Team of Rivals

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Chase remained oblivious to the ire of his colleagues. He had found the trip immensely gratifying. “I little imagined the reception that awaited me,” he proudly told a friend. “Such appreciation & such manifestation of warm personal esteem—moved me deeply.” Chase apparently never considered that he owed a good part of his tremendous reception to the president he represented and to the victories of the Union armies at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. All personal praise and flattering letters he accepted as his just due. “The late election in this City & State, to you, more than to any other living man was a personal triumph,” he was told by James Baker, stationed in St. Louis. “I feel hopeful now for you in the contest of ’64.” After a few more fawning remarks, Baker proceeded to request a job as a collector, explaining that months “in the saddle” had produced a bad case of hemorrhoids, leaving him unfit for active duty.

  Chase also basked in the extravagant praise from the radical press. “To him, more than any other man in the cabinet,” the Liberator wrote, “are we indebted for the Presidents’ proclamation, and the other executive acts which have struck the diabolical system of slavery.” The Liberator supposed Chase’s victory over Seward’s influence had finally allowed the proclamation to be issued. “If in any one month of Mr. Seward’s administration, he had chosen strenuously to urge upon Abraham Lincoln the abolition of slavery throughout the country on the ground that the conflict is irrepressible,” the Liberator maintained, then “the war would have ended in our victory within six months thereafter.” The public should carefully consider “whether a vote for old Abe will not choose Seward to be again acting President.”

  NO ONE UNDERSTOOD BETTER than Seward the absurdity of the claim that he was the acting president. By the fall of 1863, he had both accepted and respected Lincoln’s consummate control of his cabinet, and the relationship between the two men “had grown very close and unreserved,” Fred Seward observed. “Thrown into daily companionship, they found, not only cordial accord in most of their political opinions but a trait in common not shared by all their contemporaries. That was their disposition to take a genial, philosophical view of human nature, and of national destiny.” Such intimate cooperation benefited not only both men but the country at large.

  “As they sat together by the fireside, or in the carriage,” Seward’s son continued, “the conversation between them, however it began, always drifted back into the same channel—the progress of the great national struggle. Both loved humor, and however trite the theme, Lincoln always found some quaint illustration from his western life, and Seward some case in point, in his long public career, that gave it new light.”

  Fred Seward recounted the events of one morning in October 1863 when his father called on Lincoln. “They say, Mr. President, that we are stealing away the rights of the States. So I have come to-day to advise you, that there is another State right I think we ought to steal.” Raising his head from his pile of papers, Lincoln asked, “Well, Governor, what do you want to steal now?” Seward replied, “The right to name Thanksgiving Day!” He explained that at present, Thanksgiving was celebrated on different days at the discretion of each state’s governor. Why not make it a national holiday? Lincoln immediately responded that he supposed a president “had as good a right to thank God as a Governor.”

  Seward then presented Lincoln with a proclamation that invited citizens “in every part of the United States,” at sea, or abroad, “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November” to give thanks to “our beneficent Father.” The proclamation also commended to God’s care “all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers,” and called on Him “to heal the wounds of the nation” and restore it to “peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.” These sentiments would reappear in Lincoln’s second inaugural, where once again, as with Seward’s “mystic chords” in his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln would transform Seward’s language into a powerfully resonant poetry.

  Their mutual faith in each other helped sustain both Lincoln and Seward through the continuing attacks of radicals and conservatives. Under political fire, both men remained remarkably calm. Lincoln told Nicolay that before his meeting with the Missouri radicals, Seward had asked him to prepare his response without saying “a word to him on the subject,” lest anyone claim he had influenced the president on the controversial matter. Despite their precautions, said Lincoln, Wendell Phillips gave a passionate speech decrying the White House response and stating “that Seward had written the whole of that letter.”

  As the November congressional elections approached, both men hoped that the North would overwhelmingly support the administration, the Union, and the war. They knew that these elections would set the stage for the presidential contest the following year. In one of their fireside conversations, Seward assured Lincoln that his own hopes for the presidency were “all past and ended.” He desired only that Lincoln be his “own successor,” for when the rebels “find the people reaffirming their decision to have you President, I think the rebellion will collapse.”

  Two days before the November 3 elections, Seward left for Auburn. He had worried for weeks about the condition of his son Will, who had returned home on convalescent leave after contracting typhoid in the army. Will suffered fever and terrible stomach pains. As the illness progressed, he had to be carried from his bed to a chair where he could sit up for only short periods of time. The elections offered Seward a chance to attend to his son and rally support among New York voters as well.

  Lincoln, too, was concerned about young Will, whom he had come to like and respect. The previous spring, he had ordered Will, then stationed with the army in Virginia, to report to the White House for a special assignment. As Will later recalled, the road to the capital was “exceedingly muddy” that day. He appeared at the president’s door “covered with mud” and looking “more like a tramp than a soldier.” He was “well known to the old porter at the door,” however, and was quickly ushered into the president’s library. Lincoln greeted him warmly, handing him a secret dispatch for delivery to General Banks in Louisiana. He would have to travel through “hostile” areas, Lincoln warned, so he would “have to take the chances of riding alone.” The dispatch was “of great importance and must not fall into the enemy’s hands,” so he should commit it to memory. Will left that night and delivered his intelligence safely.

