The Confederate Union War

by Alan Sewell

  This time Lee could not help himself. He laughed out loud at the seriousness of Jackson’s reply. Logan couldn’t help laughing either. “We’ve had ample time to properly equip our men,” Logan said in conciliation to Jackson. “I’m sure all will go as planned with the movement of the troops and with their supply.”

  “I expect it will,” concurred Lee. He addressed Stoneballs. “Logan is responsible for retaining our Confederate foothold in Illinois. During the Partisan War he raised the volunteers who halted Grant’s attempt to link up with Captain Nathanial Lyon’s Free Staters in St. Louis. He won an important victory for us at Carlinville. If Grant had been able to make it into St. Louis our entire position in the Northwest might have unraveled.”

  The three men climbed into the back of the covered wagon and were driven by Logan’s nephew through the town of Paris without stopping. A mile to the east of town they reached the Confederate picket post. Logan hopped out and identified himself while Lee and Jackson remained hidden away in the back of the wagon. They continued on into the no man’s land between there and the Wabash.

  “No enemy patrols operating in this area?” asked Stoneballs.

  “None have ever been reported operating west of the river,” answered Logan. “I’ve sent a company to reconnoiter to the banks on our side just to make sure.”

  An hour later Logan ordered the driver to stop. The men walked to the top of the nearest bluff and peered out across the Wabash. Lee studied the river with his spyglass while slapping at swarms of mosquitoes buzzing around in the late afternoon dampness. “I don’t see any activity on their side of the river.”

  “They patrol it with cavalry, but not too often,” answered Logan. “As far as we know, there aren’t any infantry permanently stationed on the river between Terre Haute and Williamsport.”

  “It’s an inter-army boundary,” said Stoneballs. “Grant’s line runs from Williamsport west. McDowell’s line runs from Terre Haute east. Neither one of them is concerned with this stretch of the Wabash.” Stoneballs turned to Logan. “I presume the river is fordable here?”

  “Oh, yes,” answered Logan. “Look at the cow paths down there.” Sure enough, a couple of cow paths stopped at the river’s near edge and emerged on the far side as if the river wasn’t there. “The only time the river is difficult is during the spring floods. There are also summer cloudbursts, but those usually don’t keep the river high for more than a day.”

  Lee put down his spyglass and looked at Logan. “You might as well know our plan of attack. I will pin Grant’s front across Illinois with demonstrations. Harney will pin McDowell’s line across Indiana. The rest of you will break through here. We’ll divide our forces into three wings. The south wing will be commanded by John Pemberton. It will encircle and cut off the Rebel garrison at Terre Haute. Kirby Smith’s division will attack west toward Indianapolis, taking McDowell’s line from the rear.

  “Stoneballs’ wing will move north and re-cross the Wabash at Williamsport, Indiana, then circle back behind Grant’s lines. Your division will be the vanguard of the advance. They’re Illinois men who know the territory. Stoneballs will scout ahead of you with cavalry. Lend him a few of your men to show him the best routes to advance. The divisions of Hardee, Cleburne, McCulloch, and Van Dorn will follow you.

  “Keep your division moving westward non-stop until they have effected a close envelopment of Grant’s line all the way to the Illinois River,” continued Lee to Logan. “It’s a very long frontage for five divisions to cover, but Grant must cover the same frontage with his five divisions. He has stationed them in front of the railroad towns of Jacksonville, Springfield, Decatur, Urbana, and Danville. That will allow us to concentrate each one of our five divisions behind one of his. The attack from the rear will disrupt and confuse his divisions. When it does our divisions pinning him in front will make their attacks.”

  Lee’s face became stern. “We must destroy this army of Grant’s before it becomes a battle-hardened army of veterans. If we give them time to organize their armies and gain confidence in combat, then we will not be able to advance beyond our current lines. If we are not able to reclaim the principle population and production centers of the Insurgent States, then they will have time to mobilize their people and their resources against us. If they have time to mobilize fully against us we will be lucky to hold the line of the Ohio. And if we can’t hold the Ohio, how can we hold any point southward to the Gulf of Mexico?”

