Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  “Forget it, & never mention or think of it again,” Lincoln replied. “I know what you meant for you [were] very frank about your feelings & views at the time[.] Genl Scott was the Old Whiggism you meant—[you] talked plainly enough—But the Old Hero has done his country noble service—& it was natural to trust him—but his vigor is past.”136 Lincoln magnanimously added “that he was too busy to quarrell with him.” If Blair did not “show him the letter he would probably never see it.”137 Such forbearance was characteristic of Lincoln. If friends mentioned attacks on him, he would steer the conversation in a different direction or simply remark, “I guess we won’t talk about that now.”138

  In 1864, Lincoln explained that “the pressure from the people at the North and Congress … forced him into issuing his series of ‘Military orders.’ ”139 In addition, Frémont and his allies urged the president to bolster the Pathfinder’s forces in the Mountain Department. So in late March, over the emphatic objections of some advisors, Lincoln detached General Louis Blenker’s division from McClellan and sent it to Frémont. The president told Little Mac “that he knew this thing to be wrong, and … that the pressure was only a political one to swell Fremont’s command.”140

  Commenting on the president’s war orders, the New York Herald said “Lincoln holds the reins, and is handling them, as he has handled them from the beginning, with the skill and discretion of an old campaigner.”141 McClellan, however, resented them, even though some accorded with his own views. He had, for instance, planned to organize the divisions into corps after a major battle had revealed his generals’ strengths and weaknesses; he had agreed to leave sufficient troops behind to protect the capital; and the March 18 deadline fell within the time frame he had established in his own mind. He did not like the choice of corps commanders, but they were the most senior generals, and army tradition dictated that seniority must be taken seriously.

  Suddenly, word arrived that the Confederates had abandoned their entrenchments at both Manassas and Centreville and were heading south toward the Rappahannock. (General Johnston feared an attack, like the one recommended by Lincoln, which his inferior numbers could not withstand.) The incredulous, stupefied McClellan, for unknown reasons, sent 112,000 troops arrayed for battle toward Centreville and Manassas, where he discovered that the artillery which had so intimidated him was the same sort he had earlier feared on Munson’s Hill: Quaker cannon (logs painted black).

  Once again the general stood embarrassed before the disgusted people of the North, who, according to John Hay, “said a great deal about it and thought a great deal more.”142 Scornfully the president remarked that the gun platforms at Centreville were too flimsy to support real artillery. Members of Congress were enraged. “We shall be the scorn of the world,” William Pitt Fessenden fumed. “It is no longer doubtful that Genl. McLellan is utterly unfit for his position,” the Maine senator told his cousin. “He has had more than 200,000 fine troops here for five months, supplied with every thing needful, and yet has been held in check, at an expense of three hundred millions by an army of not half his numbers, badly armed & supplied.”143 Treasurer of the U.S. Francis E. Spinner angrily concluded that “McClellan either knew that there were less than 50,000 men opposing his 247,000, and that they were moving three days before he started, or he didn’t. If he did know, he must be a traitor, if he didn’t he is an incompetent.”144 The Washington bureau chief of the New York Tribune asked rhetorically: “How long can the country afford to worship this do-nothing, this moral coward, if not, as some think, traitor?”145 The spectacle of “an army of 200,000 allowing an enemy encamped within 27 miles, to go quietly away” struck Adam Gurowski as “something like treason.”146

