500 “sickening with anxiety”: Strong, Diary, p. 442.
500 “no turning back”: Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1939), 3:44.
500 “by favorable news”: CW, 7:333.
500 “to our Maker”: CW, 7:334.
500 14,000 casualties: On numbers and casualties I have followed the figures given in Thomas L. Livermore, Numbers & Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861–65 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1957), and in Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence C. Buel, eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (New York: Century Co., 1884–1888), vol. 4.
500 “ever to end!”: Allen Thorndike Rice, ed., Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln (New York: North American Review, 1888), p. 337.
500 “care, and anxiety”: Carpenter, Six Months, pp. 30–31.
501 “takes all summer”: John Y. Simon, ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), 10:422.
501 “Grant that wins”: Hay, Diary, p. 180.
501 “shake him off”: Carpenter, Six Months, p. 283.
501 “in our cause”: Robert S. Harper, Lincoln and the Press (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1951), pp. 290–291. In addition to Harper’s excellent account, see the stories and editorials in the New York World, May 24, 1864.
501 “by military force”: CW, 7:348.
502 “head shot off!”: Segal, Conversations, p. 318.
502 “for his re election”: Clark E. Carr to J. G. Nicolay, Mar. 14, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
502 unanimous for the President: Harry J. Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin, Lincoln and the Patronage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), pp. 245–259, offers a good account of these and other state conventions.
502 “conduct of the war”: Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America During the Great Rebellion (Washington, D.C.: Solomons & Chapman, 1876), p. 410.
503 Frémont for President: Full accounts of the convention proceedings appeared in the New York World, May 31 and June 3, 1864, and in many other newspapers.
503 “most magnificent fizzle”: S. Newton Pettis to AL, May 31, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
503 “controlling no votes”: New York Times, June 3, 1864.
503 “affair every way”: Hay, Diary, p. 184.
503 “four hundred men”: Nicolay and Hay, 9:40–41. The quotation is from I Samuel 22:2.
503 “won’t swindle me”: Hay, Diary, 185.
504 “a very good man”: Noah Brooks, “Two War-Time Conventions,” Century Magazine 49 (Mar. 1895): 723.
504 “pap-journalists, expectants”: Adam Gurowski, Diary: 1863–64-65 (Washington, D.C.: W. H. & O. H. Morrison, 1866), p. 249.
504 “was at Chicago”: John G. Nicolay to John Hay, June 6, 1864, Nicolay MSS, LC.
504 “decent town meeting”: James G. Smart, ed., A Radical View: The “Agate” Dispatches of Whitelaw Reid, 1861–1865 (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1976), 2:164.
504 “slavery in the United States”: Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions of 1856, 1860 and 1864 (Minneapolis: Charles W. Johnson, 1893), p. 177. For Lincoln’s role, see James A. Rawley, “Lincoln and Governor Morgan,” ALQ 6 (Mar. 1951): 296–297.
504 “you one foot”: Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions, p. 180.
504 “and the Union”: Ibid., p. 196.
504 “not even interesting”: David Davis to AL, June 2, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
505 action of the convention: John G. Nicolay to John Hay, June 5, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
505 amendment abolishing slavery: Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions, pp. 225–226.
505 “malignants and malcontents”: Hugh J. Hastings to F. W. Seward, June 8,1864, Seward MSS, UR.
505 “judge for itself”: CW, 7:376.
505 “enthusiasm about it”: Smart, A Radical View, 2:170.
506 balanced and inconclusive: McClure told his story in Abraham Lincoln and Men of War-Times (4th ed.; Philadelphia: Times Publishing Co., 1892), pp. 115–130, and published his evidence in an appendix, “The Nicolay-McClure Controversy,” pp. 457–481. The Hannibal Hamlin MSS (microfilm, Columbia University) contain a large body of material that Hamlin’s grandson collected, and Nicolay defended his case in a supplement to Charles E. Hamlin, The Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin (Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1899), pp. 591–615. The charge against Sumner is skeptically reviewed in Donald, Sumner, pp. 169–173.
506 endorsed his reconstruction program: Robert L. Morris, “The Lincoln-Johnson Plan for Reconstruction and the Republican Convention of 1864,” LH 71 (Spring 1969): 33–40.
506 own vice presidential nominee: This is also the conclusion of James F. Glonek, “Lincoln, Johnson, and the Baltimore Ticket,” ALQ 6 (Mar. 1951): 255–271, the best review of the evidence. H. Draper Hunt, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1969), pp. 176–189, reaches the opposite conclusion.
506 “called the Platform”: CW, 7:380.
507 “‘when crossing streams’”: CW, 7:384.
507 word to Chase: Chase, Diary, p. 224.
508 “of open revolt”: CW, 7:412–413.
508 submitted his resignation: CW, 7:414.
508 “I will go”. Hay, Diary, p. 199.
508 “the public service”: CW, 7:419.
508 “fitness of selection”: Chase, Diary, pp. 223–224.
508 “alone this time”: Segal, Conversations, pp. 330–331.
