Lincoln Part 27

All the Lincolns made affectionate farewell visits to their Springfield friends. One of Lincoln's last calls was on Herndon, whom Lincoln had not seen frequently during the months after the election. The partners discussed legal matters and talked about the state of the country and the pressure Lincoln was under from job-seekers. Exhausted, the President-elect told Herndon, "I am sick of office-holding already." After a time he asked, "Billy ... how long have we been together?"

"Over sixteen years," was Herndon's answer.

"We've never had a cross word during all that time, have we?"

Promptly Herndon replied, "No, indeed we have not."

There was an awkward pause, and Lincoln said hesitantly: "Billy... there's one thing I have, for some time, wanted you to tell me I want you to tell me ... how many times you have been drunk."

Herndon, fl.u.s.tered, had no quick reply. Lincoln changed the subject to tell of several attempts to have him take another partner. Having made his point, he gathered up some books and papers and talked for a moment or two more before going downstairs. Looking back, Lincoln glanced at the law shingle of Lincoln & Herndon. "Let it hang there undisturbed," he said, lowering his voice. "Give our clients to understand that the election of a President makes no change in the firm of Lincoln and Herndon. If I live I'm coming back some time, and then we'll go right on practising law as if nothing had ever happened."

VI

February 11 was cold and rainy, but a crowd of Springfield residents gathered at the Great Western Railroad depot to see Lincoln off. (Mary Lincoln had gone to St. Louis for additional shopping and would join her husband in Indianapolis.) The President-elect himself had roped the family trunks and labeled them A. LINCOLN, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C. A special train had been chartered for the trip, at this point consisting of the Hinckley engine, the L. M. Wiley, a baggage car, and a "saloon" for the President and his party. At 7:55 A.M. the President-elect climbed the steps to his private car and paused to say a final farewell to his neighbors, one of whom reported that his "breast heaved with emotion and he could scarcely command his feelings sufficiently to commence."

My friends [he began]-No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe every thing. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have pa.s.sed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the a.s.sistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that a.s.sistance I cannot fail.... let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.

For the next twelve days the presidential train slowly moved across the country, in a journey of 1,904 miles over eighteen railroads. In addition to the President and his immediate family, the party included Nicolay, John Hay, Dr. William S. Wallace, Lincoln's brother-in-law and personal physician, and Elmer Ellsworth, arrayed in his Zouave uniform. Both Judd and David Davis, political enemies and rivals for Lincoln's affection, were aboard, and Hatch, Dubois, Yates, and Browning went part or all the way to Washington. No military officer was detailed to accompany the President-elect, but Colonel E. V. Sumner of the First United States Cavalry and Major David Hunter, the paymaster at Fort Leavenworth, volunteered to serve as escorts, as did Captain John Pope, who joined the party at Indianapolis. Ward Hill Lamon, resplendent in his personally designed uniform as an aide to the Illinois governor, remained close to the President-elect as his burly bodyguard. The presidential train moved from Springfield to Indianapolis to Cincinnati to Columbus; then, after a diversion to Pittsburgh, it proceeded to Cleveland, Buffalo, Albany, and New York City. On the final leg of the journey the President-elect visited Philadelphia and Harrisburg before going on to Washington. Special precautions were taken to prevent sabotage or accident along the route, and flagmen were stationed at every road crossing and at half-mile intervals along the tracks. For most of the journey the presidential train consisted of three cars-a fourth was sometimes added-with the first a.s.signed to journalists, who covered the journey in great detail, the second to local dignitaries who gained prestige from traveling part of the way with the President-elect, and the third for the Lincoln family.

The procession combined all the elements of a traveling circus, a political campaign, and a national holiday. Along the route people gathered to cheer the train and, perhaps, to catch a glimpse of Lincoln. At little Ohio towns like Milford, Loveland, Morrow, and Xenia, where the train stopped only long enough for the President-elect to appear on the rear platform and bow, large crowds a.s.sembled, often with bands playing and artillery booming. At Columbus, which a New York reporter dismissed as "only a second cla.s.s city," perhaps 60,000 citizens joined in the celebration. In the larger cities the throngs were immense, and police could not keep them from pressing close around the incoming President. At Buffalo there was such wild confusion that Major Hunter dislocated his shoulder in his efforts to protect the President-elect from his overenthusiastic admirers.

