Team Of Rivals Part 49

It is not surprising that the theater offered ideal refreshment for a man who regularly employed storytelling to ease tensions. The theater held all the elements of a perfect escape. Enthralled by the live drama, the costumes and scenery, the stagecraft, and the rhetorical extravagances, he was transported into a realm far from the troubling events that filled the rest of his waking hours.

In the mid-nineteenth century, developments with gaslight had vastly improved the experience of theatergoers. Managers had learned "to dim or brighten illumination" by manipulating the valves that fed the gas to the jets. A setting sun, a full moon, or a misty evening could be achieved by placing "colored gla.s.s mantles" over the lamps. Technicians stationed above the balcony could illuminate individual actors as they made their entrance onto the stage.

"To envision nineteenth-century theater audiences correctly," the cultural historian Lawrence Levine suggests, "one might do well to visit a contemporary sporting event in which the spectators not only are similarly heterogeneous but are also...more than an audience; they are partic.i.p.ants who can enter into the action on the field, who feel a sense of immediacy and at times even of control, who articulate their opinions and feelings vocally and unmistakably." Though different cla.s.ses occupied different areas of the theater-the wealthy in the first-tier boxes, the working cla.s.s in the orchestra, and the poor in the balcony-the entire audience shared a fairly intimate s.p.a.ce. Indeed, Frances Trollope complained that in American theaters she encountered men without jackets, their sleeves rolled to their elbows, and their breath smelling of "onions and whiskey." Though Lincoln was seated in his presidential box, he could still enjoy the communal experience, which allowed him to feel the pulse of the people, much as he had done when he traveled the circuit in his early days.

The years surrounding the Civil War have been called the golden age of American acting. During those years, one historian claims, "the American theatre was blessed with a galaxy of performers who have never been excelled"-including Edwin Forrest, John McCullough, Edwin Booth, Laura Keene, and Charlotte Cushman. It was said of Miss Cushman, who was lionized in both Europe and America for her role as Lady Macbeth, that "she was not a great actress merely, but she was a great woman." She had a magnetic personality and "when she came upon the stage she filled it with...the brilliant vitality of her presence." A liberated woman, far ahead of her time, she had lovers but never married. Her work was her chief pa.s.sion.

Seward and Miss Cushman had met in the 1850s and become great friends. Whenever she was in Washington, she stayed at the Seward home. The celebrated actress forged a close relationship with young f.a.n.n.y, who idolized her. Miss Cushman offered a glimpse of the vital and independent life f.a.n.n.y hoped to lead someday, if her dream to become a writer came true. "Imagine me," f.a.n.n.y wrote her mother after one of Miss Cushman's visits, "full of the old literary fervor and anxious to be at work, to try hard-& at the same time 'learn to labor, & to wait' I mean, improve in the work which I cannot choose but take...I am full of hope that I may yet make my life worth the living and be of some use in the world."

In honor of the star guest, Seward organized a series of dinner parties, inviting members of foreign legations and cabinet colleagues. For her part, Miss Cushman regarded Seward as "the greatest man this country ever produced." f.a.n.n.y believed that Cushman understood her n.o.ble father better than almost anyone outside their family.

Fred Seward recalled that Lincoln made his way to their house almost every night while Miss Cushman visited. Seward had introduced Cushman to the president in the summer of 1861. She had hoped to ask Lincoln for help in obtaining a West Point appointment for a young friend, but the scintillating conversation distracted her from the purpose of her visit. And Lincoln was undoubtedly riveted by the celebrated actress of his beloved Shakespeare.

Unlike Seward, who had been attending theater since he was a young man, Lincoln had seen very few live performances until he came to Washington. So excited was he by his first sight of Falstaff on the stage that he wrote the actor, James Hackett: "Perhaps the best compliment I can pay is to say, as I truly can, I am very anxious to see it again." Although he had not read all of Shakespeare's plays, he told Hackett that he had studied some of them "perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are Lear, Richard Third, Henry Eighth, Hamlet, and especially Macbeth. I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is wonderful. Unlike you gentlemen of the profession, I think the soliloquy in Hamlet commencing 'O, my offence is rank' surpa.s.ses that commencing, 'To be, or not to be.' But pardon this small attempt at criticism." When Hackett shared the president's letter with friends, it unfortunately made its way into opposition newspapers. Lincoln was promptly ridiculed for his attempt to render dramatic judgments. An embarra.s.sed Hackett apologized to Lincoln, who urged him to have "no uneasiness on the subject." He was not "shocked by the newspaper comments," for all his life he had "endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice."

