Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  Further undermining confidence in the administration was the victory of conservative forces in Washington municipal elections on June 1. “Nothing could better illustrate the shambling management of the President and his incongruous Cabinet,” observed a correspondent of the Boston Commonwealth. Lincoln “said he wouldn’t lift a hand on either side” and thus helped ensure that candidates hostile to emancipation would triumph.199

  Invasion: Lee Strikes Northward Again

  On June 2, when asked if a Confederate raid was imminent, Lincoln replied “that all indications were that there would be nothing of the sort, and that an advance by the rebels could not possibly take place so as to put them on this side of the Rappahannock, unless Hooker was very much mistaken, and was to be again out-generaled.”200 But in fact, shortly thereafter, Lee began his second invasion of the North, again using the Shenandoah Valley as a corridor into Maryland as he had done nine months earlier. On June 5, when Hooker asked permission to attack the Confederate rear at Fredericksburg, Lincoln urged him instead to concentrate on the main body of the Army of Northern Virginia, not its tail: “in case you find Lee coming to the North of the Rappahannock, I would by no means cross to the South of it. If he should leave a rear force at Fredericksburg, tempting you to fall upon it, it would fight in intrenchments, and have you at disadvantage, and so, man for man, worst you at that point, while his main force would in some way be getting an advantage of you Northward.” Using vivid rustic imagery, he warned against “any risk of being entangled upon the river, like an ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other.” If the Confederates crossed the river, Hooker should “keep on the same side & fight him, or act on the defence, according as might be my estimate of his strength relatively to my own.” Modestly, the president closed, saying: “these are mere suggestions which I desire to be controlled by the judgment of yourself and Gen. Halleck.”201

  Ignoring this advice, Hooker on June 10 proposed to forget about Lee and march on Richmond. Lincoln, who thought “it would be a very poor exchange to give Washington for Richmond,” immediately vetoed that suggestion.202 “If left to me, I would not go South of the Rappahannock, upon Lee’s moving North of it,” the president wrote, repeating his earlier counsel: “If you had Richmond invested to-day, you would not be able to take it in twenty days; meanwhile, your communications, and with them, your army would be ruined. I think Lee’s Army, and not Richmond, is your true objective point. If he comes towards the Upper Potomac, follow on his flank, and on the inside track, shortening your lines, whilst he lengthens his. Fight him when oppertunity offers. If he stays where he is, fret him, and fret him.”203

  Alarmed by Hooker’s evident unwillingness to confront Lee’s army, Lincoln planned to consult with him. But he aborted that trip when Stanton and Halleck warned that it was too perilous to visit the general’s ever-shifting headquarters when that region could become the scene of battle.

  Hooker eventually decided to take Lincoln’s advice and shadow Lee as he moved north down the Valley. Lincoln worried that General Robert H. Milroy at Winchester would be seized, just as the Harper’s Ferry garrison had been captured during Lee’s earlier thrust into the North. On June 14, the president quietly told Welles that “he was feeling very bad; that he feared Milroy and his command were captured, or would be.” When Welles asked why Milroy did not fall back, Lincoln explained “that our folks appeared to know but little how things are, and showed no evidence that they ever availed themselves of any advantage.” Sadly, Welles reflected that Lincoln “is kept in ignorance and defers to the General-in-Chief, though not pleased that he is not fully advised of events as they occur. There is a modest distrust of himself, of which advantage is taken.”204 (In September 1862, James A. Garfield had similarly observed that Lincoln “is almost a child in the hand[s] of his generals. Indeed he recently told a delegation from Chicago that he could not grant a certain request of theirs, which [he] regarded perfectly proper to be granted, unless General Halleck concurred. But he would give them a letter to the General introducing them and their business. What shameful humiliation when the President becomes a petitioner before one of his subordinates.”)205

  Lincoln telegraphed Milroy’s superior, Robert C. Schenck, on June 14: “Get Milroy from Winchester to Harper’s Ferry if possible. He will be gobbled up, if he remains, if he is not already past salvation.”206 Simultaneously, he wired Hooker: “So far as we can make out here, the enemy have Milroy surrounded at Winchester, and [Erastus B.] Tyler at Martinsburg. If they could hold out a few days, could you help them? If the head of Lee’s army is at Martinsburg and the tail of it on the Plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?”207 But it was too late; the following day Confederates routed Milroy, killing and capturing over half of his 8,000-man force.

