Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  Another committee was set up under the leadership of New York Congressman Charles H. Van Wyck to scrutinize government contracts. Though it did uncover fraud, the committee was highly controversial. When it criticized Ward Hill Lamon, Simon Cameron, and Gideon Welles, among others, John Hay denounced it as “an absurd fiasco” employed “chiefly as an engine to ventilate personal animosities and prejudices existing in the minds of the incorruptible committeemen against better people.”212 Lincoln complained that its most active member, Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, had “done more to break down the administration than any other man in the country.”213 (In mid-January, Dawes publicly charged that “there had been more money stolen from the Treasury during the first year of Mr. Lincoln’s administration than it had cost to carry on the whole government during the entire term of Mr. Buchanan’s administration.” This utterance, Dawes told his wife, created “the awfulest hubbub you ever saw.” Even friends like Senator Henry Wilson were “down on it.”)214 Leading Radicals in Congress, including Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, and Henry Wilson, shared the president’s dim view of Dawes and the contracts committee.

  The committee may have embarrassed the administration, but it conscientiously investigated misfeasance and malfeasance in raising and equipping a 500,000-man army and navy. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles had unwisely authorized his brother-in-law, George D. Morgan, to purchase ships on a commission basis rather than for a flat fee. While ship brokers claimed that they could have done the job for $5,000, Morgan’s 1861 commissions totaled over $70,000. Morgan committed no fraud, but the government had spent far too much for his services. In Boston, John Murray Forbes did for free what Morgan did for a 2.5 percent commission. In addition to receiving criticism for Morgan’s contract, Welles was denounced as “a miracle of inefficiency” and was blamed for the loss of important vessels when Confederates seized the Norfolk shipyard.215

  While the House defeated a motion condemning Welles, the lawmakers did censure Simon Cameron, whose incapacity, carelessness, and inefficiency significantly harmed the war effort. Cameron’s personal secretary as well as Assistant Secretary of War Alexander Cummings thought that their boss was a failure and that the War Department was “in the most hideous disorganization which it will take years to right.”216

  Lincoln was widely denounced for keeping Welles and Cameron on. The country was “disgraced by the astounding frauds in the Army & Navy both” and “looks upon the authorities at Washington as corrupt as Buchanan’s administration,” according to Lincoln’s friend William M. Dickson.217 A New Yorker complained that the president’s “retention and sanction of Cameron & Well[e]s & all their transactions already causes an apprehension that he is also corrupt or what is worse that he is weak & under the control of Jobbers & Contractors.” Nothing could save Lincoln “but the manifestation of a Jackson courage to extricate himself from the corrupt & selfish men by which he is surrounded.”218 Another New Yorker informed Lincoln that “it is universally believed that Cameron is a thief—All men believe you, upright—but know you lack experience and fear you lack nerve.”219 The National Anti-Slavery Standard lamented that the country had “a weak but honest President, and a Cabinet made up principally of fourth-rate men.”220 In Boston and New York, influential Republicans launched a campaign to replace Caleb B. Smith, Cameron, and Welles with Nathaniel P. Banks, John A. Dix, and Joseph Holt. Their efforts enjoyed the approval of Charles Eliot Norton, a Cambridge litterateur who thought that the “inefficiency of the President & the Cabinet are our greatest present danger.” Rhetorically, Norton asked: “Must we be content with feebleness where strength is needed, with mean[n]ess for magnanimity, and cowardice for courage?”221