  In executive session on March 14, the senate considered a resolution calling for McClellan’s removal. Three days later a congressional delegation visited the White House to urge that a new commander be named for the Army of the Potomac. Senator Fessenden bemoaned Lincoln’s failure to dismiss Little Mac: “Every movement has been a failure. And yet the President will keep him in command, and leave our destiny in his hands. I am, at times, almost in despair. Well, it cannot be helped. We went in for a rail-splitter, and we have got one.”147 The New York Herald denounced McClellan as a “Quaker general.”148 The Confederates’ move, remarked D. W. Bartlett, “disarranges all McClellan’s plans, and puts his reputation in a delicate and dangerous position. He can only sustain himself by immediate and decided victories.” No one “with the brains of a woodchuck can take a good look at Manassas without feeling certain that McClellan has made a gigantic blunder in submitting all winter to the Potomac blockade.”149 Former Senator Thomas Ewing wrote Lincoln that in Ohio significant “doubts are entertained of McClelland[’]s loyalty, and as I think with reason. He commenced his career with unbounded popularity. Our public here bore with his inaction long & patiently—one excuse after another was used and admitted, until at last the retreat of the rebel army from Manassas, with their mighty armaments and munitions of war, without an attempt at prevention have convinced his best friends that he is either false or strangely incompetent. I for myself cannot conceive it possible that that retreat could have been effected without his knowledge—the like was never heard of in the history of the world.”150

  The news saddened and angered Lincoln, who hoped that the Army of the Potomac would win a smashing victory at Manassas. It was not an unreasonable expectation, for if McClellan had moved against Johnston on February 22, as Lincoln had ordered him to, Little Mac might well have routed the enemy. The president interpreted the Confederate withdrawal as a portent that there would be “a hot summer campaign, with the deadly fevers of the south to aid the enemy and to harass and destroy the government forces.”151 Michigan Senator Zachariah Chandler told a fellow Radical that “Old Abe is mad, and the war will now go on.”152

  The president wanted to replace McClellan with a senior officer, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, whom Winfield Scott recommended highly. On March 15, Stanton amazed that 63-year-old general by offering him command of the Army of the Potomac. According to Hitchcock, the war secretary “spoke of the pressure on the President against McClellan, saying that the President and himself had had the greatest difficulty in standing against it.” Hitchcock declined on the grounds of poor health.153

  With Johnston heading toward the Rappahannock, McClellan had to alter his plans, for the Army of the Potomac could not safely land at Urbanna. His fallback location was Fort Monroe at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula, formed by the James and York rivers.

  On March 8, the Confederate ironclad ram Virginia, better known as the Merrimack, further upset McClellan’s plans by destroying two Union frigates in Hampton Roads and driving others aground. When word of this naval disaster reached Washington, panic quickly spread. Would that powerful warship sail up the Potomac and destroy the capital and sink McClellan’s transports, thus wrecking the planned offensive? On the morning of March 9, Lincoln sent for Gideon Welles, who joined other alarmed cabinet members at the White House. Feeling in need of a professional opinion, Lincoln fetched John A. Dahlgren, commander at the Washington Navy Yard. As they rode back to the White House, the president indicated that he “did not know whether we might not have a visit [from the Merrimack] here.” Dahlgren was able to provide scant comfort, saying only that “such a thing might be prevented, but not met. If the ‘Merrimac’ entered the river it must be blocked; that was about all which could be done at present.” He explained that since the Confederate ironclad drew less than twenty-two feet of water, it could attack Washington or even sail as far as New York, anchor there, “and levy contributions at will.” In his diary, Dahlgren noted that “the President was not at all stunned by the news, but was in his usual suggestive mood.” The captain felt sorry for Lincoln: “Poor gentleman, how thin and wasted he is!”154

  Back at the White House, Dahlgren’s inability to recommend a way to stop the Merrimack intensified the cabinet’s anxiety. Stanton was nearly frantic, predicting
that the Confederates would destroy the fleet, capture Fort Monroe, and arrive in Washington by nightfall, demolish the Capitol and other public buildings, or perhaps it would steam further north and level New York and Boston or exact tribute from those cities. The panicky secretary of war scurried from room to room, sat down only to leap up after scribbling a bit, then swung his arms about while raving and scolding. He wired instructions to New York that a counterpart to the Merrimack be constructed immediately. Welles calmly informed him that the previous night a new Union ironclad, the Monitor, had already reached Hampton Roads and would challenge the Confederate behemoth that very day. When Stanton learned that the Monitor mounted only two guns, he expressed incredulity and contempt, which only made Lincoln and the others even more nervous. Again and again, the president and the secretary of war strode to the window to see if the Merrimack was heading their way. Lincoln was relieved when Welles, contradicting Dahlgren, assured him that the heavily armored Confederate ship drew so much water that she could be effective only in Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake.