  Seward arrived at home to find Will in stable condition. On election eve, he delivered a speech to the citizens of Auburn. He began with the sanguine prediction that the rebellion “will perish…and slavery will perish with it.” While his optimism might provoke criticism in some quarters, he explained, “as in religion, so in politics, it is faith, and not despondency, that overcomes mountains and scales the heavens.” His faith, he predicted, would be confirmed by the Unionist triumph in the coming elections. “The object of this election,” he said, “is the object of the war. It is to make Abraham Lincoln President de facto” in the South as he is in the North. “There can be no peace and quiet, until Abraham Lincoln is President of the whole United States.” Then, arousing the wrath of radicals, Seward extended his hand to the South, saying, “I am willing that the prodigal son shall return. The doors, as far as I am concerned, shall always be open to him.”

  As the voters went to the polls on Tuesday, Lincoln telegraphed Seward. “How is your son?” he inquired. “Thanks. William is better,” Seward replied. “Our friends reckon on (25,000) majority in the state.” New York did even better than that, reversing the losses of the previous year to give a 30,000 majority to the administration. In every state with the exception of New Jersey, Seward reported, “the Copperhead spirit is crushed and humbled.”

  A FESTIVE ATMOSPHERE enveloped the nation’s capital after the elections as official Washington prepared for the social event of the decade: the wedding of Kate Chase and William Sprague. Fifty guests, including the president, the entire cabinet, and selected congressmen, senators, and generals, were invited to the wedding ce
remony on Thursday evening, November 12, in the parlor of the Chase mansion. Five hundred additional invitations had been delivered for the reception immediately following the exchange of vows.

  For weeks, the newspapers were filled with gossip about the wedding. It was said that Sprague had given Kate a diamond tiara worth $50,000. Women readers relished details “about the bridal trousseau—the robes, the pearls, the diamonds, the lace, the silver, and all the magnificent gifts of this Millionaire Wedding.” Curiosity seekers noted the arrival of eminent guests at the Willard Hotel. The spectacle offered a brief respite from the endless sorrows of the war—the casualty reports, the scenes of suffering in the hospitals, the rumors of impending military engagements.

  For Salmon Chase, the imminent marriage brought a welter of conflicting emotions. Writing frankly to Sprague thirteen days before the wedding, he acknowledged that he was beginning “to realize how changed every thing will be when she is gone.” His life had long been occupied with “the solicitous care” of his beloved daughter, who had “constantly become more thoughtful, more affectionate, more loving; and, at this hour, is dearer than ever.” Though they would share the same Washington household, Chase understood that he would no longer enjoy Kate’s undivided attention. By return mail, Sprague reassured Chase that he fully appreciated their “high & holy relation” and would “never be happier than when contributing to continue the same relations between father & daughter—that has heretofore existed.” Referring most likely to his drinking problem, Sprague admitted that in the past he had “neglected both mind & body,” but promised henceforth to take care of himself, and “with good health and a proper exercise of the talent God has been pleased to give me, I hope to do something usefull for my day and generation.”

  Those close to Kate remarked that her emotions ran high as the marriage drew near. John Hay recounted that she cried “like a baby” just weeks before the wedding when he took her to see Maggie Mitchell in The Pearl of Savoy. The play revolves around the romantic travails of Marie, a peasant girl whose innocent love for a peasant boy is thwarted by a lecherous aristocrat determined to possess the lovely young girl. Through the wealthy suitor’s machinations, Marie’s family stand to lose their farm unless she gives herself to him. Torn between her devotion to her noble father and her love for the young peasant boy, Marie goes mad. Perhaps Kate shed so many tears over the melodrama because she identified with the tormented heroine’s devotion to her father.

  Over the years, as the Cinderella match would culminate in tragedy and poverty for Kate, journalists and historians have subjected Kate’s feelings for Sprague to considerable analysis. Many have speculated that her decision to marry “was a coldly calculated plan to secure the Sprague millions,” thereby to advance the “two great passions in her life—her father and politics.” It was said that “in her eyes all other men sank into insignificance when compared with her father,” and that no one else had “even the remotest hold upon her affections.” Her marriage to Sprague would relieve her father from further financial worries and provide abundant means for an all-out presidential campaign in 1864.

  Even journalists at the time noted that outside of his fortune, Sprague possessed few attractive qualities. Having left school early for the cotton mill, he was “wholly innocent of even an approximate understanding of the arts or sciences, polite or vulgar literature.” Furthermore, he was “small, thin and unprepossessing in appearance.” Still, if he was not physically attractive, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted, “pecuniarily, he is—several millions.” And, as Gideon Welles recorded in his diary, “Miss Kate has talents and ambition sufficient for both.”