The histories and tragedies of Shakespeare that Lincoln loved most dealt with themes that would resonate to a president in the midst of civil war: political intrigue, the burdens of power, the nature of ambition, the relationship of leaders to those they governed. The plays illuminated with stark beauty the dire consequences of civil strife, the evils wrought by jealousy and disloyalty, the emotions evoked by the death of a child, the sundering of family ties or love of country.

Congressman William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania recalled bringing the actor John McDonough to the White House on a stormy night. Lincoln had relished McDonough's performance as Edgar in King Lear and was delighted to meet him. For his part, McDonough was "an intensely partisan Democrat, and had accepted the theory that Mr. Lincoln was a mere buffoon." His att.i.tude changed after spending four hours discussing Shakespeare with the president. Lincoln was eager to know why certain scenes were left out of productions. He was fascinated by the different ways that cla.s.sic lines could be delivered. He lifted his "well-thumbed volume" of Shakespeare from the shelf, reading aloud some pa.s.sages, repeating others from memory. When the clock approached midnight, Kelley stood up to go, chagrined to have kept the president so long. Lincoln swiftly a.s.sured his guests that he had "not enjoyed such a season of literary recreation" in many months. The evening had provided an immensely "pleasant interval" from his work.

Of all the remarkable stage actors in this golden time, none surpa.s.sed Edwin Booth, son of the celebrated tragedian Junius Booth and elder brother to Lincoln's future a.s.sa.s.sin, John Wilkes Booth. "Edwin Booth has done more for the stage in America than any other man," wrote a drama critic in the 1860s. The soulful young actor captivated audiences everywhere with the naturalness of his performances and his conversational tone, which stood in contrast to the bombastic, stylized performances of the older generation.

In late February and early March 1864, Edwin Booth came to Grover's Theatre for a three-week engagement, delivering one masterly performance after another. Lincoln and Seward attended the theater night after night. They saw Booth in the t.i.tle roles of Hamlet and Richard III. They applauded his performance as Brutus in Julius Caesar and as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

On Friday evening, March 11, Booth came to dinner at the Sewards'. Twenty-year-old f.a.n.n.y Seward could barely contain her excitement. She had seen every one of his performances and had been transfixed by his "magnificent dark eyes." At dinner, Seward presumed to ask Booth if he might advise the thespian how "his acting might be improved." According to f.a.n.n.y, Booth "accepted Father's criticisms very gracefully-often saying he had felt those defects himself." Seward focused particularly on Booth's performance in Bulwer-Lytton's Richelieu, where he thought he had made the crafty cardinal "too old and infirm." Long identified as the power behind the throne himself, Seward perhaps wanted a younger, more vibrant characterization for Richelieu. When Seward told Booth he thought his performance as Shylock was perfect, Booth disagreed, saying he "had a painful sense of something wanting-could compare it to nothing else but the want of body in wine."

Detained at the White House, Lincoln missed the enjoyable interchange with Booth. A few days earlier, antic.i.p.ating Booth's Hamlet, Lincoln had talked about the play with Francis Carpenter, the young artist who was at work on his picture depicting the first reading of the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. In the course of the conversation, Lincoln recited from memory his favorite pa.s.sage, the king's soliloquy after the murder of Hamlet's father, "with a feeling and appreciation unsurpa.s.sed by anything I ever witnessed upon the stage."

What struck Carpenter most forcefully was Lincoln's ability to appreciate tragedy and comedy with equal intensity. He could, in one sitting, bring tears to a visitor's eyes with a sensitive rendering from Richard III and moments later induce riotous laughter with a comic tall tale. His "laugh," Carpenter observed, "stood by itself. The 'neigh' of a wild horse on his native prairie is not more undisguised and hearty." Lincoln's ability to commingle joy with sorrow seemed to Carpenter a trait the president shared with his favorite playwright. "It has been well said," Carpenter noted, "that 'the spirit which held the woe of "Lear," and the tragedy of "Hamlet," would have broken, had it not also had the humor of the "Merry Wives of Windsor," and the merriment of "Midsummer Night's Dream." '"

No other cabinet member went to the theater as regularly as Lincoln and Seward. Chase and Bates considered it a foolish waste of time, perhaps even a "Satanic diversion," while Stanton came only once to Grover's playhouse, with the sole intention of b.u.t.tonholing Lincoln about some pressing matter. Seated with Lincoln in his box, Grover had been startled when Stanton arrived a half hour late, sidled up to Lincoln, and engaged him in a long conversation. Lincoln listened attentively but kept his eyes on the stage. Frustrated, Stanton "grasped Mr. Lincoln by the lapel of his coat, slowly pulled him round face to face, and continued the conversation. Mr. Lincoln responded to this brusque act with all the smiling geniality that one might bestow on a similar act from a favorite child, but soon again turned his eyes to the stage." Finally, Stanton despaired utterly of conducting his business. He "arose, said good night, and withdrew."

