Team Of Rivals Part 43

Later that afternoon, Lincoln wrote a frank letter to General Meade. While expressing his profound grat.i.tude for "the magnificent success" at Gettysburg, he acknowledged that he was "distressed immeasurably" by "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." Before sending the letter, which he knew would leave Meade disconsolate, Lincoln held back, as he often did when he was upset or angry, waiting for his emotions to settle. In the end, he placed the letter in an envelope inscribed: "To Gen. Meade, never sent, or signed."

Lincoln later told Connecticut congressman Henry C. Deming that Meade's failure to attack Lee after Gettysburg was one of three occasions when "better management upon the part of the commanding general might have terminated the war." The other two command failures he attributed to McClellan during the Peninsula Campaign and Hooker at Chancellorsville. Still, he acknowledged, "I do not know that I could have given any different orders had I been with them myself. I have not fully made up my mind how I should behave when minie-b.a.l.l.s were whistling, and those great oblong sh.e.l.ls shrieking in my ear. I might run away."

Troubling events in New York City soon diverted the nation's attention. For weeks, authorities had worried about the potential for violence on July 11. On that date, the names of all the men eligible for the first draft in American history would be placed in a giant wheel and drawn randomly until the prescribed quota was filled. The unpopular idea of coercing men to become soldiers had provided traction for Copperhead politicians. Speaking on July 4, Governor Seymour had told an immense crowd that the federal government had exceeded its const.i.tutional authority by forcing men into an "unG.o.dly conflict" waged on behalf of the black man. The antagonistic Daily News, read by the majority of working-cla.s.s Irish, claimed that the purpose of the draft was to "kill off Democrats."

A provision in the Conscription Act that allowed a draftee to either pay $300 or provide a subst.i.tute provoked further discontent. Both Stanton and Lincoln had objected to this feature of the bill, but Congress had insisted. Opponents of the draft gained powerful ammunition that this was "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight." Still, the first day of the draft proceeded peacefully, leaving the city woefully unprepared for the violent uprising that accompanied the spinning of the wheel on the second day. "Scarcely had two dozen names been called," the New York Times reported, "when a crowd, numbering perhaps 500," stormed the building "with clubs, stones, brickbats and other missiles." Entering through the broken windows, they stoned the drafting officers, smashed the giant wheel, shredded the lists and records, and then set the building on fire.

Returning to the street, the mob, composed mainly of poor Irish immigrants, turned its vengeance against anyone it encountered. "It seemed to be an understood thing," the Times reporter noted, "that the negroes should be attacked wherever found, whether they offered any provocation or not. As soon as one of these unfortunate people was spied, whether on a cart, a railroad car, or in the street, he was immediately set upon by a crowd of men and boys." Terror unfolded as the rioters beat their victims to death and then strung their bodies on trees. An orphanage for black children was burned to the ground, hundreds of stores were looted, and dozens of policemen lost their lives. More than a thousand people were killed or wounded.

The riots continued unchecked for five days, becoming "the all engrossing topic of conversation" in Washington. The inability of the authorities to restore law and order prompted Chase to announce his desire to "have the power for a week." The mob violence finally ended when a regiment of soldiers, returning from Pennsylvania, entered the city. Although some advised Lincoln to suspend the draft indefinitely, he insisted that it go forward.

The turmoil in New York created foreboding throughout the North as other cities prepared to commence their own drafts. In the days preceding Auburn's draft on July 23, Frances Seward lived "in daily apprehension of a riot." In frequent letters to her husband, she reported that Copperheads were spreading "malicious stories" blaming Seward's "higher law" for the riots in New York. Tensions in Auburn escalated when several Irishmen fought with blacks, resisted arrest, and threatened to destroy the Seward home. Frances awoke one morning to find that a large rock had been thrown into the room where she regularly sat to read. After discovering the damage, she advised her daughter-in-law to remove anything she considered valuable. "So that afternoon," Jenny recalled, "I took my husband's photograph down to my mother's house, it being, to my mind, the most valuable thing that I possessed."

