The Colonization Society has been busily engaged all this while in conveying slaves to Africa; in other words, abolishing slavery. In this very charitable occupation it has carried away of manumitted slaves: 613.
Balance against the society: 549, 387.
Freehling argues provocatively, in “Absurd Issues,” that the numbers were nevertheless not impossible—or rather perhaps that supporters, and apprehensive Deep South slaveholders, could plausibly believe that colonization was possible, given the many movements of peoples across oceans and continents and out from under problems.
“The practical thing”: Lincoln’s address on colonization is in CW, 5:370–75.
“always the careful politician”: Michael Vorenberg, “Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Black Colonization,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 14, no. 2 (Summer 1993), pp. 25, 24.
“Despite the resistance”: Joseph Glatthaar, Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), p. 10.
“at one time had over 123,000 soldiers”: Ibid.
the words that U. S. Grant had used in a letter: Grant wrote to Lincoln on August 23, 1863 (AL Papers):
I have given the subject of arming the negro my hearty support. This, with the emancipation of the negro, is the heavyest blow yet given the Confederacy. Gen. Thomas is now with me and you may rely on it I will give him all the aid in my power. I would do this whether the arming the negro seemed to me a wise policy or not, because it is an order that I am bound to obey and do not feel that in my position I have a right to question any policy of the Government. In this particular instance there is no objection however to my expressing an honest conviction. That is, by arming the negro we have added a powerful ally. They will make good soldiers and taking them from the enemy weaken him in the same proportion they strengthen us.
Douglas Wilson, in his illuminating discussion: Douglas L. Wilson, Lincoln’s Sword (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), p. 186.
“I need not say that at the time” “I entered the room”: Frederick Douglass: Autobiographies, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Library of America, 1994), pp. 785–86.
“considering the conditions”: Quoted by John Eaton, cited in Thomas F. Schwartz, ed., “For a Vast Future Also”: Essays from the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999), p. 77n86.
“In all my interviews”: Quarles, Lincoln and Negro, p. 204. This “entire freedom from popular prejudice” seems to have applied not just to Douglass or to other black eminences (Sojourner Truth had a memorable meeting with him) but to his dealings with all black persons, including servants. Quarles also wrote: “In his person-to-person relationships with Negroes, Lincoln was characteristically kind and considerate. He did favors for Negroes, favors that could bring him no political advantage or private gain.”
“We ought never to be inconvenienced”: James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 793.
“It is now quite certain”: Lincoln’s note to the cabinet on the Fort Pillow massacre is in CW, 7:328. See the extensive note on the next page.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE BENIGN PREROGATIVE TO PARDON UNFORTUNATE GUILT
“This is indeed”: William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England: A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765–1769 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), online at http://presspubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2_2_1s17.html and at AP.
“In democracies this power of pardon”: “Whenever the nation see him personally engaged, it is only in works of legislature, magnificence, or compassion. To him therefore the people look up as the fountain of nothing but bounty and grace; and these repeated acts of goodness, coming immediately from his own hand, endear the sovereign to his subjects, and…root in their hearts that filial affection, and personal loyalty, which are the sure establishment of a prince.” Ibid.
“The criminal code of every country”: Federalist 74, March 25, 1788, AP.
a mere one hundred dollars: “Order Annulling Sentence of Benjamin G. and Franklin W. Smith,” March 18, 1865, CW, 8:364.
Lincoln pardoned more than three hundred “nonmilitary” offenders: P. S. Ruckman, Jr., and David Kincaid, “Inside Lincoln’s Clemency Decision Making,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 29 (Winter 1999), pp. 84–99, is a study of 331 warrants from Lincoln clemency cases in the civil courts. An older study is J. T. Dorris, “President Lincoln’s Clemency,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 20 (January 1928). There is additional material in Dorris’s much later book, Pardon and Amnesty Under Lincoln and Johnson (1953; repr. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977). There is a helpful article on clemency in Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982), p. 60.
The largest single episode: The excellent leading article on this event, Carol Chomsky, “The United States–Dakota War Trials: A Study in Military Injustice,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 1 (November 1990), explains that the episode involved the Dakota, who are part of the Sioux nation, and refers to them by that name; most treatments have called them Sioux.
“Mr. Lincoln was tender hearted”: William H. Herndon, quoted in Richard N. Current, The Lincoln Nobody Knows (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958), p. 181.
“Lincoln was a man of deep sympathy”: William E. Barton, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, 2 vols. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1925), 2:249.
he saved the life of an old Indian: Two accounts of this incident can be found in the memories of “informants” who knew Lincoln, interviewed by Herndon: Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements About Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), William G. Greene mentions the incident twice (pp. 19 and 390); Royal Clary’s version is on pp. 372–73.