According to Grover, Tad loved the theater as much as his father. John Hay noted that Tad would laugh "enormously whenever he saw his father's eye twinkle, though not seeing clearly why." Often escorted to Grover's by his tutor, Tad "felt at home and frequently came alone to the rehearsals, which he watched with rapt interest. He made the acquaintance of the stage attaches, who liked him and gave him complete liberty of action." Tad would help them move scenery, and on one occasion, he actually appeared in a play. For the lonely boy, who broke down in tears when the appearance of Julia Taft at a White House reception recalled his happier days with Willie and the Taft boys, the camaraderie of the playhouse must have been immensely comforting.

ULYSSES S. GRANT, the hero of Vicksburg and Chattanooga, arrived in the nation's capital on March 8, 1864, to take command of all the Union armies. A grateful Congress had revived the grade of lieutenant general, not held since George Washington, and Lincoln had nominated Grant to receive the honored rank. With Grant's promotion, Halleck became chief of staff, and Sherman a.s.sumed Grant's old command of the Western armies.

Grant's entrance into Washington was consistent with his image as an unpretentious man of action, the polar opposite of McClellan. He walked into the Willard Hotel at dusk, accompanied only by his teenage son, Fred. Unrecognized by the desk clerk, he was told that nothing was available except a small room on the top floor. The situation was remedied only when the embarra.s.sed clerk looked at the signature in the register-U. S. Grant and son, Galena, Illinois-and immediately switched the accommodations. After freshening up, Grant took his son to the dining room at the lobby level. His slim build, "stooping shoulders, mild blue eyes, and light brown hair and whiskers" attracted little notice until someone began pointing at his table. Suddenly, "there was a shout of welcome from all present, an immense cheer going up from the crowd," who banged their fists on the tops of the tables until he finally stood up and took a bow.

After readying his son for bed, Grant walked over to the White House, where a large crowd had gathered for the president's weekly reception. Horace Porter, a young colonel who would later become Grant's aide-de-camp, was standing near Lincoln in the Blue Room when "a sudden commotion near the entrance to the room attracted general attention." The cause was the appearance of General Grant, "walking along modestly with the rest of the crowd toward Mr. Lincoln." Meeting Grant for the first time, Lincoln's face lit up with a broad smile. Not waiting for his visitor to reach him, the president "advanced rapidly two or three steps," taking Grant by the hand. "Why, here is General Grant! Well, this is a great pleasure."

Porter was struck by the physical contrast between the two men. From his uncommon height, the president "looked down with beaming countenance" upon Grant, who stood eight inches shorter. The collar on Lincoln's evening dress was "a size too large," his necktie "awkwardly tied." He seemed to Porter "more of a Hercules than an Adonis." Yet Porter noted the "merry twinkle" in his gray eyes and "a tone of familiarity" that instantly set people at ease. Watching the two men together, Welles, who was also present, was slightly disconcerted by Grant's demeanor, remarking on his lack of soldierly presence, "a degree of awkwardness."

After talking with Grant, Lincoln referred him to Seward, knowing that his gregarious secretary could best help the general navigate the crowds of admirers shouting his name and rapidly descending upon him. So frantic was the cheering throng to draw near the conquering hero that "laces were torn, crinoline mashed, and things were generally much mixed." Seward rapidly maneuvered Grant into the East Room, where he persuaded the general to stand on a sofa so that everyone could see his face. "He blushed like a girl," the New York Herald correspondent noted. "The handshaking brought streams of perspiration down his forehead and over his face." Grant later remarked that the reception was "his warmest campaign during the war."

