Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief

by James M. McPherson

  Lincoln was inclined to think so too. But before deciding what to do, he drafted a memorandum summarizing the pros and cons of evacuating Sumter. In favor of withdrawal, wrote Lincoln in echo of General Scott, was the reality that “the Fort cannot now be reinforced without a large armament, involving of course a bloody conflict,” while evacuation “would remove a source of irritation to the Southern people and deprive the secession movement of one of its most powerful stimulants” by “confound[ing]…those enemies of the Union both at the North and the South who have relied on the cry of ‘Coercion’ as a means of keeping up the excitement against the Republican Party.” On the other hand, evacuation would demoralize Lincoln’s own party and concede the legitimacy of the Confederacy.17

  It was this last consideration that was uppermost in Lincoln’s mind. He sought a formula that might maintain Sumter as a symbol of national sovereignty without provoking war. By the third week of March he thought he might have found such a formula. Montgomery Blair introduced the president to his brother-in-law Gustavus V. Fox, a Massachusetts businessman and a former naval officer. Fox proposed to run troops and supplies in to Sumter at night on chartered tugs while warships stood by to suppress Confederate artillery if it fired on the tugs. Lincoln was intrigued by the idea. He was also glad to talk with someone who offered a plan by which something could be done instead of telling him why it could not. But he continued to explore other options while he sent Fox to Charleston to confer with Anderson and sent two other emissaries to gauge opinion in South Carolina.

  During the last week of March, Northern opinion seemed to harden against evacuation. So did Lincoln’s. The break came on March 28. That day General Scott submitted a memorandum recommending that both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens be evacuated, which would “instantly soothe and give confidence to the eight remaining slave-holding States, and render their cordial adherence to this Union perpetual.” The president was angered, though perhaps not entirely surprised, by this new evidence that Scott’s supposedly professional military advice was tinged with political considerations. He called Scott into his office and told him bluntly, according to Scott’s secretary, that the administration “would be broken up” if he adopted any such policy and that “if General Scott could not carry out his views, some other person might.”18

  That evening the president and Mrs. Lincoln hosted their first state dinner for cabinet officers, foreign diplomats, and other dignitaries. Afterward Lincoln called the cabinet together to inform them of Scott’s memorandum. “Blank amazement” registered on several faces as they realized that Scott was advising what amounted to an unconditional surrender. The next day the cabinet met officially at noon. This time all members except Seward and Secretary of the Interior Caleb Smith voted to reinforce Fort Sumter, and all of them voted to renew the stalled effort to reinforce Fort Pickens. Lincoln had already made up his mind to send both expeditions and would undoubtedly have gone ahead even without a cabinet vote. In a message to a special session of Congress three months later, he explained why. To “abandon that position, under the circumstances, would be utterly ruinous,” said the president. “At home it would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to insure to the latter a recognition abroad; that in fact it would be our national destruction consummated.”19

  This decision put Seward in an extremely awkward position. Having assured Confederate commissioners as well as others that the garrison would be withdrawn, and still presuming to be “premier” of the administration, he made one last desperate bid to change Lincoln’s mind. On April 1 he wrote a memorandum—which was no April Fools’ joke—titled “Some thoughts for the President’s consideration.” The government had no firm policy, Seward declared, so he suggested one: Abandon Fort Sumter but reinforce Fort Pickens. This, he said mysteriously, would change the issue from slavery to Union. And to reunite the country, Seward suggested a confrontation with foreign nations that were interfering in the Western Hemisphere.

  Spain had sent troops to troubled Santo Domingo, while France and Britain were threatening to do the same in Mexico to force repayment of debts to their citizens. If such confrontations led to war, so much the better, for the South would return to help fight the foreign foe. “Whatever policy we adopt,” wrote the secretary of state, “it must be somebody’s business to pursue and direct it.” He left no doubt whom he had in mind.20

  Lincoln was astonished by the effrontery of this document and even more by its proposals. In a written reply he ignored Seward’s bellicose recommendations to challenge foreign nations. He declared that the government did have a policy: to hold, occupy, and possess its property, including Fort Sumter. “I do not perceive how the reinforcement of Fort Sumpter would be done on a slavery, or party issue,” wrote the president, “while that of Fort Pickens would be on a more national, or patriotic one.” In any case, whatever policy was decided on and carried out, “I must do it.”21

  Lincoln apparently decided not to send Seward his reply but instead to convey its substance more tactfully in private conversation. Whatever the medium, Seward got the message. Thereafter he became a loyal supporter of the president’s policies and a trusted adviser—but not before (perhaps inadvertently) throwing a small monkey wrench into the Fort Sumter enterprise. Because of Lincoln’s endless preoccupation with patronage appointments as well as with the Sumter problem, Seward had taken charge of the project to reinforce Fort Pickens. For that purpose he had assigned the most powerful warship intended for the Sumter mission (USS Powhatan) to the Pickens expedition. The distracted president had signed orders to that effect without reading them carefully. When the mistake was discovered it proved too late to recall the Powhatan. In the end this mix-up made no difference to the outcome of the successful reinforcement of Pickens or the failure at Fort Sumter. But for Lincoln it was part of the steep learning curve he had to climb in his journey toward becoming an effective commander in chief.22

