Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  16. Lincoln to Scott, Washington, 9 March 1861, Roy P. Basler et al., eds., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln [hereafter CWL] (8 vols. plus index; New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953–1955). 4:279. See also Nicolay for Lincoln to Scott, Washington, 9 Mar. 1861, Michael Burlingame, ed., With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860–1865 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), 30.

  17. Scott to Lincoln, Washington, 12 Mar. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  18. Butler to Lyman Trumbull, Springfield, 20 Mar. 1861, Trumbull Papers, DLC.

  19. William B. Plato to Lyman Trumbull, Geneva, Kane County, Illinois, 29 Mar. 1861, ibid.

  20. Pillsbury to Francis Jackson, n.p., 13 Mar. 1861, William Lloyd Garrison Papers, Boston Public Library.

  21. Francis P. Blair, Sr., to Martin Van Buren, Silver Spring, Maryland, 1 May 1861, Martin Van Buren Papers, Chadwyck-Healey microfilm edition; William Ernest Smith, The Francis Preston Blair Family in Politics (2 vols.; New York: Macmillan, 1933), 2:9–10; Francis P. Blair, Sr., to Montgomery Blair, Silver Spring, 12 Mar. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  22. Dexter A. Hawkins to John Sherman, New York, 23 Mar. 1861, Sherman Papers, DLC.

  23. Washington correspondence by Sigma, 13 Mar., Cincinnati Commercial, 14 Mar. 1861.

  24. Lincoln to Seward, Washington, 15 Mar. 1861, CWL, 4:284.

  25. Seward to Lincoln, Washington, 15 Mar. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  26. Bates to Lincoln, Washington, 15 Mar. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  27. Montgomery Blair, speech at Clarksville, Maryland, 26 Aug. 1865, Chicago Tribune, 1 Sept. 1865.

  28. E. J. Arthur to Edward DeLeon, 18 Feb. 1861, DeLeon Papers, University of South Carolina, in Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln (2 vols.; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), 2:335.

  29. Beale, ed., Welles Diary, 6.

  30. Washington correspondence by F., 31 Mar., New York Morning Express, 2 Apr. 1861.

  31. William L. Hodge to John Austin Stevens, Washington, 5 Apr. 1861, Stevens Papers, New-York Historical Society.

  32. Charles Russell Lowell to his mother, Mt. Savage, 28 Mar. 1861, in Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, Captain Sixth United States Cavalry, Colonel Second Massachusetts Cavalry, Brigadier-General United States Volunteers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1907), 196.

  33. Gayle Thornbrough et al., eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher (8 vols.; Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1972–1981), 7:81 (entry for 4 Apr. 1861).

  34. William Jayne to Lyman Trumbull, Springfield, 4 Apr. 1861, Trumbull Family Papers, IHi.

  35. Washington correspondence by Cyd, 29 Mar., Ohio State Journal (Columbus), 1 Apr. 1861.

  36. Stanton to John A. Dix, Washington 16, 19 Mar. 1861, Dix Papers, Columbia University.

  37. Washington correspondence, 1 April, National Anti-Slavery Standard (New York), 6 Apr. 1861.

  38. Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. Du Pont, 21 Mar. 1861, transcript, S. F. Du Pont Papers, Hagley Museum, Wilmington, Delaware.

  39. Washington correspondence, 6 Apr., New York Herald, 7 Apr. 1861.

  40. Washington States and Union, 21 Mar. 1861.

  41. William B. Allison to Samuel J. Kirkwood, Dubuque, 7 Apr. 1861, Kirkwood Papers, Iowa Historical Society, Des Moines.

  42. J. H. Jordan to Lincoln, Cincinnati, 4, 5 Apr. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  43. Mark Howard to Gideon Welles, Hartford, 28 Mar. 1861, Welles Papers, DLC.