  Lee picked up his spyglass again and looked again to the ridgeline on the other bank.

  Yes, we must destroy Grant’s army. We cannot merely defeat it and allow him the opportunity to retreat to Chicago where he will be reinforced to fight us again. We must wipe his army off the face of the earth! Only then will we have peace on this continent unto the last generation.

  6

  Cleveland Ohio, August 21, 1861

  President Lincoln relaxed in the parlor of the Hargreaves Mansion, enjoying the comfort of “home.” The new national Free State government had not yet allocated funds for furnishing the President a proper executive office, but he didn’t mind that at all. The parlor sufficed for working the way that he liked, which was to meet with his Cabinet in a comfortable informal setting.

  The smells of Mrs. Lincoln cooking dinner enhanced his sense of being at home. The government had not provided funds to hire a cook and wait staff, but that did not upset the Lincolns either. Although Mrs. Lincoln often made her husband miserable by her foul-tempered barbs, she insisted that only she knew how to cook his meals the way he liked. Mr. Lincoln smiled.

  Am I a lucky man for having a wife so fully devoted to me, but who also annoys me to the limits of my self control?

  Mr. Lincoln laughed again, this time out loud, as he thought about the stories he had heard about how Mr. and Mrs. Fremont had fared in this house before him. He could imagine Mrs. Jesse Benton Fremont fainting at being asked to cook and wash dishes. So Mr. Fremont had brought in his own chefs and wait staff as part of his entourage of dozens, including European nobility. He had heard that Fremont had presented Congress with an invoice seeking reimbursement of fifty thousand dollars for the funds he had promised to pay those people. The cash-strapped Congress had cashiered him the very next day.

  Fremont had taken his dismissal with admirable grace. Instead of cursing the Free State government and storming off to his California ranch, he had taken his men to Pennsylvania and led the reconnaissance into Confederate-held territory that resulted in the great victory at Gettysburg.

  Lincoln shook his head. How complicated are men! Some of the most bothersome are the most heroic. As President I must use people to the best of their ability in advancing the cause of our Independence. I must learn to look past their defects if their virtues will help us.

  He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The pleasant breeze blowing in off Lake Erie through the open windows refreshed him. The soft sounds of late summer lulled him into contented rest. He was pleased that Cleveland was far removed from Washington City. He remembered its mix of grandeur and squalidness when he had been a Congressman back in ’46.

  Douglas never took care of his health, but even so, the typhus epidemic in Washington City finished him before his time.

  He had a premonition that perhaps his family’s lives might have ended there too if he been elected President of the old United States.

  What if I had been elected President instead of Douglas? Then I would have gone to Washington City. Would typhus have killed me, Mary, or the children? And what if the Slave States had gone out of the Union instead of us? Washington City is a slave jurisdiction. Would Southern extremists have murdered me? Losing to Douglas was surely a blessing, though it did not seem so at the time.

  Mr. Lincoln fell asleep musing on these thoughts until Mrs. Lincoln awakened him for dinner. The Lincolns were joined by their young sons Willie and Tad. Mr. Lincoln could thank the Free State Congress that Robert was not here. Congress had advanced h
im enough of his salary to restore his personal finances sufficiently to enroll Robert at Harvard. The new government’s finances were thin but so far no bank had refused to cash its checks.

  After dinner he sat back down in the parlor and waited for the arrival of his Cabinet and members of the Congressional Executive Committee. Unlike Davis in the Confederate Union, Lincoln had not chosen to invite representatives into his War Cabinet. The Congressional Executive Committee, who had decided to boot Fremont and select Lincoln in his place, had invited itself to Lincoln’s cabinet meetings.

