Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  Lyon’s rash act did not sit well with Lincoln, who wished to tread cautiously in Missouri. In early May, he told Charles Gibson, a judge of the court of claims and a political ally of Attorney General Bates, that “if he was compelled to send men from one side of Missouri to the other[,] which he did not anticipate[,] he would rather send them around than through the State in order to avoid any trouble. No troops will be sent to Missouri from other States. In short everything tending to arouse the jealousy of the people will be avoided.”140

  The president’s desire to maintain calm was not shared by the young duo of Lyon and Blair, who claimed that the lethargic and complacent General William S. Harney, commander of the Department of the West, was hampering them. On May 21, Harney reached an agreement with Confederate General Sterling Price, in effect committing the Lincoln administration to treat Missouri as neutral. This act alarmed St. Louis Unionists, who feared that it would only postpone a day of reckoning and thus allow the secessionists to gird for it.

  But Harney’s move did not stop the informal warfare being waged by pro-Confederate forces. Indignant at the continuing violence against Missouri Unionists, Lincoln heatedly instructed Harney to end it. “The professions of loyalty to the Union by the State authorities of Missouri are not to be relied upon,” he had Adjutant General Lorenzo B. Thomas inform Harney. “They have already falsified their professions too often, and are too far committed to secession to be entitled to your confidence, and you can only be sure of their desisting from their wicked purposes when it is out of their power to prosecute them. You will therefore be unceasingly watchful of their movements, and not permit the clamors of their partizans and opponents of the wise measures already taken to prevent you from checking every movement against the government, however disguised under the pretended State authority. The authority of the United States is paramount, and whenever it is apparent that a movement, whether by color of State authority or not, is hostile, you will not hesitate to put it down.”141

  When Blair recommended that Harney be transferred, Lincoln authorized him to do so only if it seemed absolutely necessary. “We have a good deal of anxiety here about St. Louis,” he told the congressman on May 18. While it was important to protect friends of the government, if Harney were removed precipitously it would cause harm, especially since he had already been relieved of command in April and reinstated shortly thereafter. “We better have him a friend than an enemy,” Lincoln wrote. “It will dissatisfy a good many who otherwise would be quiet. More than all, we first relieved him, then restored him, & now if we relieve him again, the public will ask, ‘why all this vacillation.’ ”142 Ignoring this counsel, Blair on May 30 used his authority to replace Harney with Lyon. That young captain led his troops westward toward Jefferson City, where Governor Jackson and General Sterling Price had assembled a pro-Confederate militia. As Lyon approached, Jackson and Price retreated, leaving the state’s capital in Union hands. In July, a new provisional government was formed, with the conservative Unionist Hamilton R. Gamble as its governor. He proclaimed Missouri loyal to the Union and won the acquiescence of much of the state as well as official recognition from the Lincoln administration. In August, regular Confederate forces won the battle of Wilson’s Creek, where Lyon was killed. But in March 1862 at the battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, the Rebels were defeated; thereafter, armed resistance to federal authority in Missouri took the form of widespread guerrilla warfare and savage bushwhacking. Missouri remained in the Union throughout the war.

  Protecting Unionists in Western Virginia

  When Unionists in western Virginia, a region culturally and economically distinct from the eastern portion of the state, appealed to Lincoln for help, he complied promptly. Federal control of that area was important, for through it passed the main rail line connecting the eastern seaboard with the Midwest (the Baltimore and Ohio). In addition, it shielded eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and eastern Kentucky. Unionists there planned to move the seat of government from Richmond west of the Alleghenies, or else cut themselves off from the eastern portion of the state and become a separate entity. On May 1, at Lincoln’s invitation, a committee from Butler County called at the White House, where they asked for $100,000 and 5,000 rifles. Influential Republicans urged the president to honor the request. Edwin M. Stanton wrote a legal brief justifying the transfer of federal arms to private parties in Virginia and pledged all his personal assets as bond to guarantee that the weapons would be used properly. Cameron saw to it that they were dispatched to the trans-Appalachian Virginia loyalists. Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew also provided some weaponry from his state’s arsenal.