  44. Benjamin Brown French to his son Frank, Washington, 5 Apr. 1861, French Family Papers, DLC.

  45. Fox to his wife Virginia, Washington, 19 Mar. 1861, Fox Papers, New-York Historical Society.

  46. Hurlbut interviewed by Nicolay, 4 May 1876, Michael Burlingame, ed., An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), 64; Stephen A. Hurlbut to Lincoln, n.p., 27 Mar. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  47. Lamon to Seward, Charleston, 25 Mar. 1861, Seward Papers, University of Rochester.

  48. Cameron interviewed by Nicolay, 20 Feb. 1875, Burlingame, ed., Oral History of Lincoln, 42.

  49. William Gwin in Overland Monthly 18 (1891):469; John A. Campbell, “Facts of History,” Southern Historical Society Papers 42 (1917):32–34.

  50. Edward Younger, ed., Inside the Confederate Government: The Diary of Robert Garlick Hill Kean (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), 113 (entry for 22 Oct. 1863).

  51. Washington correspondence by Special, 1 Apr., Cincinnati Commercial, 2 Apr. 1861. Cf. Washington correspondence, 31 Mar., New York Herald, 1 Apr. 1861.

  52. Message to Congress, 4 July 1861, CWL, 4:424.

  53. Neal Dow to Lincoln, Portland, Maine, 13 Mar. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  54. William H. Aspinwall to Lincoln, New York, 31 Mar. 1861, ibid.

  55. Washington correspondence by Sigma, 13 Mar., Cincinnati Commercial, 14 Mar. 1861.

  56. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (128 vols.; Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901) [hereafter OR]) 1, 1:200–201.

  57. Blair to Welles, Washington, 17 May 1873, in Welles, Lincoln and Seward (New York: Sheldon, 1874), 65; Blair to Samuel Wylie Crawford, n.p., 6 May 1882, in Crawford, Genesis of the Civil War (New York: Webster, 1887), 365; Sam Ward to S. L. M. Barlow, Washington, 31 Mar. 1861, Barlow Papers, CSmH.

  58. Welles, opinion on Fort Sumter, 29 March 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  59. Chase, opinion on Fort Sumter, 29 March 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  60. Montgomery Blair to Lincoln, [Washington, 29 Mar. 1861], AL MSS DLC.

  61. Bates, opinion on Fort Sumter, 29 Mar. 1861, AL MSS DLC; Beale, ed., Bates Diary, 180 (entry for 29 Mar. 1861).

  62. Smith, opinion on Fort Sumter, 29 March 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  63. Washington correspondence, 3 Apr., Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, 6 Apr. 1861.

  64. Joseph Blanchard to Lincoln, Elmira, Illinois, 28 Mar. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  65. W. H. West to Lincoln, Bellefontaine, Ohio, 3 Apr. 1861, ibid.

  66. Montgomery Meigs diary, 31 Mar. 1861, copy, Nicolay Papers, DLC.

  67. E. D. Keyes, journal entries for Mar. 29 and 31, 1861, E. D. Keyes, Fifty Years’ Observations of Men and Events, Civil and Military (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884), 378.

  68. Keyes, journal entry for 15 Oct. 1860, ibid., 370.

  69. Joseph Holt and Winfield Scott to Lincoln, Washington, 5 Mar. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  70. Washington correspondence by D. W. B., 12 Mar., New York Tribune, 14 Mar. 1861.

  71. Holt interviewed by Nicolay, Washington, 2 Apr. 1874, in Burlingame, ed., Oral History of Lincoln, 72.

  72. Anderson to Lorenzo Thomas, Fort Sumter, 8 Apr. 1861, OR, I, 1:294.

  73. Anderson, statement to Major Ellison Capers, Crawford, Genesis of the Civil War, 111.

  74. Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger, eds., Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay [hereafter Hay Diary] (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997), 21 (entry for 9 May 1861).

  75. Seward, memo on Fort Sumter, 29 Mar. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  76. Meigs to the editor of the New York Tribune, Washington, 14 Sept. 1865, Philadelphia Press, 18 Sept. 1865.

