15 Editorial for the Illinois State Journal, December 12, 1860, CW, 4:150, handwritten copy in ALPLM.
16 New York Herald, December 18, 1860.
17 W. Stephen Belko, The Invincible Duff Green: Whig of the West (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006), 444.
18 Lincoln to Duff Green and Lincoln to Lyman Trumbull, December 28, 1860, CW, 4:162–63.
19 Duff Green to Lincoln, January 7, 1861 ALPLC; New York Herald, January 8, 1861, Fletcher M. Green, “Duff Green: Industrial Promoter,” Journal of Southern History 2 (February 1936): 37.
20 Quoted in Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave and John Cullen, Villard: The Life and Times of an American Titan (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 125.
21 Quoted in Henry Villard, Memoirs of Henry Villard: Journalist and Financier, 1835–1900, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1904), 1:146; Harold G. Villard and Oswald Garrison Villard, eds., Lincoln on the Eve of ’61: A Journalist’s Story by Henry Villard (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1954), 13–14.
22 From the Henry Villard Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, typescript of Washington reports, December 8, 1860 (16), January 27, 1861 (66).
23 “Little Raymond” in New York Herald, February 9, 1861. For concurrent publication, see New York Herald, New York Times, February 6, 1861.
24 “Halstead on Henry Villard. When the Dead Millionaire Was a Newspaper Man,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, November 14[, 1900], Henry Villard Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
25 New York Herald, December 15, 1860.
26 Margaret Clapp, Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 150.
27 Fredric Hudson, Journalism in the United States, from 1690 to 1872 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1873), 553–54; New York Tribune, October 3, 1866; Philadelphia Argus, comment reprinted in the Washington Constitution, February 2, 1861.
28 Jones went on to keep one of the most famous diaries of the war. See J[ohn]. B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary at the Confederate States Capital, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1866).
29 William O. Stoddard to William H. Herndon, December 27, 1860, ALPLC.
30 Memorandum on appointment of Harrison Fitzhugh, ca. December 15, 1861, CW, 5:71; Joseph Medill to “Ray and Scripps,” January 6, 1861, Charles H. Ray Papers, Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
31 New York Herald, February 6, 1861.
32 Ibid. New York Tribune, February 11, 1861.
33 New York Herald, February 16, 1861.
34 Horace Greeley to Beman Brockway, November 17, 1860, Horace Greeley Papers, Library of Congress.
35 Horace Greeley to Beman Brockway, November 11, 1860, Horace Greeley Papers, Library of Congress.
36 Barnes, Memoir of Thurlow Weed, 2:322.
37 David Davis to Thurlow Weed, February 2, 1861, in ibid., 2:323; Thurlow Weed to Abraham Lincoln and Weed to David Davis, January 28, 1861; David Davis to Lincoln, February 2, 1861, ALPLC; Lincoln to Weed, February 4, 1861, CW, 4:185
38 Barnes, Memoir of Thurlow Weed, 2:325; New York Times, February 4, 1861.
39 New York Times, February 5, 1861.
40 New York Herald, February 4, February 7, 1861.
41 Horace Greeley to Lincoln, February 6, 1861, ALPLC.
42 Quoted in New York Times, July 16, 1861.
43 William H. Bailhache to McClure’s Magazine, December 16, 1895, Ida M. Tarbell Collection, Allegheny College, Pelletier Library, online at: https://dspace.allegheny.edu/handle/10456/27707.
44 Quoted in Andy Van Meter, Always My Friend: A History of the State Journal-Register and Springfield (Springfield, Ill.: The Copley Press, 1981), 196.
45 John G. Nicolay, “Some Incidents in Lincoln’s Journey from Springfield to Washington,” in Michael Burlingame, ed., An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), 108.
46 Original printed copies survive in the ALPLC. The reading copy Lincoln eventually used at the Capitol was not easy to follow after all: it was filled with handwritten emendations, and several long, handwritten inserts.
47 New York Herald, February 10, 1861.
48 Illinois State Journal, February 11, February 12, 1861.
49 Jesse W. Weik, The Real Lincoln: A Portrait (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1922), 311.
50 Michael Burlingame, ed., Lincoln’s Journalist: John Hay’s Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860–1864 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998), 353n14.
51 Two versions of Lincoln’s farewell address are in CW, 4:190–91; New York Herald and New York Times (via the AP), February 12, 1861.