The stated object of this roundabout journey was to give the people an opportunity to become acquainted with their new Chief Executive, the first American President to be born west of the Appalachian Mountains. To satisfy this natural curiosity Lincoln made very frequent appearances at the rear of the train, where, as he said, he could offer people the opportunity "of observing my very interesting countenance." Presently he developed a formula that he used repeatedly: he came before the public, he announced, so "that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain." He could afford to joke, because he generally made a favorable impression. From Columbus the New York Herald reported that "his personal appearance was p.r.o.nounced by all much better than had been inferred from his portraits." Future President Rutherford B. Hayes, who met the President-elect in Indianapolis, could not help being amused by Lincoln's awkward attempt to bow to the crowds: "His chin rises-his body breaks in two at the hips-there is bend of the knees at a queer angle." But, "homely as L. is," Hayes concluded, "if you can get a good view of him by day light when he is talking he is by no means ill looking."

The journey offered superb opportunities for a politician, and Lincoln played the crowds with consummate skill. He complimented everybody and everything. At Cincinnati he said that the greeting he had received "could not have occurred in any other country on the face of the globe, without the influence of the free inst.i.tutions which we have increasingly enjoyed for three-quarters of a century." Repeatedly he expressed admiration for the many "good-looking ladies" in his audiences. At Westfield, New York, he called up Grace Bedell, who had urged him to let his whiskers grow, and gave her a big kiss. He praised the bands, and, to avoid making a speech at London, Ohio, urged them to "discourse in their more eloquent music than I am capable of" while "the iron horse stops to water himself."

Recognizing that the crowds were interested in his family as well as himself, Lincoln from time to time urged Mary to join him at whistle stops, but, as he told the ladies at Ashtabula, "he should hardly hope to induce her to appear, as he had always found it very difficult to make her do what she did not want to." By the end of the journey her reserve had sufficiently broken down that she consented to appear on the platform of the train at the side of her tall husband, who told the audience that now they could see "the long and the short of it!"

Curiosity extended to the other members of the Lincoln family. The two little boys were largely shielded from the public, though they immensely enjoyed the long train ride. To relieve boredom, when visitors came aboard, Tad or Willie would ask, "Do you want to see Old Abe?" and then point out someone else. Robert was much in the public eye. Labeled the "Prince of Rails"-a pun that combined reference to his father's manual prowess and to the enthusiastic reception the Prince of Wales had received on his recent visit to the United States-he abandoned for once his natural taciturnity, flirted with the girls, drank too much Catawba wine, and even took a turn at driving the locomotive. The excitement apparently went to his head, and he forgot the one duty his father had asked him to perform: to guard the satchel containing copies of the inaugural address. Robert carelessly entrusted it to a hotel porter, who threw it on an unguarded pile of luggage behind the hotel desk. Expressing anger at one of his children for perhaps the only time in his life, the President-elect had to burrow through unclaimed baggage to identify his case, but fortunately it had not been tampered with and no harm was done.

The journey had the larger purpose of encouraging support for the Union and fostering loyalty among the Northern people. For this reason Lincoln insisted that all reception committees and demonstrations along the route be nonpartisan. He set the tone early in the journey in his remarks at Lafayette, Indiana: "While some of us may differ in political opinions, still we are all united in one feeling for the Union. We all believe in the maintainance of the Union, of every star and every stripe of the glorious flag." Repeatedly he emphasized that the tumultuous welcome he received was not a personal tribute. He had been elected President, he said, with what was surely excessive modesty, "by a mere accident, and not through any merit of mine"; he was "a mere instrument, an accidental instrument, perhaps I should say," of the great cause of Union. He called himself "the humblest of all individuals that have ever been elected to the Presidency," a man "without a name, perhaps without a reason why I should have a name."

The journey was punctuated by constant calls on Lincoln to speak-to welcoming committees, at receptions, to state legislatures in Indiana, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The demands were so numerous that he became hoa.r.s.e, and at times he lost his voice. For some of the major occasions he had prepared little addresses while he was sitting for his bust in Thomas Jones's studio, but mostly he had to improvise. Inevitably there was a good deal of repet.i.tion, and some of the speeches he made along the route seemed aimless and inconsequential. Supercilious young Charles Francis Adams, Jr., was appalled to learn that the "absolutely unknown" President-elect was "perambulating the country, kissing little girls and growing whiskers." But a more sober observer, the New York diarist George Templeton Strong, who carefully followed the presidential progress, reached a sounder judgment: "Lincoln is making little speeches as he wends his way toward Washington, and has said some things that are sound and creditable and raise him in my esteem."

