The Battles that Made Abraham Lincoln

by Larry Tagg

  Lincoln now warmed to the heart of his message, and passed from the justice of men to the justice of God. “The Almighty has His own purposes,” he began, and went again to the Gospel of Matthew: “‘Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!’” He then made the crucial connection: “If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?”

  He then made a short appeal—“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away”—and after this soft note, plunged on with a terrible power, invoking the Old Testament doctrine of exact retribution, saying, “Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’” This was an austere and awesome creed, but also a forgiving one. It would rather worship a just God than punish a defeated enemy.

  Lincoln closed with a reminder of the humble tasks remaining to men, in a benediction that was like a laying-on of hands: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

  Lincoln then took the oath of office with his right hand on an open Bible, and, when he was done, leaned over and kissed it. The crowd cheered, the guns exploded, and Lincoln rode back in his carriage to the White House.

  As at Gettysburg, his Address was over before many knew it had begun. It had been only six or seven minutes long, and people were still arriving when it ended. Frederick Douglass remarked on the solemnity of the few moments Lincoln spoke. “There was a leaden stillness about the crowd,” he wrote. “The address sounded more like a sermon than a state paper.” Douglass said he had clapped his hands in gladness at the words, but when he looked around, he “saw in the faces of many about me expressions of widely different emotion.”

  Lincoln’s Address, one of the rare eruptions of pure religion in the history of American politics, bewildered many. The early reaction was mixed. On March 15, in a letter to Thurlow Weed, Lincoln was downbeat about its immediate reception:

  I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told; and as whatever of humiliation there is in it, falls most directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it. Yours truly

  A. Lincoln

  Certainly the address was not immediately popular with the Chicago Times, which announced, “We did not conceive it possible that even Mr. Lincoln could produce a paper so slip shod, so loose-jointed, so puerile, not alone in literary construction, but in its ideas, its sentiments, its grasp.” The Times was joined in the East by the savage New York World, which scorned the inaugural address “with a blush of shame and wounded pride,” and deplored, “The pity of it, that a divided nation should neither be sustained in this crisis of agony by words of wisdom nor cheered with words of hope.” The World condemned Lincoln’s “substitution of religion for statesmanship” and his taking “refuge in piety.” “The President’s theology,” it scoffed, “smacks as strong of the dark ages as does Pope Pius IX’s policies.”

  Lincoln was no doubt aware that the powerful New York Herald and New York Evening Post had both been disappointed. They complained that he had said nothing about the issues of the day. The Herald was particularly unkind, calling the Second Inaugural “an effort to avoid any commitment regarding our domestic or foreign affairs,” “a little speech of ‘glittering generalities’ used only to fill in the program.” Lincoln had surely read, too, the comments of his one constant friend among the titans of the press, the New York Times, which was displeased that, “He makes no boasts of what he has done, or promises of what he will do. He does not reexpound the principles of the war; does not redeclare the worth of the Union; does not reproclaim that absolute submission to the Constitution is the only peace.” And Lincoln must have been disappointed that Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune declined to write any comment on the Second Inaugural whatsoever, printing it with only the bland kiss-off, “Thus in a day we retire and elevate our citizens [referring to the old and new Vice Presidents], but the Government is the same; founded not on the rulers but on the integrity of the people.” Greeley published a more frank appraisal of Lincoln a few days later:

  We are not, it is known, among the idolators, not even the adulators, of … Lincoln. He was not our first choice for president in 1860, nor yet in 1864. We are among those who hold that the rescue of our country … will justly redound to the lasting honor of her Loyal Millions, not to that of any particular man, whether general or civilian. If Mr. Lincoln had never been born, or had never played a part in public affairs, … the net result would have been nearly the same.

  * * *

  After thus dismissing Lincoln’s contribution to the Union almost entirely, Greeley in the same editorial feared for his health. Lincoln had lost thirty pounds in the last few months. Always lanky, he was now shockingly gaunt and sunken-cheeked. “His face was ragged with care,” Greeley remarked later, “and seamed with thought and trouble. It looked care-plowed, tempest-tossed, and weather-beaten, as if he were some tough old mariner, who had for years been beating up against wind and tide, unable to make his port or find safe anchorage.” Joshua Speed, visiting Lincoln about the same time, said, “He looked jaded and weary,” “worn down in health & spirits.” The President admitted to Speed, “I am very unwell, my feet & hands are always cold—I suppose I ought to be in bed.” Mary Lincoln told her dresser, Elizabeth Keckley, “Poor Mr. Lincoln is looking so broken-hearted, so completely worn out, I fear he will not get through the next four years.” Ms. Keckley noticed, “In their private chamber, away from the curious eyes of the world, the President and his wife wore sad, anxious faces.”