A presidential audience he held on March 27, 1863, in the “big wigwam”: The Washington Daily Morning Chronicle’s account of Lincoln’s meeting with the Indian chiefs is published as “Speech to Indian Chiefs,” March 27, 1863, CW, 6:151–52.
the irony of the president making this claim: David Herbert Donald, in Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster 1995), p.393, writes that “the irony was unintentional.” Mark E. Neely, Jr., in The Last Best Hope of Earth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 150, says that Lincoln spoke “without conscious irony.” And David Nichols, in an article that summarizes much of his book, “Lincoln and the Indians,” in Gabor Boritt, ed., The Historian’s Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), makes a much more earnest comment: “Considering the bloodiness of the white Civil War in 1863, this was a remarkably ethnocentric statement” (p. 166).
“A nation which sowed robbery would reap a harvest of blood”: In his memoir, Light and Shadows of a Long Episcopate: Being Reminiscences and Recollections of the Right Reverend Henry B. Whipple, Bishop of Minnesota (1902), Whipple claims to have repeated this phrase many times publicly. Excerpts of his writings about the Indians are online at the Dakota Conflict Trials Web site: www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/Light&Shadows.html.
“all the rights and all the justice”: Senator William Pitt Fessenden, quoted in David A. Nichols, Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Policy and Politics (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1978), p. 189.
“[S]o far as I am concerned”: Quoted ibid., p. 77. Carol Chomsky, in “War Trials,” attributes this statement to a trader named Andrew Myrick, later one of the first casualties of the war, whose body was found with his mouth stuffed with grass (p. 17).
“The horrible massacres”: General John Pope, quoted in Chomsky, “War Trials,” p. 23, and partially in Nichols, “Lincoln and the Indians,” p. 87.
a military commission sentenced 303 Sioux warriors: According to Chomsky, “War Trials,” by the last day of the trials, November 3, the commission had tried 392 Dakota (p. 27).
“[W]e kill the wo
lfes”: Thaddeus Williams, M.D. to Abraham Lincoln, November 22, 1862, AL Papers. This is a long, bloodthirsty letter, full of lurid details.
Learning from his judge advocate general: Lincoln wrote to Holt inquiring about the procedure for pardoning the Sioux and received this response: “I do not understand the precise form in which the question, referred to in your not[e] of this morning presents itself. If it be on an application to pardon the indians condemned, or a part of them, I am quite sure that the power cannot be delegated, and that the designation of the individuals, which its exercise involves, must necessarily be made by yourself.” Joseph Holt to Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862, AL Papers.
“will be sufficiently great to satisfy”: Henry Sibley, quoted in Nichols, Lincoln and the Indians, p. 98.
“The lack of evidence”: Ibid., p. 100.
forty-two Indians were “tried”: Chomsky, “War Trials,” p. 27.
David Herbert Donald presents: Donald, Lincoln, pp. 392–95.
“I could not afford to hang men for votes”: Nichols writes: “The President noted [to Ramsey] that he carried Minnesota only by seven thousand votes compared to ten thousand in 1860. Ramsey replied ‘that if he had hung more Indians, we should have given him his old majority.’ Lincoln failed to appreciate the humor of the remark. ‘I could not afford to hang men for votes,’ he said.” Nichols, Lincoln and the Indians, p. 118; quoting the November 23, 1864, diary entry of Minnesota senator Alexander Ramsey, in Roll 39, vol. 36, Ramsey Papers, in the Abraham Lincoln Collection of the Blue Earth Historical Society.
“Lincoln was clearly more humanitarian”: Nichols, “Lincoln and the Indians,” p. 166.
“[Lincoln’s] commutation of the sentences”: Hans Trefousse, quoted ibid., p. 172.
“If I live”: This quotation, found in William C. Harris, Lincoln’s Last Months (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 171, is taken from Whipple’s “My Life Among the Indians,” North American Review 150 (April 1890), p. 438. Harris writes: “As the troubles on the Plains multiplied late in the Civil War, Lincoln signaled, at least to one visitor, that he intended to take a more active role in Indian matters. Henry B. Whipple, the Protestant Episcopal bishop of Minnesota and a missionary among the Indians, spoke to him at this time about the mistreatment of the western Indians. Moved by Whipple’s account, the president promised, according to the bishop, ‘if I live, this accursed system shall be reformed.’”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. MUST I SHOOT A SIMPLE SOLDIER BOY?
more than a hundred thousand went before courts-martial: William C. Davis, Lincoln’s Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), p. 167.
