Team of Rivals (98 page)

The fatal blow to the Chase campaign came again in Ohio, as it had four years before. Although Chase’s friends in the Union caucus of the state legislature had previously blocked attempts to endorse Lincoln’s reelection, the publication of the Pomeroy circular, a Chase ally conceded, “brought matters to a crisis…. It arrayed at once men agt each other who had been party friends always; & finally produced a perfect convulsion in the party.” The end result was the unanimous passage of a resolution in favor of Lincoln. “As matters now stand here, with so many states already declared for Lincoln,” Chase’s friend Cleveland attorney Richard Parsons warned, “prolonging a contest that will in the end array our ‘house against itself,’ & bring no good to our party at last, seems to me one of the gravest character.”

Perceiving this turn of events, Lincoln decided the time was right to answer Chase’s letter. He informed Chase that the circular had not surprised him, for he “had knowledge of Mr. Pomeroy’s Committee,” and of its “secret issues” and “secret agents,” for a number of weeks. However, he did not intend to hold Chase responsible. “I fully concur with you that neither of us can be justly held responsible for what our respective friends may do without our instigation or countenance; and I assure you, as you have assured me, that no assault has been made upon you by my instigation, or with my countenance.” As to whether Chase should remain as treasury secretary, Lincoln would decide based solely on “my judgement of the public service.” For the present, he wrote, “I do not perceive occasion for a change.”

A few days later, Chase withdrew his presidential bid. In a public letter to an influential state senator in Ohio, he reminded his fellow Ohioans that he had determined to withdraw from the race if he did not gain the support of his home state. With the legislature’s support of Lincoln, “it becomes my duty therefore,—and I count it more a privilege than a duty,—to ask that no further consideration be given to my name.”

Trying as ever to explain his action as an unselfish move, Chase told his daughter Nettie that he had withdrawn from the race, though “a good many of the best and most earnest men of the country desired to make me a candidate,” because “it was becoming daily more & more clear that the continuance of my name before the people would produce serious discords in the Union organization and might endanger the success of the measures & the establishment of the principles I thought most indispensable to the welfare of the country.” Attorney General Bates suggested a less patriotic explanation: “It proves only that the
present
prospects of Mr. Lincoln are too good to be openly resisted.”

Discipline and keen insight had once again served Lincoln most effectively. By regulating his emotions and resisting the impulse to strike back at Chase when the circular first became known, he gained time for his friends to mobilize the massive latent support for his candidacy. Chase’s aspirations were crushed without Lincoln’s direct intrusion. He had known all along that his treasury secretary was no innocent, but by seeming to accept Chase’s word, he allowed the secretary to retain some measure of his dignity while the country retained his services in the cabinet. Lincoln himself would determine the appropriate time for Chase’s departure.

L
INCOLN’S ABILITY TO RETAIN
his emotional balance in such difficult situations was rooted in an acute self-awareness and an enormous capacity to dispel anxiety in constructive ways. In the most difficult moments of his presidency, nothing provided Lincoln greater respite and renewal than to immerse himself in a play at either Grover’s or Ford’s. Leonard Grover estimated that Lincoln had visited his theater “more than a hundred times” during his four years as president. He was most frequently accompanied by Seward, who shared Lincoln’s passion for drama and was an old friend of Mr. Grover’s. But his three young assistants, Nicolay, Hay, and Stoddard, also joined him on occasion, as did Noah Brooks, Mary, and Tad. On many nights, Lincoln came by himself, delighted at the chance to sink into his seat as the gaslights dimmed and the action on the stage began.

“It gave him an hour or two of freedom from care and worry,” observed Brooks, “and what was better, freedom from the interruption of office-seekers and politicians. He was on such terms with the managers of two of the theaters that he could go in privately by the stage door, and slip into the stage boxes without being seen by the audience.” More than anything else, Stoddard remarked how “the drama by drawing his mind into other channels of thought, afforded him the most entire relief.” At a performance of
Henry IV: Part One,
Stoddard noted how thoroughly Lincoln enjoyed himself. “He has forgotten the war. He has forgotten Congress. He is out of politics. He is living in Prince Hal’s time.”