  77. Frederick Seward, William H. Seward: An Autobiography from 1801 to 1834, with a Memoir of His Life, and Selections from His Letters (3 vols.; New York: Derby and Miller, 1891), 2:534.

  78. Keyes, Fifty Years Observations, 383.

  79. Campbell, “Facts of History,” 34–35.

  80. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (New York: D. Appleton, 1885), 15; statement by Porter, 25 Mar. 1873, S. W. Crawford Papers, DLC; David D. Porter, “Journal of Occurrences during the War of the Rebellion,” 1:52–68, Porter Papers, DLC. Porter’s various accounts of Lincoln’s words differ; I have conflated them here.

  81. Welles, Lincoln and Seward, 55.

  82. Gideon Welles, Civil
War and Reconstruction: Selected Essays, comp. Albert Mordell (New York: Twayne, 1959), “Fort Sumter,” 57–61; Beale ed., Welles Diary, 16–21.

  83. Washington correspondence, 1 Apr., New York Times, New York Herald, 2 Apr. 1861.

  84. Washington correspondence, 28 Mar., New York Evening Post, 28 Mar. 1861.

  85. Beale, ed., Welles Diary 1:24–25; Welles, “Fort Sumter,” Mordell, comp., Civil War and Reconstruction, 66–67.

  86. Robert Means Thompson and Richard Wainwright, eds., Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1861–1865 (2 vols.; New York: Printed for the Naval History Society by the De Vinne Press, 1918–1919), 1:40; Fox to his wife, Washington, 2 May 1861, Fox Papers, New-York Historical Society.

  87. Welles to Montgomery Blair, Hartford, 30 Apr. 1873, Blair Family Papers, DLC.

  88. “A Friend” [James E. Harvey] to A. G. Magrath, 6 Apr. 1861, OR, I, 1:287.

  89. Seward to Weed, Washington, 25 June 1861, Weed Papers, University of Rochester.

  90. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to Frederic Bancroft, South Lincoln, Massachusetts, 26 Nov. 1912, Bancroft Papers, Columbia University.

  91. Washington correspondence, 10 July, New York World, 12 July 1861, in Michael Burlingame, ed., Lincoln’s Journalist: John Hay’s Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860–1864 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998), 75.

  92. Beale, ed., Welles Diary, 1:25; Welles, “Fort Sumter,” Mordell, comp., Civil War and Reconstruction, 68–69.

  93. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes, 283.

  94. Seward, Seward, 2:535.

  95. “A Douglas man” to Stephen A. Douglas, Petersburg, Virginia, 9 Dec. 1860, Douglas Papers, University of Chicago.

  96. Ralph Haswell Lutz, “Rudolf Schleiden and the Visit to Richmond, April 25, 1861,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1915 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1917), 210.

  97. Lord Lyons to John Russell, Washington, 4 Feb. 1861, James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes, eds., Private and Confidential: Letters from British Ministers in Washington to the Foreign Secretaries in London, 1844–1867 (Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 1993), 240.

  98. Lord Lyons to Lord John Russell, Washington, 26 Mar. 1861, Thomas Wodehouose Legh (Lord Newton), Lord Lyons: A Record of British Diplomacy (3 vols.; New York: Longmans, Green, 1913), 1:33.

  99. Lord Lyons to Lord John Russell, Washington, 7 Jan. 1861, ibid., 1:30.

  100. Norman B. Ferris, Desperate Diplomacy: William H. Seward’s Foreign Policy, 1861 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976), 20; Lyons to Russell, Washington, 12 Feb. 1861, Barnes and Barnes, eds., Private and Confidential, 241.

  101. Edward Everett journal, 23 Aug. 1861, Everett Papers, MHi.

  102. CWL, 4:317.

  103. David Dudley Field to Gideon Welles, New York, 20 May 1873, Welles Papers, IHi, photostatic copy, J. G. Randall Papers, DLC.

  104. Frederick Seward, Reminiscences of a War-Time Statesman and Diplomat, 1830–1915 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916), 147.

