Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  To modify the “irritating system,” Lincoln had replaced General Curtis with General Schofield. “I gave the new commander no instructions as to the administration of the system mentioned, beyond what is contained in the private letter, afterwards surreptitiously published, in which I directed him to act solely for the public good, and independently of both parties. Neither anything you have presented me, nor anything I have otherwise learned, has convinced me that he has been unfaithful to this charge.” Moreover, Lincoln could not believe “charges that Gen. Schofield has purposely withheld protection from loyal people, and purposely facilitated the objects of the disloyal.” Therefore Schofield would retain command in Missouri.

  The Enrolled Militia could not safely be scrapped and replaced by U.S. troops. “Whence shall they come?” asked Lincoln rhetorically. “Shall they be withdrawn from Banks, or Grant, or Steele, or Rosecrans? Few things have been so grateful to my anxious feeling as when, in June last, the local force in Missouri aided Gen. Schofield to so promptly send a large general force to the relief of Gen. Grant, then investing Vicksburg, and menaced from without by Gen. Johnston.”

  Lincoln agreed with the Radicals that disloyal elements should not be allowed to vote, and he instructed Schofield accordingly. The president masterfully explained why he could not side with either faction in Missouri: “I do not feel justified to enter upon the broad field you present in regard to the political differences between radicals and conservatives. From time to time I have done and said what appeared to me proper to do and say. The public knows it all. It obliges nobody to follow me, and I trust it obliges me to follow nobody. The radicals and conservatives, each agree with me in some things, and disagree in others. I could wish both to agree with me in all things; for then they would agree with each other, and would be too strong for any foe from any quarter. They, however, choose to do otherwise, and I do not question their right. I too shall do what seems to be my duty. I hold whoever commands in Missouri, or elsewhere, responsible to me, and not to either radicals or conservatives. It is my duty to hear all; but at last, I must, within my sphere, judge what to do, and what to forbear.”92

  Hay justly called this document “a superb affair” in which the president showed himself to be “courteous but immoveable. He will not be bullied even by his friends. He tries to reason with those infuriated people. The world will hear him if they do not.”93 Indeed, the world did hear, for the letter appeared in the press to general acclaim. Even Kansas Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy, despite his Radicalism, approved of Schofield’s conduct in Missouri.

  Other Radicals were less enthusiastic. Treasury agent Ralph S. Hart reported from St. Louis that it was “just like the President—a dodge. It has disaffected his friends in Mo to an awful extent.”94 Theodore Tilton, editor of the New York Independent, agreed, observing that Lincoln “swings his scythe among some men of straw” and has thus “grieved to the heart his best friends and supporters, by closing his ears against the one single and groaning burden their [the Missourians’] grievances,” namely, “that he permits Slavery to override Freedom in that state, and appoints his enemies to govern his friends.”95 After Wendell Phillips alleged that Seward had written the letter to Drake and his colleagues, Lincoln explained privately that when “the Missouri delegation was appointed and it was known they were coming to see me, Seward asked that until I should hear and decide their case in my own mind, I would not say a word to him on the subject, or in any way ask his opinion concerning the controversy, so that hereafter we might both say that he had taken no part whatever in the matter; to which I agreed.”96

  En route back to Missouri, members of the Committee of Seventy damaged their cause with inflammatory speeches and resolutions at Manhattan’s Cooper Institute. As the New York Commercial Advertiser observed, “Mr. Drake and his political friends have the sympathies of the unconditional Unionists in all loyal states, but the intemperate language used by the Missouri delegates at their public meetings in this city tended to shake confidence in their judgment.”97 Noting that the Radicals denounced Lincoln even before they received his written response to their demands, Henry J. Raymond’s New York Times remarked that if the tone of the speeches was “the measure of their loyalty and respect for the established authorities of the nation, the President will be excused from paying any further attention to their demands.”98 The editors of the Washington Chronicle said that they had “too much respect for the cause of radical emancipation in Missouri to say an unkind word in reference to its friends. We would much rather rescue it from the hands of such men as Mr. Drake. … Until the Republic is safe Drake and his friends must not be surprised if the country does not hearken to their appeals.”99 The resolutions adopted at the Cooper Institute meeting “do injustice to Mr. Lincoln,” noted the New York Evening Post.100 Lincoln reportedly was “a little sore” at what he considered the Missourians’ attempt to browbeat him.101