508 “than a post”: New York Herald, July 4,1864.
509 a financial crisis: Francis Fessenden, Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1907), 1:315–323.
509 “by your associates”: Ibid., 1:323.
509 “have such wishes”: CW, 7:423.
509 critical of the President: Belz, Reconstructing the Union, chap. 8, offers an admirable history of the Wade-Davis bill, which I have followed closely. Quotations not otherwise identified are drawn from Belz’s account.
510 “out of place”: Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. Du Pont, July 7 or 8,1864, Du Pont MSS, Hagley Museum, Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, Wilmington, Del.
510 “to prevent it”: Chase, Diary, pp. 232–233.
511 “fixed within myself”: John Hay’s detailed account of Lincoln’s failure to sign the Wade-Davis bill is in Hay, Diary, pp. 205–206. The inference that Lincoln was angry is my own.
511 decided to do so: CW, 7:433–434.
512 “I had designed”: Catton, Grant Takes Command, pp. 276–277.
513 “confines of Richmond”: See the good summary of press opinion in James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 (New York: Macmillan Co., 1907), 4:465–466.
513 “of human blood”: Horace Greeley to AL, July 7, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
513 “life is dreadful”: Isaac N. Arnold, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (3rd ed.; Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Co., 1885), p. 375.
513 “butchering business lately”: CW, 7:111.
514 “all about me?”: Louis A. Warren, Lincoln’s Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-one (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1959), p. 225.
514 “a technical Christian”: WHH, interview with Mary Todd Lincoln, Sept. 5, 1866, HWC.
514 “and better man”: Joshua F. Speed, Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln and Notes of a Visit to California (Louisville, Ky.: John P. Morton & Co., 1884), pp. 32–33.
514 “given to man”: CW, 7:542.
514 some Higher Power: William J. Wolf, The Almost Chosen People: A Study of the Religion of Abraham Lincoln (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1959), is the best study of Lincoln’s religious views. There is some good material in Edgar DeWitt Jones, Lincoln and the Preachers (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948). Especially valuable is the chapter “God’s Man,” in Lincoln the President: Last Full Measure (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1955), by J. G. Rand
all and Richard N. Current.
514 “can claim it”: CW, 7:281–282.
515 “mortal could stay”: CW, 7:535.
515 “in the field”: CW, 7:332, 334, 384.
515 “seventy-five thousand men?”: Rhodes, History of the United States, 4:467.
515 “head of an army”: Randall, Mary Lincoln, p. 253.
515 “[off] right away”: Catton, Grant Takes Command, p. 305.
516 “bloodshed as possible”: Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant (New York: Century Co., 1897), pp. 216–223. Porter’s unfortunate attempts to recapture African-American dialect have been silently corrected.
516 “strengthened him mentally”: Welles, Diary, 2:58.
516 “I will go in”: Browning, Diary, 1:673.
516 “in that region”: Bates, Diary, p. 378.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: I AM PRETTY SURE-FOOTED
John H. Cramer, Lincoln Under Enemy Fire (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1948), collects most of the evidence on Lincoln’s activities during Early’s raid. Edward C. Kirkland, The Peacemakers of 1864 (New York: Macmillan Co., 1927), remains the most comprehensive account of the Greeley, Gilmore-Jaquess, and Raymond efforts to secure peace. Joel H. Silbey, A Respectable Minority: The Democratic Party in the Civil War Era, 1860–1868 (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1977), offers a masterful interpretation of Lincoln’s opponents in 1864. See also Christopher Dell, Lincoln and the War Democrats: The Grand Erosion of Conservative Tradition (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1975). T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1941), gives a full account of Radical plans to unhorse Lincoln.
517 “wilted down”: E. A. Hitchcock to Mary Mann, July 14, 1864, Hitchcock MSS, LC.
518 Seeming “almost crushed’: Ibid.
518 “not an order”: CW, 7:437.
519 “very conspicuous figure”: Asa Townsend Abbott, Diary, Sept. 7, 1916, Abbott MSS, LC. See also Abbott’s letter to “Editor Tribune,” June 22 [no year], in the same collection.
519 head knocked off: Hay, Diary, p. 209.
519 “in his hand”: Cramer, Lincoln Under Enemy Fire, p. 64.
519 “standing upon it”: Ibid., pp. 30–31. The story that Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., shouted “Get down, you fool!” at the President cannot be authenticated. See Frederick C. Hicks, “Lincoln, Wright,’ and Holmes at Fort Stevens,” JISHS 39 (Sept. 1946): 323–332.
519 “some of them”: Hay, Diary, p. 210.
519 “all escaped”: Browning, Diary, 1:676.
519 “the past week”: John Y. Simon, ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), 11:230.
520 “military administration”: Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, quoted in Washington National Intelligencer, July 20, 1864.
520 “force it”: CW, 7:476.
520 “about your case”: Hagar J. Weston to AL, July 10, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
520 “blind impetuosity”: Bates, Diary, p. 393.
520 “to stab him”: CW, 7:462–463.
521 “be more apparant”: CW, 7:483.