  Stanton, however, felt no relief. Deepening his gloom was the excitable Montgomery Meigs, who stampeded. “I do not see that any thing can be done,” the quartermaster general gloomily announced, unless the Monitor were to disable the Merrimack, which otherwise might “come up to Washington or go to Annapolis & destroy our transports.” The enemy ironclad could also possibly reach New York and “call for the specie for coal for any thing she wants & compel it to be given up by burning the city.” Meigs made several suggestions: “Notify the steamers at Annapolis to be ready to run for it—send the transports back into the canal or into some shallow water out of her reach. Notify the authorities at N Y, & Balt[imore] & Boston & Portland to be on the lookout & prepare obstructions. … Get steamers ready to run into her[,] the only thing except the Monitor’s eleven inch guns that can do her any harm.”155

  With Lincoln’s authorization, Stanton, in cooperation with Dahlgren and Meigs, ordered several boats to be loaded with rocks and sunk at Kettle Bottom Shoals to keep the Merrimack from reaching Washington. When Welles and Fox protested against this “stone fleet,” Lincoln suspended the war secretary’s instructions, stipulating that the boats obstruct the channel only if the Confederate ironclad was approaching. The furious Stanton sniffed that Lincoln was under the impression that Fox possessed “the entire amount of knowledge in the naval world.”156 (Months later, when asked about the many idle canal boats lining the Potomac bank near the shoals, Lincoln explained: “Oh, that is Stanton’s navy. That is the fleet concerning which he and Mr. Welles became so excited about in my room. Welles was incensed and opposed the scheme, and it seems Neptune [i.e., Welles] was right. Stanton’s navy is as useless as the paps of a man to a sucking child. There may be some show to amuse the child, but they are good for nothing for service.”)157

  Lincoln had endorsed the construction of ironclad ships months earlier, when it seemed as if the Confederates would build one. (The French and British fleets already included a few such vessels.) When plans for the unusual craft were presented to him, he remarked: “All I have to say is what the girl said, when she put her foot into the stocking, ‘It strikes me there’s something in it.’ ”158 Work on the Monitor had begun in October. Despite its small size, it fought the Merrimack to a draw and forced the Confederate behemoth to retreat to its base, where it remained bottled up until the Rebels scuttled it later in the spring, lest it fall into Union hands.

  On March 10, Lieutenant Henry A. Wise, who had observed the historic battle at Hampton Roads, described it to the cabinet, emphasizing the bravery of the Monitor’s skipper, Lieutenant John L. Worden. When he concluded, Lincoln arose and said: “Well, gentlemen, I am going to shake hands with that man,” and proceeded to Wise’s house, where Worden lay abed, his scorched eyes covered with bandages.

  As he shook Lincoln’s hand, the lieutenant remarked: “You do me great honor, Mr. President, and I am only sorry that I can’t see you.”

  Lincoln burst into tears and replied: “No, sir, you have done me and your country honor and I shall promote you. We owe to you, sir, the preservation of our navy. I can not thank you enough.” He then “expressed the warmest sympathy with his suffering, and admiration of his bravery and skill.”159 A few days thereafter Welles, on behalf of the president, formally thanked the lieutenant and his crew in a gracious letter.

  Two months later, the president—along with Chase, Stanton, General John E. Wool, and others—visited the Monitor. This ship’s paymaster reported that “Mr. Lincoln had a sad, care worn & anxious look in strong contrast with the gay cortege by which he was surrounded. As the boat which brought the party came alongside every eye sought the Monitor but his own. He stood with his face averted as if to hide some disagreeable sight. When he turned to us, I could see his lip quiver & his frame tremble with strong emotion & imagined that the terrible drama in these waters of the ninth [eighth] & tenth [ninth] of March was passing in review before him.” He shook hands with the officers, examined the ship closely, and asked to be presented to the crew. The captain objected that they were busy with their chores and not presentable. “That is just as I want to see them, sir,” replied the president. Hat in hand, he bowed right and left as he slowly passed between two rows of enlisted sailors.160

