Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Less than a week later, newspapers across the North published a proclamation in which the president declared that “on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

  When Elizabeth read the entire preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in the National Republican on September 23, her spirits soared, and she felt her faith in Mr. Lincoln renewed. Now, at last, details that had been kept secret leaked out, and the president’s tactical delays made sense. Mr. Lincoln had wanted to free the slaves all along, his supporters insisted, despite his earlier statements that the war was being fought only to preserve the Union. He had written his Emancipation Proclamation weeks or perhaps months earlier and had presented it to his cabinet, but he had been obliged to wait until after a decisive Union victory before he could announce the proclamation to the American people or it would appear an act of desperation. Mr. Lincoln had also wanted to determine whether freeing the slaves was constitutional, and he had come to believe that it was indeed legal for him, by virtue of his war powers as commander in chief, to free the slaves in areas under rebellion.

  The colored community and abolitionists of all races rejoiced, but in the days that followed, as the president’s words were discussed and debated, their celebration was tempered by concerns that it did not go far enough. The proclamation called for the abolition of slavery only in states that were in rebellion as of January 1, 1863, so in theory, if a state agreed to return to the Union before that date, slavery would be permitted to continue there. The proclamation did nothing to free the enslaved people living within the loyal Union border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, as well as Tennessee and parts of Louisiana, Confederate territory that had come under Union control. What practical good did it do to declare slaves free in regions where the people did not respect Mr. Lincoln’s authority and therefore were highly unlikely to obey his laws? It seemed to Elizabeth that Mr. Lincoln had emancipated slaves where the Union could not free them and kept them enslaved in places where the Union did enjoy the power to give them liberty.

  And yet, despite its weaknesses, the proclamation was worth celebrating as proof that the nation was moving forward with single-minded determination toward greater freedom for all. The old Union was gone forever. When the nation was restored, it would be a new United States.

  The day after the proclamation was published, a large crowd complete with a band gathered outside the White House to serenade the president and offer speeches of praise. The president stepped outside to thank them, saying, “I have not been distinctly informed why it is this occasion you appear to do me this honor, though I suppose it is because of the proclamation.” The crowd applauded and shouted back that he indeed had it right. The president went on to say, with his characteristic humility, “What I did, I did after very full deliberation, and under a very heavy and solemn sense of responsibility. I can only trust in God I have made no mistake.” The crowd roared back their assurances that he had not.

  Elizabeth too believed he had made no mistake, and that greater freedoms would be forthcoming.

  She also believed that very soon, her Contraband Relief Association would be more necessary than ever.

  Earlier in September, the First Lady had left Washington to visit New York with Tad. In October, plagued by severe headaches, buffeted by storms of grief, and desiring a sympathetic companion, she asked Elizabeth to join her at the Metropolitan Hotel in Manhattan. Elizabeth eagerly agreed, not only because she had never visited New York and desired very much to see it, but also because the trip would enable her to promote her cause to a new audience. Armed with credentials and letters of recommendation, Elizabeth took the train to Manhattan, settled into the accommodations Mrs. Lincoln had arranged, and, the following morning, told the First Lady about her work.

  “This is truly a noble effort,” Mrs. Lincoln declared. She was swathed in mourning black from head to toe and had suffered unpleasant symptoms throughout her travels, but for a moment she seemed restored to her former self, energetic and bustling with plans. “I insist upon joining your list of subscribers. Will a contribution of two hundred dollars suffice?”

  “Why, yes, Mrs. Lincoln,” said Elizabeth, delighted by her generosity. “Thank you very much.”

  “It is the very least I can do for all you’ve done for me,” Mrs. Lincoln said, and set about writing to her husband to secure the funds.

  During her time in New York, Elizabeth circulated among the colored community, soliciting and acquiring donations to purchase much-needed supplies for the contraband camps. She was introduced to the Reverend Henry Highland Garnet, who led a meeting on behalf of her association at his Shiloh Presbyterian Church. After Elizabeth told the steward of the Metropolitan Hotel about her mission, he promptly raised an impressive sum from among the colored dining room waiters.

  When Mrs. Lincoln decided to take a side trip to visit Robert at Harvard, she asked Elizabeth to accompany her, and again she seized the opportunity. In Boston she was introduced to Mr. Wendell Phillips, a lawyer, orator, and abolitionist of such devotion that for years he had refused to taste cane sugar or wear cotton because both were produced by slave labor. He and other Boston philanthropists contributed generously and pledged her their support for her cause. She also met Reverend Leonard A. Grimes, who presided over a mass meeting at the Twelfth Street Baptist Church, where his wife established a Boston branch of the Contraband Relief Association. Reverend Grimes happened to be a friend of Mr. Frederick Douglass, whom Elizabeth had long admired, and he offered to write to the renowned abolitionist and orator on her behalf. From his lecture tour in England, Mr. Douglass not only made a sizable contribution to the association, but he also raised money for them from several English antislavery societies.

