On October 22, Lincoln told the cabinet that “it was now clear that Fremont was not fit for the command” and that “Hunter was better.” Seward dissented, arguing that the Pathfinder was too popular with the army to dismiss. Chase and Cameron concurred, to the disgust of Bates, who urged Lincoln “to avoid the timorous and vacillating course that could but degrade the Adm[inistration]n and make it weak and helpless—to assume the powers of his place and speak in the language of command.” To leave Frémont in charge after Cameron had countermanded his orders, repudiated his contracts, denounced his contractors, suspended his officers, and halted construction of fortifications at St. Louis would convince the public that the administration feared him. Heatedly the attorney general protested against having his home state sacrificed. Despite this passionate appeal, Lincoln agreed to delay action. Bates said the president hung “in painful and mortyfying doubt” and that his suffering was “evidently great.”137 (Bates conceded that he had “demanded the recall of Genl. Frémont, possibly with too much emphasis & too often repeated.”)138
Helping to stay Lincoln’s hand was pressure from Radical senators and congressmen, who warned him that if he removed Frémont, “you displease millions of western men, but if you feel it to be your duty to do it, go ahead, but remember one thing—the western people will insist that the same rule be as rigidly applied to incompetent generals in this vicinity. It will never do to remove Fremont for incompetency and retain generals here whose names we can mention if they are also open to the same charge!”139 Other Radicals, notably the editors of the Chicago Tribune, had grown disenchanted with the Pathfinder and said so publicly.
On October 24, Lincoln finally issued an order dismissing Frémont. Nine days later it was handed to the Pathfinder, who reluctantly turned over his command to Hunter. Lincoln suggested to the new commander of the Department of the West that he abandon the pursuit of the rebel commander, Sterling Price, pull back to Rolla and Sedalia, regroup his forces, guard the railroads, suppress local uprisings, and drive off invaders. Hopefully, he predicted that before spring arrived, “the people of Missouri will be in no favorable mood to renew, for next year, the troubles which have so much afflicted, and impoverished them during this.”140
In 1863, Lincoln offered postmortems on Frémont’s hundred-day career in Missouri: “I thought well of Fremont,” he told John Hay. “Even now I think well of his impulses. I only think he is the prey of wicked and designing men and I think he has absolutely no military capacity.”141 To a group of abolitionists, he said: “I have great respect for General Fremont and his abilities, but the fact is that the pioneer in any movement is not generally the best man to carry that movement to a successful issue.” A case in point was Moses, who “began the emancipation of the Jews, but didn’t take Israel to the Promised Land after all. He had to make way for Joshua to complete the work. It looks as if the first reformer of a thing has to meet such a hard opposition and gets so battered and bespattered, that afterwards, when people find they have to accept his reform, they will accept it more easily from another man.”142
Nicolay was less charitable in his assessment of Frémont, judging that the “d—d fool has completely frittered away the fairest opportunity a man of small experience ever had to make his name immortal.”143 Edward Bates was equally emphatic, declaring that the Pathfinder “has done more damage to our cause than half a dozen of the ablest generals of the enemy can do.”144
Frémont’s dismissal touched off an explosion of anger. The editor of the Cincinnati Gazette, Richard Smith, warned Chase that “the West is threatened with a revolution” because the “public consider that Frémont has been made a martyr.” Even “sober citizens” were so enraged that they burned the president in effigy and yanked his portrait from their walls and trampled it underfoot. Rhetorically Smith asked: “Is it not time for the President to stop and consider, whether, as this is a government of the people, it is not unsafe to disregard and override public sentiment, as has been done in the case of Gen’l Fremont?” The Pathfinder, Smith explained, “is to the West what Napoleon was to France” while Lincoln “has lost the confidence of the people.”145