The president was delighted by the crowd's embrace of Grant. He willingly ceded to the una.s.suming general his own customary place of honor, fully aware that the path to victory was wide enough, as Porter phrased it, for the two of them to "walk it abreast." Lincoln's reception of Grant might have been more calculated if he had thought the general intended to compete for the presidency, but he had ascertained from a trustworthy source that Grant wanted nothing more than to successfully complete his mission to end the war. "My son, you will never know how gratifying that is to me," Lincoln had told J. Russell Jones, the emissary who carried a letter from Grant affirming that not only did he have no desire for the presidency but he fully supported "keeping Mr. Lincoln in the presidential chair."

After mingling with the excited crowd for an hour, the indefatigable Seward and the exhausted general made their way back to Lincoln, who was waiting with Stanton in the drawing room. They talked over the details of the ceremony the next day, when Grant would be given his commission. To help him prepare his response, Lincoln handed the general a copy of the remarks he would deliver before Grant was expected to speak. Returning to his room at the Willard, Grant wrote out his statement in pencil on a half sheet of paper. When the time came the following afternoon to speak, he seemed, according to Nicolay, "quite embarra.s.sed by the occasion, and finding his own writing so very difficult to read," he stumbled through his speech.

After the ceremony, Lincoln and Grant went upstairs to talk in private. Lincoln explained that while "procrastination on the part of commanders" had led him in the past to issue military orders from the White House, "all he wanted or had ever wanted was some one who would take the responsibility and act," leaving to him the task of mobilizing "all the power of the government" to provide whatever a.s.sistance was needed.

On Thursday, Grant journeyed by rail to the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac to consult with General Meade. Upon Grant's return, Lincoln informed him that Mrs. Lincoln was planning a dinner in his honor that Sat.u.r.day. When Grant begged off, arguing that he wanted to get back to the field as soon as possible, Lincoln laughingly said: "But we can't excuse you. It would be the play of 'Hamlet' with Hamlet left out." Still, Grant insisted. "I appreciate fully the honor," he said, "but-time is very precious just now-and-really, Mr. President, I believe I have had enough of the 'show' business!"

Grant's visit to Washington that March solidified his image as a man of the people. The public had already heard stories of his aversion to what Congressman Elihu Washburne called the "trappings and paraphernalia so common to many military men." While the bill to establish the new rank of lieutenant general was being debated in Washington, Washburne recounted spending six days on the road with Grant, who "took with him neither a horse nor an orderly nor a servant nor a camp-chest nor an overcoat nor a blanket nor even a clean shirt." Carrying only a toothbrush, "he fared like the commonest soldier in his command, partaking of his rations and sleeping upon the ground with no covering except the canopy of heaven." Noting his preference for pork and beans, the New York Times speculated that caterers who had previously served "the delicate palates" of officers were "in spasms." Everything Grant did during his four-day stay in Washington, from his unheralded entrance to his early departure, "was done exactly right," the historian William McFeely concludes. "He was consummately modest and quietly confident; the image held for the rest of his political career-and beyond, into history."

THE SPRING OF 1864 was "unusually backward," Bates recorded in his diary. Trees that normally blossomed in early April did not "put out their leaves" until the end of the month. To those waiting anxiously for the army's spring campaign to begin, it seemed that the "stormy and inclement" weather, which brought "torrents" of rain day after day, was nature's attempt to forestall the inevitable bloodshed. Stoddard speculated that Grant was detained by the same "old enemy" that had stymied McClellan, obstructed Burnside, and allowed Lee to escape after Gettysburg: "the red mud of the Old Dominion."

Lincoln remained convinced that in Ulysses S. Grant he had finally found the commander he needed. At a White House reception in late March, held in the midst of "the toughest snowstorm" of the year, Benjamin French reported that the president was "as full of fun and story as ever I saw him." Three weeks later, on another stormy day, Lincoln was still "as pleasant and funny as could be," entertaining an immense crowd of visitors at his Sat.u.r.day levee. The following Sunday, he strolled into John Hay's room, "picked up a paper and read the Richmond Examiners recent attack on Jeff. Davis. It amused him. 'Why,' said he 'the Examiner seems abt. as fond of Jeff as the World is of me.'"