All capital cases: Carol Chomsky, “The United States–Dakota War Trials: A Study in Military Injustice,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 1 (November 1990), pp. 13, 26. Article of War 65 provided that, in time of peace, sentences involving loss of life could not be executed until laid before the president for his approval. Act of April 10, 1806, ch. 20,§1, art .65, 2 Stat. 359, 367. By Act of December 24, 1861, Congress provided that, in time of war, approval was necessary only from the general commanding the army in the field or colonel commanding a separate department. Ch. 3, 12 Stat. 330. In July 1862, however, Congress specified that no sentence of death should be carried out until approved by the president. Act of July 17, 1862, ch. 201, §5, 12 Stat. 597, 598.
“Allow me to address you”: Anne C. King to Abraham Lincoln, September 8, 1861, AL Papers.
McClellan wrote to his wife: George B. McClellan, McClellan’s Own Story (1887; repr. Digital Scanning, 1998), p. 91.
He would ask the army’s chief lawyer: In December 1861 he would ask, “Will the Judge Advocate please say what are Gen. Benham’s rights in the case?” In January 1862 he would ask Major Lee, “Will the Judge Advocate please tell me whether anything,& what I ought to do in this case?” and in February, “Would it be proper for me to order a Court Martial, as within requested?” In July he wrote: “Please examine once more, the case of Lieutenant Colonel Francis B O’Keefe, and tell me what I, as President, can lawfully do, if anything.” In March 1862 he would write: “I wish to grant a pardon in this case, and will be obliged to the Judge Advocate of the Army, if he will inform me as to the way in which it is to be done.” “I wish to grant the suspension within requested,” Lincoln wrote in another March case. “Will the Judge Advocate please carry it into effect.”
“The President’s suggestion as to the construction”: This note can be found in Lee’s endorsement of a court-martial file. George A. Rowley, Monday, July 7, 1862 (General Court Martial; endorsed by Abraham Lincoln and John F. Lee), AL Papers.
But on September 3, 1862: Benjamin S. Roberts to Montgomery Blair, July 19, 1862 (Judge Advocate; endorsed by Blair), AL Papers.
Holt, a former Democrat: Elizabeth Leonard, Lincoln’s Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion After the Civil War (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), describes Holt’s career.
“The President would call me over”: Nicolay’s October 29, 1875, conversation with Holt, mentioned throughout this chapter, can be found in Michael Burlingame, ed., An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), p. 69.
“He shrank with evident pain”: Ibid.
He would then look into the papers: “Let execution of William H. Ogden be suspended until further order from me” (November 12, 1863). “Suspend execution in case of Adolphus Morse, Seventy-sixth New York, deserter, and send record to me”(November 25, 1863). “Let the execution of John A. Welch, under sentence to be shot for desertion to-morrow, be suspended until further order from here” (December 10, 1863). “Suspend execution of the death sentence of James Whelan [Wheelan], One hundred and sixteenth Pennsylvania Volunteers, until further orders and forward record for examination”(March 2, 1864). “Suspend execution of sentence of death in case of Solomon Spiegel 9th Michigan cavalry until further orders, and forward record of trial for examination” (January 12, 1865).
More chilling still: On May 14, 1864, he wrote, “If Thomas Dorerty, or Welch, is to be executed to-day, and it is not already done, suspend it till further order.” In another case Lincoln noted on the envelope of a capital case, “These papers reached me at 1 PM June 6th 1863,” apparently recording the hour for reference, in relation to an impending execution. Fortunately, in that case, they arrived in time.
In at least four cases: See Lincoln’s messages on June 25, 1863, to Major General Slocum; on October 29, 1863, to General Meade (two soldiers already shot); and on January 6, 1865, to Grant; all in CW.
“I am unwilling for any boy under eighteen to be shot”: “Despite issuance of War Department orders as early as August 1861 forbidding acceptance without parental consent of minors under eighteen and an unqualified barring of them the next year, thousands of boys seventeen years and younger found their way into the ranks.” Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1952), p. 298.
Because the executions were intended: For an account of the executions, see ibid., p.19.
“A gallows and a shooting-ground”: Ella Lonn, Desertion During the Civil War (New York: Century, 1928), p. 181.
“This is the day”: John Eaton, Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen: Reminiscences of the Civil War (London: Longmans, Green, 1907), p. 180.
“Get out of the way” “The pile of papers”: Leonard Swett to William Henry Herndon, January 17, 1866, in Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements About Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), p. 166. Swett revised this letter in 1887.
“He [Lincoln] had very great kindness of heart”: Ibid.
He did not pardon any soldier: Of the 272 Union soldiers executed during the Civil War, 22 were found guilty of rape. Robert I. Alotta, Civil War Justice: Union Army Executions Under Lincoln (Shippensburg, Penn.: White Mane, 1989), p. 30. Alotta notes that Lincoln “prov
ided clemency for all types of military offenders, except rapists” (p. 31).
“He was only merciless”: Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger, eds., Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997), p. 64.
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