  105. John Lothrop Motley to his wife, Woodland Hill, 23 June 1861, George William Curtis, ed., The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley (2 vols.; New York: Harper & Brothers, 1889), 1:394.

  106. Carl Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (3 vols.; New York: McClure, 1907–1908), 2:242–243.

  107. Rudolf Schleiden’s dispatch to his home government, Washington, 4 Mar. 1861, copy, Carl Schurz Papers, DLC.

  108. Daniel W. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 301.

  109. Allan B. Magruder, “A Piece of Secret History: President Lincoln and the Virginia Convention of 1861,” Atlantic Monthly 35 (Apr. 1875):439; Allan B. Magruder to Jeremiah S. Black, Baltimore, 27 July 1874, Black Papers, DLC.

  110. Herring to the editor, Abingdon, Illinois, 22 Oct. 1879, Chicago Tribune, n.d., clipping in the S. W. Crawford Papers, Virginia Historical Society.

  111. John Minor Botts, The Great Rebellion: Its Secret History, Rise, Progress, and Disastrous Failure (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1866), 196.

  112. Washington correspondence, 13 Mar., Baltimore American, n.d., copied in the New York Times, 15 Mar. 1861.

  113. Robert Y. Conrad to E. W. P. Conrad, Richmond, 6 Apr. 1861, “The Break-Up of a Nation: Robert Y. Conrad’s Letters at the Virginia Secession Convention,” Winchester-Frederick Historical Society Journal 8 (1994–1995):15–16.

  114. Burlingame and Ettlinger, eds., Hay Diary, 28 (entry for 28 Oct. 1861).

  115. George Plumer Smith to Hay, Philadelphia, 9 Jan. 1863, AL MSS DLC..

  116. John Hay to George Plumer Smith, Washington, 10 Jan. 1863, Burlingame, ed., At Lincoln’s Side, 30.

  117. Memorandum by Smith, dated Philadelphia, 5 Mar. 1878, enclosed in Smith to Hay, Philadelphia, 9 Mar. 1878, Nicolay Papers, DLC.

  118. New York Times, 16 July 1866.

  119. Congressional Globe, 40th Congress, 2nd Session, 1207 (17 Feb. 1868); Baldwin to S. W. Crawford, Staunton, 1 Aug. 1869, S. W. Crawford Papers, Library of Virginia, Richmond.

  120. Washington correspondence, 5 Apr., Philadelphia Inquirer, 6 Apr. 1861.

  121. Washington correspondence, 7 Apr., New York Herald, 8 Apr. 1861.

  122. Memo enclosed in Fox to Benson J. Lossing, Washington, 7 Sept. 1864, in an unidentified clipping, LMF.

  123. Adams to Welles, on board the Sabine off Pensacola, 1 Apr. 1861, Welles Papers, DLC.

  124. New York Tribune, 27 Mar. 1861.

  125. CWL, 4:437.

  126. Simon Cameron to Robert S. Chew, Washington, 6 Apr. 1861, ibid., 4:323.

  127. Theodore Calvin Pease and James G. Randall, eds., The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning (2 vols.; Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1925–1933), 1:563 (24 July 1862).

  128. “Fort Sumpter,” undated memorandum by George Harrington, Harrington Papers, Missouri Historical Society.

  129. Campbell, “Facts of History,” 35–36.

  130. Campbell to Seward, Washington, 13 Apr. 1861, ibid., 38–41.

  131. Washington correspondence by Special, 11 Apr., Cincinnati Commercial, 12 Apr. 1861.

  132. Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, 4:62.

  133. Cleveland Plain Dealer, 9 Apr. 1861, quoted in John Thomas Hubbell, “The Northern Democracy and the Crisis of Disunion, 1860–1861” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1969), 179; John L. O’Sullivan to Samuel J. Tilden, Lisbon, [Portugal], 1 Aug. 1861, Tilden Papers, New York Public Library.