That Jefferson Davis was under attack in his own house was not surprising. In the spring of 1864, the Confederacy was "a beleaguered nation," in James Randall's words. "Finances were shaky; currency was unsound; the foreign outlook was never bright." Though rebel convictions remained remarkably steady, there was "real suffering among the people." A letter intended to be sent overseas fell into the hands of a New York Times correspondent. The writer, a Virginian, acknowledged the harsh impact of the blockade and rampant inflation upon daily life. "Refined and graceful ladies, who have been used to drink Chambertin, and to eat the rich beef and mutton...are reduced to such a state that they know not tea nor coffee, and are glad to put up daily with a slice or two of the coa.r.s.est bacon." Furthermore, the "ma.s.s of misery" increased exponentially "as one goes down in the social scale." Food riots had broken out in Richmond and Atlanta, and clothing was in such short supply that shops were vandalized.

Davis's health gradually succ.u.mbed to the strain; his innate despondency deepened. Friends noticed a withdrawn air about him, and his evening rides were often companionless. Only the company of his wife, Varina, and his family let him truly relax and replenish his energies. Much like Lincoln, he spoiled his children, letting them interrupt grave cabinet meetings and enjoying their games.

Tragedy struck the Davis household on the last day of April 1864. Varina Davis had left five-year-old Joseph and his seven-year-old brother, Jeff Junior, for a few moments while she brought lunch to her husband in his second-floor office. Little Joe had climbed onto the balcony railing and lost his balance. He died when his head hit the brick pavement below. His parents were inconsolable. It was said that Varina's screams could be heard for hours, while Davis isolated himself on the top floor. The "tramp" of his feet pacing up and down, recalled the diarist Mary Chesnut, wife of Confederate general James Chesnut, produced an eerie echo in the drawing room below. The relentless pace of the war allowed little time for mourning, for Davis understood, as did Lincoln, that it was only a matter of days before the spring campaign would begin.

By the first week of May, William Stoddard observed, Washington was filled with an "oppressive sense of something coming," almost like the "pause and hush before the coming of the hurricane." Although the trees were finally "full of buds and blossoms" and "a few adventurous birds" had begun to sing, "the day had no spring sunshine in it, nor any temptations to make music," for everyone knew that ominous events were imminent. While confidence in Grant remained high, many people, Nicolay conceded, were "beginning to feel superst.i.tious" about his prospects, since previous spring campaigns had "so generally been failures."

Aware that communications would be sporadic once Lieutenant General Grant launched his a.s.sault on Lee, Lincoln wrote him a letter that Hay described as "full of kindness & dignity at once." He conveyed his "entire satisfaction with what you have done," and promised that "if there is anything wanting which is within my power to give," it would be provided. Grant graciously replied that he had thus far "been astonished at the readiness with which every thing asked for has been yielded." The final line of Grant's letter ill.u.s.trated the profound difference between his character and McClellan's. "Should my success be less than I desire, and expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with you."

Lincoln had heartily approved Grant's plan to move in three directions at once: the Army of the Potomac would strike Lee head-on, forcing him to retreat south toward Richmond; Sherman would move through Georgia from west to east, with the aim of capturing Atlanta; Butler, meanwhile, would move northeast against Richmond from the James River. "This concerted movement," Lincoln reminded Hay, was what he had wanted all along, "so as to bring into action to our advantage our great superiority in numbers." Still, on the eve of battle, Lincoln felt great "solicitude" for his lieutenant general, telling Browning that while he had complete confidence in Grant, he feared that "Lee would select his own ground, and await an attack, which would give him great advantages."

Lincoln's fears proved prescient. As Grant moved south, Lee awaited him in an area just west of Fredericksburg known as the Wilderness-an unforgiving maze of craggy ravines and slippery bogs, dense with vines and thorn bushes. The gloomy terrain provided cover for Lee's earthworks and prevented Grant's superb artillery from being used: it effectively negated the Union's superiority of numbers. Nonetheless, Grant pushed relentlessly south to Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor, slightly northeast of Richmond, engaging Lee in a hideous struggle. Men on both sides had to climb over the dead and dying, "lying in some places in piles three and four deep." Grant's biographer calls the campaign "a nightmare of inhumanity," resulting in 86,000 Union and Confederate casualties in the s.p.a.ce of seven weeks. "The world has never seen so b.l.o.o.d.y and so protracted a battle as the one being fought," Grant told his wife at the end of the first nine days, "and I hope never will again." He later admitted in his memoirs that he "always regretted that the last a.s.sault at Cold Harbor was ever made."