Strong and others who followed Lincoln's speeches closely understood that he was laying the groundwork for the policies that his administration would pursue. One of his major themes was that the impending crisis was something "gotten up... by designing politicians." "Why all this excitement?" he asked in Cleveland. "Why all these complaints?... the crisis is all artificial." Many feared he failed to understand the gravity of the situation, but his intent was to challenge Southerners to "point us to anything in which they are being injured, or about to be injured." Because n.o.body could identify any specific grievances he felt "justified in concluding that the crisis, the panic, the anxiety of the country at this time is artificial."

At the same time, the President-elect repeatedly asked Northerners to stand firm in the crisis. Not once in the dozens of speeches he made along the journey did he suggest willingness to agree to secession, to acquiesce in Southern seizure of federal forts and a.r.s.enals, or to recognize the Confederacy. Over and over, he stressed that he had been elected to uphold the Const.i.tution and enforce the laws. To those who argued this would mean "coercion" and "invasion" of the South, he responded in his Indianapolis speech with a rhetorical question: would it be coercion if the government "simply insists upon holding its own forts, or retaking those forts which belong to it,... or ... the collection of duties upon foreign importations,... or even the withdrawal of the mails from those portions of the country where the mails themselves are habitually violated." But, unwilling to precipitate a crisis, he quickly added, "Now, I ask the question-I am not deciding anything."

As the presidential party moved toward the East, news from the South became more ominous. Jefferson Davis was inaugurated Provisional President of the Confederate States of America on February 18, while Lincoln was traveling to Washington; Alexander H. Stephens, Lincoln's old friend from whom he had expected a strong support of the Union, became Provisional Vice President. On that same day, General David E. Twiggs surrendered all the United States military outposts in Texas to the secessionists.

Lincoln responded to these developments by making it clearer than ever that he intended to preserve the Union. At a brief stop in Dunkirk, New York, he stepped from the train to grasp an American flag and asked his audience "to stand by me so long as I stand by it." In New York City he told the audience: "Nothing... can ever bring me willingly to consent to the destruction of this Union." In Trenton he promised the New Jersey legislature he would seek a peaceful settlement of the crisis, but he warned, "It may be necessary to put the foot down firmly."

VII

In the final days of the journey an unexpected development threatened the image of dignified courage that he was building. Allan Pinkerton, the head of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, informed Judd of a plot to a.s.sa.s.sinate Lincoln as he pa.s.sed through Baltimore. This was not the first warning of danger to the President-elect, but it seemed ent.i.tled to more credence than earlier alarms. Working for S. M. Felton, the president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad, who feared that secessionists might sabotage bridges along his route, Pinkerton found anti-Lincoln sentiment rampant in Baltimore, a strongly pro-Southern city with a long reputation for street violence, and his operatives reported details of a plot to kill the President-elect. When Lincoln's train from Philadelphia arrived at the Calvert Street Station, the President-elect and his party would have to get out and go across town to the Camden Street Station in order to board the Baltimore & Ohio train for Washington. Just as Lincoln emerged from the narrow vestibule of the Calvert Street Station, Cypriano Ferrandini, a Baltimore barber, and a few a.s.sociates planned to a.s.sa.s.sinate him. Pinkerton urged the President-elect to leave Philadelphia immediately, pa.s.sing through Baltimore on a night train before the conspirators could learn of his change of plans.

Lincoln refused to alter his schedule. "I can't go to-night," he insisted. He was committed to raising the flag at Independence Hall the next morning and he had promised to address the Pennsylvania legislature at Harrisburg later in the day. He vowed he would fulfill those engagements "under any and all circ.u.mstances, even if he met with death in doing so."

The threat was clearly on his mind as he spoke at Independence Hall on February 22. The country must be saved on the basis of the Declaration of Independence, which promised liberty for all and offered "hope to the world for all future time." "If it can't be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful," he warned. "I was about to say I would rather be a.s.sa.s.sinated on this spot than to surrender it."