It is not surprising that the theater offered ideal refreshment for a man who regularly employed storytelling to ease tensions. The theater held all the elements of a perfect escape. Enthralled by the live drama, the costumes and scenery, the stagecraft, and the rhetorical extravagances, he was transported into a realm far from the troubling events that filled the rest of his waking hours.

In the mid-nineteenth century, developments with gaslight had vastly improved the experience of theatergoers. Managers had learned “to dim or brighten illumination” by manipulating the valves that fed the gas to the jets. A setting sun, a full moon, or a misty evening could be achieved by placing “colored glass mantles” over the lamps. Technicians stationed above the balcony could illuminate individual actors as they made their entrance onto the stage.

“To envision nineteenth-century theater audiences correctly,” the cultural historian Lawrence Levine suggests, “one might do well to visit a contemporary sporting event in which the spectators not only are similarly heterogeneous but are also…more than an audience; they are participants who can enter into the action on the field, who feel a sense of immediacy and at times even of control, who articulate their opinions and feelings vocally and unmistakably.” Though different classes occupied different areas of the theater—the wealthy in the first-tier boxes, the working class in the orchestra, and the poor in the balcony—the entire audience shared a fairly intimate space. Indeed, Frances Trollope complained that in American theaters she encountered men without jackets, their sleeves rolled to their elbows, and their breath smelling of “onions and whiskey.” Though Lincoln was seated in his presidential box, he could still enjoy the communal experience, which allowed him to feel the pulse of the people, much as he had done when he traveled the circuit in his early days.

The years surrounding the Civil War have been called the golden age of American acting. During those years, one historian claims, “the American theatre was blessed with a galaxy of performers who have never been excelled”—including Edwin Forrest, John McCullough, Edwin Booth, Laura Keene, and Charlotte Cushman. It was said of Miss Cushman, who was lionized in both Europe and America for her role as Lady Macbeth, that “she was not a great actress merely, but she was a great woman.” She had a magnetic personality and “when she came upon the stage she filled it with…the brilliant vitality of her presence.” A liberated woman, far ahead of her time, she had lovers but never married. Her work was her chief passion.

Seward and Miss Cushman had met in the 1850s and become great friends. Whenever she was in Washington, she stayed at the Seward home. The celebrated actress forged a close relationship with young Fanny, who idolized her. Miss Cushman offered a glimpse of the vital and independent life Fanny hoped to lead someday, if her dream to become a writer came true. “Imagine me,” Fanny wrote her mother after one of Miss Cushman’s visits, “full of the old literary fervor and anxious to be at work, to try hard—& at the same time ‘learn to labor, & to wait’ I mean, improve in the work which I cannot choose but take…I am full of hope that I may yet make my life worth the living and be of some use in the world.”

In honor of the star guest, Seward organized a series of dinner parties, inviting members of foreign legations and cabinet colleagues. For her part, Miss Cushman regarded Seward as “the greatest man this country ever produced.” Fanny believed that Cushman understood her noble father better than almost anyone outside their family.

Fred Seward recalled that Lincoln made his way to their house almost every night while Miss Cushman visited. Seward had introduced Cushman to the president in the summer of 1861. She had hoped to ask Lincoln for help in obtaining a West Point appointment for a young friend, but the scintillating conversation distracted her from the purpose of her visit. And Lincoln was undoubtedly riveted by the celebrated actress of his beloved Shakespeare.

Unlike Seward, who had been attending theater since he was a young man, Lincoln had seen very few live performances until he came to Washington. So excited was he by his first sight of Falstaff on the stage that he wrote the actor, James Hackett: “Perhaps the best compliment I can pay is to say, as I truly can, I am very anxious to see it again.” Although he had not read all of Shakespeare’s plays, he told Hackett that he had studied some of them “perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are Lear, Richard Third, Henry Eighth, Hamlet, and especially Macbeth. I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is wonderful. Unlike you gentlemen of the profession, I think the soliloquy in Hamlet commencing ‘O, my offence is rank’ surpasses that commencing, ‘To be, or not to be.’ But pardon this small attempt at criticism.” When Hackett shared the president’s letter with friends, it unfortunately made its way into opposition newspapers. Lincoln was promptly ridiculed for his attempt to render dramatic judgments. An embarrassed Hackett apologized to Lincoln, who urged him to have “no uneasiness on the subject.” He was not “shocked by the newspaper comments,” for all his life he had “endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice.”