  The Peninsular Campaign Begins

  With the Merrimack neutralized, the Army of the Potomac set sail for the Peninsula on March 17, one day before Lincoln’s deadline. In a good mood, McClellan wrote that the president “is all right—he is my strongest friend.”161 But Lincoln harbored grave doubts about the general. On April 2, he told Orville Browning that General Scott “and all the leading military men around him, had always assured him” that McClellan “possessed a very high order of military talent, and that he did not think they could all be mistaken—yet he was not fully satisfied with his conduct of the war—that he was not sufficiently energetic and aggressive in his measures.” Lincoln added that he had studied McClellan “and taken his measure as well as he could—that he thought he had the capacity to make arrangements properly for a great conflict, but as the hour for action approached he became nervous and oppressed with the responsibility and hesitated to meet the crisis, but that he had given him peremptory orders to move now, and he must do it.”162

  On April 4, after the first 58,000 Union troops had reached their destination (many more were on the way), McClellan began his march toward Richmond, 75 miles distant. He came to an abrupt halt upon encountering a weakly held Confederate line stretching across the Peninsula from Yorktown to the James River. The flamboyant Confederate commander John Magruder skillfully deployed his 17,000 troops, marching and countermarching them in a successful attempt to fool McClellan into thinking his force was much larger than it actually was. In fact, the Army of the Potomac could easily have swept it away. But the hypercautious Union commander decided to besiege Yorktown, wasting a month in preparation for a massive bombardment. During that interval, Joseph E. Johnston was able to reinforce Magruder; McClellan had squandered a glittering opportunity to advance swiftly to the gates of Richmond. Upon seeing the weakness of Magruder’s forces, Johnston remarked: “No one but McClellan could have hesitated to attack.”163 Lincoln said “there was no reason why he should have been detained a single day at Yorktown, but he waited, and gave the enemy time to gather his forces and strengthen his position.”164

  One excuse McClellan gave for his timidity was the president’s decision to withhold Irvin McDowell’s corps, which had originally been slated to sail to the Peninsula. Lincoln changed that plan at the last minute when he discovered that Little Mac, in violation of orders, had not left enough men behind to guarantee the safety of Washington. The president was indignant when informed that only 19,022 raw troops were in and around the capital instead of the 40,000 to 50,000 recommended by McClellan’s division commanders. Such legerdemain would have justified Little Mac’s removal, but Lincoln had no confidence in the other generals of
the Army of the Potomac. When notified of the president’s action, the Young Napoleon called it “the most infamous thing that history has recorded. … The idea of depriving a General of 35,000 troops when actually under fire!”165 To Lincoln he telegraphed an urgent appeal: “In my deliberate judgement, the success of our cause will be imperilled when it is actually under the fire of the Enemy, and active operations have commenced. Two or three of my Divisions have been under fire of artillery most of the day. I am now of the opinion that I shall have to fight all of the available force of the Rebels, not far from here. Do not force me to do so with diminished numbers.”166 The Young Napoleon grumbled that enemies in Washington, among them Lincoln and Stanton, were conspiring to undermine his offensive and that they were “traitors … willing to sacrifice the country & its army for personal spite & personal aims.”167

  When the pro-McClellan press denounced Stanton for sabotaging the general’s offensive, Lincoln assured a congressman that the charge was “wholly false, and that nothing had been done that he, the president, did not feel it to be his solemn duty to do, and that he assumed the entire responsibility of the military movements recently made.”168

  Lincoln’s decision to withhold McDowell’s corps did not in fact compel Little Mac to besiege Yorktown instead of racing up the Peninsula. Even before Lincoln’s message arrived, McClellan had already decided not to turn the Confederate forces at Yorktown. To encourage the Young Napoleon to move, Lincoln ordered McDowell to advance overland toward Richmond. Perhaps the spur of competition could galvanize McClellan, who would not want McDowell to have the honor of taking the Confederate capital.