Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  In late April, when Grant stopped making “side expeditions” and boldly threw his army across the Mississippi, he began a brilliant campaign leading to the capture of Vicksburg on Independence Day. Upon learning that the general had moved south of that citadel and that David D. Porter had successfully run his fleet of gunboats past the Vicksburg batteries, Lincoln exclaimed: “This is more important than anything which is occurring in Virginia!”287

  When Grant reached the east bank of the river, below Vicksburg, he could have moved toward that city or headed south to link up with Banks, whose goal was to take Port Hudson. Lincoln hoped he would choose the latter course, but he did not, despite Halleck’s urging. In May, as Grant daringly marched from triumph to triumph in Mississippi, Lincoln said: “I have had stronger influence brought against Grant, praying for his removal, since the battle of Pittsburg Landing, than for any other object, coming too from good men.” (A year earlier, when Grant was caught unprepared for the Confederate onslaught at Shiloh—also known as Pittsburg Landing—he was roundly criticized, even though the Rebels were eventually driven from the field.) But, Lincoln added, “now look at his campaign since May 1. Where is anything in the Old World that equals it? It stamps him as the greatest general of the age, if not of the world.”288

  According to popular rumor, Lincoln asked critics of Grant’s alleged drunkenness what brand of whiskey the general used, so he could send some to his other generals. The president denied that he had made that witty riposte, saying that it was probably ascribed to him “to give it currency.” Actually, he pointed out, it was based on King George III’s purported response to those who charged that General Wolfe was insane: “I wish he would bite some of my other generals then.”289 (This anecdote appears in Joe Miller’s Complete Jest Book, a favorite of Lincoln’s.) The president disclaimed credit for many other stories attributed to him, calling himself “only a retail dealer.” He said “that as near as he could reckon, about one-sixth of those [stories] which were credited to him were old acquaintances; all of the rest of them were the productions of other and better story-tellers than himself.”290

  On July 7, Gideon Welles rushed into the White House with a dispatch announcing the surrender of Vicksburg and in his great enthusiasm almost knocked Lincoln over. Hugging Welles tightly, the president exclaimed: “what can we do for the Secretary of the Navy for this glorious intelligence? He is always giving us good news. I cannot, in words, tell you my joy over this result. It is great, Mr. Welles, it is great!”291

  That evening Lincoln addressed serenaders at the White House: “I am very glad indeed to see you to-night, and yet I will not say I thank you for this call, but I do most sincerely thank Almighty God for the occasion on which you have called. [Cheers.] How long ago is it?—eighty odd years—since on the Fourth of July for the first time in the history of the world a nation by its representatives, assembled and declared as a self-evident truth that ‘all men are created equal.’ [Cheers.] That was the birthday of the United States of America. Since then the Fourth of July has had several peculiar recognitions. The two most distinguished men in the framing and support of the Declaration were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams—the one having penned it and the other sustained it the most forcibly in debate—the only two of the fifty-five who sustained [signed?] it being elected President of the United States. Precisely fifty years after they put their hands to the paper it pleased Almighty God to take both from the stage of action. This was indeed an extraordinary and remarkable event in our history. Another President, five years after, was called from this stage of existence on the same day and month of the year; and now, on this last Fourth of July just passed, when we have a gigantic Rebellion, at the bottom of which is an effort to overthrow the principle that all men were created equal, we have the surrender of a most powerful position and army on that very day, [cheers] and not only so, but in a succession of battles in Pennsylvania, near to us, through three days, so rapidly fought that they might be called one great battle on the 1st, 2d and 3d of the month of July; and on the 4th the cohorts of those who opposed the declaration that all men are created equal, ‘turned tail’ and run. [Long and continued cheers.]”292

  Democrats sneeringly called Lincoln’s remarks “miserable and puerile trash” which “humiliated and disgraced” the people, and asserted that the president “never opens his mouth without committing a blunder, and never seizes a pen that he does not write something that causes his friends to blush for his incapacity.”293 They were particularly incensed at Lincoln’s colloquialism. One called it “a burning disgrace to the Nation. The Pres. of this Republic—talking about ‘turning tail’—shame, shame, shame!!!”294 When Lincoln learned that the Boston Evening Journal, a Republican paper, had criticized his use of the expression “turned tail and run,” he said: “Some very nice Boston folks, I am grieved to hear, were very much outraged by that phrase, which they thought improper. So I resolved to make no more impromptu speeches if I could help it.”295 This, in fact, was the longest set of off-the-cuff remarks he made during the war, and it foreshadowed the address he would deliver in November at Gettysburg.