From Washington, Seward sought to placate his wife. "Do not give yourself a thought about the house. There will hardly be any body desperate enough to do you personal harm, and if the country, in its unwonted state of excitement, will destroy our home, the sacrifice will be a small one for our country, and not without benefit." Frances persevered, retaining her calm during these difficult days, as she had done years before during the trial of William Freeman. "As to personal injury," she told her husband, "I fear more for the poor colored people than for others-They cannot protect themselves and few persons are willing to a.s.sist them."

On the morning of Auburn's draft, Frances reported to her son Fred that while everyone was "somewhat anxious," she was feeling "more secure" since the local citizenry had organized a volunteer police force. The New York Times reported the successful results of the efforts in Auburn. "The best of order was observed and the best spirit was manifested" by the two thousand citizens who had gathered to witness the draft. As local officials addressed patriotic speeches to the crowd, the drafted men cheered for "The Union," "Old Abe," "The Draft," and "Our recent victories."

Even before such rea.s.suring accounts reached him, Seward had predicted that the disturbances in New York, like a "thunder shower," would "clear the political skies, of the storms" that the Copperheads had been "gathering up a long time." His words proved prescient, for when the loss of life and property was tallied in the wake of the New York riots, public opinion turned against Governor Seymour. His incendiary Fourth of July speech was seen by many as a direct "incitement to the people to resist the government." John Hay learned from a visiting New Yorker that Seymour was "in a terrible state of nervous excitement," precipitated "both by the terrible reminiscence of the riots" and the virulent condemnation by the press for his handling of the situation. The news that Seymour had "lost ground immensely with a large number of the best men" engendered great satisfaction in the Lincoln administration. And when the draft was eventually resumed in New York City, everything went smoothly.

"The nation is great, brave, and generous," Seward confidently told Frances. "All will go on well, and though not without the hindrance of faction at every step, yet it will go through to the right and just end. How differently the nation has acted, thus far in the crisis, from what it did in 1850 to 1860!"

Within twenty-four distressing hours, the president had learned of both Lee's escape and the disgraceful riots in New York. Nonetheless, he was able to shake off his gloom within a matter of days. On Sunday morning, July 19, Hay reported that the "President was in very good humour." He had written a humorous verse mocking the "pomp, and mighty swell" with which Lee had gone forth to "sack Phil-del." While he remained fully cognizant of the consequences of Lee's escape, he had willed himself to reconsider his outlook on General Meade and the Battle of Gettysburg. "A few days having pa.s.sed," he a.s.sured one of Meade's commanding generals, "I am now profoundly grateful for what was done, without criticism for what was not done. Gen. Meade has my confidence as a brave and skillful officer, and a true man."

Oddly enough, Lincoln's good spirits that Sunday morning were due in part to the six straight hours he had spent with Hay the previous day reviewing one hundred courts-martial. Whereas the young secretary was "in a state of entire collapse" after the ordeal, Lincoln found relief and renewed vigor as he exercised the power to pardon. As they went through the cases, Hay marveled "at the eagerness with which the President caught at any fact which would justify him in saving the life of a condemned soldier."

Confronted with soldiers who had been sentenced to death for cowardice, Lincoln typically reduced the sentence to imprisonment or hard labor. "It would frighten the poor devils too terribly, to shoot them," he said. One case involved a private who was sentenced to be shot for desertion though he had later re-enlisted. Lincoln simply proposed, "Let him fight instead of shooting him." Lincoln acknowledged to General John Eaton that some of his officers believed he employed the pardoning power "with so much freedom as to demoralize the army and destroy the discipline." Although "officers only see the force of military discipline," he explained, he tried to comprehend it from the vantage of individual soldiers-a picket so exhausted that "sleep steals upon him unawares," a family man who overstayed his leave, a young boy "overcome by a physical fear greater than his will." He liked to tell of a soldier who, when asked why he had run away, said: "Well, Captain, it was not my fault. I have got just as brave a heart as Julius [Caesar] but these legs of mine will always run away with me when the battle begins."