  After an exhausting triple ritual—the Inaugural, the evening reception (where he shook six thousand hands), and the Inaugural Ball two evenings later—Lincoln dreaded the prospect of a flood of office-seekers, remembering the chaos at the beginning of his first term. He told a friend that it seemed as if every visitor “darted at him, and with thumb and finger carried off a portion of his vitality.” He told Senator Clark of New Hampshire, “It seems as though the bare thought of going through again what I did the first year here, would crush me.” Ten days after the inauguration, he was sick in bed, “worn down,” according to Noah Brooks, “by the constant pressure of office-seekers and legitimate business, so that for a few days he was obliged to deny himself to all comers.”

  When, on the morning of March 20, he received an invitation from General Grant—“Can you not visit City Point for a day or two? I would like very much to see you and I think the rest would do you good”—he leaped at the opportunity. By March 23, he was on board the River Queen with Mary and Tad, steaming away from Washington toward the comparative calm of the battlefront. Welles explained in his diary:

  The President has gone to the front, partly to get rid of the throng that is pressing upon him, though there are speculations of a different character. He makes his office much more laborious than he
should. Does not generalize and takes upon himself questions that properly belong to the Departments, often causing derangement and irregularity. The more he yields, the greater the pressure upon him. It has now become such that he is compelled to flee. There is no doubt he is much worn down.

  Lincoln lived aboard the River Queen, tied up at City Point on the James River near Richmond, for two full weeks, far longer than he had ever been away from Washington. From there, he could hear the thunder of the Union artillery at Petersburg and see the cannon flashes reflected against the clouds at night.

  At City Point, Lincoln took full advantage of the fact that the Radicals were a hundred miles away. On March 28 he met privately with Generals Sherman and Grant and gave confidential instructions for the generous terms he wanted extended to the defeated Confederate armies. Here he was fortunate in the conservative politics of his top generals—if they had been Radicals like Frémont and Butler, his instructions would have been flatly rejected.

  * * *

  After the meeting, Sherman and Grant returned to their commands. Within the next two weeks the heavy fruit of the Army of the Potomac’s four years of bloody toil suddenly fell from the branch.

  On April 2, the defenses around the rebel capital collapsed, and Lee and his embattled Army of Northern Virginia evacuated Richmond and Petersburg and fled west. At 11:15 a.m. on April 3, 1865, fifteen-year-old telegraph operator Willie Kettles bent over the receiver at the War Office in Washington as it clicked out a message “From Richmond.” It was Grant. Richmond was captured. Within minutes, the news was sped to all the bureaus. Men leaned out the windows of the public buildings bellowing, “Richmond has fallen!” while others ran out into the streets crying the news to unbelieving passersby. Newspaper offices were instantly at work stamping out extras with breathless headlines: “Glory!!! Hail Columbia!!! Hallelujah!!! Richmond Ours!!!”

  Noah Brooks chronicled the carnival that spread within minutes to all parts of the ecstatic capital:

  In a moment of time the city was ablaze with excitement the like of which was never seen before; and everybody who had a piece of bunting spread it to the breeze; from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other the air seemed to burn with the bright hues of the flag. The sky was shaken by a grand salute of eight hundred guns, fired by order of the Secretary of War—three hundred for Petersburg and five hundred for Richmond. Almost by magic the streets were crowded with hosts of people, talking, laughing, hurrahing, and shouting in the fullness of their joy. Men embraced one another, “treated” one another, made up old quarrels, renewed old friendships, marched through the streets arm in arm, singing and chatting in that happy sort of abandon which characterizes our people when under the influence of a great and universal happiness. The atmosphere was full of the intoxication of joy… . Bands of music, apparently without any special direction or formal call, paraded the streets, and boomed and blared from every public place, until the air was resonant with the expression of the popular jubilation in all the national airs, not forgetting “Dixie.”

  Rejoicing crowds clamored for speeches, and dozens of public men, suddenly silver-tongued in the euphoria, improvised jubilant speeches on every corner. In jammed saloons, champagne corks popped and glasses overflowed while outside church bells clanged, flags waved, and fire engines rushed through the streets behind galloping teams, blowing off blasts of steam.

  Lincoln, meanwhile, was shambling through the rubble-strewn streets of Richmond in his awkward, flat-footed gait, with twelve wary Union sailors going before and behind, carrying carbines. Tumbling, shouting freedmen, wild with delight, surrounded the man they recognized as the Great Emancipator. But Lincoln’s was no parade of personal triumph. His mission in Richmond was to prevent a bloody, drawn-out guerrilla war fought by rebel armies that might melt away into the countryside within days. He met with rebel Assistant Secretary of War John Campbell, now the only Confederate official remaining in Richmond, and asked him to convene the Virginia Legislature to send Lee’s soldiers back to their homes.