  After Virginia voters ratified an ordinance of secession on May 23, more forceful measures were required. The following day, when Congressman John S. Carlile of Clarksburg demanded that troops be sent into the Kanawha and Monongahela valleys, Lincoln replied: “we will help you.”143 Indeed, Ohio and Indiana troops promptly crossed the Ohio River and marched toward Wheeling. In June, Unionists held a convention and formed “the Reorganized Government of Virginia,” purporting to represent the entire Old Dominion, with Francis Pierpont as its governor. On June 25, Lincoln, through Cameron, said he that he “never supposed that a brave and free people, though surprised and unarmed, could long be subjugated by a class of political adventurers always adverse to them, and the fact that they have already rallied, reorganized their government, and checked the march of these invaders demonstrates how justly he appreciated them.”144 The following month Lincoln recognized the new government’s legitimacy; he had worked behind the scenes to come up with this plan instead of granting the Unionists’ wish to establish a new state, a move he considered premature. Eighteen months later, however, he did approve that proposal.

  Discouraging European Recognition of the Confederacy

  While laboring to retain the Border States, Lincoln did not lose sight of another danger: the possible intervention of European nations, especially Great Britain, on behalf of the Confederacy. Even before the fall of Sumter, the British and French governments warned that if the administration cut off trade with the South, their major supplier of cotton, they might well recognize Jefferson Davis’s government. Such a step would enable the Rebels to negotiate military and commercial treaties, to gain access to European ports, and thus to win the war. The matter came up immediately after hostilities began. In response to Lincoln’s April 19 and 27 declarations of intent to blockade Southern ports, Queen Victoria on May 13 issued a Proclamation of Neutrality, granting the Confederacy belligerent status (but not official recognition), entitling it to employ privateers and take prizes to British ports, to borrow money from Great Britain, to obtain weapons from her, and to have commerce raiders built in her shipyards.

  This was a premature act, for British shipping was in no immediate danger; the North could not begin to enforce a blockade for many months, and few Southern vessels could effectively serve as privateers. Moreover, Lincoln had not proclaimed a blockade but merely announced his intention to establish one. Still, the president’s declarations, indicating that a real war was underway between two belligerents, necessitated some response from maritime powers like Great Britain. Prime Minister Palmerston, eager to avoid entanglement in the American Civil War, reminded his cabinet that “[t]hey who in quarrels interpose will often get a bloody nose” and that “[i]f you would keep out of strife, step not ’twixt man and wife.”145 The way to “keep out of strife,” it seemed to Palmerston, was to declare neutrality. Charles Francis Adams, who arrived in London the very day that the queen’s proclamation appeared in the press, objected that the document was hasty and that it indicated partiality toward the Confederates, giving them hope that they might well be recognized as an independent nation. The outraged North shared his inaccurate interpretation of the neutrality proclamation. The misunderstanding helped sour diplomatic relations between the two countries.

  Seward indignantly remonstrated with Lord Lyons not only about the proclama
tion but also the willingness of Foreign Secretary John Russell to meet informally with Confederate commissioners. Privately, the secretary of state cursed the British ministry: “God damn them, I’ll give them hell. I’m no more afraid of them, than I am of Robert Toombs.”146 (This reaction seemed excessive, coming from a man who had met informally with Confederate commissioners two months earlier.) With equal truculence, Seward on May 21 penned such a bellicose a dispatch to Charles Francis Adams that Lincoln felt compelled to moderate it, lest it provoke a war. (Years earlier the impulsive Seward confessed: “I love to write what I think and feel as it comes up.”)147 According to the Russian minister to the United States, Seward continued to believe that “the Unionist party in the South is quite strong and awaits only the presence of federal troops to declare itself” and that a foreign war would induce the seceded states to return to the fold.148

  Upon receiving Seward’s intemperate draft, the president consulted with the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Charles Sumner, who was shocked at the secretary’s recklessness. The senator urged Lincoln to “watch him and overrule him” and recommended that the dispatch be toned down.149 Just as Seward had moderated Lincoln’s inaugural, so Lincoln did the same for Seward’s instructions. He also condensed the document, for he considered Seward’s style “too verbose—too much like ‘machine writing.’ ”150 When Seward composed the dispatch, he had not yet learned of the queen’s proclamation, but he did know about Russell’s willingness to confer with Confederate envoys and that the British and French had agreed to act in concert when dealing with the American Civil War.