Grant buried the dead and sent the wounded to Washington, where they arrived by the thousands. Noah Brooks recorded the heartbreaking scene as steamers reached the city wharves, carrying the "shattered wrecks" of brave soldiers. "Long trains of ambulances are in waiting, and the suffering heroes are tenderly handled and brought out upon stretchers, though with some of them even the lightest touch is torture and pain." The ghastly scene, repeated day after day, was hard for Washingtonians to bear. Judge Taft was present at the wharves one morning when three thousand wounded soldiers disembarked, "some with their heads bound up and some with their arms in a Sling," others limping along. As each steamer landed, crowds gathered around, hoping to recognize in "a maimed and battle-stained form, once so proud and manly," a husband, son, or brother. Elizabeth Blair fled the city, admitting that "the lines [of] ambulances & the moans of their poor suffering men were too much for my nerves."

"The carnage has been unexampled," a depressed Bates lamented in his diary. Even the optimistic Seward acknowledged in his European circular that "it seems to myself like exaggeration, when I find, that, in describing conflict after conflict, in this energetic campaign, I am required always to say of the last one, that it was the severest battle of the war." The immense tension in the War Department, where the cabinet colleagues gathered each night to await the latest news, made it impossible to carry out ordinary business. "The intense anxiety is oppressive," Welles conceded, "and almost unfits the mind for mental activity." John Nicolay wrote to Therena that he was "more nervous and anxious" during these weeks than he had been "for a year previous." Still, he added, "if my own anxiety is so great, what must be [the president's] solicitude, after waiting through three long, weary years of doubt and disaster."

There were, indeed, nights when Lincoln did not sleep. One of these nights, Francis Carpenter "met him, clad in a long morning wrapper, pacing back and forth...his hands behind him, great black rings under his eyes, his head bent forward upon his breast." There were moments when he was overwhelmed with sorrow at the appalling loss of life. As the leader of his cabinet and the leader of his country, however, he understood the need to remain collected and project hope and confidence to his colleagues and his people. Between anxious hours at the War Department awaiting news from the front, Lincoln made time to get to the theater, attend a public lecture on Gettysburg, and see an opera. "People may think strange of it," he explained, "but I must have some relief from this terrible anxiety, or it will kill me."

Schuyler Colfax came to visit one Sunday during the Battle of the Wilderness. "I saw [Lincoln] walk up and down the Executive Chamber, his long arms behind his back, his dark features contracted still more with gloom; and as he looked up, I thought his face the saddest one I had ever seen." But, Colfax added, "he quickly recovered," and suddenly spoke of Grant with such confidence that "hope beamed on his face." An hour later, greeting a delegation of congressional visitors, he managed to tell "story after story," which hid "his saddened heart from their keen and anxious scrutiny."

Lincoln never lost faith in Grant. He realized that whereas "any other General" would have retreated after sustaining such terrible losses, Grant somehow retained "the dogged pertinacity...that wins." Lincoln hugged and kissed a young reporter on the forehead who arrived at the White House with a verbal message from the general that said, "there is to be no turning back." His spirits rose further when he read the words in Grant's famous dispatch on May 11: "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." When a visitor asked one day about the prospects of the army under Grant, Lincoln's face lit up "with that peculiar smile which he always puts on when about to tell a good story." The question, he said, "reminds me of a little anecdote about the automaton chessplayer, which many years ago astonished the world by its skill in that game. After a while the automaton was challenged by a celebrated player, who, to his great chagrin, was beaten twice by the machine. At the end of the second game, the player, significantly pointing his finger at the automaton, exclaimed in a very decided tone. 'There's a man in it!'" That, he explained, referring to Grant, was "the secret" to the army's fortunes.

IN EARLY JUNE, when the Republican Convention was set to open in Baltimore, Salmon Chase grew restless. Though he had withdrawn his name from the race the previous March, he still retained the hope that events might turn in his favor. Thurlow Weed had repeatedly warned the president that Chase's withdrawal was simply a "shrewd dodge" that would allow him "to turn up again with more strength than ever." The well-informed political boss had compiled a long list of Treasury employees who were devoting all their energies to the Chase campaign. More troubling still, Weed had heard from myriad sources that corrupt Treasury agents were exchanging army supplies for Confederate cotton in violation of the congressional law that forbade any trade between the free and slave states without an express permit from the Treasury. Weed believed that Chase's son-in-law, Sprague, was a beneficiary of one of these schemes. He could not fathom Lincoln's refusal to fire Chase, predicting that if the president "goes into the canva.s.s with this mill-stone tied to him, he will inevitably sink."

