The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln (21 page)

The Radicals were not without guile, not without dishonesty in their methods. They made use of what political power they could grasp to further their battle against what they considered the greatest menace of their time. Yet in essence they were honest men, as honest, many of them, as Lincoln himself, and a good deal more forthright. Only that curious duality of political interest already mentioned—the alliance of finance capitalism with the progressive anti-slavery forces—made the Radicals a disturbing and sometimes dangerous element in the waging of a war in which the Northern cause was itself dual in nature.

A prime example of this strange alliance of holy zeal and the almighty dollar can be seen in the next incident with which Lincoln had to deal at this time. His Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, who had certainly not been Lincoln’s choice for that office, became the target of a widespread protest against war profiteering. Cameron himself almost surely did not profit directly from any of the enormous war contracts being handed out. As he very frankly said, he didn’t need the money. Nevertheless, there were scandals, and friends of his were profiting at the Government’s expense. In December, when he submitted his annual report, Cameron made a curious move. Induced perhaps by the Radicals, or encouraged by the abolitionists’ approval of Frémont’s bold gesture of emancipation, Cameron incorporated in his report a recommendation that the Government arm the slaves and incite them to turn against their masters. In order to force the issue, Cameron, without consulting the President, put printed copies of his report in the mails for release to the press. Lincoln quickly ordered the report recalled, and re-worded the recommendation so as to make it relatively harmless. Early in January, Cameron was out of the Cabinet, and was appointed Minister to Russia.

Lincoln replaced Cameron with Stanton, a strange choice under the circumstances, for Stanton, although incorruptible in placing war contracts, was even closer to the Radicals than Cameron had been. He was, however, an able director of affairs; he threw his great energy into the administration of the War Department and made things hum. He kept in active touch with the armies and held an iron hand over the generals. He was friendly toward McClellan when he first took office, but relations between the two men soon became strained.

On January 27, only a few days after Stanton’s appointment, the President, under pressure from public opinion and Congress, issued his General War Order Number One which was a public command to the army and navy to move toward the insurgents on February 22. Lincoln had been studying military tactics, reading books on the subject very much as he had studied law, surveying and Euclid. McClellan objected to this order, pointing out that publishing the exact day on which the army was to move permitted the enemy to prepare for the attack. He said that roads would not be in fit condition for the movement of a large army so early in the spring. He also insisted that his own forces were not yet large enough to be used against the Confederates.
¹⁹
In all he managed to persuade Lincoln that an advance on February 22 would be impractical.

During the month of February, Lincoln was plunged into such personal grief that he was in no mood to argue with his recalcitrant general. His son Willie became seriously ill, and then, on February 20, he died. The shock of this death seemed to be the final touch needed to send the already emotionally overburdened man into a period of the deepest gloom. All his old melancholy returned, and with it the twists and idiosyncrasies of his nature. He twice had his dead son’s body exhumed so he could look at his face again.

Meanwhile the President’s General War Order had been taken more seriously in the West than in the East. Early in February, two strategically situated river forts in Western Tennessee were captured by a hitherto little-known Union commander, Ulysses S. Grant. The winning of these forts was the first Northern victory of any importance. After so many months of defeat and disappointment it helped to make the nation feel that perhaps the tide of secession had turned at last. Spring was close at hand. McClellan’s peerless army could be expected to get under way in a few weeks in a campaign that would strike the death blow to the rebellion. Peace would be established before the summer was over. The people of the North, and Lincoln, too, were still under the impression that one great battle would end the War and compel the Confederates to abandon the cause for which they had been fighting.

As spring approached, the Confederate General Johnston realized that his position at Manassas was untenable in the face of McClellan’s superior numbers. He slowly began to withdraw his army, and, by March 11, had moved it beyond the Rappahannock River. McClellan, hearing of this, started hotly for the famous Junction. When he arrived there with his army he found the place deserted. He also found that it had never been adequately protected. Dummy guns made from logs commanded many of the earthworks. McClellan marched his army back to Washington again, to find the whole country laughing at him. The President, finally having lost confidence in him, quietly relieved McClellan of his general command, leaving him as commander of the Army of the Potomac only. The ostensible reason for this was that McClellan was about to take the field, where he would not be in a position to supervise the other armies. No one was deceived.

Just before McClellan had made his drive against a phantom army, a naval battle took place that terrified all the seaports of
the North. The Confederates had raised one of the vessels sunk at the Norfolk Navy Yard, and had converted her hulk into an armor-sheathed boat with an underwater ram. This strange craft, which had once been the
Merrimac
but which was now named the
Virginia
, slowly steamed out into Hampton Roads on March 8, and methodically proceeded to annihilate the wooden ships of the Northern fleet while their cannonballs bounced harmlessly off her armor. Stanton trembled for the safety of Washington; a delegation of New York businessmen rushed to the capital begging for some kind of protection for their city.

The next day the whole affair was over. An even stranger-looking and much smaller craft, John Ericsson’s ironclad
Monitor
, which had just recently been built as an experiment by the North, moved across Hampton Roads with her deck almost awash and only a round gun turret visible. This “cheese-box on a raft,” as she was popularly described, just as methodically proceeded to put the
Virginia
(née
Merrimac
) out of business. The North breathed easier, but the naval experts of the world went into hurried consultations. The wooden warship had become obsolete; and every navy had to be rebuilt.