  Lincoln softened Seward’s language at several points:

  “The President regrets” instead of “The President is surprised and grieved”

  “Such intercourse would be none the less hurtful to us” instead of “Such intercourse would be none the less wrongful to us”

  “No one of these proceedings will pass unnoticed by the United States” instead of “No one of these proceedings will be borne by the United States”

  Most importantly, Lincoln recommended that the dispatch contain the following sentence: “This paper is for your own guidance only, and not be read, or shown to any one” instead of several belligerent sentences closing the letter.151

  Seward took many but not all of Lincoln’s suggestions, effectively defanging and declawing the original ultimatum. (Seward intended to have Adams submit the remonstrance to John Russell and then suspend diplomatic relations until the ministry ended contact of any kind with the Southern commissioners.) Even in its modified version, the document astounded Adams, who confided to his diary that the Lincoln administration appeared “almost ready to declare war with all the powers of Europe. … I scarcely know how to understand Mr Seward.” It appeared to him “like throwing the game into the hands of the enemy.”152 If he had delivered the document to Russell, it would, Adams thought, have ended his mission. Henry Adams, the minister’s son and secretary, thought the dispatch “so arrogant in tone and so extraordinary and unparalleled in its demands that it leaves no doubt in my mind that our Government wishes to face a war with all Europe. That is the inevitable result of any attempt to carry out the spirit or the letter of these directions, and such a war is regarded in the dispatch itself as the probable result.” Seward’s policy was “shallow madness.” Young Adams was “shocked and horrified by supposing Seward, a man I’ve admired and respected beyond most men, guilty of what seems to me so wicked and criminal a course as this.”153 He would have been even more horrified if he had read Seward’s original draft.

  Minister Adams tactfully summarized the document to Lord Russell, who explained that he had seen the Confederate emissaries only twice and had no intention of holding a third interview. Thus did Lincoln, with the assistance of Sumner and Adams, help defuse what could have been a diplomatic crisis leading to war with Great Britain. In late June, Sumner rejoiced that Seward “has changed immensely during the last month, & is now mild & gentle.”154 Following this episode, Lincoln came to rely more and more on Sumner for advice regarding foreign affairs.

  The relationship between the senator and the president was a curious one, for initially Lincoln impressed Sumner as undignified, socially inept, and uncultured. When they first met, the president suggested that they “measure backs,” but Sumner declined, pompously stating that it was time “for uniting our fronts against the enemy and not our backs.” Lincoln allegedly remarked later, “I have never had much to do with bishops where I live, but, do you know, Sumner is my idea of a bishop.” Sumner told Carl Schurz that he found Lincoln a puzzle. According to Schurz, the senator “could hardly understand this Western product of American democracy.” Sumner was able to detect “flashes of thought and bursts of illuminating expression” in Lincoln’s conversation, but because the senator lacked a sense of humor, “he often lost Lincoln’s keenest points” and had difficulty shaking the belief that such a “seemingly untutored child of nature” could meet the challenges he faced. But because the president seemed to him a deeply committed opponent of slavery, and since abolition was Sumner’s main concern, he overcame his misgivings. Despite the widespread belief that two such different men would be unable to cooperate, they generally did so because they respected one another’s sincerity.155