As he was leaving for Harrisburg, young Frederick W. Seward brought confidential news from Washington that both his father, the senator, and General Winfield Scott believed the Baltimore conspiracy was genuine. After Lincoln made the promised address to the Pennsylvania legislature, he and his most trusted advisers met to discuss the danger. Pinkerton proposed that Lincoln, traveling alone so as to avoid suspicion, should take a special train from Harrisburg to Philadelphia; there, incognito, he would board the 11 P.M. train to Baltimore, pa.s.sing unrecognized through that city at about 3:30 A.M. and arriving unannounced in Washington two and a half hours later. Judd endorsed the plan. Colonel Sumner denounced it as "a d--d piece of cowardice" and said it would be better to get a squad of cavalry to cut a way to Washington, but Captain Pope favored Pinkerton's recommendation. After considerable discussion, David Davis, who had expressed no opinion, asked the President-elect: "What is your judgement on the matter?"

Lincoln said he was not entirely convinced that there was a conspiracy, and he recognized that he might appear ridiculous in fleeing from a nonexistent danger. On the other hand, he respected Pinkerton's professional judgment and was impressed that Frederick Seward's warnings confirmed those of the detective. He concluded, "Unless there are some other reasons besides fear of ridicule, I am disposed to carry out Judd's plan."

That left only the details to be arranged. Pinkerton wanted no one else in the presidential party to be told of the change of plans, but Lincoln insisted that his wife must know, "as otherwise she would be very much excited at his absence." Against Colonel Sumner's protest, Lamon was chosen as his only companion and bodyguard during the trip. Lamon may indeed have been, as Pinkerton said, "a brainless egotistical fool," but he was big, brave, and-most important of all-willing to lay down his life to save Lincoln's.

That evening the President-elect quietly slipped out of the hotel in Harrisburg. He was unrecognized because, instead of the usual stovepipe hat that had become his trademark, he wore for the first time in his life a soft felt "Kossuth" hat someone in New York had given him. To help conceal his tall figure his long overcoat was thrown loosely over his shoulders without his arms being in the sleeves. He boarded a special train in Harrisburg, where all telegraphic communication had been interrupted to prevent possible leaks to the conspirators. At Philadelphia, accompanied only by Pinkerton and Lamon, he entered a sleeping car of the train to Baltimore and occupied a berth Pinkerton had reserved for an "invalid pa.s.senger." He was so tall that he could not stretch out on the bed. The train proceeded undisturbed to Baltimore, and without being observed, Lincoln transferred to the Camden Station and went on to Washington. Emerging from the car, he attracted no attention until a loud voice hailed him: "Abe you can't play that on me." Pinkerton and Lamon turned to attack the stranger when Lincoln interposed, recognizing his old friend Congressman E. B. Washburne, who had learned of the plan and come to meet him. He quickly drove with Lincoln to Willard's Hotel at Fourteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Inevitably Lincoln's secret night ride attracted unfavorable comment. It took on elements of farce after an enterprising newspaperman, Joseph Howard, needing to flesh out his story for the New York Times, wrote that Lincoln had not merely fled from Harrisburg but had disguised himself by wearing a Scotch plaid cap and a long military coat. Cartoonists presently portrayed the disguise as a tam and kilts. Even serious observers were troubled by the episode. "We take it for granted that Mr. Lincoln is not wanting in personal courage," the New York Tribune editorialized-but it wanted some proof that "imminent and great" danger had required him to take such a remarkable course. Soberly George Templeton Strong recorded his hope that Lincoln could prove beyond cavil the existence of a Baltimore plot; otherwise "this surrept.i.tious nocturnal dodging or sneaking of the President-elect into his capital city... will be used to damage his moral position and throw ridicule on his Administration."

Eventually the furor died down, but Lincoln came to regret that he had allowed himself to be persuaded to undertake the night trip. As he told the Illinois congressman Isaac N. Arnold, "I did not then, nor do I now believe I should have been a.s.sa.s.sinated had I gone through Baltimore as first contemplated, but I thought it wise to run no risk where no risk was necessary." That was a sound and reasonable decision-but it did nothing to sustain the reputation for firmness that he had been so carefully building on his long journey from Springfield.