  Four days before replying to the Missouri Radicals, Lincoln instructed Schofield to have his troops “compel the excited people” in Missouri “to leave one another alone,” insofar as that was possible. The general was cautioned to use restraint: “only arrest individuals, and suppress assemblies, or newspapers, when they may be working palpable injury to the Military in your charge; and, in no other case will you interfere with the expression of opinion in any form, or allow it to be interfered with violently by others. In this, you have a discretion to exercise with great caution, calmness, and forbearance.” His troops were neither to return fugitive slaves nor to encourage slaves to become fugitives. Honoring a request of the Radicals, Lincoln stipulated that at elections, only those taking the test oath be permitted to vote. He also agreed to make Kansas a separate military department and to place a Radical general in charge of it. A Radical judge was also appointed in that state.

  Gamble was not pleased. The governor’s character, as even his friends acknowledged, had a harsh, stern quality. His integrity and strength of will inspired respect but no fondness. On September 30, he drafted an imperious, slightly hysterical letter to the president insisting that the administration protect Missouri’s Provisional Government from the imminent danger posed by violent Radicals who wished to overthrow it. “My patience is exhausted by accusations of disloyalty,” he told the president. “I am tired with the repeated imputations of sympathy with bushwhackers and guerillas, against whom I have employed all the power of the State. Without attempting to dictate to you, who shall be commanding General in this Department, I do demand, as I have a right to demand, that you will frankly and boldly discountenance the revolutionists [i.e., the Radicals] who are about to involve the State in anarchy.”102 The following day he toned down this missive, but he was still adamant: “I … demand of you Mr President that you shall order the General commanding this department to maintain by all the force under his control the integrity of the State Government, and to suppress in its incipiency every combination designed to subvert its authority and to take such measures as may be necessary to this end.”103 When Edward Bates insisted that Gamble stood on firm constitutional ground, Lincoln replied that he would of course protect the Missouri government just as vigorously as he would protect the government of Pennsylvania, “neither more nor less.”104 He offered Gamble similar assurances while expressing serious doubts about the reasonableness of the governor’s alarmism.

  Gamble’s faction rejoiced when Attorney General Bates sacked the Radical William W. Edwards the district attorney for the eastern district of Missouri. Though Chase partisans claimed that it meant “war from the White House upon the friends of Mr. Chase,” Lincoln disavowed any knowledge of the case beyond what Bates told him, namely, “that Edwards was inefficient and must be removed for that reason.”105 (The attorney general explained to Edwards that he was fired for “active participation in political enterprises hostile to the known views and wishes of the Executive Government of both the nation and the state.”)106 When Radicals demanded the dismissal of Bates, Lincoln refuse
d.

  The election of the Conservative John B. Henderson and the Radical B. Gratz Brown to the senate did not end bitter factionalism in Missouri. Brown, understandably resenting Schofield’s opposition to his senatorial bid, sought to have the general removed. In the senate, Brown blocked Schofield’s promotion and urged that he be fired. On December 11, 1863, Brown reported to a friend: “Have just returned from a long and satisfactory interview with the President, and if he will adhere to the purpose expressed all will be well in Mo. very briefly. He … expressed an inclination to order Schofield elsewhere and substitute in his place Rozencrans [William S. Rosecrans].”107 The next day, Representatives John Covode, George S. Boutwell, and James M. Ashley called at the White House to demand that Schofield be replaced as head of the Department of Missouri. The president may not have been entirely chagrined, for Congressman Elihu Washburne had reported to him that Schofield tried to thwart Brown’s senatorial aspirations. In addition, the general had subsequently rejected Brown’s offer to forgo his opposition to Schofield’s promotion if the general would abandon his attempts to prevent Missourians from holding a constitutional convention dealing with emancipation. Lincoln said that Schofield’s actions were “obviously transcendent of his instructions and must not be permitted”; he thereupon summoned the general to Washington for an explanation.108

