Part 52 (1/2)

”This morning, as for some days past,” the blind memo began, ”it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.”

In these same weeks, Colonel John Eaton recalled, Lincoln ”was considering every possible means by which the Negro could be secured in his freedom.” He knew that Eaton had come into contact with thousands of slaves who had escaped as the Union troops advanced. Tens of thousands more remained in the South. Lincoln asked Eaton if he thought Frederick Dougla.s.s ”could be induced to come to see him” and discuss how these slaves could be brought into freedom. Eaton was aware that Dougla.s.s had recently criticized the president vehemently, denouncing the administration's insufficient retaliatory measures against the Confederacy for its blatant refusal to treat captured black soldiers as prisoners of war. He also knew, however, that Dougla.s.s respected Lincoln and was certain that he would lend his hand.

Dougla.s.s met with the president on August 19. In an open conversation that Dougla.s.s later recounted, Lincoln candidly acknowledged his fear that the ”mad cry” for peace might bring a premature end to the war, ”which would leave still in slavery all who had not come within our lines.” He had thought the publication of his Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation would stimulate an exodus from the South, but, he lamented, ”the slaves are not coming so rapidly and so numerously to us as I had hoped.” Dougla.s.s suggested that ”the slaveholders knew how to keep such things from their slaves, and probably very few knew of his proclamation.” Hearing this, Lincoln proposed that the federal government might underwrite an organized ”band of scouts, composed of colored men, whose business should be somewhat after the original plan of John Brown, to go into the rebel states, beyond the lines of our Armies, and carry the news of emanc.i.p.ation, and urge the slaves to come within our boundaries.” Dougla.s.s promised to confer with leaders in the black community on the possibility of such a plan.

There was yet another subject Lincoln wanted to discuss with Dougla.s.s. Three days earlier, Wisconsin's former governor Alexander Randall had hand-delivered a heartfelt letter from Charles Robinson, the editor of a Democratic paper in Wisconsin. ”I am a War Democrat,” Robinson began. ”I have sustained your Administration.... It was alleged that because I and my friends sustained the Emanc.i.p.ation measure, we had become abolitionized. We replied that we regarded the freeing of the negroes as sound war policy, in that the depriving the South of its laborers weakened the strength of the Rebellion. That was a good argument, and was accepted by a great many men who would have listened to no other. It was solid ground on which we could stand, and still maintain our position as Democrats.” Now the Niagara Falls declaration that ”no steps can be taken towards peace, from any quarter, unless accompanied with an abandonment of slavery,” left him with ”no ground to stand upon.” He was not writing ”for the purpose of finding fault...but with the hope that you may suggest some interpretation of it, as well as make it tenable ground on which we War Democrats may stand.”

Lincoln shared a draft of his reply with Dougla.s.s and requested his advice on whether or not to send it. ”To me it seems plain,” the draft began, ”that saying reunion and abandonment of slavery would be considered, if offered, is not saying that nothing else or less would be considered.” Having written these evasive words, however, he at once emphasized that as a ”matter of morals” and a ”matter of policy,” it would be ruinous to recant the promise of freedom contained in his proclamation ”as it seems you would have me to do.... For such a work, another would have to be found.” Nonetheless, he acknowledged that if the rebels agreed to ”cease fighting & consent to reunion” so long as they could keep their slaves, he would be powerless to continue the war for the sole purpose of abolition. The people would not support such a war; their congressional representatives would cut off supplies. All such figuring was irrelevant, in any case, for ”no one who can control the rebel armies has made the offer supposed.”

Dougla.s.s saw clearly that Lincoln was trying ”to make manifest his want of power to do the thing which his enemies and pretended friends professed to be afraid he would do.” Regardless of his personal convictions, he seemed to be saying, he ”could not carry on the war for the abolition of slavery. The country would not sustain such a war, and [he] could do nothing without the support of Congress.” Dougla.s.s emphatically urged Lincoln not to send the letter. ”It would be given a broader meaning than you intend to convey; it would be taken as a complete surrender of your anti-slavery policy, and do you serious damage.”