  Modestly, Lincoln congratulated Grant. “I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do, what you finally did—march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition, and the like, could succeed. When you got below, and took Port-Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned Northward East of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.”296 When Jesse K. Dubois told Lincoln that Grant should not have paroled the Confederate army which surrendered at Vicksburg, he replied: “Dubois, General Grant has done so well, and we are all so pleased at the taking of Vicksburg, let us not quarrel with him about that matter.”297

  The Vicksburg campaign had not entirely opened the Mississippi, for 200 miles to the south Confederates at Port Hudson still threatened river traffic. The movement against that stronghold was undertaken by General N. P. Banks, who in November 1862 had been appointed to command the Department of the Gulf, headquartered in New Orleans. Banks got off to a bad start in his new assignment. After receiving secret orders in late October to raise a force for an expedition to New Orleans, he went about organizing it poorly. When he requisitioned 600 wagons and 300 ambulances (and 4,350 horses and mules to pull them), the quartermaster-general protested that to meet such demands would delay the mission for months and would “require such a fleet of transports as has never sailed at one time from a port.”298 Lincoln, who was anxious that the expedition get underway promptly, scolded Banks: “this expanding, and piling up of impedimenta, has been, so far, almost our ruin, and will be our final ruin if it is not abandoned.” It would take many weeks to gather and ship all the material requested, which was not even needed in Louisiana. If Banks did not scale back his plan to something like the modest one he had originally proposed, the “expedition is a failure before you start.” Eager to have Banks underway before Congress reconvened in early December, Lincoln sensibly pointed out to the general that he “would be better off any where, and especially where you are going, for not having a thousand wagons, doing nothing but hauling forage to feed the animals that draw them, and taking at least two thousand men to care for the wagons and animals, who otherwise might be two thousand good soldiers.” Tactfully, the president urged Banks not to regard his letter as “ill-natured,” for “it is the very reverse. The simple publication of this requisition would ruin you.”299

  Banks explained that he had no intention of waiting until the requisition was filled and that he had asked for so much eq
uipment for the long run and could sail well before everything he had requested could be provided. He finally got underway on December 4. When a Pennsylvania congressman denounced Banks as a failure, Lincoln demurred: “Well, that is harsh,” he said, but acknowledged that the general “hasn’t come up to my expectations.”

  “Then, sir, why don’t you remove him?”

  “Well, sir, one principal reason for not doing so is that it would hurt Gen. Banks’ feelings very much!”300

  (Asked by Moncure Conway if Ben Butler would be restored to command in Louisiana, Lincoln said that “he meant to return Butler to N. Orleans as soon as it could be done without hurting Gen. Banks’ feelings!” Conway sarcastically exclaimed: “What a fine watchword would be ‘Liberty, Union and Banks’ feelings!’ ”)301

  When Banks finally reached Louisiana, he failed to understand that the administration wanted above all to secure the Mississippi. Throughout the spring, Halleck urged Banks to cooperate with Grant’s Vicksburg campaign. The “Government is exceedingly disappointed that you and General Grant are not acting in conjunction,” Old Brains told the general.302 Finally, in May, Banks’s Army of the Gulf began a siege of Port Hudson, which dragged on into July. Five days after the surrender of Vicksburg, the Port Hudson garrison finally capitulated. Once again, as Lincoln would later put it, the “Father of Waters” could flow “unvexed to the sea.”303 The president gratefully told Banks that the “final stroke in opening the Mississippi never should, and I think never will, be forgotten.”304

  The North reveled in the victories at Port Hudson, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg. “How marvelously the clouds seem to part!” exclaimed George William Curtis. “Three armies under three true and skillful leaders and upon three points successful! I think that for the first time we have a real confidence in our Generals.”305

  Vindication: The Successful Performance of Black Troops

  A notable feature of Banks’s campaign was the part played by his black combat troops. They represented a departure from Lincoln’s original plan to use black soldiers only in supporting roles. To Charles Sumner he earnestly explained his intention “to employ African troops to hold the Mississippi River, and also other posts in the warm climates, so that our white soldiers may be employed elsewhere.”306 Lincoln believed that the “immense black population resident on the great river will, when freed and armed, be amply sufficient to protect peaceful commerce from molestation.” Blacks could also “garrison the forts below New-Orleans and on the coast which are exposed to the diseases of a Southern climate.”307

