, Conversations, pp. 165–168.

  348 “office he holds”: The American Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1862 (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1871), 2:346.

  348 “and hungry dog”: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1862), p. 159.

  348 by overwhelming majorities: Though Lincoln was able to enlist the almost unanimous support of Republican congressmen for the resolution, he did not succeed in attracting bipartisan support for it. In the House of Representatives only four Democrats supported the resolution, and only one Democrat in the Senate voted for it.

  348 “greatly prefer it”: CW, 5:169.

  349 “no military knowledge”: Randall, Lincoln the President, 2:84–85.

  349 “he fights”: Williams, Lincoln and His Generals, p. 86.

  349 “meet the crisis”. Browning, Diary, 1:537–538.

  349 Washington “entirely secure”: CW, 5:151.

  350 “line ...at once”. CW, 5:182.

  350 “do it himself”: McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 234.

  350 “sluggishness of action”: Browning, Diary, 1:540.

  350 “you must act”: CW, 5:185.

  350 “the best motives”: George B. McClellan to Montgomery Blair, Apr. 20, 1862, Blair MSS, LC.

  350 “loss of life”: George B. McClellan to AL, Apr. 23, 1862, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  350 scene of operations. My account of Lincoln’s Norfolk “campaign” follows Egbert L. Viele, “A Trip with Lincoln, Chase and Stanton,” Scribner’s Monthly 16 (Oct. 1878): 813–822, and William E. Baringer, “On Enemy Soil: President Lincoln’s Norfolk Campaign,” ALQ 7 (Mar. 1952): 4–26.

  351 “terror as ever”: Chase, Diary, p. 85.

  351 “hurts my feelings”: Wilson Barstow to Elizabeth Barstow, May 12, 1862, Barstow MSS, LC.

  352 all at once: CW, 5:208–209.

  352 obey his orders: CW, 5:219,226–227.

  352 lost his balance: Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren, Memoir of John A. Dahlgren (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1882), p. 369.

  352 to approve it: Lucius E. Chittenden, Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1891), pp. 307–309.

  352 “than Mr. Buchanan”: Edward Dicey, Six Months in the Federal States (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1863), 1:228.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: AN INSTRUMENT IN GOD’S HANDS

  All Lincoln biographies deal extensively with the Emancipation Proclamation, and I have learned much from them. The fullest analysis is in J. G. Randall, Lincoln the President: Springfield to Gettysburg (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1945), vol. 2, on which I have greatly relied. John Hope Franklin, The Emancipation Proclamation (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1963), is an excellent brief account.

  354 “different from theirs”: CW, 5:278–279.

  355 “another Bull Run”: Charles Sumner to R. H. Dana, Jr., May 31, 1862, Dana MSS, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  355 “defence of Washington”: CW, 5:236.

  356 “speed you can”: CW, 5:246.

  356 in two days: T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), pp. 100–101.

  356 “in good order”: CW, 5:255.

  356 able to move: CW, 5:273.

  356 “Providence will permit”: CW, 5:276–277.

  357 “prolonging the war”: Stephen W. Sears, George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1988), pp. 200, 203.

  357 “irresolute in action”. McClellan, Civil War Papers, pp. 244–245.

  357 “end of the rebellion”: Winfield Scott to AL, June 24, 1862, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  357 “attached to it”: CW, 5:284.

  358 than the unjust: Nicolay and Hay, 5:414–415.

  358 “simply absurd”: CW, 5:301.

  358 “sacrifice this army”: McClellan, Civil War Papers, pp. 322–323. For Lincoln’s rebuke of Marcy for speaking of capitulation, see Browning, Diary, 1:558–559.

  358 “browze round”. CW, 5:294; Strong, Diary, p. 218.

  358 “’die sometime’ “: Browning, Diary, 1:559–560.

  359 “bring it out”: CW, 5:298.

  359 “satisfactory conclusion”: CW, 5:292, 296–297.

  359 “break it for him”: Sandburg, 1:511–512. McClellan indignantly denied the charge, saying that he protected the White House only because it was once the property of George Washington. McClellan, Civil War Papers, pp. 290–291.

  359 “timber at that”: Charles N. Walker and Rosemary Walker, eds., “Diary of the War of Robt. S. Robertson,” Old Fort News 28 (Jan.–Mar. 1965): 42; McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 362.

  360 “served superior”: McClellan to AL, July 7, 1862, Lincoln MSS, LC.

  360 “the whole country”: CW, 5:279.

  360 “‘I will get off”: Sandburg, 1:602.

  360 “the army safely?”: CW, 5:310.

  360 “magnitude of the crisis”: McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 348.

  361 “General-in-Chief”: CW, 5:312–313.

  361 “General in the country”: CW, 5:284.

  361 recommended by General Scott: Wallace J. Schutz and Walter N. Trenerry, Abandoned by Lincoln: A Military Biography of General John Pope (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), chap. 8.

  361 his tacit approval: Kenneth P. Williams, Lincoln Finds a General (New York: Macmillan Co., 1949), 1:252–254.

  362 “no wise omit this”: CW, 5:318–319.

  362 “lived in vain!”: Francis Fisher Browne, The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln (Chicago: Browne & Howell Co., 1913), 2:423.

  363 “must be done”: Welles, Diary, 1:70–71.

  363 were “forever free”: CW, 5:222.

  363 “without consulting me”: CW, 5:219.

  363 “subdue the enemy”: CW, 5:222, 421.