52 New York Herald, February 13, February 15, 1861; Villard, Memoirs of Henry Villard, 1:152.
53 Burlingame, ed., Lincoln’s Journalist, 35–36. The author is indebted to New York collectors Robert Hoffman and Joseph Buberger for sharing copies of these dispatches as collected in John Hay’s own scrapbook.
54 Ibid., 32; Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 14, 1861; Villard and Villard, eds., Lincoln on the Eve of ’61, 87.
55 Villard, Memoirs of Henry Villard, 1:152.
56 New York Times, February 20, 1861; New York Herald, February 20, 1861.
57 New York Herald, February 21, 1861.
58 Communication from His Honor the Mayor, Fernando Wood, Transmitted to the Common Council of New York (New York: Edmund Jones & Co., 1861), original copy in the New-York Historical Society; New York Illustrated News, January 19, 1861.
59 Lincoln’s reply to Mayor Fernando Wood, City Hall, New York, February 20, 1861, CW, 4:233.
60 New York Times, February 25, 1861; New York Tribune, February 25, 1861; New York Herald, February 25, February 26, 1861.
61 Baltimore Sun, February 25, 1861. The report bore the blistering headline, “The Underground Railroad Journey.”
62 New York Herald, February 25, 1861.
63 See, for example, The Flight of Abraham (As Reported by a Modern Daily Paper), in Harper’s Weekly, March 9, 1861.
64 John Swinton, “The New York Daily Papers and Their Editors,” The Independent 52 (January 25, 1900): part 2:238.
65 Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847–1865, ed. Dorothy Lamon (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1895), 34–35.
66 Lucius E. Chittenden, Recollections of President Lincoln and his Administration (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1891), 74.
67 Ben: Perley Poore, “Abraham Lincoln, Reminiscences of an old Newspaper correspondent,” Brooklyn Eagle, September 6, 1885; New York Illustrated News, March 9, 1861. Weeklies like the Illustrated News dated their papers a full week in advance—the last day of sale before the next issue appeared—a practice still followed by today’s magazines.
68 Charleston Mercury, March 7, 1861. Greeley description from Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Lives and Deeds of Our Self-Made Men (Hartford, Conn.: Worthington, Dustin & Co., 1872), 294.
69 Frank Leslie’s Budget of Fun, December 15, 1860, March 1, April 1, 1861; Vanity Fair, March 1, 1861. For an excellent discussion of these prints, see Gary L. Bunker, From Rail-Splitter to Icon: Lincoln’s Image in Illustrated Periodicals, 1860–1865 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2001), esp. Chapter 4, “From Springfield to the Battlefield.”
70 CW, 4:266, 271; for Douglas, see Harold Holzer, Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter, 1860–1861 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 438–39.
71 Douglass’ Monthly, April 1861.
72 New York Times, March 5, 1861; New York Tribune, March 5, 1861.
73 New York Herald, March 5, 1861; Charleston Mercury, March 6, March 9, 1861.
74 New York Times, March 5, 1861
TEN: WANTED: A LEADER
1 New York Herald, June 19, 1861.
2 Louisville Courier, reprinted in New York Times, July 18, 1861.
3 New York Times, April 3, 1861.
4 “Some thoughts for the President’s consideration,” William H. Seward to Lin
coln, April 1, 1861, ALPLC; Patrick Sowle, “A Reappraisal of Seward’s Memorandum of April 1, 1861, to Lincoln,” Journal of Southern History 33 (May 1967): 236. The Washington correspondent was John Swain.
5 Lincoln’s draft to Seward, April 1, 1861, CW, 4:316. This episode is well told in two recent, excellent volumes: Adam Goodheart, 1861: The Civil War Awakening (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 158–59; and Walter Stahr, Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 270–71.
6 Walt Whitman, Specimen Days in America (London: Walter Scott, 1887), 34.
7 Proclamations of April 15, April 19, May 4, 1861, CW, 4:331–32, 338–39, 353–54. Still holding out the chance that further secession and civil war could be averted, Lincoln wrote that these would “probably” be the militias’ first assignments, though he left unclear whether this ambiguity reflected other demands on their schedules or his own zeal for retaking Sumter and other seized property. Lincoln also called the lame-duck Congress back to Washington for a special session—but not until July 4.