Rather than fearing that he had overused his pardoning power, Lincoln feared he had made too little use of it. He could not bear the sound of gunshot on the days when deserters were executed. Only "where meanness or cruelty were shown" did he exhibit no clemency.

Yet even as he plowed through one court-martial after another, Lincoln's humor remained intact. At one point, he was handed the case of a captain charged with "looking thro keyholes & over transoms at a lady undressing." He laughingly suggested that the captain "be elevated to the peerage" so that he could be accorded the appropriate t.i.tle "Count Peeper."

THE SUMMER OF 1863 brought the hottest weather Washington had suffered in many years. "Men and horses dropping dead in the streets every day," Hay reported to Nicolay, who had escaped to the Rocky Mountains. "The garments cling to the skin," one resident observed, "shirt collars are laid low; moisture oozes from every object, standing in clammy exudation upon iron, marble, wood, and human flesh; the air is pervaded with a faint odor as of withered bouquets and dead mint juleps, and the warm steam of a home washing day is over everything."

Stanton found the "hot, dusty weather, the most disagreeable" he had ever experienced. "Burning sun all day, sultry at night." Ellen Stanton had escaped with her children for the summer, leaving her husband alone in Washington. Writing to her at a mountain retreat in Bedford, Pennsylvania, Stanton acknowledged that "all is silent and lonely, but there is consolation in knowing that you and the children are free from the oppressive heat and discomfort of Washington."

"Nearly everybody except the members of the unfortunate Can't-getaway Club has gone to the seaside or countryside," Noah Brooks reported. "Truly the season is one of languor, la.s.situde, and laziness," and even "the reporters have nearly all followed the example of better men and have likewise skeddadled from the heat."

As soon as Mary felt well enough to travel, she, too, fled the capital with both Tad and Robert, commencing a two-month sojourn in New York, Philadelphia, and the White and Green Mountains. The cool breezes of New Hampshire and Vermont would prove beneficial to young Tad, whose health remained fragile, while the lure of a resort hotel in the mountains kept Robert by her side through most of August. A correspondent who caught up with her at "Tiptop," Mount Washington, was delighted with her "very easy, agreeable" manner and her "very fair, cheerful, smiling face."

Only a dozen short telegrams between the Lincolns remain from that summer. In these brief communications, Lincoln talked about the heat, shared news of the Kentucky elections, and asked her to let "dear Tad" know that his nanny goat had run away and left his father "in distress about it." Only in mid-September, as the time drew near for Mary's return, did Lincoln admit that he had missed her, repeating in two separate telegrams his eagerness to be reunited with her and with Tad. Mary understood that he was "not given to letter writing," and so long as she was a.s.sured of his good health, she remained content.

The Lincolns' undemonstrative communications stand in marked contrast to the effusive letters the Sewards exchanged all summer, openly sharing their feelings about the family, the war, and the country. "I wish I could gain from some other source the confidence with which you inspire me when I am with you," Frances told her husband. "I need it in these disastrous times.... The loyalty of the people is now to be put to the test." Seward urged her to be calm and confident: "Every day since the war broke out we have drawn on the people for a thousand men, and they have gone to the field." To her husband, Frances acknowledged that while the country rejoiced over the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, she despaired when she "read the lists of killed & wounded." Only with Frances could the stalwart Seward reveal his own distress, confusion, and exhaustion.