  On May 27, 1863, the First and Third Infantry of the Corps d’Afrique, which had been recruited by Butler, along with Banks’s own First Engineers, distinguished themselves in a gallant, if unsuccessful, assault on the Confederate works at Port Hudson. In his official report, Banks said: “Whatever doubt may have existed heretofore as to the efficiency of organizations of this character, the history of this day proves conclusively to those who were in condition to observe the conduct of these regiments that the Government will find in this class of troops effective supporters and defenders. The severe test to which they were subjected, and the determined manner in which they encountered the enemy, leaves upon my mind no doubt of their ultimate success. They require only good officers, commands of limited numbers, and careful discipline, to make them excellent soldiers.”308 Commenting on this report, the New York Times observed: “this official testimony settles the question that the negro race can fight with great prowess. Those black soldiers had never before been in any severe engagement. They were comparatively raw troops, and were yet subjected to the most awful ordeal that ever veterans have to experience—the charging upon fortifications through the crash of belching batteries. … It is no longer possible to doubt the bravery and steadiness of the colored race, when rightly led.”309

  Eleven days later at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, black troops heroically fended off Confederate attacks. Charles A. Dana, who visited the site shortly afterward, recalled that “the bravery of the blacks in the battle at Milliken’s Bend completely revolutionized the sentiment of the army with regard to the employment of negro troops. I heard prominent officers who formerly in private had sneered at the idea of the negroes fighting express themselves after that as heartily in favor of it.”310 The colonel of the Ninth Louisiana regiment thought it “impossible for men to show greater bravery than the Negro troops in that fight.”311

  A week after the fall of Port Hudson, a black regiment in South Carolina covered itself with glory at the battle of Fort Wagner, part of the ongoing campaign against Charleston. The Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts bravely charged the Confederate batteries, crossing a narrow sandy strip raked by artillery and small arms fire. Despite taking heavy casualties, the unit pressed on, reaching the parapet before being driven back because support units failed to appear. Northern newspapers heralded the accomplishment of the black soldiers. Later, the New York Tribune noted that it was “not too much to say that if this Massachusetts Fifty-fourth had faltered when its trial came, two hundred thousand colored troops for whom it was a pioneer would never have been put into the field, or would not have been put in for another year, which could have been equivalent to protracting the war into 1866. But it did not falter. It made Fort Wagner such a name to the colored race as Bunker Hill has been for ninety years to the white Yankees.”312

  The conduct of these black soldiers earned the respect of military leaders, including Grant, who in August told Lincoln: “I have given the subject of arming the negro my hearty support. This, with the emancipation of the negro, is the heavyest blow yet given the Confederacy.” By “arming the negro we have added a powerful ally. They will make good soldiers and taking them from the enemy weakens him in the same proportion they strengthen us. I am therefore most decidedly in favor of pushing this policy to the enlistment of a force sufficient to hold all the South falling into our hands and to aid in capturing more.”313

  Lincoln, too, paid high tribute to black troops. Three days after Grant penned his missive, the president composed one of his most eloquent public letters, in which he defended the emancipation of slaves and the enlistment of blacks into military service. Referring to Grant’s message, he wrote: “some of the commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most important successes, believe the emancipation policy, and the use of colored troops, constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion; and that, at least one of those important successes, could not have been achieved when it was, but for the aid of black soldiers. Among the commanders holding these views are some who have never had any affinity with what is called abolitionism, or with republican party politics; but who hold them purely as military opinions.” Rhetorically, he asked opponents of black enlistment: “You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you. … I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.” When at last the North wins the war, “then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it.”314

  When Confederates threatened to execute or enslave captured black soldiers, the New York Tribune complained that Lincoln did nothing to stop them. One abolitionist officer, angry that “the President was very weak on the subject of protecting black troops and their officers,” expressed the wish that Lincoln “had said a rebel solider shall die for every negro soldier sold into slavery.”315 Lincoln called the subject of retaliation
“one of the most vexing which has arisen during the war.”316 In response to such criticism, on July 30, 1863, he wrote to Stanton: “It is the duty of every government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever class, color, or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. The law of nations and the usages and customs of war as carried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. To sell or enslave any captured person, on account of his color, and for no offence against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age. The government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy’s prisoners in our possession. It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war.”317

  Democrats protested that slaves who joined the Union army were different from free blacks who had done so. If General Burnside was justified in hanging two Confederate officers for recruiting in Kentucky, then the Confederates were justified in executing Union officers recruiting slaves, argued the New York World.