Missouri Germans protested vehemently, as did militant opponents of slavery throughout the North. Protest meetings were held in New York, Cincinnati, and other cities. German troops in Frémont’s army practically mutinied, swearing that they had joined up only because they wished to serve under the Pathfinder. At Washington, opinion was reported to be “very much against the removal of Fremont just as he was about to give battle to the enemy. Much sympathy is expressed for the removed general, and indignation at the vacillation of President Lincoln. The simple truth is, Mr. Lincoln has been wavering about Fremont for six weeks, and had not the courage to remove him at the proper time, before he left St. Louis. He finally got his courage to the sticking point just as he was ready to fight, and had driven the rebels out of Missouri. Yet General Stone, after the Leesburg blunder, is untouched.”146 A Republican paper in Ohio patronizingly declared that Lincoln’s “best friends and most intimate associates will hardly claim for him praise for any higher attribute than the absence of bad intentions.”147 Radicals interpreted Frémont’s dismissal as yet another sign that the administration was soft on slavery. “Where are you, that you let the hounds run down your friend Fremont?” Thaddeus Stevens asked Simon Stevens.148 Publicly, William Lloyd Garrison speculated that Lincoln’s action would harm “the cause of the government, by depressing the moral sentiment and popular enthusiasm inspired by General Fremont’s proclamation.”149 Privately, Garrison wrote that though the president was 6 feet, 4 inches tall, “he is only a dwarf in mind.”150 Parker Pillsbury was so disgusted with Lincoln’s administration, which he deemed “the wickedest we have ever had,” that he rejoiced “in defeat and disaster rather than in victory, because I do not believe the North is in any condition to improve any great success which may attend its arms.”151
When Indiana Congressman George W. Julian insisted that Frémont be given another command, Lincoln replied that he could not do so without removing some other general. Julian’s request reminded the president of a young man whose father urged him to take a wife. “Whose wife shall I take?” queried the son.152 Lincoln told a St. Louis businessman that he did not “feel unkindly towards Fremont, but will never give him an independent command.” The president would have appointed the Pathfinder minister to Russia “if he had treated him even civilly.”153 When the abolitionist Moncure D. Conway called at the White House to protest, Lincoln explained that “Frémont is in a hurry. Slavery is going downhill. We may be better able to do something towards emancipation by and by than now.” Conway responded: “our fathers compromised with slavery because they said it was going downhill; hence, war to-day. Slavery is the commissary of the southern army.”154 In response to the public uproar, some cabinet members who had recommended Frémont’s ouster expressed second thoughts. Mildly irritated, Lincoln complained that those men “now wished to escape the responsibility of it.”155
Some Republican leaders, however, cheered Lincoln’s decision. Henry Winter Davis, who eventually became a prominent Radical critic of the administration, applauded it and condemned “the abolition onslaught in Congress—which assails the Prest. for leniency in the war—& looks to a subjugation of the rebellious states—a freeing of all the negroes—& holding the country merely by military power governed by the U.S. under Territorial forms!!”156 Even a few critics who deplored Frémont’s dismissal admitted that his appointment had been a blunder.
In December, Lincoln once again had to deal with an inflammatory proclamation issued by an abolitionist general. On December 4, John W. Phelps, a Vermont Radical commanding federal troops at Ship Island, Mississippi, amazed the president by announcing to the “loyal people of the Southwest” that Slave States were “under the highest obligations of honor and morality to abolish slavery.” As soon they did so, “our Southern brethren … would begin to emerge from a hateful del
irium” and “their days [would] become happy and their nights peaceable and free from alarm.”157 Indignant at the general’s presumption in ignoring the administration’s policy regarding slavery, Lincoln was tempted to dismiss Phelps, but rather than doing so, he simply ignored the proclamation. Phelps’s unit was soon folded into Benjamin F. Butler’s command, leaving the Vermont firebrand without the authority to issue similar documents. When Phelps resigned to protest Butler’s foot-dragging on the recruitment of black troops, Lincoln did not intervene.
Naval Victories
Amid the gloomy aftermath of Bull Run, the navy provided the only bright spot for the North. In August, with the help of troops under Ben Butler, the navy seized control of Hatteras Inlet on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The small-scale operation, which deprived the Confederates of a privateer haven, required only seven ships. But minor though it was, this victory just after McDowell’s humiliating defeat cheered up Lincoln, his constituents, and the army. Butler, smarting from the fiasco at Big Bethel in June, rushed to the White House with the good news. (His haste to brag about his accomplishment made him appear childish to some.) When the general arrived late at night to submit his report, Gustavus Fox, who had helped plan the operation, suggested that Butler immediately tell the president what had happened.