  Their unhappy experience with Fremont has made them keen to keep a careful eye on me. That is only right since they are the body that selected me as President. I have not been elected by the people. The law of the United States of Free America is not even clear on how the next President will be selected. Will it be by popular vote, by the electoral votes of the Free States, or by the Parliamentary System whereby the Congress shall decide the executive? We are too busy now with war to have time to decide these matters.

  Lincoln’s own Cabinet arrived as a unit, having had their dinner together at the Weddell House. He greeted Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, Secretary of State Seward, Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase, Secretary of War Simon Cameron, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, and, his old Kentucky friend and now Attorney General James Speed.

  The Senators and Congressmen of the Executive Committee arrived in ones and twos. The House members were Speaker of the House John Sherman, Thad Stevens of Pennsylvania, and William Vandever of Iowa. The Senators were Lincoln’s friend Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, and Zachariah Chandler of Michigan.

  Lincoln’s personal secretary John Hay came down, having finished his supper while working on the President’s correspondence in his upstairs quarters. The men greeted one another, expressing their satisfaction with Mr. Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg.

  “My constituents were impressed by your speech,” said Zach Chandler. “They tell me, ‘Mr. Lincoln looks and acts like a President.’”

  “In other words, he’s not the hick from Illinois that the Democrats had led them to believe,” replied Illinois Senator Trumbull.

  “Not at all,” concurred Zach Chandler. “Maybe it was that other President from Illinois they were thinking of!”

  The men laughed at the reference to the late Senator Stephen Douglas.

  “He’s only been gone a few weeks and he’s already faded from public memory,” said Senator Sumner. “How time marches on. The Confederate Union is Jeff Davis’ country now!”

  How true! Lincoln thought. Nobody talks about Douglas any more. His time, and everything of it, is over. It is I and Jefferson Davis that history will remember as the Presidents who led our respective nations through this war.

  The men took their seats and Lincoln called them to order.

  “Mr. Hay, will you please read us today’s agenda.”

  “Right,” said Hay, glancing at his notes. “First topic: our commercial relations with the Canadas. The Secretary of State will apprise us of the commercial treaties he has negotiated in Quebec.

  “Second topic: The state of our national finances including the circulation of gold and silver specie and the issuance of paper currencies.

  “Third topic: the military situation.

  “Fourth topic: The proposal by Horace Greeley to mediate a peace between us and the Confederate Union.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hay,” said Lincoln. “Will the Secretary of State please begin by telling us what has transpired with our neighbors to the Northeast?”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” replied Seward. “I had a productive meeting with Speaker of the Joint Canadian Assembly John McDonald and British Governor General Lord Monck. They consider the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States dating from 1857 to be in force with our successor government in the United States of Free America. In fact, they asked if we would agree to extend the treaty to cover manufactured items as well as raw materials. They’ve given us permission to transship our Europe-bound trade through the Canadas duty-free and at the same freight rates as charged to Canadians.”

  The expressions on the Cabinet members showed approval. Seward continued:

  “The first duty-free port of entry will be the terminal of their Grand Trunk railroad at Sarnia, West Canada. They propose that a second port of duty-free entry should be designated on the Niagara Frontier. The third port will be the rail line from Portland to Montreal. Portland will become the warm-water port for us and the Canadas.

  “The Canadians say they will improve their railroads and the Port of Montreal to accommodate the increase in commerce. To pay for these investments they ask us to pledge to ship at least fifty percent of our export trade through Montreal for a minimum of twenty years. They will share the cost with us of constructing rail ferries between Port Huron and Sarnia and at the designated port on the Niagara Frontier. They will double-track the Montreal/Portland line on their side of the border if we will do the same on ours. Here is the preliminary draft of the treaty.” Seward handed one draft to Lincoln, another to Senator Sumner, and another to Speaker Sherman.

  Lincoln thumbed through the treaty. “It appears that they have given us everything we could reasonably expect. Do we need to discuss the treaty in detail?”