  As the Confederates tramped northward, Lincoln thought Hooker began to resemble McClellan more and more, complaining that he was outnumbered (he was not) and that the administration did not support him wholeheartedly (it did). The president said that “he got rid of McC[lellan] because he let Lee get the better of him in the race to Richmond” and hinted “that if Hooker got beat in the present race—he would make short work of him.”208 On June 16, Hooker fired off a bitter telegram: “You have long been aware Mr. President that I have not enjoyed the confidence of the Major-General Commanding the Army & I can assure you so long as this continues we may look in vain for success.”209

  Lincoln replied bluntly: “To remove all misunderstanding, I now place you in the strict military relation to Gen. Halleck, of a commander of one of the armies, to the General-in-Chief of all the armies. I have not intended differently; but as it seems to be differently understood, I shall direct him to give you orders, and you to obey them.”210 To soften the blow, he sent a more conciliatory letter: “When you say I have long been aware that you do not enjoy the confidence of the major-general commanding, you state the case much too strongly. You do not lack his confidence in any degree to do you any harm. On seeing him, after telegraphing you this morning, I found him more nearly agreeing with you than I was myself. Surely you do not mean to understand that I am withholding my confidence from you when I happen to express an opinion (certainly never discourteously) differing from one of your own. I believe Halleck is dissatisfied with you to this extent only, that he knows that you write and telegraph (‘report,’ as he calls it) to me. I think he is wrong to find fault with this; but I do not think he withholds any support from you on account of it. If you and he would use the same frankness to one another, and to me, that I use to both of you, there would be no difficulty. I need and must have the professional skill of both, and yet these suspicions tend to deprive me of both. I believe you are aware that since you took command of the army I have not believed you had any chance to effect anything till now. As it looks to me, Lee’s now returning toward Harper’s Ferry gives you back the chance that I thought McClellan lost last fall. Quite possibly I was wrong both then and now; but, in the great responsibility resting upon me, I cannot be entirely silent. Now, all I ask is that you will be in such mood that we can get into our action the best cordial judgment of yourself and General Halleck, with my poor mite added, if indeed he and you shall think it entitled to any consideration at all.”211

  A week later, Hooker visited Washington to confer with Lincoln and doubtless to ask for reinforcements. At a cabinet meeting later that day, the president appeared so “sad and careworn” that Welles was “painfully impressed.”212 Lincoln tried to remain optimistic. On June 26, he said: “We cannot help beating them, if we have the man. How much depends in military matters on one master mind! Hooker may commit the same fault as McClellan and lose his chance. We shall soon see, but it appears to me he can’t help but win.”213

  Soon Lincoln thought differently. When Hooker insisted that the 10,000 troops guarding Harper’s Fe
rry be sent to join his army, Halleck vetoed the idea, prompting Hooker to quit in protest on June 27. Stanton later told a military historian that the Maryland Heights had been fortified at great cost and that Hooker had been instructed on June 24 to hold that position. Shortly thereafter, Fighting Joe directed the commander of that garrison to abandon it. When Stanton and Halleck learned of this, they countermanded the order, thinking that there had been some misunderstanding. Stanton said that if Hooker had asked them first, they would have approved his request to evacuate the Heights.

