Lincoln Part 44

While Lincoln was trying to establish his control over the Army of the Potomac, he also sought to give a new direction to public opinion. Up to this point he had largely accepted the traditional view that the President, once elected, had no direct dealings with the public. His job was to administer the government and to report his actions and wishes to the Congress. Presidents rarely left the capital city, except for brief vacations; they almost never made public addresses; and they maintained, in theory, a sublime indifference to public opinion and political pressures.

Like many other self-made men, Lincoln was very conventional and hesitated to break this tradition. It never occurred to him to go in person before Congress and read his eloquent messages, for that was something that had not been done since Jefferson's day. Though occasionally he would say a few words at a Union rally in Washington, he knew that he was not good at extemporaneous speaking and rarely made any public appearances outside the White House. His one innovation had been to maintain an open house at the Executive Mansion, during which as many of the curious and the complainers, the office-seekers and the favor-hunters, as wanted to wait in line had an opportunity to speak with the President.

Though that kind of openness certainly did not injure him in public esteem, it did little to get his message across to the people, and by midsummer of 1863 it was desperately important that the administration's policies should be understood. On no issue was this need so great as on the abrogation of civil liberties. Curtailment of the freedom of speech and of the press, arrests of dissenters and the disloyal-always called "arbitrary arrests" by his opponents-and, above all, suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus deeply troubled many Americans. Of course, the Peace Democrats vigorously protested against these measures, and, after the arrest and trial of Vallandigham, many of the War Democrats joined them. But they were not alone. Within the President's own party a Conservative like his friend Browning believed that the arrests ordered by the Lincoln administration "were illegal and arbitrary, and did more harm than good, weakening instead of strengthening the government." The Radical Lyman Trumbull agreed that "all arbitrary arrests of citizens by military authority ... are unwarrantable, and are doing much injury, and that if they continue unchecked the civil tribunals will be completely subordinated to the military, and the government overthrown." Even in the President's own cabinet, Gideon Welles lamented "that our military officers should, without absolute necessity, disregard those great principles on which our government and inst.i.tutions rest." Most dangerous of all was the growing sentiment in the army that, as one Ma.s.sachusetts soldier wrote his family, the President, "without the people having any legal means to prevent it, is only prevented from exercising a Russian despotism by the fear he may have of shocking too much the sense of decency of the whole world."

Aware of the widespread public unhappiness, Lincoln grew restive at remaining a prisoner of the White House. For a time he considered attending a huge July 4 celebration planned for Philadelphia, where he could for the first time since his inauguration have a chance to speak directly to the public, but Lee's impending invasion of Pennsylvania put an end to that idea. The favorable reception of his public letters to friends of the Union cause in Manchester and London suggested another way he could explain to the people why he had found it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. As ideas came to him that "seemed to have force and make perfect answer to some of the things that were said and written" about his actions, he jotted them down on sc.r.a.ps of paper and put them in a drawer. When the appropriate time came, he could put together these disconnected thoughts in a public letter.

The protest of a group of New York Democrats against the arrest of Vallandigham gave him the opportunity for which he had been waiting. Headed by Erastus Corning, president of the New York Central Railroad, the meeting adopted resolutions strongly condemning the arrest and trial of Vallandigham as a "blow... against the spirit of our laws and Const.i.tution" and an abrogation of "the liberty of speech and of the press, the right of trial by jury, the law of evidence, and the privilege of habeas corpus." If sustained by the President, the arrest and banishment would strike "a fatal blow at the supremacy of law, and the authority of the State and Federal Const.i.tutions."

When a copy of the resolutions reached Lincoln, he realized that his enemies had been delivered into his hands. The signers of the Albany protest were not, apart from Corning himself, persons of much political influence, nor were they supporters of the Union cause whose loyalty was being tested by the Vallandigham case. Instead, they were obscure local Democratic politicians, who made their partisanship clear by including a gratuitous complimentary reference to Governor Horatio Seymour in the resolutions. The whole affair, as one White House intimate judged, had "the stinking aroma of party politics," and the protesters, with "no defined idea of moulding the present state of things into a sane unity," wanted either "to run the machine independently of the President, or to bully him into their notions."

Drawing on the notes he had collected in his drawer, Lincoln took exceptional care in preparing his response, although he said he "put that paper together in less time than any other of like importance ever prepared by me" because he had already given too much thought to the subject. On June 5 he took the unusual precaution of reading his proposed response to the members of the cabinet, and Gideon Welles noted, "It has vigor and ability and with some corrections will be a strong paper." By June 12 he had revised and polished his letter, and he sent it off to Corning that day-with a copy to the influential New York Tribune.