521 “poltroons and cowards”: Welles, Diary, 2:84.
521 “to the country”: CW, 7:439–440.
521 “anxious for Peace”: Lincoln had all of his and Greeley’s correspondence on the Niagara peace negotiations printed, and, unless otherwise identified, all quotations in the following paragraphs are from the copy in the Lincoln MSS, LC. The originals of these letters are also in Lincoln’s papers.
521 presidential election: See the excellent account of the Confederate mission in Larry E. Nelson, Bullets, Ballots, and Rhetoric: Confederate Policy for the United States Presidential Contest of 1864 (University: University of Alabama Press, 1980).
522 only Seward: Fessenden, who interrupted a conversation between Lincoln and Seward, also knew of the negotiations.
522 “struggled for”: CW, 8:1–2.
523 “we will have”: Edmund Kirke [James R. Gilmore], “Our Visit to Richmond,” Atlantic Monthly 14 (Sept. 1864): 379.
523 “coming Presidential campaign”: New York Herald, July 26, 1864.
523 “black race”: New York World, July 22 and 24, 1864.
524 “earnest men”: S. P. Chase to William C. Noyes, July 11, 1864, Chase MSS.
524 “carry it out”: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1888), p. 195.
524 “Father Abraham”: Unidentified clipping, enclosed in Thurlow Weed to W. H. Seward, Aug. 10, 1864, Seward MSS, UR.
524 “continuing it”: James W. Grimes to C. H. Ray, Aug. 3, 1864, Ray MSS, HEH.
524 “make the laws”: New York Tribune, Aug. 5, 1864.
524 “daze the President”: New York World, Aug. 9, 1864.
524 “he was exalted”: New York Herald, Aug. 6, 1864.
524 “befall a man”: Noah Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time (New York: Century Co., 1896), p. 170.
525 “‘if they can’”: Carpenter, Six Months, p. 145.
525 “patriotic men”: S. P. Chase to George Opdyke, Aug. 19, 1864, Chase MSS.
525 “the true outlines”: Charles Sumner to Francis Lieber, Aug. 19, 1864, Sumner MSS, Houghton Library, Harvard University. The expression “blue lights” dates from the War of 1812, when it was claimed that disloyal New England Federalists used blue lights to warn British ships of nearby American frigates.
525 “unofficial governors”: Strong, Diary, p. 473.
525 “if necessary”: Henry Greenleaf Pearson, The Life of John A. Andrew (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin &Co., 1904), 2:159.
525 “new candidates”: Henry Winter Davis to Zachariah Chandler, Aug. 24, 1864, Chandler MSS, LC.
526 “closed out the rebellion”: John Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1907), pp. 186–191.
526 “to stand upon”: CW, 7:501.
526 “let him try me”: Ibid., 7:499–501.
526 “both these conditions”: New York Times, Aug. 18,1864.
527 “come what will”: CW, 7:506–507.
527 “serious damage”: Christopher N. Breiseth, “Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: Another Debate,” JISHS 68 (Feb. 1975): 19–20.
527 a broad range: Allan G. Bogue, The Congressman’s Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 132–141, provides an informed view of the nature and significance of Republican factionalism.
527 “give up the slaves”: Richard Lowitt, A Merchant Prince of the Nineteenth Century: William E. Dodge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), pp. 222–223.
528 “a competent leader”: Browning, Diary, 1:676.
528 “he is a failure”: Maurice G. Baxter, Orville H. Browning: Lincoln’s Friend and Critic (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1957), p. 158.
528 “an impossibility”: Thurlow Weed to F. W. Seward, Aug. 26, 1864, Seward MSS, UR.
528 “Slavery be abandoned”: Thurlow Weed to W. H. Seward, Aug. 22, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
528 “probable candidate”: Abram Wakeman to AL, Aug. 12, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
528 of the Union: Weed’s editorial, “The Wade and Davis Letter,” in Albany Evening Journal, enclosed in Ira Harris to AL, Aug. 15, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
529 “from the start”: James Kelly to W. H. Seward, Aug. 12, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
529 “Port of New York”: Charles Jones to AL, Aug. 21, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
529 “hostile hands”: Henry J. Raymond to AL, Aug. 22, 1864, Lincoln MSS, LC.
529 “badly beaten”: Jessie Ames Marshall, ed., Private and Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler (Norwood, Mass.: Plimpton Press, 1917), 5:35.
529 “save it afterwards”: CW, 7:514.
529 “up the Union”: CW, 8:149–150.
530 “own conscience”: Hay, Diary, p. 238.
530 “which they do”: Noah Brooks, “Two War-Time Conventions,” Century Magazine 49 (Mar. 1896): 732.
53
0 “of the States”: Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America During the Great Rebellion (3rd ed.; Washington, D.C.: Solomons & Chapman, 1876), pp. 419–420.
530 defeat in the election: Joel H. Silbey, A Respectable Minority: The Democratic Party in the Civil War Era, 1860–1868 (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1977), chap. 5, offers a thoughtful analysis of the dynamics of the Democratic convention.
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