While Lincoln spent hours writing letters to keep generals and politicians on an even keel, he apparently never found the solace Seward and Chase took in their extensive family correspondence. Nor did his wife and children write regularly. Tad, a slow learner, may not have developed the skill to easily compose letters. Robert, then entering his junior year at Harvard, surely was capable of penning descriptions of his days in the mountains. Very different in temperament, Lincoln and his eldest son never seemed to develop a close relationship. During Robert's childhood, Lincoln had been absent for months at a time, traveling the circuits of both politics and law. At sixteen, Robert entered boarding school in New Hampshire, and he was a student at Harvard when his father became president. "Thenceforth," Robert noted sadly, "any great intimacy between us became impossible. I scarcely even had ten minutes quiet talk with him during his Presidency, on account of his constant devotion to business."

For Lincoln, it was enough to know that his wife and sons were happily ensconced at the Equinox House in Manchester, Vermont, then considered "a primary summer resort," providing access to fishing, nature walks, gardens, swimming holes, concerts, croquet, archery, and excellent dining facilities. During the visit, Mary climbed a mountain, socialized with General Doubleday and his wife, and enjoyed the clear, refreshing air.

KATE CHASE WOULD REMEMBER the summer of 1863 less for its record-breaking heat than for her rekindled romance with William Sprague, elected earlier in the year to the U.S. Senate. When the young millionaire came to Washington to take his seat, he called on Kate, and their troubled past was soon forgotten. "We did again join hands, and again join fortunes," Sprague later said. In early May, Sprague invited Kate to visit his estate in Providence, Rhode Island, so that she would meet his family and see his immense manufacturing company. Running at full tilt, the company's 10,000 employees could turn out "35,000 pieces of print-cloth" weekly, with the 280,000 spindles and 28 printing machines in the factories. "I want to show you how to make calico from cotton," he told Kate. "You are a statesman's daughter, will doubtless be a statesman's wife, and who if not you, should know how things are done, not how only they are undone or destroyed."

Shortly after they returned to Washington, Sprague asked Chase for Kate's hand in marriage. "The Gov and Miss Kate have consented to take me into their fold," Sprague proudly reported to a friend in New York. Sprague's adoration for Kate is clear from the flood of letters he wrote during the first months of their engagement. "The business which takes my time, my attention, my heart, my all," he wrote, "is of a certain young lady who has become so entwined in every pulsation, that my former self has lost its ident.i.ty." Without her, he confessed, his life seemed "a wilderness, a blank." He kept her miniature by his side and waited for her return letters "as a drowning man [seizing] at anything to sustain him." A five-day separation seemed "an age" to him, so "strong a hold" had she gained upon his heart. Even when they were both in Washington, he sent her loving notes from his room at the Willard Hotel. "I am my darling up & in sympathy with the sunshine," he wrote early one morning. And another morning, "I hope my darling you are up feeling fresh and happy. Knowing that you are so is happiness to me. I kiss you good morning and adieu."

Kate's attachment to Sprague, however, did not indicate a readiness to leave her father. Nor was Chase, despite his claims, prepared to relinquish his hold on Kate. The impending marriage set in motion a curious series of machinations as to where the young couple should reside. Still harboring the illusory hope that closer proximity to Lincoln would beget greater influence, Chase opened the discussion by suggesting that Kate and William "take the house just as it is and let me find a place suited to my purpose nearer the Presidents." He a.s.sured Sprague that he was not among those fathers "who wish to retain the love & duty of daughters even in larger measure that they are given to their husbands." On the contrary, he wrote, "I want to have Katie honor & love you with an honor & love far exceeding any due to me."

Kate, however, was not persuaded by such protestations. She thought her father would be lost without her daily devotions and her consummate grace in orchestrating his social life. Under her supervision, the parties at the Chase mansion had become legendary. "Probably no woman in American history has had as brilliant a social career," one journalist observed of Kate. "Even the achievements of Dolly Madison pale into insignificance compared with her successes." f.a.n.n.y Seward considered herself lucky to receive an invitation to one of Kate's parties. "Scarcely a person there whom it was not a pleasure to meet," she bubbled. "I don't know whether it was Miss Chase being so charming herself that made the party pa.s.s so pleasantly, but I think so sweet a presence must have lent a charm to the whole."