  Preparing the Army to Fight

  Thanks to Northern outrage at the bombardment of Fort Sumter and to the energetic leadership of some governors, raising an army proved easy; training, equipping, arming, feeding, and supplying it, however, did not. For decades, Congress and state governments had neglected the military so badly that the North had great difficulty mobilizing its vast resources swiftly. Compounding the problem was the general lack of organizational sophistication throughout the economy and society. The United States, still an immature country in many ways, had few men and institutions experienced in organizing large-scale enterprises of any kind. Nowhere was such backwardness more evident than in the War Department, with its aged and small staff, antiquated rules, and stifling bureaucracy. As men eagerly enlisted, their requests for weapons, uniforms, and equipment overwhelmed Cameron and his bureau chiefs. They responded to urgent appeals so slowly that a few governors (notably John A. Andrew of Massachusetts, Andrew G. Curtin of Pennsylvania, Edwin D. Morgan of New York, and Oliver P. Morton of Indiana) took matters into their own hands, purchasing necessary paraphernalia at home and abroad.

  Governor Morton repeatedly clamored for weapons. Warning of a possible invasion of Kentucky from Tennessee, he requested heavy ordnance to guard Indiana along the Ohio River and predicted an attack on Louisville. In September, Lincoln told telegraph operators at the War Department, “Morton is a good fellow, but at times he is the skeerdest man I know of.”156 And so Lincoln wrote the Indiana governor explaining the delay in supplying weapons: “I wish you to believe of us (as we certainly believe of you) that we are doing the very best we can. You do not receive arms from us as fast as you need them; but it is because we have not near enough to meet all the pressing demands; and we are obliged to share around what we have, sending the larger share to the points which appear to need them most. We have great hope that our own supply will be ample before long, so that you and all others can have as many as you need. … As to Kentucky, you do not estimate that state as more important than I do; but I am compelled to watch all points. While I write this I am, if not in range, at least in hearing of cannon-shot, from an army of enemies more than a hundred thousand strong. I do not expect them to capture this city; but I know they would, if I were to send the men and arms from here, to defend Louisville, of which there is not a single hostile armed soldier within forty miles, nor any force known to be moving upon it from any distance.”157

  Cameron authorized his henchman Alexander Cummings, a journalist and political operator, to buy war material in New York. Unlike the governors, Cummings spent money foolishly, paying far too much for horses, pistols, muskets, and rifles. He also purchased uniforms and bl
ankets made of shoddy, a form of material that dissolved in the rain and came apart in high winds, and shoes and boots that quickly wore out. Fraud marred Cummings’s dealings, prompting Congress to investigate and denounce him.

  Corrupt quartermasters also cheated the government. One of the more flagrant examples was Reuben B. Hatch, brother of Lincoln’s close friend Ozias M. Hatch. Operating out of Cairo, Illinois, as an assistant quartermaster on Ulysses S. Grant’s staff, Hatch bought coal and lumber and then submitted inflated bills for their purchase, pocketing the difference between what he actually paid and what he received from the government. In addition, he sold the government horses and mules that had been seized from the enemy. Another example was General Justus McKinstry, Frémont’s willful quartermaster in St. Louis, who was court-martialed and cashiered for defrauding the government of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  In addition to the resourceful governors, other civilians did yeoman work in helping to offset the War Department’s inadequacy. Among them were William M. Evarts, Richard Blatchford, and Moses Grinnell of New York, who together received $2 million in government funds to buy military supplies. From one area of American life with significant organizational savvy—railroad corporations—came Thomas A. Scott to assist the beleaguered Cameron. Assuming the post of assistant secretary of war, this vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad efficiently reformed procedures, got rid of deadwood, and dramatically improved the functioning of the department, especially its handling of railroads. Lincoln was highly complimentary of Scott’s work. Aiding Scott was Edward S. Sanford, president of the American Telegraph Company, who performed equally well after taking charge of military telegraphs. In New York, leading citizens established the Union Defence Committee, which significantly helped to raise men and money for the war effort. Dorothea Dix, renowned champion of reform in the treatment of the insane, organized a capable nursing corps. Assisting her was the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a volunteer organization established to protect and promote the health of the army.