  Upon reading Hooker’s dispatch resigning his command, Lincoln turned pale. To Stanton’s query, “What shall be done?” he replied: “Accept his resignation.”214 When Chase, who had strongly supported Hooker, protested, Lincoln cut him off abruptly: “The acceptance of an army resignation is not a matter for your department.”215

  Lincoln told Noah Brooks “that he regarded Hooker very much as a father might regard a son who was lame, or who had some other incurable physical infirmity. His love for his son would be even intensified by the reflection that the lad could never be a strong and successful man.” When Brooks shared this conversation with Hooker, the tearful general replied: “Well, the President may regard me as a cripple; but if he will give me a chance, I will yet show him that I know how to fight.”216 Lincoln wanted Hooker to command a corps in the Army of the Potomac, but nothing came of it for months. To General Meade, the president wrote in late July: “I have not thrown Gen. Hooker away.”217 In the autumn, as a corps commander in the western theater, Hooker would partially redeem himself.

  Burnside Blunders Again

  While the Army of the Potomac was busy shadowing Lee, Burnside in his new position as head of the Department of the Ohio created yet another headache for Lincoln by arresting ex-Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham, a prominent Peace Democrat from Dayton, Ohio. Dubbed by their opponents “Copperheads,” after the poisonous snake that strikes without warning, Peace Democrats were concentrated in the lower Midwest and in large cities. They generally backed compromises that would bring about a negotiated restoration of the Union with slavery intact. War Democrats, in contrast, tended to support the administration’s military policies. Each faction deplored arbitrary arrests and emancipation. During the winter of Northern discontent, the Emancipation Proclamation, the draft, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus greatly strengthened their appeal.

  As a leader of the antiwar forces, the 42-year-old Vallandigham had notable strengths. According to Noah Brooks, he was “well built,” with a “fresh and fair” complexion, a “small head, regular and somewhat delicate features, and dark hair slightly sprinkled with gray.” Though deploring his ideology, Brooks found the Ohioan “a personable man,” a “most agreeable and delightful talker,” a “genial and pleasant companion, a steadfast friend, and a man well versed in literature, history, and politics.” As a speaker, Valandigham was “smooth, plausible, and polished,” though when delivering a formal speech, “he often became greatly excited, his face wore an expression at times almost repulsive, and his voice rose with a wild shriek; his hands fluttered convulsively in the air, and the manner of the man underwent a physical transformation.” Peace Democrats in the House of Representatives paid him great deference. “At a word from him, or a wave of his hand,” they “would incontinently scud into the lobbies or cloakrooms; or his signal would bring them all back when they were needed in their seats.”218 Not every journalist was so complimentary; Horace White called Vallandigham a man who was as “cold as ice and hard as iron” and whose character exhibited “neither humor nor persuasion nor conciliation.”219

  Even before the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Vallandigham had made his mark as a Peace Democrat. On November 2, 1860, he told a crowd in New York that “if any one or more of the States of this Union should, at any time, secede—for reasons of the sufficiency and justice of which … they alone may judge—much as I should deplore it, I never would as a Representative in the Congress of the United States vote one dollar of money whereby one drop of American blood should be shed in a civil war.” In Congress, Vallandigham declined to vote for resolutions commending Major Robert Anderson, refused to offer thanks to the men who fought at First Bull Run, and supported the Fugitive Slave Act and slavery.220

  In 1862, Lincoln helped defeat Vallandigham’s reelection bid by recruiting a strong opponent to run against him, Robert C. Schenck, a general who had been wounded at Second Bull Run. Lincoln had known Schenck when they both served in the U.S. House. As he was recovering in Washington, Schenck was approached by Stanton, Chase, and the president, all of whom urged him to enter the lists against Vallandigham. To increase Schenck’s prestige, Lincoln promoted him to major general. Schenck won with the help of the Ohio Legislature, which redrew the boundaries of the Dayton congressional district, lopping off a heavily Democratic county and adding one with a Republican majority. This gerrymandering may have sealed Vallandigham’s doom, for he had carried the district two years earlier by only a slim majority.