  Henry Adams was among those who deemed Kate’s marriage a sacrifice for her father. He spoke of her as Jephthah’s daughter, referring to the biblical warrior who promised God that if he gained success in battle, “whatsoever” greeted him at his victorious return would be sacrificed as “a burnt offering.” Jephthah arrived home triumphant and was greeted at his door by his daughter, his only child. As the anguished father prepared the sacrificial pyre, his daughter comforted him with assurances that she accepted her fate, for a promise made to God could not be broken.

  The sacrificial nature of this scenario is belied by Kate’s own words, later confided to her diary as the fifth anniversary of her wedding approached. Thinking back to the night before her marriage, she wrote: “Memory has been busy with the hopes and dreams on a calm moonlight night five years ago of a woman, then in the full flush of social influence and triumph whose career had been curiously independent and successful, surrounded by some kind friends and many more ready to flatter and do her homage, accustomed to command and be obeyed, to wish and be anticipated, successful beyond any right or dessert of her own to claim, and yet stood ready, without a sigh of regret, to lay all these and more upon the altar of her love in exchange for a more earnest and truer life: one long dream of happiness and love.”

  She remembered spending that evening praying that she might fill her role of loving wife “to completeness,” that she “might become, his companion, friend and advocate, that he might be in a word—a husband satisfied. All there is of love and beauty, nobleness & gentleness were woven with this fair dream & I believed no future brighter than that our united lives spread open before us.” When folded in William’s “loving arms,” she continued, “oh the sense of ineffable rest, joy & completeness.” She felt like “a child, in security and trust. A lover won, a protector found, a husband to be cherished…. Not a reserve in my heart, not a hidden corner he might not scan, the first, the only man that had found a lodgment there.”

  In the hours before the nuptials began, “a large crowd of all sexes, ages and conditions” gathered around the Chase mansion to watch the procession of guests. The eager crowd was “very good-natured,” the Washington Daily Chronicle reported, exchanging congenial remarks as the occupants of the long line of carriages stepped down and proceeded inside. One by one the cabinet secretaries arrived; all but Monty Blair, who refused to attend, though his eighty-year-old father thoroughly enjoyed himself and was “quite the belle of the occasion.” The entrance of Lord Lyons and the French minister Count Henri Mercier attracted attention, as did the arrivals of Generals Halleck, McDowell, and Robert C. Schenck.

  “Much anxiety was manifested for the appearance of President Lincoln,” the Chronicle reported. At 8:30 p.m., minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to start, Lincoln pulled up in his carriage, unescorted, and without Mrs. Lincoln by his side. As Mary later said, she refused to “bow in reverence” to the twin “Gods, Chase & daughter.” Predictably, Mary’s absence at the wedding was noticed by the press. Noah Brooks later reported that Lincoln “stayed two and half hours ‘to take the cuss off’ the meagerness of the presidential party.”

  All eyes were on Kate, however, as she descended the staircase in “a gorgeous white velvet dress, with an extended train, and upon her head wore a rich lace veil,” encircled by her new pearl and diamond tiara. As the wedding party approached the Episcopal bishop of Rhode Island, the Marine Band played a march composed specifically for the occasion. When the vows were completed, “Chase was the first to kiss the newly made wife.” A lavish meal was served, followed by dancing in the dining room, which lasted until midnight.

  John Hay thought it “a very brilliant” affair, noting that Kate “had lost all her old severity & formal stiffness of manner, & seemed to think she had arrived.” The young couple left the next morning for New York, where their presence at the Fifth Avenue Hotel drew crowds of women eager to see the young bride in person, having followed all the details of her wedding in the papers.

  Marriage did not diminish the regular flow of letters between father and daughter. “Your letter—so full of sweet words and good thoughts—came yesterday,” Chase wrote Kate less than a week after the wedding, “and I need not tell you how welcome it was.” His new son-in-law, to Chase’s delight, also proved to be a good correspondent. “My heart is full of love
for you both,” Chase replied to Sprague, “and I rejoice as I never expected to rejoice in the prospects of happiness opening before both of you. I feared some inequalities of temper—some too great love of the world, either of its possessions or its shows—something I hardly know about. But I find that you each trust the other fully…and above all that you both look to God for his blessing & guidance.”

  Chase expressed but a single qualm: “I fear that Katie may be a little too anxious about my political future. She must not be so.” He insisted to Sprague that nothing could be “so uncertain as the political future of any man: and especially as the future which must be determined by popular preferences founded quite as much on sentiment as on reason.” While he suggested to his new son-in-law that the country needed a leader other than Lincoln, Chase ingenuously asserted that he would never allow himself “to be drawn into any hostile or unfriendly position as to Mr. Lincoln. His course towards me has always been so fair & kind; his progress towards entire agreement with me on the great question of slavery has been so constant, though rather slower than I wished for; and his general character is so marked by traits which command respect & affection; that I can never consent to anything, which he himself could or should consider as incompatible with perfect honor & good faith.”