  Throughout her autumn travels, and with the encouragement and support of Mrs. Lincoln, Elizabeth worked tirelessly to gather donations for contraband relief, ever mindful of her son George’s belief that as freed slaves, they had a special obligation to help deliver others of their race from bondage. Elizabeth agreed wholeheartedly, but she also believed that their obligation to help those in need endured even after their chains and shackles were removed. They who had already crossed the river into the land of freedom were obliged to turn and offer a hand to those who were taking their first tentative steps upon the shore, and Elizabeth resolved to do exactly that.

  Chapter Eight

  DECEMBER 1862–MAY 1863

  On the evening of December 31, Elizabeth and Emma went to Union Bethel Church to attend a freedom vigil, just like thousands of other colored folks in hundreds of colored churches all across the North. By sundown every pew was full, and while they waited for the minister to begin, the worshippers prayed, sang, and testified about their experiences as enslaved people. At ten o’clock, the minister stood before the congregation, opened his well-worn Bible, and led them in prayer before preaching a sermon about God, Satan, Mr. Lincoln, and the coming day of eternal freedom. He asked the Lord to bless the New Year’s morning only a few hours away, and to bless the hand of President Lincoln when he held the pen to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. As he celebrated the imminent glorious event, he also spoke of what freedom meant for the people of their race and reminded them of the new responsibilities they must now willingly and cheerfully shoulder. Then, almost as if he believed their white neighbors and leaders of government were among them, he began to address them directly. “Your destiny as white men and ours as black men are one and the same,” he declared. “We are all marching toward the same goal. Give us therefore the same guarantee of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that you have enjoyed since the founding of our great nation, and make the very same demands of us to support the government as you make of yourselves.”

  A chorus of amens went up
from the congregation.

  “Give us the vote and give us arms to fight,” the minister said, his voice rising to a shout. “Let us don Union blue and shoulder our rifles. Do not put vulgar prejudice before necessity and national preservation. Do not refuse to receive the very men who have a deeper interest in the defeat of the rebels than any others. Cannot black men wield a sword, fire a gun, march and countermarch, and obey orders like any man?”

  The congregation called out that yes, they could, of course they could.

  “A man who wants to win a fight doesn’t approach his enemy with one hand tied behind his back,” the minister said. “If your house is on fire, and a black man offers you a bucket of water, do you refuse it? If you are drowning, and a black man reaches out to haul you to shore, do you tread water and hope a white man happens by before you go under, or do you seize that dusky limb and live?”

  A roar of approval greeted his words. Elizabeth applauded until her palms stung, the minister’s stirring words lifting her to her feet and sending righteous determination pumping through her veins, as warm and strong as life.

  Just before midnight, the minister’s tone changed again. “At this time I want no one to pray standing up with bowed head,” he intoned. “No sister sitting down, with bended neck praying, and no brother kneeling on one knee, because his pants are too tight for him. I want all of us to get down on both knees to thank Almighty God for our freedom and for President Lincoln too.”

  Side by side, Elizabeth and Emma knelt. From the corner of her eye, Elizabeth saw Emma’s lips moving in silent prayer. Silence fell over the church, broken from time to time by a worshipper calling out to the Lord for guidance when freedom dawned, just as He had guided them through the dark night of slavery. People called out for the Lord to guide President Lincoln as well.

  In reverent silence, Elizabeth echoed those prayers with all her heart.

  Despite her late night, Elizabeth rose at her usual hour the next morning and went to the White House to dress Mrs. Lincoln for the annual New Year’s Day reception at eleven o’clock. The First Lady, pale and drawn, had already chosen a black dress and bonnet and was awaiting Elizabeth in her boudoir. “I cannot help but think of all we have passed through since we last welcomed a New Year,” she murmured as Elizabeth buttoned her dress up the back. “Every day from now until spring will mark an unhappy anniversary.”

  Elizabeth knew she was thinking in particular of Willie’s death. “When the first anniversary of my son’s passing came, I made sure to keep busy.” In truth, the day that she suffered the worst was not the anniversary of the date he had fallen on the field but rather the day she had received the letter announcing his death. “There’s always so much to do at the contraband camps that I had no trouble finding work enough to occupy my thoughts so I couldn’t dwell upon my grief.”

  “Perhaps I should do something of that sort,” said Mrs. Lincoln. “The soldiers always need care and attention, especially those languishing in the military hospitals. They do so seem to like it when I write letters home for them when they cannot write themselves.” She managed a tremulous smile, and she seemed relieved to have a plan. “I shall do as you suggest, Elizabeth, and distract myself with the needs of others. Even if it does not ease my pain, it will at least accomplish some good for the soldiers.”

  “I hope it does both,” said Elizabeth.

  When Mrs. Lincoln finished dressing, she asked a servant if the president was ready to go downstairs, and she was told that he was in his office, writing. “Still?” she asked, and to Elizabeth she added, “He’s been working on the final draft of that proclamation since last night.”