“We ought not to do that,” said Butler, “and get him up at this time of night. Let him sleep.”
“He will sleep enough better for it,” replied Fox.
At the White House, Lincoln was so exhilarated at the glad tidings that he hugged the diminutive Fox, and together they danced around the room. Butler was much amused at the president’s night shirt, which was “considerably agitated.”158
The navy, in cooperation with the army, achieved a far more important victory in November, when seventy vessels and 12,000 troops captured Port Royal, South Carolina. That port then became a vital link in the chain enforcing the blockade. While helping to plan that operation, carried out jointly by Flag Officer Samuel Francis Du Pont and General Thomas W. Sherman, Lincoln grew frustrated by delays. Time and again the launch date was postponed until finally, on September 18, Lincoln told Welles that the “joint expedition of the Army and Navy, agreed upon some time since, … must be ready to move by the 1st of, or very early in October. Let all preparations go forward accordingly.”159 Du Pont feared that such a deadline would not allow time for adequate preparation. On October 1, the expedition was still not ready to depart. That day the president got “his dander up a little” when, during a council of war, mention was made of a scheme that General Ambrose E. Burnside was concocting for a campaign to secure the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River. Lincoln heatedly denied knowing anything about it and asked that the matter be investigated. An official from the War Department soon arrived with a paper from McClellan’s headquarters describing an “expedition of 8,000 men, General McClellan to name the Commanding General and names General Burnside.” No one in the war council had seen this paper, including Lincoln, who said he had never been asked “or told a word on the subject” and talked “of going back to Illinois if his memory has become as treacherous as that.”160
Around that time, Lincoln remarked ironically to Ohio Governor William Dennison, who thought that the various government departments were “little islands unto themselves,” that if Jefferson Davis “was to get me and I told him all I know, I couldn’t give him much information that would be useful to him.”161
In mid-October, when Thomas Sherman asked for a regiment from McClellan’s army, the president became irritated, as did the Young Napoleon, who objected to any diminution of his force. On October 17, Lincoln told Seward: “I think I will telegraph to Sherman that I will not break up McClellan[’]s command and that I haven[’]t much hope of his expedition anyway.” The secretary of state replied, “No you won[’]t say discouraging things to a man going off with his life in his hand. Send him some hopeful and cheering dispatch.” Lincoln took only part of this advice, telling Sherman: “I will not break up McC’s army without his consent. I do not think I will come to Annapolis.” John Hay thought Lincoln’s “petulance very unaccountable.”162 A telegraph operator who often saw the president testified that he “was sometimes critical and even sarcastic when [military] events moved slowly.”163
The Port Royal armada, whose mission had been planned by Gustavus Fox, finally sailed on October 29, complete with the extra regiment that Sherman had requested. The country anxiously awaited word of this fleet, whose destination was a closely guarded secret. When a White House caller implored him to reveal it, Lincoln teasingly asked if he could keep a confidence.
“Oh, yes, upon my honor,” came the answer.
“Well,” said Lincoln, “I will tell you.” Pulling his curious visitor near him, the president whispered loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the room, “Well, the expedition has gone to … SEA!”164
Nine days after departing, the combined army and navy forces scored a brilliant success. Northerners rejoiced at what they called a “glorious achievement” and “our first great victory.”165 Acting on Lincoln’s suggestion, Congress expressed its thanks to Du Pont “for the decisive and splendid victory achieved at Port Royal.”166
At the same time, Lincoln derived satisfaction from the victory of the Republican mayoral candidate in New York, George Opdyke, who defeated the incumbent, Fernando Wood, a bitter critic of the administration. William Cullen Bryant reported that this good news “fills Washington with rejoicing.”167
McClellan and the Administration under Attack
At the time of Frémont’s removal, he was belatedly pursuing the enemy; meanwhile in the East, the conservative Democrat McClellan presided over the disaster at Ball’s Bluff and then refused to undertake even a modest offensive. When Congress reassembled in early December, the Radicals demanded an investigation of the army and established a body to carry it out, the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, which was authorized to examine all aspects of the conflict. It vindicated Frémont, whom the Radicals regarded as a martyr to emancipation. The naiveté of the committee members, mostly Radical Republicans, led them to support men (like the Pathfinder) whose antislavery ardor was matched only by their military incompetence. The committee was critical of the president, but Lincoln found it useful, for such criticism provided him with spurs to help goad his generals into fighting. Lincoln was just as eager as the Radicals to conduct the war vigorously; he, too, wanted aggressive, effective commanders.