Meanwhile, the smoldering feud between Chase and the Blairs erupted into full public view. With the army in winter quarters the previous January, Frank Blair had resigned his commission and retaken his seat in Congress. He intended to return to Sherman's command in time for the march to Atlanta, but first, he had a score to settle with Chase. A Chase partisan had publicly accused Blair of swindling the government by charging $8,000 for a personal shipment of liquor and tobacco. Blair knew the doc.u.ment in question was spurious and suspected that it had been forged in the Treasury Department. He asked a congressional committee to investigate the matter. The resulting report fully exonerated Blair. The accusing doc.u.ment was, indeed, a forgery penned by a Treasury agent. Although there was no suggestion of Chase's personal involvement, Blair waited for the issuance of the committee's report before rising to speak on the floor.

Addressing a packed audience the day before his scheduled departure for Sherman's army, he began by calmly summarizing the report's findings. His self-control swiftly vanished, however, as he turned his anger on Chase. "These dogs have been set on me by their master, and since I have whipped them back into their kennel I mean to hold their master responsible for this outrage and not the curs who have been set upon me." Speaker Colfax admonished Blair to stick to the committee report, but Blair's supporters insisted that he be allowed to continue. He accused Chase of corruption, treachery against Lincoln, lack of patriotism, and sordid ambition for the presidency.

Elizabeth Blair, present in the galleries, believed the speech "a complete triumph" in the short run but worried about its livid tone. "Anger is the poorest of counselors," she conceded, "& revenge is suicide." She was right to worry, for the speech inflamed the ongoing war between Chase and Blair that would end by damaging both men. Chase's friends reacted quickly, labeling the accusations against the treasury secretary "mendacious slanders."

Gideon Welles considered the speech "violent and injudicious" and feared that it would ultimately hurt the president. The wise navy secretary was dismayed by the continuing feud between Chase and the Blairs, believing both sides shared the blame. "Chase is deficient in magnanimity and generosity. The Blairs have both, but they have strong resentments. Warfare with them is open, bold and unsparing. With Chase it is silent, persistent, but regulated with discretion."

Chase was told about the speech later that night as he boarded a train to the Sanitary Fair in Baltimore. His friend Congressman Albert Riddle joined him in his private car. "He was alone," Riddle recalled, "and in a frightful rage, and controlled himself with difficulty while he explained the cause. The recital in a hoa.r.s.e, constrained voice, seemed to rekindle his anger and aggravate his intensity. The s.p.a.cious car fairly trembled under his feet." Chase felt certain that "all this, including the speech, had been done with the cordial approval of the President." Ohio congressman James Garfield agreed with this a.s.sessment. He considered Frank Blair Lincoln's "creature," sent to the House for the "special purpose" of destroying Chase's reputation. With this accomplished, Garfield charged, Lincoln would simply renew Blair's commission and return him to the front, "thus ratifying all he said and did while here." Chase told Riddle that unless Lincoln repudiated Blair, he would feel honor-bound once again to tender his resignation.

Riddle and another friend of Chase's, Rufus Spalding, called on the president. They warned him that "Chase's abrupt resignation now would be equal in its effects to a severe set-back of the army under Grant." Explaining that the coincidence of Blair's vicious speech and the president's renewal of his commission "seemed as if planned for dramatic effect, as parts of a conspiracy against a most important member of the Cabinet," they demanded to know if Lincoln had known ahead of time the nature of Blair's remarks.

Lincoln had prepared well for the encounter. The last thing he wanted was for Chase to resign on a point of honor. The rift between the radicals and conservatives in the Republican Party might then become irreparable. He gave the visitors his usual undivided attention. When they finished, Riddle recalled, "he arose, came round, and with great cordiality took each of us by the hand and evinced the greatest satisfaction at our presence." Then, taking up a stack of papers on his desk, he inquired if either of them had seen his letter to Chase two months earlier when the secretary had offered to resign over his implication in the humiliating Pomeroy circular. Determining that Riddle had not, Lincoln read aloud the lines where he concurred with Chase that neither of them should be "held responsible for what our respective friends may do without our instigation or countenance."

He explained that while he had great respect for Frank Blair, he "was annoyed and mortified by the speech." He had, in fact, warned Blair against "pursuing a personal warfare." As soon as he heard of Blair's rant, Lincoln knew that "another beehive was kicked over" and considered canceling "the orders restoring him to the army and a.s.signing him to command." After a.s.sessing how much General Sherman valued Frank's services, however, he had decided to let the orders stand.