VIII

The ten days between Lincoln's arrival in Washington and his inauguration were among the busiest in his life. On the first day, after he reached Willard's Hotel, he telegraphed Mary in Harrisburg of his safe arrival. He and Seward had breakfast together and then went to the White House, where he met President Buchanan and was introduced to the members of the cabinet. After calling on General Scott, who was not at home, he rode about Washington for an hour with Seward, who found him "very cordial and kind... simple, natural, and agreeable." In the afternoon he received visitors, including Montgomery Blair, soon to be his Postmaster General, and his father, Francis P. Blair, Sr. In midafternoon Mary Lincoln and the boys arrived after an uneventful trip through Baltimore, and the family was reunited in the best suite at the hotel. Senator Douglas and other members of the Illinois delegation called later in the day, and the encounter between the two old rivals, both ardent supporters of the Union, was reported to be "peculiarly pleasant." At 7 P.M. he took a carriage to Seward's residence and dined privately with his Secretary of State-designate and Vice President-elect Hamlin. Returning to Willard's, he found the long hall lined with people and became so absorbed in greeting them that he forgot to remove his hat. Delegates from the Peace Conference, which was just ending its unprofitable deliberations, called at 9 P.M. and found the President-elect standing unattended in the public drawing room of the hotel. Senator Chase and Lucius E. Chittenden, who represented Vermont at the conference, took it upon themselves to introduce the delegates. Afterward Lincoln held an informal reception for members of Congress and other guests who had crowded into the hotel. Among them was the wealthy New York merchant William E. Dodge, who warned the President-elect that only concessions to the South could prevent national bankruptcy; it was up to Lincoln to say "whether the gra.s.s shall grow in the streets of our commercial cities." Looking quizzical, Lincoln responded that he preferred to see the gra.s.s grow in fields and in meadows but that he would defend the Const.i.tution "let the gra.s.s grow where it may." At 10 P.M. the members of Buchanan's cabinet called to pay their respects. Not until they left could the weary President-elect go to bed.

The days that followed were similarly filled with endless calls and receptions. Both Vice President John C. Breckinridge and John Bell-like Douglas, defeated candidates in the 1860 election-paid their respects. Lincoln welcomed a call from the aged and infirm General Scott dressed in his full military regalia and wearing all his medals. The President-elect visited the Capitol and held an informal reception for members of Congress. He greeted the justices of the Supreme Court. Mayor James G. Berret and the Common Council of Washington tendered an official welcome to the city and, understanding that they had opposed his election, Lincoln expressed hope that "when we shall become better acquainted-and I say it with great confidence-we shall like each other the more."

On most evenings he and Mary received visitors in the hotel parlors. Some came out of a sense of duty, some in the hope of securing public office, and some out of idle curiosity. One Virginian described the Presidentelect as "a cross between a sandhill crane and an Andalusian jacka.s.s,... vain, weak, puerile, hypocritical, without manners, without moral grace," but most visitors thought him awkwardly charming. At parties he was relaxed and sociable. When he attended the dinner that Rudolph Schleiden, the minister from Bremen and the dean of the diplomatic corps in Washington, gave in his honor, he favorably impressed Lord Lyons, the British minister, and most of the other diplomats, though the amba.s.sador from Holland complained: "His conversation consists of vulgar anecdotes at which he himself laughs uproariously."

All this socializing allowed the President-elect to sound Washington sentiment about the crisis. No words were more welcome than those of Douglas, who strongly favored conciliating the South and urged Lincoln to persuade Republicans to compromise. At the same time, he pledged that he and his Democratic followers would not try to gain political advantage from the crisis. "Our Union must be preserved," he told Lincoln solemnly. "Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I am with you, Mr. President, and G.o.d bless you." Touched and greatly cheered, Lincoln responded: "With all my heart I thank you. The people with us and G.o.d helping us all will yet be well." When the senator left, Lincoln exclaimed to another visitor, "What a n.o.ble man Douglas is!"

Lincoln's numerous conferences in the week before his inauguration also helped him make a final selection of his cabinet members. Until he arrived in Washington, only Seward and Bates had been formally offered posts. After the McClure-Curtin faction withdrew their objection, Cameron was a.s.sured of a place and Pennsylvanians insisted that he must head the Treasury Department. But there was a mounting cry for Chase to have that appointment. To settle the controversy Lincoln sought the advice of the Republican senators. Sending for them in alphabetical order, he asked their preferences for Secretary of the Treasury. Of the nineteen who responded, five wasted their votes on Dayton and James F. Simmons, a justly forgotten senator from Rhode Island; three cast votes for Cameron; and eleven favored Chase. With that, Lincoln had a mandate, and he offered the Treasury Department to Chase. Cameron was given a choice of the War Department or the Interior Department and rather grumpily chose the former. The appointment suggested how far Lincoln was from thinking about a war.