In time, Lincoln acquired a better understanding of strategy than most of his generals, as is made clear in a letter he wrote to Buell on that memorable January 13: “I state my general idea of this war to be that we have the greater numbers, and the enemy has the greater facility of concentrating forces upon points of collision; that we must fail, unless we can find some way of making our advantage an over-match for his; and that this can only be done by menacing him with superior forces at different points, at the same time; so that we can safely attack, one, or both, if he makes no change; and if he weakens one to strengthen the other, forbear to attack the strengthened one, but seize, and hold the weakened one.”403
Lincoln was right: the North’s advantages in manpower and economic strength would secure victory only if the military applied pressure on all fronts simultaneously. Buell, Halleck, McClellan, and many other generals failed to grasp this elementary point.
25
“This Damned Old House”
The Lincoln Family in the Executive Mansion
During the Civil War, the atmosphere in the White House was usually sober, for as John Hay recalled, it “was an epoch, if not of gloom, at least of a seriousness too intense to leave room for much mirth.”1 The death of Lincoln’s favorite son and the misbehavior of the First Lady significantly intensified that mood.
The White House
The White House failed to impress Lincoln’s secretaries, who disparaged its “threadbare appearance” and referred to it as “a dirty rickety concern.”2 A British journalist considered it beautiful in the moonlight, “when its snowy walls stand out in contrast to the deep blue sky, but not otherwise.”3 The Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler thought that the “shockingly careless appearance of the White House proved that whatever may have been Mrs. Lincoln’s other good qualities, she hadn’t earned the compliment which the Yankee farmer paid to his wife when he said: ‘Ef my wife haint got an ear fer music, she’s got an eye fer dirt.’ ”4 The north side of the Executive Mansion, facing Pennsylvania Avenue, was marred by an immense portico that seemed to dwarf the building, and the statue of Thomas Jefferson on the lawn before the front entrance was a green, moldy eyesore.
Passing beneath the outsized portico, visitors entered a small lobby, then emerged into a large vestibule, where coat racks were set up for large public receptions. Those events were held in the enormous East Room, which William O. Stoddard said had “a faded, worn, untidy look” and needed fresh paint and new furniture.5 It featured a conventionally frescoed ceiling, satin drapes, a plush carpet, and three huge chandeliers.
Three other state parlors, designated by their colors, were smaller. Mary Lincoln’s favorite, the red one, served as her sitting room where she received guests. The president also entertained friends there after dinner. Its furniture was upholstered in red satin and gold damask, its windows had gilded cornices, and throughout were scattered many vases and much ormolu work. Few paintings other than a full-length portrait of George Washington adorned the walls. Stoddard believed that the plainness of the White House could have been softened with more artwork.6 The oval Blue Room, which had a fine view across the spacious grounds to the Potomac River, was known as “Charles Ogle’s Elliptical Saloon,” a reference to the demagogic Pennsylvania congressman who had attacked Martin Van Buren for redecorating the White House. The Green Room was a small parlor where guests were received informally. (After Willie Lincoln died in 1862, his body was embalmed in the Green Room. His mother refused to enter it thereafter. His death is discussed in chapter 26.)
Beyond these three parlors was the modestly appointed state dining room, which could accommodate up to thirty-five guests. A smaller family dining room adjoined it on the north side. On the far end of the west wing was a spacious conservatory, a great favorite of Mary Lincoln, who used its flowers to adorn the house profusely. She also sent them to hospitals and hospital fund-raising events called sanitary fairs. Visitors picked the flowers so often that eventually the conservatory was declared off-limits to the public. (Flowers were not the only souvenirs taken. In the public rooms visitors shamelessly cut swatches from draperies and carpets, and stole tassels, ornaments, and fringes.)