  At the White House, Schofield was insufficiently persuasive to save his job. He told Lincoln that he “did not believe any general in the army could, as department commander, satisfy the Union people of both Kansas and Missouri; neither the man nor the policy that would suit the one would be at all satisfactory to the other.” He also denied intervening in the Missouri senatorial election, despite what Washburne and others reported.109 Unwilling to discredit Washburne, the president wrote Stanton on December 18: “I believe Gen. Schofield must be relieved from command in the Department of Missouri, otherwise a question of veracity, in relation to his declaration as to his interfering, or not, with the Missouri Legislature, will be made.”110 Schofield had proved effective as a leader of troops in the field but not as an administrator of civilian affairs. But before removing Schofield, Lincoln wanted him promoted to major general. He lobbied Senator Brown repeatedly, asking him to allow Schofield’s promotion to go forward. The president believed that the “Prince of Radicals” had agreed, but that gentleman inveigled Senator Charles Sumner to protest against Schofield. According to John Hay, Lincoln was “very much disappointed at Brown. After three interviews with him he understood that Brown would not oppose the confirmation. It is rather a mean dodge to get Sumner to do it in his stead.”111

  When Radical Senators Morton Wilkinson and Zachariah Chandler called on Lincoln to protest against Schofield’s promotion, Lincoln told them that General William T. Sherman “says that Schofield will fight, and that he is a good soldier. Sherman says he would like to have him, and that he will give him a corps and put him at active duty in the field. Now if you will confirm Schofield I will send him down there to Sherman and I will send Rosecrans up to take his place in Missouri. And I think that this will so harmonize matters that the whole thing will hang together.”112 The senators reported this conversation to their colleagues, prompting Gratz Brown to ask: “what in the hell is up now?” The Missouri congressional delegation argued that Schofield’s promotion would “be an imputation upon the radical men of their State, and a declaration of the Administration against them.”113 In May 1864, the senate finally confirmed Schofield as a major general. Lincoln gave him command of the Army of the Ohio, and off he went to join Sherman, with whom he performed ably.

  Defeat in the West: Rosecrans at Chickamauga

  General William S. Rosecrans, who weeks earlier had been dismissed from his post as commander of the Army of the Cumberland, now went to St. Louis. After his crucial victory at the battle of Stone’s River in January 1863, he had done little with his troops for many months. In the summer, however, he maneuvered Braxton Bragg’s army out of Shelbyville, then Tullahoma, and finally Chattanooga. But he incautiously pursued the Confederates into Georgia, where his army was routed on September 19 and 20 at the battle of Chickamauga and driven back into Chattanooga, which Bragg besieged.

  Upon learning of the defeat at Chickamauga, Lincoln told John Hay: “Well, Rosecrans has been whipped, as I feared. I have feared it for several days. I believe I feel trouble in the air before it comes. Rosecrans says we have met with a serious disaster—extent not ascertained.”114 When the extent was finally ascertained, Lincoln reportedly was “sober and anxious over it, but not in the least despondent.”115 He did severely criticize two of Rosecrans’s corps commanders, Thomas L. Crittenden and Alexander McCook, who, with their commander, had skedaddled back to Chattanooga during the battle, leaving George H. Thomas to fend off the enemy. Thomas did so effectively, earning the sobriquet, “The Rock of Chickamauga.” When General James A. Garfield called at the White House and vividly described the battle, Lincoln “listened with the eagerness of a child over a fairy tale,” according to Hay.116