  War in Earnest: Early Skirmishes and Bull Run

  As Congress debated, legislated, and investigated, the administration made and executed war plans. A week after Sumter fell, James A. Hamilton asked Lincoln if he proposed to launch an offensive soon. “I intend to give blows,” he replied. “The only question at present is, whether I should first retake Fort Sumter or Harper’s Ferry.”222 He authorized Hamilton to say publicly that the president “is determined to prosecute the war … with all the energy necessary to bring it to a successful termination. He will call for a large additional force, relying upon Providence and the loyalty of the people.”223 He described his strategy more fully to John Hay on April 25: “I intend at present, always leaving an opportunity for change of mind, to fill Fortress Monroe with men and stores: blockade the ports effectually: provide for the entire safety of the Capitol: keep them quietly employed in this way, and then go down to Charleston and pay her the little debt we are owing her.”224 Fort Monroe, at the mouth of the James River in Virginia, was quickly reinforced with 15,000 men. But Lincoln withheld military action against the Old Dominion until that state’s electorate officially ratified the ordinance of secession, which it did on May 23 by a three-to-one margin. Even before that vote was taken, Virginians had been openly aiding the rebellion. As the president noted in his July 4 message to Congress, they had “seized the United States Armory at Harper’s Ferry, and the Navy-yard at Gosport, near Norfolk. They received—perhaps invited—into their state, large bodies of troops, with their warlike appointments, from the so-called seceded States. They formally entered into a treaty of temporary alliance, and co-operation with the so-called ‘Confederate States,’ and sent members to their Congress at Montgomery. And, finally, they permitted the insurrectionary government to be transferred to their capital at Richmond. The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insurrection to make its nest within her borders; and this government has no choice left but to deal with it, where it finds it.”225

  As soon as Virginia officially seceded, Lincoln authorized a mission to secure Alexandria. When one of his favorite surrogate sons, Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, asked to serve in the vanguard of that expedition, the president “replied that the first movement on Southern soil was one of great delicacy. Much depended thereon. He desired to avoid all violence. The people of Virginia were not in a mass disloyal and he wanted nothing to occur that might incense them against the government, but rather wished to so conduct the movement that it would win them over.”226 On May 24, federal troops crossed the Potomac and occupied Alexandria without opposition, though Ellsworth took umbrage at a Confederate flag flying atop a hotel. (Visible from the White House, that banner had been an irritant to Lincoln and his cabinet. Two weeks earlier Chase said with great emphasis that “if I had my way yesterday that Flag wouldn’t be there this morning.”)227 Impetuously, the young officer dashed into the offending hostelry, clambered up the stairs to the roof, and hauled down the secessionist flag. As he descended, Ellsworth encountered the hotel proprietor, who shot him dead. News of his murder shocked Northerners and devastated Lincoln, who mourned him as if had been his own son. Upon learning of Ellsworth’s death, he burst into tears, telling some White House callers, “[e]xcuse me, but I cannot talk.” After regaining his composure, he said: “I will make no apology, gentlemen, for my weakness; but I knew poor Ellsworth well, and held him in great regard. Just as you entered the room, Captain Fox left me, after giving me the painful details of Ellsworth’s unfortunate death. The event was so unexpected, and the recital so touching, that it quite unmanned me. … Poor fellow! It was undoubtedly an act of rashness, but it only shows the heroic spirit that animates our soldiers, from high to low, in this righteous cause of ours. Yet who can restrain their grief to see them fall in such a way as this; not by the fortunes of war, but by the hand of an assassin.”228 According to an account written many years later, the tearful president also said: “so this is the beginning—murder! Ah, my friends, what shall the end of all this be?”229 In reply to a congressman who found consolation in the fact that the U.S. flag now waved over the Alexandria hotel, Lincoln exclaimed with tears in his eyes: “Yes, but it was at a terrible cost!”230 Ellsworth’s body was taken to the navy yard, where the president and his wife for a long while
looked tearfully upon the face of their dead friend. Finally, Lincoln asked rhetorically: “My boy! My boy! Was it necessary that this sacrifice should be made?”231 The body was removed to the White House, where funeral services were held the following day.