  134. Washington correspondence by B., 5 Apr., New York Evening Post, 6 Apr. 1861

  135. Virginia Fox diary, 5 Feb. 1861, Levi Woodbury Papers, DLC.

  136. George P. Bissell to Gideon Welles, Hartford, 9 Apr. 1861, Welles Papers, CSmH.

  137. Anonymous to Lincoln, New York, 10 Apr. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  138. Washington correspondence, 11 Apr., Cincinnati Gazette, 12 Apr. 1861.

  139. Washington correspondence, 9 Apr., Philadelphia Inquirer, 10 Apr. 1861; William Sprague to Lincoln, Providence, 11 Apr. 1861; Levin Tilmon to Lincoln, New York, 8 Apr. 1861, AL MSS DLC.

  140. Winfield Scott to Lincoln, Washington, 9 Apr. 1861, AL MSS DLC; Washington correspondence, 11 Apr., New York Times, 12 Apr. 1861.

  141. Lincoln to Curtin, Washington, 8 Apr. 1861, CWL, 4:324.

  142. Washington correspondence, 10 Apr., New York Herald, 11 Apr. 1861.

  143. Washington correspondence by Special, 10 Apr., Cincinnati Commercial, 11 Apr. 1861.

  144. Washington correspondence by Special, 11 Apr., Cincinnati Commercial and New York Herald, 12 Apr. 1861.

  145. John A. Bingham, “Abraham Lincoln,” The Current (Chicago), 24 Apr. 1886, 282.

  146. J. L. Pugh to William Porcher Miles, 24 Jan. 1861, quoted in William Barney, The Road to Secession: A New Perspective on the Old South (New York: Praeger, 1972), 196.

  147. New York Tribune, n.d., quoted in Mrs. R
oger A. Pryor, My Day: Reminiscences of a Long Life (New York: Macmillan, 1909), 158–159.

  148. Indianapolis Journal, 11 Apr. 1861.

  149. Memphis Bulletin, 8 Mar. 1861.

  150. Washington correspondence, 7 Apr., New York Times, 8 Apr. 1861.

  151. Joseph Holt, Letter from the Hon. Joseph Holt, Upon the Policy of the General Government, the Pending Revolution, Its Objects, Its Probable Results If Successful, and the Duty of Kentucky in the Crisis (Washington, DC: Henry Polkin-horn, 1861), 5.

  152. Washington correspondence, 8 May, London Times, 22 May 1861.

  153. Robert Y. Conrad to his wife, Richmond, 13 Apr. 1861, “Conrad’s Letters at the Virginia Secession Convention,” 18.

  154. Davis to Bragg, Montgomery, 3 Apr. 1861, Haskell M. Monroe, Jr., and James T. McIntosh, eds., The Papers of Jefferson Davis (11 vols.; Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991–2003), 7:85

  155. Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States During the Great Rebellion (Washington, DC: Philp & Solomons, 1864), 112.

  156. Jeremiah Clemens, speech in Huntsville, Alabama, 13 Mar. 1864, ibid., 113.

  157. Wigfall to Jefferson Davis, Charleston, 10 Apr. 1861, in Louise Wigfall Wright, A Southern Girl in ’ 61: The War-Time Memories of a Confederate Senator’s Daughter (New York: Doubleday and Page, 1905), 36.

  158. Pleasant A. Stovall, Robert Toombs: Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage (New York: Cassell, 1892), 226; Crawford, Genesis of the Civil War, 421.

  159. Crawford and Roman to Toombs, Washington, 1 Apr. 1861, copy of a telegram, Confederate States of America Papers, DLC.

  160. Lathers, “Address delivered to Jefferson Davis at Montgomery, 1861, one week before the firing on Fort Sumter,” Richard Lathers Papers, DLC.

  161. Simon Bolivar Buckner to Beriah Magoffin, 8 Mar. 1861, quoted in Charles Royster, “Fort Sumter: At Last the War,” in Gabor S. Boritt, ed., Why the Civil War Came (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 210.

  162. Davis to F. W. Pickens, Washington, 20 Jan. 1861, in Rowland Dunbar, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches (10 vols.; Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1923), 5:40.