8 Washington Constitution quoted in the Richmond Whig, April 23, 1861; States and Union disloyalty characterized by the Washington Star, April 24, 1861.
9 New York Times, April 15, 1861.
10 New York Times, April 15, April 20, 1861.
11 Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life (New York: J. B. Ford & Co., 1868), 401–3.
12 Horace Greeley to Lincoln, May 19, 1861, ALPLC.
13 New York Tribune, April 13, 1861.
14 New York Herald, April 27, 1861.
15 New York Herald, April 15, 1861; New York Times, April 15, 1861. Meanwhile, in the first sign of public anger against pro-peace newspapers, the Hartford Daily Times began losing advertising after Sumter “in consequence of its supporting the Southern movement,” at least according to the New York Tribune, April 16, 1861.
16 Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 4 vols. (New York: The Century Co., 1887), 1:85.
17 “The New York Herald,” North American Review 102 (April 1866): 400.
18 New York Times, April 16, 1861; New York Tribune, April 16, 1861. An equally hostile crowd numbering several hundred people staged a similar protest against the pro-Democratic Brooklyn Eagle, demanding “to have the American flag hoisted from the summit of our establishment.” Decrying the “mob dictation,” the Eagle also obliged, insisting that “arrangements had been made to fling the banner to the breeze this morning, without any prompting of a crowd.” See Brooklyn Eagle, April 18, 1861.
19 Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, eds., The Diary of George Templeton Strong, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 3:187; New York Tribune, May 6, 1861.
20 New York Herald, April 16, 1861.
21 Ibid.
22 New York Tribune, May 15, 1861; Fernando Wood message published in all the city’s papers, including the New York Daily News, April 16, 1861.
23 New York Herald, April 20, 1861.
24 New York Herald, April 16, 1861.
25 Robert S. Harper, Lincoln and the Press (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951), 319.
26 Villard reminiscence quoted in Oliver Carlson, The Man Who Made News: James Gordon Bennett (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1942), 316–17.
27 Technically, the first Union casualty of the Civil War was one of the defenders of Fort Sumter, but he had lost his life after an explosion during the surrender ceremony, not during the Confederate bombardment, The Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment followed the same crosstown route Lincoln had been scheduled to employ to change trains in Baltimore back in February. The mob attack on the Union soldiers suggests that the danger facing the president-elect had been genuine, and his decision to pass through the city wise.
28 New York Times, April 25, 1861.
29 Henry J. Raymond, The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln . . . (New York: Derby & Miller, 1865), 720.
30 Lincoln to William H. Seward, June 8, 1861, CW, 4:397; New York Times, April 24, 1861; Francis B. Carpenter, “Anecdotes and Reminiscences,” in Raymond, Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln, 758.
31 New York Times, May 25, 1861.
32 See Remarks of Hon. Stephen A. Douglas in the Senate of the United States, March 6, 1861, on the Resolution of Mr. Dixon to Print the Inaugural Address of President Lincoln. Undated seven-page pamphlet, Library of Congress.
33 Illinois State Journal, April 26, 1861. The speech was also published as a pamphlet.
34 Stephen A. Douglas to Abraham Lincoln, April 29, 1861, ALPLC; Douglas to Charles H. Lanphier, December 25, 1860, in Robert W. Johannsen, ed., The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961), 504.
35 Robert Johannsen’s beautiful evocation of Douglas’s heroic final months is in his Stephen A. Douglas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 870–974.
36 New York Times, June 4, 1861.
37 Presidential order in John Nicolay’s hand, signed by Lincoln, April 11, 1861, CW, 4:328; Walter C. Clephane, “Lewis Clephane: A Pioneer Washington Republican,” Records of the [District of] Columbia Historical Society 21 (1917): 272–74. In 1901, the writer Rufus Rockwell Wilson garbled this history and asserted that it was the National Republican that had been “gutted by a mob” on “the night of Lincoln’s election.” The evidence suggests that while an attack did occur at the newspaper’s future headquarters, Clephane did not open the National Republican there for more than two weeks; it was still a Wide-Awake clubhouse on Election Day. See Rufus Rockwell Wilson, Washington: The Capital City and Its Part in the History of the Nation, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1901), 2:173.
38 John Wein Forney to John G. Nicolay, March 14, 1861, ALPLC.
39 John Russell Young, “Men Who Reigned: Bennett, Greeley, Raymond, Prentice, Forney,” Lippincott’s Monthly 51 (February 1893): 196.