As soon as this marine interlude was over, attention again became concentrated on McClellan’s long-awaited move toward Richmond. On March 13, the now somewhat tarnished general completed his plan of attack. Instead of moving directly south through Manassas as the President had expected, McClellan determined to make a flank attack by land and water, moving up the Peninsula between the York and the James Rivers. This oblique movement left Washington exposed to the possibility of a direct attack from the Confederate forces lying north of Richmond. In order to forestall this, an adequate army had to be left to defend the capital. Lincoln protested against this whole plan of campaign, but he
permitted his objections to be overruled, since he was admittedly inexperienced in military matters.

Early in April, McClellan was near Yorktown with more than a hundred thousand men. The old Revolutionary battleground again heard the tread of marching men; some of the ancient trenches there were dug out and reconditioned—Lincoln’s army was beginning its first great campaign where Washington’s army had won its final victory. Unfortunately for sentiment, the portent turned out to be meaningless. McClellan spent a month elaborating a siege against Yorktown which was held by a force only one-tenth the size of his own. During the time he was toying with this pretty demonstration of military-school tactics, the Union armies in the West went on to win the fiercely contested battle of Shiloh and to capture the city of New Orleans which was the key to the Mississippi River.

While these military moves against the Confederacy were under way, the President and Congress had been engaged in organizing the first tentative moves toward solving the basic problem of slavery. A bill was passed prohibiting slavery in the territories; another abolished slavery in the District of Columbia with compensation for loss of property. The drift of public opinion was making it evident that the War would necessarily have to make an end to the issue that had torn the country in two. Lincoln, averse as usual to any violent change in the nation’s structure, drew up a plan whereby the slaves would be gradually freed and their owners compensated for their property. He submitted this to Congress on March 6, 1862. To emphasize the practicality of his proposal, he pointed out that the expenses incurred in eighty-seven days of war would purchase all the slaves in four border states and the District of Columbia.

Lincoln’s scheme for achieving emancipation as painlessly as possible might have been successful if his army had marched resolutely toward Richmond to reinforce his proposal by putting
down armed resistance. But McClellan, after putting his siege batteries in place before Yorktown, again found that the elusive Johnston, who had escaped him at Manassas, did not wait to be attacked. He withdrew up the Peninsula, leaving McClellan to follow. The Federal fleet sailed up the James to a point eight miles from the city. McClellan slowly advanced with his army during the month of May. He had been expecting additional troops for the intended assault on Richmond, but a clever feint by “Stonewall” Jackson made Lincoln and Stanton believe that Washington was in danger, and the supporting troops were withheld to protect the capital. Much disgruntled, McClellan finally arrived at Fair Oaks, only a few miles from Richmond. On May 31 he was attacked there by Johnston. The Confederate commander was wounded in the ensuing battle and was replaced the next day by Robert E. Lee, who had not yet distinguished himself in the field. He rapidly did so.

McClellan permitted nearly a month to pass while his army lay near the city. Lee took advantage of this respite to strengthen his forces. Then, on June 25, he threw his army of defense into an offensive attack against McClellan’s forces. The famous seven days before Richmond began; they ended in McClellan’s army being forced to retreat, fighting desperately all the way to the James River.

McClellan fortified his position at Harrison’s Landing, where the Federal fleet came to his support. Lee retired to Richmond to rest his army after having driven the invader back. McClellan waited for more men and fresh supplies to renew his attack against Richmond. He refused to admit that the Peninsular campaign was over, but actually it was, and it had been a costly failure for the North.

On July 8, Lincoln visited his defeated army. No one knew what his thoughts were during the river journey to and from Harrison’s Landing, but this bitter voyage marks the turning point in his Presidential career. So far he had been dominated
by events, molding his policies only after expediency demanded that they be changed. Now all hesitancy and doubt vanished; he became strong and daring. It was strength born of desperation, but it was strength. The man had been in hell for months. He had never looked so worn and haggard as he did at this time. The memory of his son’s death was still with him; he had seen Congress and the country go against him; he had been unable to find a competent general to lead his Eastern armies—and he faced the realization that the yearlong preparations against Richmond had come to nothing.

McClellan’s petulance over the lack of support which he insisted had caused his repulse probably did not help matters in his dealings with the President. Lincoln returned to Washington maturing his plans for action on the way. He moved with unwonted swiftness as soon as he reached the city. He had already made an indirect appeal through the Governors of the states for 300,000 more men and he had summoned General Pope from the West to take charge of the campaign in Virginia. He also called Halleck to come East to be the General in Chief of all the Northern armies. Most important of all, he prepared to meet the issue of slavery squarely for the first time in his career.

The demand for the suppression of the institution that had brought on the War had been rising insistently in the North. Frémont had given the original impetus to this demand with his unauthorized act of military emancipation. On May 9, one of Lincoln’s most trusted generals, his own personal friend, David Hunter, had issued a similar proclamation. No charge of political ambition could be made against Hunter; he was an honest and forthright man, and the President knew it. Reluctantly he had countermanded his friend’s order, but the very words he had used in doing so indicated that he was beginning to weaken in his opposition to such measures.

On his return to Washington Lincoln called a meeting of the Senators and Representatives of the border states. He had
addressed them once before when the Peninsular campaign was just beginning, pleading with them then to accept his plan of compensated emancipation. They had refused it. He gave them this one last chance to accept. They refused again. His mind was made up. The first evidence of his intention came the next day, July 13. In company with Welles and Seward he attended a funeral, the funeral of Stanton’s infant son. The occasion, which must have reminded him forcefully of the burial of his own son only five months before, may have had something to do with his breaking his customary silence on matters of future policy. He spoke aloud his thoughts on the subject of military emancipation. Welles reported the occasion in his diary:

He [Lincoln] dwelt earnestly on the gravity, importance and delicacy of the movement, said he had given it much thought and had come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity absolutely essential for the salvation of the Union, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued.…