Lincoln's public letter began disarmingly with praise for the Albany protesters' "eminently patriotic" statement that they favored sustaining the Union and would uphold the administration in all const.i.tutional measures. That left the question whether the military arrests and subsequent trials, for which the President was "ultimately responsible," were const.i.tutional. Willingly Lincoln conceded that in normal times these would be violations of const.i.tutionally guaranteed rights, but he pointed out that the Const.i.tution itself provided for the suspension of these liberties "in cases of Rebellion or Invasion, [when] the public Safety may require it." Clearly the United States now faced a rebellion, "clear, flagrant, and gigantic," so that public safety did require suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. "Thoroughly imbued with a reverence for the guarranteed rights of individuals," Lincoln explained that he had been "slow to adopt the strong measures" of his administration, and he predicted that "the time [was] not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too many."

Turning directly to the protesters' objection that Vallandigham had been arrested far from any insurrection and outside any military lines, Lincoln bluntly replied that the suspension of civil liberties was "const.i.tutional wherever the public safety does require them." Vallandigham, he pointed out, was not jailed because he was a political opponent of the administration or of the commanding general, Burnside, but "because he was damaging the army, upon the existence, and vigor of which, the life of the nation depends."

Then, in his most effective paragraph, the President noted that even his Albany pet.i.tioners had to recognize his right and duty to sustain the armies by punishing desertion, even with the death penalty. "Must I shoot a simpleminded soldier boy who deserts," he asked, "while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert?"

Finally, Lincoln rejected the argument that the precedent set by military arrests during the rebellion would be followed in the peaceful postwar future. This argument, he suggested, was like saying "that a man could contract so strong an appet.i.te for emetics during temporary illness, as to persist in feeding upon them through the remainder of his healthful life."

Lincoln considered his letter to Corning the best state paper he had written up to that time, and public response confirmed his feeling. If it did nothing to convince the disloyal or the more extreme among the Peace Democrats, it rea.s.sured Unionists genuinely troubled by an a.s.sumption of despotic power on the part of the President. Lincoln's low-key announcement that he regretted the arrest of Vallandigham-or, as he carefully phrased it, that he was "pained that there should have seemed to be a necessity for arresting him"-and his promise to discharge the congressman "so soon as... the public safety will not suffer by it" undercut charges of presidential tyranny and gave credence to his statement to a White House visitor that he was more of a "Chief Clerk" than a "Despot." If Lincoln's letter was-perhaps by intention-not an overwhelming, technical defense of the const.i.tutionality of his actions, it was a clear demonstration of their necessity. Its lasting impact could be measured by the fact that henceforth Clement L. Vallandigham would always be stigmatized as "a wiley agitator."

Proud of his letter, Lincoln had copies printed and sent out under Nicolay's frank to leading Republicans. Their response was enthusiastic. "The right word has at last been spoken by the right man, at the right time, and from the right place," rejoiced John W. Forney of the Washington Chronicle. "It will thrill the whole land." It was "one of your best state Papers," judged former Governor E. D. Morgan, and another New Yorker considered it "of more value to the cause we all have at heart than a victory." Praising the letter as "felicitous and timely," Roscoe Conkling, defeated in the recent congressional contest, recognized the value of the doc.u.ment in the upcoming New York elections, where he thought it made "the best campaign doc.u.ment we can have in this state." Published in the New York Tribune, reissued as a pamphlet, and given further distribution as a publication of the Loyal Publication Society, at least 500,000 copies of the Corning letter were read by 10,000,000 people.

So successful was Lincoln's first attempt to reach out directly to the people that he lost no time in following it with a second public letter, this time addressed to Matthew Birchard and other delegates to the Ohio state Democratic convention who came to the White House in order to protest Vallandigham's arrest, trial, and banishment. Ohio Governor David Tod wanted Lincoln to treat these visitors "with the contempt they richly merit." Secretary Chase, who understood the intricacies of Ohio politics, urged him to respond to the delegation in writing. Aware that the Ohio Democrats had just chosen Vallandigham as their gubernatorial candidate, even though he was a convicted lawbreaker now in exile, Lincoln issued a hard-hitting statement. Vallandigham, he bluntly a.s.serted, was responsible "personally, in a greater degree than... any other one man," for the desertions from the army, the resistance to the draft, and even the a.s.sa.s.sination of Unionists. By endorsing him the Ohio delegation was itself encouraging "desertion, resistance to the draft and the like." He concluded by promising to allow Vallandigham to return to the country providing that each member of the delegation would sign a pledge to "do all he can to have the officers, soldiers, and seamen of the army and navy... paid, fed, clad, and otherwise well provided and supported."