  “The Emancipation Proclamation?” Elizabeth asked, suddenly uneasy. What else could Mrs. Lincoln mean? From the moment the newspapers had published the preliminary decree, President Lincoln had been bombarded by criticism. Northern Peace Democrats declared that they were not going to fight a war to free slaves, and in the midterm elections, opponents of emancipation made their displeasure known by electing Democratic governors and congressmen. The Democrats worried that despite this apparent rejection of Mr. Lincoln’s policies by the voting populace, he would go ahead regardless and sign the proclamation into law, while abolitionists and radical Republicans worried that he would not. Rumor had it that the president’s cabinet had been urging him to make changes to the document up to the last minute, and that rumor appeared to be true.

  Elizabeth could only pray that the changes the president was making—even at that very moment, not very far away—would not cut the heart out of the new law.

  Elizabeth left the White House before Mr. Lincoln appeared, passing guests arriving for the reception on her way out. She wished she could have seen the president—not to question him about the proclamation, because he had enough burdens without bearing her inquiries too, but to see if she could discern from his expression whether his revisions meant good or ill for her race.

  Instead of turning toward home, she walked to Union Bethel Church, where the vigil continued. Along the way she observed a crowd gathered outside the telegraph office, where the moment a messenger arrived from the White House to confirm that the deed was done, the news would be sent with electric speed to newspaper offices throughout the North. Other men, white and colored alike, clustered near the doorway of a printer’s, where clerks waited to typeset the proclamation as soon as the official phrasing was known. Elizabeth suspected they would be waiting quite a long time. The New Year’s Day reception was by custom a three-hour affair. Mr. Lincoln would stand in the East Room shaking hands and welcoming visitors—foreign diplomats first, then ranking officials, and lastly the public, anyone who wished to come. After shaking all those thousands of hands, it would be a wonder if his own hand was not too worn out to hold a pen.

  When Elizabeth arrived at Union Bethel Church, the minister and several of the nearly two dozen members of the congregation keeping vigil broke off their prayers and hurried over to question her. She told them what she knew, which amounted to little more than the expectation that they were in for a lengthy wait. They nodded resignedly and resumed their prayers or hushed conversations, listening to the bells toll the passing hours, glancing up quickly at the sound of the door, settling back down to wait again.

  And then, in the late afternoon, a deacon burst into the chapel, breathless, sweat on his brow, a paper clutched in his right hand, the smell of ink still fresh upon it. “It’s done!” he shouted. He was too winded from his run to read the proclamation aloud, so he handed it to the minister, who stepped up to the pulpit and read it slowly and emphatically, each word ringing through the church. Elizabeth felt relief and joy wash over her as with every line it became more evident that the president had made only a few changes to the preliminary proclamation she had read so often that she had learned it by heart. The list of territories under Union control had been revised due to the advances the army had made in the interim—but far more significant were two new paragraphs that had not appeared in the preliminary version released the previous autumn. In the first of these, President Lincoln enjoined the people newly freed by the proclamation “to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense.” A murmur arose from the congregation as the meaning of the words sank in. Never before had they been permitted to defend themselves physically, to fight off a vicious beating by a cruel white master or mistress. Now they could stand their ground and fight to preserve their lives, if confronted by such a choice. It was a revelation.

  The second addition was more astonishing yet. “And I further declare and make known that such persons”—the newly emancipated—“of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.”

  Cheers rang out, and shouts of astonishment. In the rebellious territories, slaves were free and men of color would be allowed to fight for the Union.

  The day many among them thoug
ht would never come had arrived at last.

  The congregation broke into prayers of thanksgiving and songs of rejoicing, and together they paraded to the White House, where hundreds of other jubilant citizens both white and black sang and shouted praise to the president, who briefly appeared at a window to acknowledge them with a humble, solemn bow.

  Later Elizabeth went to the contraband camps, where the struggling freedmen forgot their cares for a while and celebrated the dawn of a new day of liberty, the first day of their new lives when they would not fear the whip, live in terror of the auction block, or dread having their children and husbands and wives sold away from them, never to be seen again.

  In the evening, a hush fell over the throng as the Reverend Danforth B. Nichols, superintendent of freedmen, read the Emancipation Proclamation aloud, intoning each word with careful clarity. When he finished, and after the applause and cheers faded, he raised his hands for their attention and cautioned them that the law did not apply everywhere—not in neighboring Maryland, for one. But not even that sobering counsel could diminish their joy.

  At long last, freedom was at hand.

  As the anniversary of Willie’s death approached, Mrs. Lincoln became almost feverishly restless, and she poured her excess energies into her social obligations as First Lady. She resumed receiving callers on Saturday afternoons, and although she still dressed in deep mourning, she and the president began to venture out in the evenings again, attending recitations or going to the theater, which was Mr. Lincoln’s favorite entertainment.

  Mrs. Lincoln continued to find her greatest comfort in her two surviving sons. She brightened considerably every few months when Robert visited, and although Elizabeth privately found the young man severe and prickly, she was always happy when he came home from school for the joy his company brought his parents. His visits were not entirely cheerful, however, for he was very eager to quit Harvard and join the army, and he would always use his few days at home to press his case.