  On the same chaotic and eventful day as the Seward memorandum and the Powhatan muddle (April 1), Lincoln also asserted his authority over General-in-Chief Scott by ordering him “to make short, comprehensive daily reports to me of what occurs in his Department, including movements by himself, and under his orders, and the receipt of intelligence.”23 The result of this instruction was to bring Scott on board for the reprovisioning of both Pickens and Sumter. The nature of the Sumter expedition had changed in a crucial way since Gustavus Fox had first proposed it. A full-scale attempt to reinforce the fort, backed by warships that would have to shoot their way into Charleston Bay, would make the North the aggressor. It would unite the South, drive most of the remaining slave states into the Confederacy, divide the North, and fasten on Lincoln the onus of starting a war. Therefore he conceived a plan to separate the question of reinforcements from that of provisions. He would send in supplies only, while the warships stood by to go into action only if Confederate guns opened fire. And he would notify South Carolina’s governor of his intentions. If the Confederates fired on unarmed tugs carrying provisions, they would stand convicted of attacking a “mission of humanity” bringing “food for hungry men.”

  It was a stroke of brilliance. In effect Lincoln flipped a coin with Confederate president Jefferson Davis, saying: “Heads I win; tails you lose.” If the Confederates allowed the supplies to be landed, the status quo at Charleston would continue, peace would be preserved for at least a while, no more states would secede, and Seward’s cherished policy of “voluntary reconstruction,” whereby a cooling of passions would bring the presumed legions of Southern closet Unionists out of the closet, might have a chance to go forward. But if Confederate guns opened fire, the responsibility for starting a war would rest on Jefferson Davis’s shoulders.

  On April 6 Lincoln sent a special messenger to Charleston with a dispatch notifying the governor (Lincoln did not officially recognize the existence of a legitimate Confederate government) “to expect an attempt will be made to supply Fort-Sumpter wi
th provisions only; and that, if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition will be made, without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the Fort.”24 Lincoln had plenty of reasons to expect the Confederates to attack. The envoys he had sent to Charleston a couple of weeks earlier had reported the bellicose mood they found there. On his way to Washington back in February, the president-elect had reviewed several companies of Pennsylvania militia in Harrisburg. Governor Andrew Curtin had said they would be ready whenever Lincoln needed them. On April 8, as the relief expedition to Fort Sumter prepared to leave New York, Lincoln informed Curtin: “I think the necessity of being ready increases. Look to it.”25

  The coin was in the air, and Lincoln expected to win whether it came up heads or tails. That same day, April 8, the Confederate secretary of war telegraphed Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard, commander of Confederate forces at Charleston: “Under no circumstances are you to allow provisions to be sent to Fort Sumter.” Two days later came another telegram: “You will at once demand its evacuation, and if this is refused proceed…to reduce it.”26 Two more days after that, Confederate guns opened fire on the fort. For the second time in American history it was a shot heard around the world.

  ON APRIL 13 the telegraph flashed news of the one-sided artillery duel at Charleston to the War Department and to newspaper offices in the North. Later that day Lincoln held a previously scheduled meeting with three delegates from the Virginia convention that had initially rejected disunion but remained in session “awaiting events.” The president received them coldly and read a prepared statement condemning the “unprovoked assault” on Fort Sumter. Now that the Confederacy had commenced “actual war against the government,” Lincoln told them that he intended not only to “possess, occupy, and hold” national property in the Confederate states but also “to repossess, if I can, like places which had been seized before the Government was devolved upon me.”27

  Here was the beginning of a military strategy consistent with Lincoln’s policy of rejecting the legitimacy of secession and continuing to regard the Confederate states as part of the United States. When official word reached Washington on April 14 of Fort Sumter’s surrender, the cabinet met in an emergency Sunday session and approved a proclamation drafted by Lincoln calling seventy-five thousand state militia into federal service for ninety days (the maximum allowed by law). Their purpose would be to suppress “combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” Their first task “will probably be to re-possess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union.”28

  Lincoln’s successful effort to place the onus of starting a war on the Confederacy paid off. The attack on Fort Sumter united a previously divided Northern people more than they would ever be united again. War fever swept the free states. Hundreds of American flags flew over rallies in cities and villages across the land. “The heather is on fire,” wrote a Harvard professor who had been born during George Washington’s presidency. “I never knew what a popular excitement can be…. The whole population, men, women, and children, seem to be in the streets with Union favors and flags.” The “time before Sumter” seemed like another century to one New York woman. “It seems as if we never were alive till now; never had a country till now.”29