The histories and tragedies of Shakespeare that Lincoln loved most dealt with themes that would resonate to a president in the midst of civil war: political intrigue, the burdens of power, the nature of ambition, the relationship of leaders to those they governed. The plays illuminated with stark beauty the dire consequences of civil strife, the evils wrought by jealousy and disloyalty, the emotions evoked by the death of a child, the sundering of family ties or love of country.

Congressman William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania recalled bringing the actor John McDonough to the White House on a stormy night. Lincoln had relished McDonough’s performance as Edgar in
King Lear
and was delighted to meet him. For his part, McDonough was “an intensely partisan Democrat, and had accepted the theory that Mr. Lincoln was a mere buffoon.” His attitude changed after spending four hours discussing Shakespeare with the president. Lincoln was eager to know why certain scenes were left out of productions. He was fascinated by the different ways that classic lines could be delivered. He lifted his “well-thumbed volume” of Shakespeare from the shelf, reading aloud some passages, repeating others from memory. When the clock approached midnight, Kelley stood up to go, chagrined to have kept the president so long. Lincoln swiftly assured his guests that he had “not enjoyed such a season of literary recreation” in many months. The evening had provided an immensely “pleasant interval” from his work.

Of all the remarkable stage actors in this golden time, none surpassed Edwin Booth, son of the celebrated tragedian Junius Booth and elder brother to Lincoln’s future assassin, John Wilkes Booth. “Edwin Booth has done more for the stage in America than any other man,” wrote a drama critic in the 1860s. The soulful young actor captivated audiences everywhere with the naturalness of his performances and his conversational tone, which stood in contrast to the bombastic, stylized performances of the older generation.

In late February and early March 1864, Edwin Booth came to Grover’s Theatre for a three-week engagement, delivering one masterly performance after another. Lincoln and Seward attended the theater night after night. They saw Booth in the title roles of Hamlet and Richard III. They applauded his performance as Brutus in
Julius Caesar
and as Shylock in
The Merchant o
f
Venice.

On Friday evening, March 11, Booth came to dinner at the Sewards’. Twenty-year-old Fanny Seward could barely contain her excitement. She had seen every one of his performances and had been transfixed by his “magnificent dark eyes.” At dinner, Seward presumed to ask Booth if he might advise the thespian how “his acting might be improved.” According to Fanny, Booth “accepted Father’s criticisms very gracefully—often saying he had felt those defects himself.” Seward focused particularly on Booth’s performance in Bulwer-Lytton’s
Richelieu,
where he thought he had made the crafty cardinal “too old and infirm.” Long identified as the power behind the throne himself, Seward perhaps wanted a younger, more vibrant characterization for Richelieu. When Seward told Booth he thought his performance as Shylock was perfect, Booth disagreed, saying he “had a painful sense of something wanting—could compare it to nothing else but the want of body in wine.”

Detained at the White House, Lincoln missed the enjoyable interchange with Booth. A few days earlier, anticipating Booth’s Hamlet, Lincoln had talked about the play with Francis Carpenter, the young artist who was at work on his picture depicting the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. In the course of the conversation, Lincoln recited from memory his favorite passage, the king’s soliloquy after the murder of Hamlet’s father, “with a feeling and appreciation unsurpassed by anything I ever witnessed upon the stage.”

What struck Carpenter most forcefully was Lincoln’s ability to appreciate tragedy and comedy with equal intensity. He could, in one sitting, bring tears to a visitor’s eyes with a sensitive rendering from
Richard III
and moments later induce riotous laughter with a comic tall tale. His “laugh,” Carpenter observed, “stood by itself. The ‘neigh’ of a wild horse on his native prairie is not more undisguised and hearty.” Lincoln’s ability to commingle joy with sorrow seemed to Carpenter a trait the president shared with his favorite playwright. “It has been well said,” Carpenter noted, “that ‘the spirit which held the woe of “Lear,” and the tragedy of “Hamlet,” would have broken, had it not also had the humor of the “Merry Wives of Windsor,” and the merriment of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” ’”