After listening carefully to the impa.s.sioned advice of Dougla.s.s, Lincoln turned the conversation to other topics. While they were talking, a messenger informed Lincoln that the governor of Connecticut wished for an audience. ”Tell Governor Buckingham to wait, I want to have a long talk with my friend Dougla.s.s,” Lincoln instructed. Dougla.s.s could barely ”suppress his excitement” when he encountered John Eaton later that day. ”He treated me as a man; he did not let me feel for a moment that there was any difference in the color of our skins! The President is a most remarkable man. I am satisfied now that he is doing all that circ.u.mstances will permit him to do.” Eaton believed that Dougla.s.s ”had seen the situation for the first time as it appeared to Mr. Lincoln's eyes.” For his part, Lincoln told Eaton that ”considering the conditions from which Dougla.s.s rose, and the position to which he had attained, he was...one of the most meritorious men in America.”

That same night, perhaps buoyed by his conversation with Dougla.s.s, Lincoln invited Governor Randall and Judge Joseph Mills to the Soldiers' Home for a further discussion of the Robinson letter. ”The President was free & animated in conversation,” Mills recorded in his diary. ”I was astonished at his elasticity of spirits.” Lincoln admitted from the outset that he could not help ”but feel that the weal or woe of this great nation will be decided in the approaching canvas.” This was not ”personal vanity, or ambition,” but rather a firm belief that the Democrats' strategy of mollifying the South with a promise to renounce abolition as a condition for peace would ”result in the dismemberment of the Union.” He pointed out that there were ”between 1 & 200 thousand black men now in the service of the Union.” If the promise of freedom were rescinded, these men would rightly give up their arms. ”Abandon all the posts now possessed by black men surrender all these advantages to the enemy, & we would be compelled to abandon the war in 3 weeks.”

Lincoln's tone grew more fervent as he continued, as if he were arguing with himself against sending the reply to Robinson. ”There have been men who have proposed to me to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson & Ol.u.s.tee to their masters to conciliate the South. I should be d.a.m.ned in time & in eternity for so doing.” Those who accused him of ”carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition” must understand that ”no human power can subdue this rebellion without using the Emanc.i.p.ation lever.... Let them prove by the history of this war, that we can restore the Union without it.”

Mills, who had been initially skeptical of Lincoln, was overwhelmed by ”his transparent honesty” and the depth of his convictions. ”As I heard a vindication of his policy from his own lips, I could not but feel that his mind grew in stature like his body, & that I stood in the presence of the great guiding intellect of the age.” His confidence in the justice of the Union cause ”could not but inspire me with confidence.” The visitors stood to leave, but Lincoln entreated them to stay so that he might entertain them with a mix of stories, jokes, and ”reminiscences of the past.”

His momentary ambivalence over a peace compromise put to rest by his own logic, Lincoln permanently shelved the draft of his letter to Robinson. Nor did he accede to Raymond's suggestion that he dispatch a commissioner to Richmond and sound out Jefferson Davis's conditions for peace. He played with the idea for a few days, even drafting a letter allowing Raymond to proceed to Richmond with authority to say that ”upon the restoration of the Union and the national authority, the war shall cease at once, all remaining questions [including slavery] to be left for adjustment by peaceful modes.” But he soon discarded the idea. The Raymond letter, like the reply to Robinson, was placed in an envelope and ”slept undisturbed” for over two decades until unearthed by Nicolay and Hay when writing their biography of Lincoln.

Through these difficult days that Nicolay deemed ”a sort of political Bull Run,” Lincoln was sustained most of all by his ”ever present and companionable” secretary of state. Mary and Tad had once again escaped the summer heat, spending August and early September in Manchester, Vermont. Seward had hoped to get away but did not feel he should leave Lincoln in this trying period, when ”one difficulty no sooner pa.s.ses away than another arises.” His presence buoyed Lincoln, for he never lost faith that all would be well. While Seward agreed that ”the signs of discontent and faction are very numerous and very painful,” he refused to panic, believing that ”any considerable success would cause them all to disappear.” So long as ordinary people retained their faith in the cause, a faith evidenced by new enlistments in the army, Seward remained ”firm and hopeful,” convinced that Lincoln would see the country through.

Stanton provided additional rea.s.surance to the beleaguered president. The relations.h.i.+p among Lincoln, Seward, and Stanton had strengthened over the years. Welles observed that ”the two S's” had developed ”an understanding” enabling them to act in concert supporting the president. Though Stanton lacked the genial temperament that won both Lincoln and Seward countless friends, he believed pa.s.sionately in both the Union and the soldiers who were risking their lives to support it. Though he regularly argued with Lincoln over minor matters and peremptorily dismissed favor seekers from his office, the sight of a disabled soldier would command his immediate attention. In the mind of this brilliant, irascible man, there could be no peace without submission by the South.