Also at the end of the west wing was a massive staircase leading to the second floor, which housed offices as well as the family quarters. (There were two smaller stairways, one of which led to the offices; another was a service staircase, which Lincoln used most often, for it allowed him to pass from the second story to the basement hallway and exit unobserved.) The upstairs was dark, with its heavy mahogany doors and wainscoting. On the east side was the president’s sparsely furnished office, which Stoddard described as “a wonderful historic cavern” with “less space for the transaction of the business of his office than a well-to-do New York lawyer.”7 In the middle of the room stood a long table around which the cabinet sat. By the center window overlooking the Potomac was Lincoln’s upright desk, resembling something from a used furniture auction. Maps were displayed on racks in the northwest corner of the room, a portrait of Andrew Jackson hung above the fireplace, and a large photograph of the English reformer John Bright adorned one wall.
Adjoining this office-cum-cabinet-meeting-chamber was a large waiting room, through which Lincoln had to pass in order to reach the living area. (The only modification to the house made during his presidency was a partition installed toward the rear of the waiting room, creating a private passageway from the office to the family quarters.) Nearby were Nicolay’s small office and reception room, another office—used by Stoddard and Hay—and a bedroom occupied by Nicolay and Hay. Adjacent to Lincoln’s bedroom was a small dressing room.
The family quarters on the west side of the second floor included an oval library-cum-family-room which was, as Stoddard put it, “really a delightful retreat.” In addition to bedrooms for the president and First Lady there were four others, one of which was for Willie and Tad. Running water for washing was available in all the family rooms save the library.
The rat-infested basement, where the kitchen and the servants’ quarters were located, had “the air of an old and unsuccessful hotel,” according to Stoddard.8 In 1864, Commissioner of Public Buildings Benjamin Brown French reported that during the previous summer “the effluvia from dead rats was offensive in all the passages and many of the occupied rooms to both the occupants of, and visitors to, the Presidential mansion.”9 A British caller noted that the house “is rendered very unhealthy by the accumulation of refuse and garbage, which the tide washes to and fro between the piles of the long chain-bridge.”10 Commissioner French recommended that the president should have a new residence in a less unhealthy location, like the heights of Georgetown.
The lack of screens on windows and doors made summers in the White House disagreeable. One night in July 1862, Nicolay amusingly reported that the “gas lights over my desk are burning brightly and the windows of the room are open, and all bugdom outside seems to have organized a storming party to take the gas light, in numbers which seem to exceed the contending hosts at Richmond. The air is swarming with them, they are on the ceiling, the walls and the furniture in countless numbers, they are buzzing about the room, and butting their heads against the window panes, they are on my clothes, in my hair, and on the sheet I am writing on. They are all here, the plebeian masses, as well as the great and distinguished members of the oldest and largest patrician families—the Millers, the Roaches, the Whites, the Blacks, yea even the wary and diplomatic foreigners from the Musquito Kingdom. They hold a high carnival, or rather a perfect Saturnalia. Intoxicated and maddened and blinded by the bright gaslight, they dance, and rush and fly about in wild gyrations, until they are drawn into the dazzling but fatal heat of the gas-flame when they fall to the floor, burned and maimed and mangled to the death, to be swept out into the dust and rubbish by the servant in the morning.”11
To escape the rat effluvia and the bugs, Lincoln and his family spent the warmer months of 1862, 1863, and 1864 at the Soldiers’ H
ome, a complex of five buildings on 300 acres, located 3 miles north of the White House on the Seventh Street Road. Established in the early 1850s to house indigent, disabled veterans, it was officially known as the Military Asylum. On the grounds, a wealthy banker, George W. Riggs, built a comfortable house in the Rural Gothic style, which in time became known as the Anderson cottage. This dwelling was in all likelihood the one where the Lincolns stayed. “We are truly delighted, with this retreat, the drives & walks around here are truly delightful,” Mary Lincoln wrote.12 The Home occupied high ground, catching whatever breezes might be blowing in the area, and offering a splendid view of Washington. Lincoln commuted every day to the Executive Mansion, usually departing no later than 8 A.M.