McClellan did not fit that description. The Radicals, along with the rest of the North, grew increasingly impatient with the Young Napoleon as winter approached. Ideal fighting weather persisted into December, but the Army of the Potomac failed to take advantage of it. Instead, it concentrated on ringing Washington with dozens of forts, mounting hundreds of guns. (After inspecting those works and hearing the general-in-chief explain that every contingency should be planned for, the president remarked: “The precaution is doubtless a wise one, and I’m glad to get so clear an explanation, for it reminds me of an interesting question once discussed for several weeks in our lyceum or moot court in Springfield, Illinois, soon after I began reading law. The question was, ‘Why does man have breasts?’ After many evenings’ debate, the question was submitted to the presiding judge, who wisely decided ‘that if under any circumstances, however fortuitous, or by any chance or freak, no matter of what nature or by what cause, a man should have a baby, there would be the breasts to nurse it.’ ”)168
“There is a growing dissatisfaction with McClellan’s inaction here which finds universal utterance,” Congressman Henry L. Dawes reported from Washington.169 Adam Gurowski spoke for many when he expressed the hope that the joint committee “will quickly find out what a terrible mistake this McClellan is, and warn the nation of him.”170 In fact, the committee chairman, Ohio Senator Benjamin F. Wade, deplored McClellan’s timidity. Soon after being named general-in-chief, Little Mac promised to launch an offensive within weeks, but he d
id not. In early December, Lincoln formally asked him about the feasibility of attacking the Confederate supply lines to Manassas. If the Union army managed to cut the enemy’s rail link, Johnston would be forced out of his entrenched position. It was a wise suggestion, but predictably Little Mac asserted that since the Rebel forces were nearly as large as his own, no such advance should be risked. Yet, he said, he had a plan “that I do not think at all anticipated by the enemy nor by many of our own people.” He did not deign, however, to reveal its details.171 On December 20, McClellan came down with typhoid fever and was indisposed for three weeks.
Despair overspread the North as the army entered winter quarters; some feared that its inaction would lead European nations to recognize the Confederacy. Bankers told Chase that unless either the army advanced or there was a cabinet shake-up, they would not lend the government more money, for the administration had nothing to show for the funds already lent. They were especially upset with Seward for issuing an alarmist appeal to state governors urging them to improve their shore defenses. That document, which halted popular subscriptions to the Treasury Department loan, seemed to many proof positive that Seward was unfit for his post.
Criticism of the administration grew ever more strident. Most congressional Republicans disagreed with Ohio Representative John A. Bingham’s contention that “Congress ought to act & not find fault with the President.”172 Michigan Senator Zachariah Chandler groused that Lincoln was “timid vacillating & inefficient.”173 In early January, Congressman Henry L. Dawes told his wife that the “times are exceedingly dark and gloomy—I have never seen a time when they were so much so. Confidence in everybody is shaken to the very foundation—The credit of the Country is ruined—its arms impotent, its Cabinet incompetent, its servants rotten, its ruin inevitable. … The Govt. can’t survive sixty days of such a life as it is now living. Oh that such a Cause should be crucified to an unholy alliance between trifling indifference, utter incompetence and reeking corruption.”174 Ben Wade denounced the “blundering, cowardly, and inefficient” administration and sneered that one “could not inspire Old Abe, Seward, Chase, or Bates, with courage, decision and enterprise, with a galvanic battery.”175 Kansas Congressman Martin F. Conway called Lincoln and Seward “undoubtedly pro-slavery.” The president, in Conway’s view, was “a poor affair,” just “an old Kentucky Whig” who “knows no country as his own but Kentucky, and yet he would sell this for a small price.”176
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