  The president had a strong paternal affection for Ellsworth, and in some ways their relationship resembled that of a medieval knight to his squire. John Hay remarked that “Lincoln loved him like a younger brother.”232 The president may have identified with Ellsworth, an ambitious, self-educated poor boy, too proud to accept favors, alienated from his father (who expected the son to support him financially), with a sensitive conscience, a paternal streak, and a wealth of compassion and generosity. In 1860, he had worked in the Lincoln–Herndon law office, ostensibly as a student, but he spent most of his time on the campaign trail stumping for the Republican ticket. Lincoln extended heartfelt sympathy to Ellsworth’s parents. “In the untimely loss of your noble son,” he wrote them on May 25, “our affliction here, is scarcely less than your own. So much of promised usefulness to one’s country, and of bright hopes for one’s self and friends, have rarely been so suddenly dashed, as in his fall. In size, in years, and in youthful appearance, a boy only, his power to command men, was surpassingly great. This power, combined with a fine intellect, an indomitable energy, and a taste altogether military, constituted in him, as seemed to me, the best natural talent, in that department, I ever knew. And yet he was singularly modest and deferential in social intercourse. My acquaintance with him began less than two years ago; yet through the latter half of the intervening period, it was as intimate as the disparity of our ages, and my engrossing engagements, would permit. To me, he appeared to have no indulgences or pastimes; and I never heard him utter a profane, or an intemperate word. What was conclusive of his good heart, he never forgot his parents. The honors he labored for so laudably, and, in the sad end, so gallantly gave his life, he meant for them, no less than for himself.”233

  Indignation at Ellsworth’s murder helped swell the enlistment rolls. Though Lincoln had called for only 42,000 volunteers, by July 1 over 200,000 had joined up.

  In addition to occupying Alexandria, federal troops seized Arlington Heights overlooking Washington, where Robert E. Lee’s mansion was located. Attention then shifted to Harper’s Ferry, where fewer than 10,000 Confederates under Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston had assembled. Sixty-nine-year-old Union General Robert Patterson, who had served as Winfield Scott’s second-in-command during the Mexican War, was selected to lead an expedition against them. With a force of 17,000, Patterson approached the town in mid-June, causing Johnston to retreat to Winchester. When urged to pursue the Confederates, the indecisive, fearful Patterson, whose troops called him “Granny,” balked.

  Further west in Virginia, Union forces proved more aggressive. In early June, they routed Confederates at Phillipi in a skirmish that became known as “the Phillipi races.” A month thereafter at Rich Mountain and Corrick’s Ford, 12,000 troops under the leadership of George B. McClellan, Thomas A. Morris, and William S. Rosecrans defeated Confederate forces led by Robert S. Garnett, who on July 13 became the first general killed in the war. McClellan received most of the credit for these minor victories, though Rosecrans deserved much of it. Union successes boosted Northern morale and paved the way for western Virginia to break away from the Old Dominion and establish itself as a new state.

  These small-scale engagements whetted the appetite of the Northern public, which wanted its legions to attack the Confederate capital. Remarking on the overwhelmingly positive Northern response to the president’s April 15 proclamation, Harper’s Weekly declared that with “such support, and such resources, if this war is not brought to a speedy close, and the supremacy of the Government asserted throughout the country, it will be the fault of Abraham Lincoln.”234 When the impatient New York Times suggested that the president be replaced, Lincoln “spoke amusedly” of the paper’s editorial “and said that the Government had three things to do: defend Washington: Blockade the Ports: and retake Government property. All possible dispatch was to be used in these matters & it w[oul]d be well if the people would cordially assist in this work, before clamoring for more.”235 In early May, several Northern governors met at Cleveland and warned the administration that “there is a spirit evoked by this rebellion among the liberty-loving people of the country that is driving them to action, and if the Government will not permit them to act for it, they will act for themselves.”236 Cabinet members also chafed at the inaction. Montgomery Blair denounced “the dilatory policy of the Administration,” and Chase lamented that Lincoln had pursued “the Micawber policy of waiting for something, to turn up.”237 Chase’s friend Murat Halstead of the Cincinnati Commercial groused to former Ohio Congressman Timothy C. Day that “there could not be a more inefficient man President of the United States than A. Lincoln. He is of no earthly or possible account.”238 Day replied that “the generous uprising of our people in behalf of the Republic is being chilled by the fast spreading idea, that a good cause is in incompetent hands.”239