The refusal of the Ohio Democrats to accept his offer, considering it a "sacrifice of their dignity and self respect," simply confirmed Lincoln's message to the people that his administration was exercising exceptional powers only in the interest of self-preservation.

III

Self-preservation also dictated a change in the command of the Army of the Potomac. As Lee moved across the Potomac, Hooker closely followed, offering an effective screen for Washington and Baltimore and keeping his troops in readiness for a major combat on Northern soil. But as usual, he resisted accepting suggestions or orders. Lincoln, who saw in the Confederate invasion "the best opportunity we have had since the war began," wanted to maintain a sizable garrison at Harpers Ferry, where, to the left and the rear of the Confederate advance, it might compel Lee to divide his forces-as he had been obliged to do in the Antietam campaign. Then Hooker could deliver the devastating defeat to the Army of Northern Virginia that McClellan had failed to inflict in September 1862. But Hooker believed in the military doctrine of concentration of force and insisted that Harpers Ferry be abandoned. When Halleck ordered him to sustain that garrison, Hooker resigned-a.s.suming, no doubt, that on the eve of a major battle his resignation would be rejected.

It was not. Ignoring the widespread outcry for the recall of McClellan, Lincoln on June 28 replaced Hooker with George Gordon Meade, one of the most experienced corps commanders of the Army of the Potomac, who had been in every major engagement since the first battle of Bull Run. Tall, thin, and bespectacled, Meade was not a charismatic leader; he looked, a Ma.s.sachusetts soldier reported, like "a good sort of a family doctor." But he was well organized and highly professional, and he had the respect, if not necessarily the affection, of his men.

As Meade took command and followed Lee into Pennsylvania, Lincoln showed how much he had learned from his dealings with Hooker. To this new commander went no fatherly notes of admonition, no folksy advice about strategy. Indeed, he wrote to Meade not at all but made his wishes known only through Halleck. The President devoted his energies to raising new troops to reinforce Meade's army, in order to protect the crossings of the Susquehanna River and other routes that led to Philadelphia, and to calming the excited officials of Pennsylvania and New Jersey who feared their states were in the way of the Confederate advance.

Lincoln's attention was not focused solely on the Army of the Potomac, for he kept a close eye on Grant's campaign against Vicksburg. The President had never tried to direct Grant's strategy; the distances were too great for the army on the Mississippi to be managed from Washington. But he thought that Grant should bypa.s.s Vicksburg, go south and join forces with N. P. Banks, who was advancing up the Mississippi River from Louisiana. Instead, Grant plunged into the interior of Mississippi, defeated Confederate forces in a series of engagements, and pushed John C. Pemberton's army back into Vicksburg. During much of this campaign Grant told no one of his plans and seemed simply to have disappeared. Failing to reach him by letter or telegram, Lincoln desperately sought for news of his army from reports in the Confederate newspapers. "Do the Richmond papers have anything about... Vicksburg?" he wired General John A. Dix at Fort Monroe. "Have you any thing from Grant?" he telegraphed to General Rosecrans at Murfreesboro.

As news slowly filtered in, he began to get a better idea of Grant's campaign, and by the time the Union army put the Confederates under siege in Vicksburg, he could understand both the boldness and the skill of his general. "Whether Gen. Grant shall or shall not consummate the capture of Vicksburg," he wrote a complainer on May 26, "his campaign from the beginning of this month up to the twenty second day of it, is one of the most brilliant in the world."

Even so, as the siege of Vicksburg stretched on through June, he worried constantly about Grant and his army. Carefully he scrutinized Confederate newspapers, which carried reports-all erroneous-that Sherman had been seriously wounded during the siege, that Banks had lost an arm in his campaign for Port Hudson, that Confederate General Edmund Kirby-Smith was bringing reinforcements from the trans-Mississippi region to relieve Vicksburg. Because there was always the danger that the Confederates might draw troops from another arena to a.s.sist Pemberton, Lincoln vainly urged Rosecrans, in Tennessee, to do his "utmost, short of rashness, to keep Bragg from getting off to help [Joseph E.] Johnston against Grant."

Under the enormous strain of worry about two armies poised for decisive battle, the President's health began to suffer. He had a nightmare about Tad, who had accompanied his mother on a shopping trip to Philadelphia. His "ugly dream" featured the pistol he had permitted the boy to have-"big enough to snap caps-but no cartridges or powder"-and he wired Mary: "Think you better put 'Tad's' pistol away." A visitor found the President's face told a story of anxiety and weariness, noting "the drooping eyelids, looking almost swollen; the dark bags beneath the eyes; the deep marks about the large and expressive mouth."