Unwilling to abandon her role in forwarding Chase's dreams, Kate persuaded William that they should all reside under the same roof. Approaching her father, she insisted that both she and William desired a united household. Though Chase had undoubtedly longed for this very arrangement, he made a show of reluctantly abandoning his "idea of taking a house or apartment near the Presidents" to suit their wishes. "Life is short and uncertain and I am not willing to do anything which will grieve my children," he wrote. "So I yield the point." They agreed that Chase would continue to pay the rent and the servants while William would cover the food and entertainment, a.s.sume half the stable expenses, and renovate the house to suit the needs of both a senator and a cabinet official.

Recognizing "the delicate link which has so long united father & daughter," Sprague wisely decided to "respect and honor" their relationship. "I am not afraid that the tenacious affection of a daughter will detract from that she owes to one she accepts for her life companion," he wrote Kate. "I am not so silly as not to see & feel that it is a surer garuantee of a more permanent and enduring love." While he bristled at the discovery that Kate allowed her father to read all of Sprague's letters to her, he was gratified by the praise his writing drew from the ever critical Chase. "Katie showed me yesterday your letters to her," Chase told William, "and I cannot refrain from telling you how much they delighted me." Making no mention of misspellings or grammatical mistakes, as he usually did with Kate and Nettie, Chase a.s.sured Sprague that the "manly affection breathed in them satisfied me that I had not given my daughter to one [who] did not fully appreciate her, or to whom she could not give the full wealth of her affections."

For Chase, William's desire to a.s.sume "as much of the pecuniary burden as possible" was timely, indeed. The engagement allowed him to divest himself of his financial ties to the Cooke brothers, whose private loans and gifts had a.s.sisted him over the years. Recent months had brought mounting criticism over the virtual monopoly the Cookes enjoyed in the lucrative sale of Treasury bonds, but Chase had not felt free to dispense with the arrangement. On June 1, however, he informed Jay Cooke that his compensation for the sale of the bonds would henceforth be reduced. "I have a duty to the country to perform," he sanctimoniously wrote, "which forbids me to pay rates which will not be approved by all right-minded men." The following day, he returned a check for $4,200 that he had received from Cooke as profit on the sale of a stock that he had not paid for. "In order to be able to render most efficient service to our country it is essential for me to be right as well as seem right & to seem right as well as be right."

Late in July, Chase joined Kate and Nettie for a few days' vacation in Rhode Island, where Sprague had secured rooms near the sh.o.r.e at South Pier. With a carriage provided by Sprague and good dining in the resort hotels on Narragansett Bay, the hardworking secretary relaxed for the first time in months. Leaving the girls at the seash.o.r.e, he returned to Washington on August 7. Alone in the big house, he complained to Nettie that his only companion was their dog, Nellie, who "comes to see me every evening after dinner and puts her nose up in my face in a sort of sympathetic way." A sullen irritability is evident in his letters to both girls that summer. He chastised Nettie for her "somewhat ragged looking letter," pointing out how much her carelessness pained him, and he reprimanded Kate for failing to inform him when she borrowed money for the vacation expenses.

In his loneliness, Chase resumed a warm correspondence with Charlotte Eastman, the widow of a former congressman. Handsome and intelligent, she had enjoyed a sporadic friendship with Chase over the years. When the relationship had promised to develop into a romance, however, Kate had disapproved, going "so far as to intercept her letters." Chase had been unwilling to defy his daughter. Now, in Kate's absence, the two wrote to each other again. With inviting detail, Mrs. Eastman described her house on the Ma.s.sachusetts seash.o.r.e. She evinced little hope that Chase would join her, however. She suspected that her letters gave him "little satisfaction, as they can do but nothing to advance the object for which it seems to me you live for-Now shall I be frank? and perhaps offend you and tell you I am jealous! and of whom and what, of your Ambition and through that of yourself; for dont Ambition make the worshipper the G.o.d of his own idolatry?"