  Northern governors offered more regiments than their quotas under Lincoln’s call for militia. About 90,000 men were eventually mobilized under this call. The government could scarcely arm and equip this number within ninety days. Although many people in the North (and in the South too, for that matter) believed the war would be over and won within that period, Lincoln did not share this optimism. The federalization of state militias was limited to ninety days under the Militia Act of 1795, which was still in effect. Recognizing that more troops for a longer term would be needed, Lincoln on May 3 issued a call for 43,034 three-year volunteers. And for good measure he also increased the size of the regular army by 22,714 men and of the navy by 18,000. The president enacted these measures by executive order, in apparent violation of the Constitution, which grants Congress exclusive authority to “raise and support armies” and to “provide and maintain a navy” (Article I, Section 7).30

  These were among several executive actions by Lincoln that he justified under his constitutional mandate as commander in chief. Another such action was his proclamation of a blockade of Confederate ports on April 19.31 A blockade is an act of war, and the Constitution gives only Congress the power to declare war. But Congress was not in session and would not convene (in a special session called by Lincoln) until July 4, nearly three months after the war began. This delay was not the result of Lincoln’s desire to prosecute the war without congressional interference, as several historians have suggested. Rather, it was a consequence of the electoral calendar at that time. Most states held congressional elections in the fall of even-numbered years, as today. But Congress itself did not meet in its first regular session until December of the following year, thirteen months later. Hence several states held their congressional elections in the spring of odd-numbered years. In 1861 seven states remaining in the Union held their congressional elections from March to June. Thus the special session could not meet until all representatives had been elected.

  Lincoln’s message to that special session explained the executive actions he had taken—including an order to the treasury to advance two million dollars to three private citizens in New York to purchase arms and vessels. This order contravened Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, which stipulates that “no Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” The president pointed out that his oath of office required him to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution. This duty overrode any specific constitutional constraints on executive action. The attack on Fort Sumter left him with no choice “but to call out the war power of the Government; and so to resist force, employed for its destruction, by force, for its preservation.” In the first draft of his message Lincoln had written “military power” but changed it to “war power” in the final draft. He also used those words elsewhere in the message—he had employed his “war power” as commander in chief to avoid surrendering “the existence of the government.”32

  The Constitution makes no mention of war power; Lincoln seems to have invented both the phrase and its application.33 “It became necessary,” the president insisted, “for me to choose whether, using only the existing means, agencies, and processes which Congress had provided, I should let the government fall at once into ruin, or whether, availing myself of the broader powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of insurrection, I would make an effort to save it with all its blessings for the present age and for posterity.” Lincoln believed that “by these and other similar measures taken in that crisis, some of which were without any authority of law, the government was saved from overthrow.”34

  Congress seemed to agree. By an overwhelming majority it passed a law that “approved and in all respects legalized and made valid…all the acts, proclamations, and orders of the President of the United States respecting the army and the navy…as if they had been done under the express authority of the Congress.”35 Some uncertainty remained, however, about the legality of Lincoln’s declaration of blockade. Merchants whose ships and cargo were captured challenged it in court. They argued that because only Congress can declare war, the blockade was illegal before Congress in July 1861 affirmed the existence of hostilities. By a five-to-four margin in 1863 the Supreme Court ruled that a state of war can exist without a formal declaration. The president has a duty to resist force with force; therefore the blockade and related war powers exercised by Lincoln were within his authority as commander in chief.36 (Lincoln had appointed three of the five justices in the majority.)

  Lincoln’s April 15 call for militia had requisitioned a quota from each state, including the eight slave states still in the Union. Six of their governors replied with defiant
refusals. “Tennessee will not furnish a single man for the purpose of coercion,” declared its governor, “but fifty thousand if necessary for the defense of our rights and those of our Southern brothers.” From Richmond came a telegram stating that since Lincoln had “chosen to inaugurate civil war,” Virginia would join its sister states of the South. The governors of North Carolina, Arkansas, and Kentucky sent similar replies, while the prose-cession governor of Missouri told Lincoln that “your requisition is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical…. Not one man will the State of Missouri furnish to carry on any such unholy crusade.”37

  Northern governors, by contrast, responded with enthusiasm. Massachusetts was the first state out of the gate. “Dispatch received,” Governor John Andrew wired the War Department on April 15. “By what route shall we send?”38 Two Massachusetts regiments were on their way by April 17. Two days later a mob attacked several companies of the Sixth Massachusetts as they transferred from one railroad station to another in Baltimore. The soldiers fired back. When the smoke cleared, four soldiers and twelve Baltimoreans lay dead and many more wounded—on the eighty-sixth anniversary of the clash between Minutemen and Redcoats at Lexington and Concord.