Then, on July 4, finally came the news that Lincoln had so long awaited. Staying close to the telegraph office in the War Department, he learned of a great and b.l.o.o.d.y battle that had been fought during the three previous days at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Though details were lacking, it appeared that Lee had been defeated and was retreating. Jubilantly the President issued a press release from the War Department announcing this "great success to the cause of the Union" and urging "that on this day, He whose will, not ours, should ever be done, be everywhere remembered and reverenced with profoundest grat.i.tude." Three days later Secretary Welles received a dispatch from Admiral David Dixon Porter announcing the fall of Vicksburg and rushed to the White House with the news. His face beaming with joy, Lincoln caught Welles's hand and, throwing his arm around him, exclaimed: "What can we do for the Secretary of the Navy for this glorious intelligence? ... I cannot, in words, tell you my joy over this result. It is great, Mr. Welles, it is great!"

For a few days in early July it seemed that the end of the war was at hand. With the fall of Vicksburg, where Pemberton surrendered his army of 30,000, and Port Hudson (July 8), the Mississippi, from Cairo to New Orleans, was once more in Union hands. The fleet, now under Admiral Dahlgren, who succeeded Admiral Du Pont on July 6, was slowly battering Charleston to rubble. And in the East, Meade had to fight just one more battle to destroy Lee's army, which was trapped between the advancing Army of the Potomac and the Potomac River, swollen with summer rains.

But Meade did not advance swiftly and, after a council of war with his senior generals, postponed an attack. Lee escaped into Virginia. Never was Lincoln so disappointed and so furious. "If I had gone up there, I could have whipped them myself," he exclaimed. "Our army held the war in the hollow of their hand and they would not close it," he fumed. He took special offense at a dispatch of Meade's praising his army for "driving the invader from our soil." "The whole country is our soil," he insisted, and he feared that Meade's purpose was not to defeat Lee but "to get the enemy across the river again without a further collision." His anger did not fade quickly. Weeks later he expressed deep mortification that Lee's army had not been destroyed. "Meade and his army had expended their skill and toil and blood up to the ripe harvest," he grieved, "and then allowed it to go to waste."

From the depths of his unhappiness he wrote a bitter letter to Meade, expressing grat.i.tude for his "magnificent success" at Gettysburg but lamenting: "My dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely... . Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasureably because of it."

Then, characteristically, he did not sign or send the letter. As he cooled down, he came to recognize that he was expecting too much of Meade. At the time the battle of Gettysburg began, Meade had been in command of the Army of the Potomac for only four days, and he was working with new and untried subordinates. His army had suffered enormous losses during the three days of battle, and some of its ablest and most aggressive generals were dead or wounded. Meade himself was exhausted. As he wrote his wife on July 8, "Now over ten days, I have not changed my clothes, have not had a regular night's rest, and many nights not a wink of sleep, and for several days did not even wash my face and hands, no regular food, and all the time in a great state of mental anxiety." It was asking too much of him to attack Robert E. Lee.

Lincoln withheld his letter-though he permitted Halleck to wire that the escape of Lee's army had "created great dissatisfaction in the mind of the President." Meade promptly submitted his resignation, and Halleck was forced to backtrack, saying that his telegram "was not intended as a censure, but as a stimulus to an active pursuit."

By this time Lincoln had recovered his equanimity and could speak of Meade "as a brave and skillful officer, and a true man," who was responsible for the success at Gettysburg. Indeed the President's spirits were so high that he composed a doggerel, "Gen. Lees invasion of the North written by himself," which he gave to John Hay:

In eighteen sixty three, with pomp,

and mighty swell,

Me and Jeff's Confederacy, went

forth to sack Phil-del,

The Yankees they got arter us, and

giv us particular h.e.l.l,

And we skedaddled back again,

and didn't sack Phil-del.

IV

In the next few weeks Lincoln had need of his good humor. On July 2, Mary Lincoln, who had come back from Philadelphia, had a carriage accident while returning alone to the White House from the presidential cottage at the Soldiers' Home, an elevated spot three miles from the capital, where the Lincolns sought relief from the oppressive Washington heat. Someone, probably in the hope of injuring the President, had unscrewed the bolts to the driver's seat in her carriage, and when it became detached, the horses grew frightened and ran away. Mary was thrown out and hit her head on a sharp rock. Initially it seemed that she had only received severe bruises, and the President telegraphed Robert: "Dont be uneasy. Your mother very slightly hurt by her fall." But the wound became infected, and for three weeks she required round-the-clock nursing. After this accident Mary's headaches, of which she had long complained, became more frequent, and Robert thought she never fully recovered from her fall.