"What a sweet letter you have sent me," Chase replied from his desk at the Treasury. "I have read and reread it. What a charming picture you draw of the old house.... It made [me] half feel myself with you & quite wish to be.... I am so sorry that you & Katie-one so dear to me as a friend and the other as a daughter don't exactly jee." As for her remarks on his ambition, he acknowledged that he was, in fact, driven in ways that sometimes led him to neglect "duties of friendship & charity." She should understand, however, that he would always "try to direct my ambition to public ends and in honorable ways." It would amuse her to know, he concluded, how many times he had been interrupted while writing this letter, which he had to bring to a close in order to attend to the president.

While the heat enervated most of official Washington, Lincoln thrived on the long days, the relative freedom from office seekers, and the lack of family interference with his work. "The Tyc.o.o.n is in fine whack," John Hay reported on August 7. "I have rarely seen him more serene & busy. He is managing this war, the draft, foreign relations, and planning a reconstruction of the Union, all at once. I never knew with what tyrannous authority he rules the Cabinet, till now. The most important things he decides & there is no cavil. I am growing more and more firmly convinced that the good of the country absolutely demands that he should be kept where he is till this thing is over. There is no man in the country, so wise so gentle and so firm. I believe the hand of G.o.d placed him where he is."

With Mary out of town, Lincoln found John Hay a ready companion. Smart, energetic, and amusing, the twenty-five-year-old Hay had become far more intimately connected to the president than his own eldest son. Their conversation moved easily from linguistics to reconstruction, from Shakespeare to Artemus Ward. Hay had a good sense of humor and, according to William Stoddard, could "tell a story better than most boys of his age." Stoddard long recalled an occasion when he and Nicolay were rocked with laughter at one of Hay's humorous tales. Hearing the noise, Lincoln came to the door. "His feet had made no sound in coming over from his room, or our own racket had drowned any foot-fall, but here was the President." If the young secretaries feared that Lincoln would chastise them for the interruption, he quickly dissipated their concern. He sat down in a chair and demanded that Hay repeat his tale. When the story was done, "down came the President's foot from across his knee, with a heavy stamp on the floor, and out through the hall went an uproarious peal of fun."

On Sunday, August 9, Hay accompanied the president to Alexander Gardner's photo studio at the corner of Seventh and D streets. The pictures taken that day do not reflect what Hay characterized as the president's "very good spirits." Rigidly posed, with one hand on a book and the other at his waist, Lincoln was forced to endure the lengthy process of the photograph, which almost invariably produced a grim, unsmiling portrait. Subjects would be required to sit absolutely still while the photographer removed the cap from the lens to expose the picture. "Don't move a muscle!" the subject would be told, for the slightest twitch would blur the image. Moreover, since "contrived grinning in photographs had not yet become obligatory," many faces, like Lincoln's, took on a melancholy cast.

Lincoln retained his high spirits through much of the summer, buoyed by the thought that "the rebel power is at last beginning to disintegrate." In his diary, Hay described a number of pleasant outings, including an evening journey to the Observatory. They viewed the moon and the star Arcturus through a newly installed telescope before driving out to the Soldiers' Home, where Lincoln read Shakespeare to Hay-"the end of Henry VI and the beginning of Richard III till my heavy eye-lids caught his considerate notice & he sent me to bed."

The route Lincoln traveled to and from the Soldiers' Home took him down Vermont Avenue past the lodgings of Walt Whitman. "I see the President almost every day," Whitman wrote. "None of the artists or pictures has caught the deep, though subtle and indirect expression of this man's face. There is something else there. One of the great portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed." Whitman proudly noted that "we have got so that we exchange bows, and very cordial ones. Sometimes the President goes and comes in an open barouche. The cavalry always accompany him, with drawn sabers. Often I notice as he goes out evenings-and sometimes in the morning, when he returns early-he turns off and halts at the large and handsome residence of the Secretary of War, on K Street."