The staff at the White House included doorkeepers, a coachman, messengers, a gardener, groundskeepers, a steward, cooks, waiters, a house keeper, and guards. There was an unusually rapid turnover of staff during the Lincoln administration, just as there had been in the Lincoln house hold in Springfield. It was hard to please the mercurial Mary Lincoln. Among others, the English steward, Richard Good-child, was fired to make way for Jane Watt, wife of the corrupt gardener, John Watt. The butler Peter Vermeren was let go early on, after he dared to report corruption in the White House. The head doorkeeper, Thomas Burns, was also dismissed soon after the Lincolns moved in.
A few members of the White House staff were black, including the messenger-valet-steward William Slade, known as an excellent storyteller; the cook Cornelia Mitchell; and the butler Peter Brown. William Johnson, a valet-cum-barber who came from Springfield with the First Family in 1861, initially worked in the White House stoking the furnace. But the other black employees, all light-skinned, objected to his dark complexion so vehemently that Lincoln had to find him another post. To Navy Secretary Welles Lincoln wrote in mid-March 1861: “The bearer (William) is a servant who has been with me for some time & in whom I have confidence as to his integrity and faithfulness. He wishes to enter your service. The difference of color between him & the other servants is the cause of our seperation. If you can give him employment you will confer a favour on Yours truly.”13 After several months, Johnson eventually landed a job at the Treasury Department, which he held till his death in 1864. To help him earn more money, Lincoln also facilitated his efforts to moonlight for others.
Security was provided by uniformed soldiers at the exterior doors and gates. Indoors, plainclothes guards acted as doormen and other servants.
Stoddard recalled that in dealing with the staff, Lincoln “took their presence and the performance of their duties so utterly for granted” that none of them “was ever made to feel, unpleasantly, the fact of his inferior position by reason of any look or word of the President. All were well assured that they could not get a word from him unless the business which brought them to his elbow justified them in coming. The number of times that Mrs. Lincoln herself entered his business-room at the White House could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.”14 Though kindly and considerate, Lincoln could take umbrage at insubordination. One day when the president asked his Irish coachman to buy a morning paper, that gentleman said that he would but then did not do so, for he considered it beneath his dignity to run errands. Lincoln himself went out on the street, hailed a newsboy, and purchased a copy of the Washington Chronicle. To convey a message to the haughty coachman, Lincoln ordered the coach up at 6 A.M. to take another staffer out to buy a paper. The driver was humiliated.
Daily Routine
Lincoln usually rose early, for he slept lightly and fitfully. Before consuming his spare breakfast of an egg, toast, and coffee, he spent a couple of hours glancing at newspapers, writing letters, signing documents, or studying the subjects most pressing at the moment. After eating, he would read telegrams at the dingy War Department building next door to the Executive Mansion. Upon his return, he would go through the mail with a secretary. Around ten o’clock visitors would be admitted. Cabinet members had precedence, then senators, followed by congressmen, and finally the general public. One morning, Lincoln was showing his good friend Anson G. Henry some maps when the clock stuck ten, indicating that office hours were to begin. “Citizens can get in,” Henry reported, “but nine times out of ten not half the Senators get in unless several go in together, & this is very often done, and they can take in with them as many of their friends or constituents as they please. It is no uncommon thing for Senators to try for ten days before they get a private interview.”15 On Tuesdays and Fridays, when cabinet meetings were usually held, visiting hours ended at noon.
When the public’s turn to enter came, Lincoln had the doors opened and in surged a crowd, filling up his small office. Those who simply wanted to shake his hand or to wish him well were quickly accommodated. Others seeking mercy or assistance told their tales of woe, unconcerned about who might hear them. Many who hoped for a more private consultation held back and would be brought up short when the president loudly called them forward: “Well, friend, what can I do for you?” This forced them either to speak up or withdraw.16 All kinds of people sought presidential assistance: army officers longing for promotion, foreign diplomats concerned about their country’s interests, autograph seekers, inventors touting their creations, cabinet members soliciting favors for friends, women appealing on behalf of their sons or husbands or fathers, and businessmen in quest of contracts, among others.