  Representative Henry L. Dawes reported that Congress was “intensely wrought up to a vigorous prosecution of the war,” and members were growing “suspicious that rail-splitting is not the highest qualification for Chief Magistrate.”240 Senator Henry Wilson called at the White House with a delegation of Radicals and told the president, “we saved you from an attack by the secessionists, but you are menaced by an even greater danger from the North. One retrograde step or even a moment’s hesitation and you will be lost.”241 The Republican congressional caucus narrowly defeated Lyman Trumbull’s resolution demanding that the army seize Richmond before July 21. At that meeting, Ohio Senator Ben Wade “was loud, furious and impudent, denouncing everybody civil & military as incompetent or treacherous.”242

  The press was equally impatient. The New York Times exclaimed “Action! Action! is the watchword.” An army of 25,000 should capture Richmond within sixty days!243 “We want war,” cried the Indianapolis Journal, “swift and overwhelming. The more terrible the war is made, the shorter it will be, and the more humane the policy. Let not the President suppose that the loyal North desires the war cloud to be gently and gradually discharged of its electricity.”244 “Forward to Richmond! Forward to Richmond!” trumpeted Horace Greeley’s influential New York Tribune. The Confederate Congress should be prevented from meeting in the Virginia capital on July 20 as planned, insisted the Tribune. “By that date the place must be held by the national army!”245

  Vexed by Greeley’s hectoring, Lincoln asked the Tribune’s Washington bureau chief: “What in the world is the matter with Uncle Horace? Why can’t he restrain himself and wait a little?” When informed that Greeley did not write every editorial, the president replied: “Well, I don’t suppose I have any right to complain; Uncle Horace agrees with me pretty often after all; I reckon he is with us at least four days out of seven.”246 On April 27, when his old friend George T. M. Davis, representing the New York Union Defence Committee, said that the rebellion should be crushed swiftly and energetically, the president calmly replied that Baltimore was under control, that General Scott was capably supervising military affairs, and that the committee should be more patient and not agitate for “any excess of action.” He assured the New Yorkers that the administration was “determined to act with all the dispatch and decision” within its power, yet it “would at the same time as strenuously avoid everything like a spirit of revenge toward the South.”247

  Meanwhile, the general-in-chief had been formulating strategy without consulting the president. “Scott will not let us outsiders know anything of his plans,” Lincoln observed on June 17.248 But the previous month, Old Fuss and Feathers had outlined to McClellan a scheme that became known as the “Anaconda Plan.” The Confederacy, he recommended, should be encircled and crushed through the combined effects of a stringent blockade and a “powerful movement down the Mississippi” by an 80,000-man army, whose goal w
ould be to capture New Orleans; thus girdled, the rebellion could be squeezed to death. Before marching southward, troops should have at least four months’ training. This strategy, based on Scott’s experience in the Mexican War and on the writings of European military theorists, encountered what the general called “the impatience of our patriotic and loyal Union friends.” Since it contemplated no forward movement in Virginia and relied heavily on an upsurge of Southern Unionism, it was considered too passive and unrealistic.249 Scott described this approach to Indiana Congressman Schuyler Colfax, who thought it “grand, but too slow to suit our Western enthusiasm. He [Scott] gets up the most magnificent plans of a campaign I have ever seen—but he ignores political necessities—such as the need of instant occupation of Memphis &c, though he said he would try to accelerate the movement thus far if possible. He needs some dashing Young American to be by his side constantly … to mix in that ‘forward march’ as much as possible, which Americans so love to hear.”250 Senator William P. Fessenden believed that Scott was behind the times and should have seized Manassas in late May. Eager to avoid bloodshed if possible, Scott said: “If the objective of the war is the reconstruction of the Union, if our enemies of today are to become our compatriots, it is impolitic to alienate them unduly.”251