All summer, Stanton harbored hopes that he and Lincoln might escape to the mountains of Pennsylvania. "The President and I have been arranging to make a trip to Bedford," he told Ellen, "but something always turns up to keep him or me in Washington. He is so eager for it that I expect we shall accomplish it before the season is over." In fact, though Stanton finally joined his wife during the first week of September, Lincoln journeyed no farther that summer than the Soldiers' Home.

The president was rarely alone, however. In addition to Hay and Stanton, he could rely on Seward for good companionship. John Hay witnessed a typically wide-ranging conversation between them as the three rode to the Capitol on August 13 to view a sculptural work, The Progress of Civilization, recently installed in the eastern pediment of the north wing of the Capitol. The conversation opened on the topic of slavery, slipped back to the time of the Masons and anti-Masons, then turned to the Mexican War. Both Seward and Lincoln agreed that "one fundamental principle of politics is to be always on the side of your country in a war. It kills any party to oppose a war." As, indeed, Lincoln knew from his own experience in opposing the Mexican War.

The following day, Seward left for a two-week tour of upstate New York with foreign ministers, including those from England, France, Spain, Germany, and Russia. Seward had engineered the trip to counter the impression abroad that the lengthy war was starting to exhaust the resources of the North. With Seward as their guide, members of the diplomatic corps journeyed up the Hudson, stopping in Albany, Schenectady, and Coopers-town. They sailed on the Finger Lakes, visited Niagara Falls, and spent the night in Auburn, where they were joined by Seward's neighbors and friends for a picnic on the lake.

"All seemed to be enjoying themselves very much," Frances noted. Seward, extroverted as always, provided a sparkling commentary, excellent food, abundant drink, and good cheer. After months of tense wrangling over the status of the Confederacy, the European ministers saw a different side of Seward and enjoyed his easy camaraderie. "When one comes really to know him," Lord Lyons reported to Lord Russell, "one is surprised to find much to esteem and even to like in him."

More important, the tour allowed the skeptical ministers to witness the boundless resources of the North. "Hundreds of factories with whirring wheels," Fred Seward wrote, "thousands of acres of golden harvest fields, miles of railway trains, laden with freight, busy fleets on rivers, lakes and ca.n.a.ls"-all presaged the inevitable triumph of the Union. This clear perception of the Union's strength contributed to the successful resolution of a troubling controversy with Great Britain and France. Since the previous autumn, the administration had been bedeviled by knowledge that the Confederacy had contracts with European shipbuilders for armored vessels vastly superior to anything in the Union fleet. For months, Seward had coupled diplomatic efforts with strident warnings of war should the ironclads leave Europe. Not until September, several weeks after the diplomatic tour, did he receive trustworthy a.s.surances from the governments of England and France that the rams would not be delivered.

With Seward in upstate New York, Stanton in the mountains of Pennsylvania, Nicolay out west, and Hay setting out for a week's vacation in Long Branch, New Jersey, Lincoln was left in relative solitude. "The White House," Stoddard noted, "is deserted, save by our faithful and untiring Chief Magistrate, who, alone of all our public men, is always at his post." Notwithstanding, Stoddard observed, "he looks less careworn and emaciated than in the spring, as if, living only for his country, he found his own vigor keeping pace with the returning health of the nation."

CHAPTER 21

"I FEEL TROUBLE IN THE AIR"

THE SUMMER OF 1863 marked a crucial transformation in the Union war effort-the organization and deployment of black regiments that would eventually amount to 180,000 soldiers, a substantial proportion of eligible black males. The struggle to open the door for black recruits had finally ended when Lincoln's Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation flatly declared that blacks would "be received into the armed service of the United States." Three weeks later, Stanton authorized Ma.s.sachusetts governor John Andrew to raise two regiments of black troops. Since Ma.s.sachusetts had only a small black population, Andrew called on Major George L. Stearns to head a recruitment effort that would reach into New York and other Northern states. Stearns approached Frederick Dougla.s.s for help.