  Vallandigham could be exceptionally vituperative. On January 14, 1863, seeking to become the main leader of the Peace Democrats, he told the House that he saw “nothing before us but universal political and social revolution, anarchy and bloodshed, compared with which the Reign of Terror in France was a merciful visitation.” He declared that “the South could never be conquered—never,” and argued that “the secret but real purpose of the war was to abolish slavery in the States” and to turn “our present democratical form of government into an imperial despotism.” Proudly he announced that from the day that Fort Sumter was bombarded, “I did not support the war; and to-day I bless God that not the smell of so much as one drop of its blood is upon my garments.” He grandiloquently condemned the administration for trying to whip the Confederates “back into love and fellowship at the point of the bayonet.” He maintained that “history will record that, after nearly six thousand years of folly and wickedness in every form and administration of government, theocratic, democratic, monarchic, oligarchic, despotic, and mixed, it was reserved to American statesmanship, in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, to try the grand experiment, on a scale the most costly and gigantic in its proportions, of creating love by force and developing fraternal affection by war; and history will record, too, on the same page, the utter, disastrous, and most bloody failure of the experiment.”221 While running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Ohio that spring, Vallandigham continued to assail the administration in such terms.

  In April, Burnside issued General Order Number 38, stating that “the habit of declaring sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in this department. Persons committing such offenses will be at once arrested,” tried by military courts “as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death” or will be “sent beyond our lines into the lines of their friends.” No “treason, expressed or implied,” would be tolerated.222

  Even before Vallandigham was apprehended, Order 38 had aroused strong protests from Burnside’s staff. Captain James Madison Cutts told Lincoln that it “has kindled the fires of hatred and contention, and Burnside is foolishly and unwisely excited, and if continued in command will disgrace himself, you, and the Country, as he did at Fredericksburg.” The arrest of Vallandigham, said the captain, “has inflicted a lasting injury upon your administration.”223 It was one thing for Burnside to resort to such draconian measures in North Carolina, which he had done earlier, but quite another in Ohio. Several embarrassing arrests of innocent people discredited both the order and its author. After Lincoln intervened to postpone the death sentence of one alleged traitor, Burnside stayed the execution of many men convicted under Order 38.

  But the impulsive general showed no such reserve in dealing with Vallandigham, who made a particularly inflammatory speech on May 1, denouncing the administration of “King Lincoln” and Order 38. In his closing remarks, Vallandigham warned his audience “that an attempt would shortly be made to enforce
the conscription act; that ‘they should remember that this war was not a war for the preservation of the Union;’ that ‘it was a wicked abolition war! and that if those in authority were allowed to accomplish their purposes the people would be deprived of their liberties and a monarchy established; but that as for him he was resolved that he would never be a priest to minister upon the altar upon which his country was being sacrificed.”224 Four days later, soldiers apprehended the Democratic firebrand; soon thereafter a military commission found him guilty of violating Order 38 and sentenced him to confinement for the rest of the war.

  Thus the obstreperous orator became a martyr whose treatment many Democrats deplored. Burnside’s action, New York Governor Horatio Seymour wrote, “has brought dishonor upon our country; it is full of danger to our persons and to our homes; it bears upon its front a conscious violation of law and justice.” It “is not merely a step toward revolution, it is revolution; it will not only lead to military despotism, it establishes military despotism. … If it is upheld, our liberties are overthrown.”225 On May 16, Seymour’s message was read at a giant Albany rally where resolutions were adopted denouncing “the recent assumption of a military commander to seize and try a citizen of Ohio … for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting, in criticism of the course of the Administration, and in condemnation of the military orders of that general.” The New Yorkers urged Lincoln to “be true to the Constitution” and to “recognize and maintain the rights of the States and the liberties of the citizen.”226 An unusually choleric Democrat, paraphrasing Patrick Henry’s “treason speech,” told a crowd at Indianapolis that the president deserved assassination: “Let us remind Lincoln that Caesar had his Brutus and Charles the First his Cromwell. Let us also remind the George the Third of the present day that he, too, may have his Cromwell or his Brutus.”227