  “I don’t think it requires any further discussion,” said Speaker John Sherman, reading his copy. “The proposal appears more than satisfactory. If no one has any objections, let’s recommend that Congress ratify it, including the expansion of Reciprocity to include manufactured items.” He turned to Sumner who was skimming his copy. “What do you think, Charles?”

  “I’ll need to study it carefully for a day or two. But from I see on cursory examination I would recommend that we ratify it.”

  The other Cabinet and the Senators and Congressmen nodded their approval.

  “Next on our agenda,” said Lincoln “is the state of our national finances, including the specie in circulation and the question of whether to augment it with paper currency. I’m assuming our finances are satisfactory at the moment because the Great Northern Bank and Trust Company cashed the check that Congress wrote for the advance on my salary!”

  “Yes, Mr. President, they are satisfactory for the moment,” confirmed Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase when the laughter died down. “But we will need to issue paper currency to make up for the shortage of specie. The Confederates control the gold and silver mines in the West. There won’t be any new specie coming into our territory except what we get from England in exchange for our exports. And that will be down to a trickle until the harvest is in.”

  Chase paused for a moment to give the Cabinet time to consider that point. Then he began speaking in an irritated tone. “Another difficulty is that the disconnection of New York from our territory is causing a contraction of business. That is inducing our people to hoard the limited amount of specie we do have. So far it’s not nearly as bad as it might be, and could become, later on. The Confederate cordon around the city is still loose. People may come and go between the lines as they please, and it has not yet become inconvenient for them to move specie, financial papers, and regular mail into and out of the city. Nevertheless, the port and railroad terminals are closed to us. We no longer collect customs duties on the trade through its port.

  “The shortage of specie will require us to print paper currency as soon as possible,” Chase continued. “Otherwise people will lack instruments to settle their business. People are already resorting to postage stamps as currency, but there aren’t anywhere near enough of those either. If we don’t do something they’ll begin settling their business with private scrip.”

  “Printing paper currency would be certain to ruin our credit,” objected Senator Sumner. “Do you recall the saying ‘not worth a Continental’ from the Revolutionary War? It took years to restore confidence in our currency after we debased it with paper.”

  “Well, as I recall, we won the War of the Re
volution,” retorted Chase. “Would you have preferred that we should have lost the war in order to maintain a perfectly sound currency? Do you want us to lose our country now because people can’t settle their business? Paper currency is necessary. If we issue it now, before a financial panic sets in, people will accustom themselves to valuing it the same as specie. If we wait until all the specie has gone into hiding and the banks are failing then the people will not accept paper currency even if compelled by law.”

  “I agree with Chase,” intoned Lincoln. “We cannot allow the nation to fail merely because it is lacking a currency to conduct its business. The true measure of our wealth is the production of our farms, factories, mines, and businesses. Any currency, whether it is gold and silver specie or paper money, is merely a draft on these true sources of wealth.

  “It seems to me that if the people are already using paper instruments such as postage and private scrip to settle their business, that there can be no harm in issuing official paper currency approved by the government to be legal tender. That would restore confidence in our government. The people would see that we are managing the situation rather than letting it manage us. Let’s discuss the matter in a full-day’s meeting tomorrow to decide the specifics of how much to print.”

  “Meeting to start at ten o’clock, Mr. President?” asked Hay. He updated his notes as the President and members of Congress agreed.

  “Now let’s take stock of our military situation, upon which all else depends,” said the President. “Will the Secretary of War please brief us?”

  “We have about 300,000 men in service, including those in training,” replied Secretary of War Cameron as he read from his papers.

  “They are mostly young, healthy men recruited from the Wide Awakes. They have signed on for three years or the duration of the war. About 3,500 Regular Army men followed us out of the Confederate Union. About 1,500 are stationed on the western frontier forts and in the New England Harbors. The others have been dispersed among the volunteer regiments. We also have about a hundred thousand state militiamen waiting to be mustered into the national army as soon as equipment becomes available. Our primary constraint is lack of arms and equipment. If we had been able to equip all who volunteered could have had perhaps 200,000 more in the field.”