40 See Orville H. Browning to Lincoln, July [?] 1861, ALPLC; Theodore Calvin Pease and James G. Randall, eds., The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, 2 vols. (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1925), 1:478, 481–82. For an example of Forney’s patronage recommendations, see John Wein Forney to Lincoln, August 16, 1861, urging the appointment of a former New York Democrat, John B. Haskin, as an army inspector general; in this case, Lincoln denied the request. For White, see Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold Hyman, Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln’s Secretary of War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), 138.
41 Official Register of the United States . . . 1865 . . . (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1866),17.
42 Simon Cameron Papers, quoted in Harper, Lincoln and the Press, 111.
43 Philadelphia Pennsylvanian, January 1, 1861, quoted in Elwyn Burns Robinson, “The Press: Lincoln’s Philadelphia Organ,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 65 (April 1941): 158.
44 John W. Forney, Anecdotes of Public Men, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Bros., 1881), 1:167; George Alfred Townsend papers cited in J. Cutler Andrews, The North Reports the Civil War (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1955), 25.
45 John Wein Forney to Lincoln, August 1, August 6 (with clipping), 1861, ALPLC.
46 For Lincoln’s memoranda to Secretary of State William Seward on Webb’s appointment offers, May 6 and June 8, 1861, see CW, 5:358–59, 397; New York Herald, June 25, 1861; see also James Watson Webb to Lincoln, June 8, 1861, ALPLC.
47 See, for example, Lincoln to Hiram Barney, May 13, 1861, regarding “Mr. Greeley’s letter introducing” William Ward to Lincoln as a candidate for the New York Customs House, CW, 4:367.
48 Quoted in Harper, Lincoln and the Press, 111.
49 Presidential message to a Special Session of Congress, July 4, 1861, CW, 4:426.
50 Ibid.; Defrees quoted in Roy P. Basler, A Touchstone for Greatness: Essays, Addresses, and Occasional Pieces About Abraham Lincoln (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1973), 90; part of the reconstructed quote comes from Frank [Francis] B. Carpenter, “Anecdotes and
Reminiscences of President Lincoln,” appendix to Raymond, Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln, 758. Defrees had been ardently recommended for his past by politicians like Senators Henry S. Lane and Thomas Corwin (see Lane to Lincoln, March 6, 1861, Corwin to Lincoln, March 9, 1861), and Indiana governor Oliver P. Morton (Morton to Lincoln, March 14, 1861), all ALPLC. Francis Lieber concluded that Lincoln’s literary instincts were right, commenting: “We have to look at other things, just now, than grammar,” see Thomas Sergeant Perry, ed., The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1882), 317.
51 CW, 4:440, 433, 426, 430. In Lincoln’s original draft manuscript, he used the term “military power,” but, as usual, revised it ingeniously.
52 Ibid., 43.
53 See Mario M. Cuomo and Harold Holzer, eds., Lincoln on Democracy (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 217.
54 Douglass’ Monthly, August 1861; Edward Carey, George William Curtis (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1894), 147.
55 New York Tribune, June 26, 1861; Greeley’s words published under the headline, “Just Once a Card from Mr. Horace Greeley,” New York Times, July 26, 1861. See Thurlow Weed Barnes, ed., Memoir of Thurlow Weed, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1884), 2:336.
56 New York Times, July 24, 1861.
57 William Howard Russell, “Recollections of the Civil War—IV,” North American Review 166 (May 1898): 621; New York Times, March 27, 1898.
58 John Stauffer, “The ‘Terrible Reality’ of the First Living-Room Wars,” ms., July 2011.
59 Quoted in Louis M. Starr, The Civil War’s Bohemian Brigade: Newsmen in Action (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1954), 42; Caroline Chapman, Russell of the Times: War Despatches and Diaries (London: Bell & Hyman, 1984), 115.
60 London Times, November 29, 1860.
61 Mowbray Morris to J. C. Bancroft Davis, January 25, 1861, in Louis M. Sears, ed., “The London Times’ American Correspondent in 1861: Unpublished Letters of William H. Russell in the First Year of the Civil War,” The Historical Outlook 16 (October 1925): 251–52; Morris to Davis, February 22, 1861, quoted in Martin Crawford, ed., William Howard Russell’s Civil War (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), xxiv.
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