  Other distressing news arrived from the Georgia battlefield: Mary Lincoln’s brother-in-law, Confederate General Benjamin Hardin Helm, had been killed. Lincoln had befriended Helm and his wife before the war, and word of his death profoundly saddened the president. “I never saw Mr. Lincoln more moved,” recollected David Davis, “than when he heard of the death of his young brother-in-law Ben Hardin Helm, only thirty-two years old, at Chickamauga. I called to see him about 3 o’clock on the 22d of September. I found him in the greatest grief. ‘Davis,’ said he, ‘I feel as David of old did when he was told of the death of Absalom.’ “Would to God I had died for thee, oh Absalom, my son, my son!” ’ I saw how grief stricken he was so I closed the door and left him alone.”117 In the 1850s Lincoln had gotten to know Helm, whom he regarded with fraternal affection. At the outbreak of the war, he tried to appoint the Kentuckian a paymaster with the rank of major. Helm had originally sought that position, but he rejected the generous offer and joined the Confederate army; he said he regarded the day he did so as the “most painful moment of my life.”118

  To Helm’s widow Emilie (Mary Todd’s favorite half-sister) Lincoln said, “You know, Little Sister, I tried to have Ben come with me. I hope you do not feel any bitterness or that I am in any way to blame for all this sorrow.”119 He had passes issued allowing Emilie to return to her Kentucky home. He also invited her to visit Washington. She accepted the offer and stayed at the White House for two weeks, much to the indignation of some patriots. When Daniel Sickles chided him for hosting the widow of a Rebel general, Lincoln replied with quiet dignity: “Excuse me, General Sickles, my wife and I are in the habit of choosing our own guests. We do not need from our friends either advice or assistance in the matter.”120 The following year, when Mrs. Helm sought another pass in order to retrieve cotton from Atlanta, Lincoln refused because she would not take a loyalty oath. She chided him for his unwillingness to provide help in her hour of need: “I have been a quiet citizen and request only the right which humanity and Justice always gives to Widows and Orphans.” Bitterly, she added: “your Minnie bullets have made us what we are.”121

  (Lincoln had trouble with another of his wife’s half-sisters who wanted a cotton trading permit. In the spring of 1864, Martha Todd White of Alabama, who was estranged from Mrs. Lincoln, called at the White House, where the First Couple refused to see her. The president did, however, grant her a pass to return to the South. When she asked for special permission to have her baggage exempt from inspection, Lincoln balked. She then sent emissaries to plead her case. The president sternly remarked to one of them that “if Mrs. W[hite] did not leave forthwith she might expect to find herself within twenty-four hours in the Old Capitol Prison.” Despite this refusal, newspapers asserted that she had, while passing through General Butler’s lines, refused to allow soldiers to inspect her bags, insisting that she had a special presidential pass. Lincoln had Nicolay write a denial, which ran in the New York T
ribune, the source of the original false story.)122

  While grief-stricken over Helm’s death, Lincoln was dismayed at the conduct of General Burnside. “Burnside instead of obeying the orders which were given him on the 14th & going to Rosecrans has gone up on a foolish affair to Jonesboro to capture a party of guerrillas,” he complained.123 When word arrived that Burnside was moving away from Chattanooga and towards Jonesboro, Lincoln angrily exclaimed: “Jonesboro? Jonesboro? D—Jonesboro!” and hastily penned a stern rebuke to the general: “Yours of the 23rd is just received, and it makes me doubt whether I am awake or dreaming. I have been struggling for ten days, first through Gen. Halleck, and then directly, to get you to go to assist Gen. Rosecrans in an extremity, and you have repeatedly declared you would do it, and yet you steadily move the contrary way.”124 Deciding this was too harsh, he simply urged Burnside to move quickly toward Chattanooga. To Rosecrans, Lincoln sent words of encouragement: “Be of good cheer, we have unabated confidence in you. … We shall do our utmost to assist you.”125