  Lincoln’s plans were swiftly overtaken by events. During the week that followed Grant ran Lee’s starving army to ground near Appomattox Court House, sixty miles west of Richmond. On the evening of April 9, when Lincoln returned to Washington, a boy ran up to him with a telegram: Lee had surrendered.

  In the rainy dark of Washington the next morning, 500 cannon boomed the news of Lee’s defeat, sending shock waves that broke the windows along Lafayette Square. The news came on the heels of an entire week of celebration in the capital. Ever since the seizure of Richmond, Washington had been a constant whirl of parties, bonfires, and parades. At night, the whole city was one grand, shimmering lake of light. Lamps, lanterns, candles, gas jets, and fireworks illuminated all the public buildings and most of the residences. The new Capitol dome burned like a floating beacon. Six thousand candles shone in the windows of the Patent Office, and 3,500 lit the Government Post office. The War Department and the Treasury were swathed in colored flame. Fireworks made a comet trail of Pennsylvania Avenue, from the White House to Capitol Hill. Robert E. Lee’s Arlington mansion glowed in candlelight on its hill across the Potomac, and rockets and colored lights blazed from its lawn.

  With Lee’s army conquered and Lincoln returned from City Point, a throng of three thousand made their way up Pennsylvania Avenue in the mud and rain. They gathered under the front portico of the White House to sing “The Star Spangled Banner” while brass bands blew and howitzers thundered, and they cried out for a victory speech from the President himself. Lincoln appeared at his second story window, but declined to make any remarks, telling them he was planning a speech for the following evening and didn’t want to “dribble it all out” before he gave it some thought.

  That afternoon, the Radicals had held an informal meeting on the steps of Willard’s Hotel. They rehearsed their vision of a South scorched, with no stone left upon a stone, where the last would be first and the first would be last. They blasted the “bribe of unconditional forgiveness” Grant had just extended to Lee at Appomattox and blamed Lincoln for Grant’s leniency. They stacked their ammunition for the war at the end of the war, the struggle with Lincoln over Reconstruction. The fast-approaching showdown was the subject of Noah Brooks’ next dispatch to the Sacramento Union:

  Those who are ready to fight the President on Reconstruction … are only waiting for the occasion to pounce upon the President’s expected clemency toward the offending rebel leaders… . The extremists are thirsting for a general hanging, and if the president fails to gratify their desires in this direction, they will be glad, for it will afford them more pretexts for the formation of a party which shall be pledged to “a more vigorous policy.”

  The next night, a crowd gathered in a shrouding mist on the White House lawn as bands played patriotic songs and fireworks crackled and lit up the misty darkness with bouquets of color. “There was something terrible in the enthusiasm” of the people who waited for Lincoln to appear, wrote Noah Brooks. The multitude, in their moment of triumph, were ready to be swept away at a word from their leader. When Lincoln appeared at his second story window, an ocean of cheers crashed against the walls of the White House, and he waited long minutes for it to subside.

  When he spoke, however, he spoke not to spark a celebration, but to deliver a closely argued proposal on Reconstruction, read intently from sheets of paper to avoid any misstatements. “The speech was longer than most people had expected, and of a different character,” noted Brooks. The jubilant crowd was soon silent, its elation punctured by Lincoln’s attention to the serious business of making governments from nothing.

  Much of the speech was given to a defense of Louisiana. He used a folksy metaphor to make his point: “Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than smashing it.” He continued to hope that the South would grant the vote to intelligent blacks and those who had been soldiers,
but he would not insist. Here was his challenge to the Radicals—if they wanted to push him to extremes, he would fight them from the middle ground.

  According to Brooks, “it was a silent, intent, perhaps surprised multitude” that heard Lincoln’s speech. By the end, many of his listeners had drifted off out of disappointment or boredom. There was no ovation at the end as there had been at the beginning. What was left of the crowd wandered off quietly, puzzled.

  The New York Tribune said the speech “fell dead, wholly without effect on the audience,” and that it “caused a great disappointment and left a painful impression.” A friend of Charles Sumner, Edward L. Pierce, came away with the sense that, “The speech was not in keeping with what was in men’s minds. The people had gathered, from an instinctive impulse, to rejoice over a great and final victory; and they listened with respect, but with no expression of enthusiasm, except that the quaint simile of ‘the egg’ drew applause. The more serious among them felt that the president’s utterances on the subject were untimely, and that his insistence at such an hour on his favorite plan was not the harbinger of peace among the loyal supporters of the government.”

  “Sumner,” Pierce said, “was thoughtful and sad when the speech was reported to him; for he saw at hand another painful controversy.” Sumner had not attended the celebration, even declining an invitation from Mary Lincoln to watch the celebration from a window adjacent to the President out of fear that it would signal his approval of Lincoln’s message. Now, to his friend and confidant Franz Lieber, he wrote: “The President’s speech and other things augur confusion and uncertainty in the future, with hot controversy. Alas! Alas!”