A satirist poked fun at the swarming hordes who desired to see the president: “They cannot be driven off; they cannot be bluffed. Bars and bolts will not shut them out. The frowns of janitors have no terrors for them. They are proof against the snubbings of secretaries. It is in vain the President sends word that he ‘cannot be seen.’ He must be seen; he shall be seen. Has not the Honorable Jonathan Swellhead come all the way from Wisconsin to consult him about the [draft] quota of his town? Has not the Reverend Dr. Blowhard travelled a thousand miles to impress upon him the necessity of increasing the number of fast days? Has not Christopher Carbuncle, Esq., traveled two days and nights in order to arrange with him the vexed question of the post office in Grabtown? Has not Mr. Samuel Shoddy come expressly from Boston to get him to endorse an application for a blanket contract? Has not a committee from the synod of the See-No-Further church come to implore him to open cabinet meetings with prayer and inaugurate his Wednesday levees with the singing of a psalm? Nor can these clamorous patriots be dismissed with a brief audience. They belong to the class of bores who make long speeches. Having once got the ear of the President, they resolve to keep it. They hang on like a dog to a root. There is no shaking them off until they have had their say; and so hour after hour of the precious time of the head of the nation is thus frittered away.”17
Seated at his table, Lincoln greeted visitors kindly, saying to those he was not acquainted with: “Well?” and those he did know: “And how are you today, Mr. _____?’ ” He usually called old friends by their first names. Seward he addressed as “Governor,” Blair and Bates as “Judge,” Stanton as “Mars,” Welles as “Neptune,” and the other cabinet secretaries as “Mister.” Patiently he listened to requests, asked questions, and then informed callers what he would do for them. If, for example, his petitioner was an impoverished widow seeking a clerkship, he would peruse her letters of recommendation, ask some probing questions, then write out a note to the relevant official instructing him to honor her request. This procedure was so time-consuming that he was able to deal with only a small fraction of the crowd in the anteroom.
To Lincoln’s annoyance, many callers insisted that he solve minor disputes and deal with other petty matters. According to Hay, Lincoln “pretended to begin business at ten o[’]clock in the morning, but in reality the anterooms and halls were full before that hour—people anxious to get the first axe ground. He was extremely unmethodical: it was a four-years struggle on Nicolay’s part and mine to get him to adopt some systematic rules. He would break through every regulation as fast as it was made. Anything that kept the people themse
lves away from him he disapproved—although they nearly annoyed the life out of him by unreasonable complaints & requests.”18 In 1863, Stoddard reported from the White House that the president was besieged by the “same unceasing throng in the ante-rooms … bent on dragging him ‘for only a few minutes only,’ away from his labors of state to attend to private requests, often selfish, often frivolous, sometimes corrupt or improper, and not so often worthy of the precious time and strength thus wasted.”19 Private grievances, misfortunes, and wishes were so numerous that Lincoln once remarked “that it seemed as if he was regarded as a police justice, before whom all the petty troubles of men were brought for adjustment.”20
A typical case involved an enlisted man who pestered Lincoln with a matter that the president thought should be handled by the soldier’s superior officer. When his advice was ignored, Lincoln peremptorily barked, “Now, my man, go away! I cannot attend to all these details. I could as easily bail out the Potomac with a spoon.”21 Similarly, when a sutler asked Lincoln to grant him permission to peddle ale to the troops, he said sharply: “Look here! What do you take me for, anyhow? Do you think I keep a beer shop?”22 A woman who aspired to be a physician called repeatedly, asking Lincoln to approve her application for a license to practice medicine. Because the medical faculty of the District of Columbia would not give her one, she demanded that the president do so.
Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2 Page 45