On August 25, Lincoln invited Raymond to the White House and explained why, after careful consideration, he had decided that sending a commissioner to Richmond ”would be utter ruination.” Raymond was already in Was.h.i.+ngton, chairing a meeting of the Republican National Committee. The committee members charged with organizing support for Lincoln in the upcoming election had been so dubious about his chances that, as yet, they had done nothing to mobilize the party.

John Nicolay believed the president's meeting with Raymond and his colleagues could prove ”the turning-point in our crisis.” As the group gathered that morning, Nicolay wrote to John Hay, who was visiting his family in Illinois, ”If the President can infect R. and his committee with some of his own patience and pluck, we are saved.” If the committee members were unmoved after talking with Lincoln, however, hope for the election would fade.

Nicolay was relieved to see that Lincoln had invited Seward, Stanton, and Fessenden, ”the stronger half of the Cabinet,” to join the meeting. The results exceeded Nicolay's fondest hopes. In a memo written that same day, Nicolay delightedly noted that the president and his cabinet colleagues had managed to convince Raymond ”that to follow his plan of sending a commission to Richmond would be worse than losing the Presidential contest-it would be ignominiously surrendering it in advance.” Nicolay was convinced that the meeting had done ”great good.” The president's iron will impressed the committee members. They returned home ”encouraged and cheered,” with renewed belief that the election could be salvaged.

Two days later, a revealing item appeared in Raymond's New York Times. Noting that the members of the Republican National Committee would remain in Was.h.i.+ngton for another day to complete their plans for the presidential canva.s.s, the Times declared: ”Every member is deeply impressed with the belief that Mr. Lincoln will be reelected; and regards the political situation as most hopeful and satisfactory for the Union party.”

Even before the approaching military success in Atlanta, which would transform the public mood, Lincoln had alleviated his own discouragement by refocusing his intense commitment to the twin goals of Union and freedom. He gave voice to these ideals in late August with an emotional address to the men of an Ohio regiment returning home to their families. ”I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House,” he said. ”I am a living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has. It is in order that each of you may have through this free government which we have enjoyed, an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise and intelligence; that you may all have equal privileges in the race of life, with all its desirable human aspirations. It is for this the struggle should be maintained, that we may not lose our birthright.... The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable jewel.”

THE PRESIDENT'S REELECTION CAMPAIGN received a significant boost when the long-delayed Democratic Convention finally met on August 29,1864. Until this moment, when a candidate would be chosen and a platform written, Nicolay wrote, anxious Republicans had imagined ”giants in the airy and unsubstantial shadows of the opposition.” Brooks, who had traveled to Chicago to cover the convention, agreed. He attributed the despondent mood that had overtaken Republicans in July and August to the fact that ”we have had nothing to solidify and compact us; a platform and candidate from here will materially change all this.”

Although Democrats had cheerfully capitalized all summer long on dissensions within the Republican camp, their own party was rent by the anger between War Democrats who supported a continuation of the war until reunion (though not abolition) was a.s.sured and Peace Democrats, who called for an immediate armistice at any cost. ”They have a peace leg and a war leg,” New York Herald editor James Gordon Bennett noted, ”but, like a stork by a frog pond, they are as yet undecided which to rest upon.” When the convention opened, Noah Brooks reported, it seemed as if the Peace Democrats had the upper hand. ”It was noticeable that peace men and measures and sentiments were applauded to the echo, while patriotic utterances, what few there were, recieved no response from the crowd.” The playing of ”Dixie” was cheered, while Union tunes were met with virtual silence.

Though the peace wing commanded the emotions at the convention hall, it was generally a.s.sumed that War Democrat George McClellan would be the nominee. ”His partisans are united and have plenty of money,” Brooks observed, ”while his opponents are divided as to their own choice.” The peace wing, led by New York governor Horatio Seymour, Congressman Fernando Wood, and former congressman Clement Vallandigham, who had returned from his exile in Canada, floated several possible names but with no consensus. As a result, when the balloting began, McClellan easily won.

If McClellan's victory ”was expected,” George Templeton Strong confided to his diary, ”the baseness of the platform on which he is to run was unexpected. Jefferson Davis might have drawn it. The word 'rebel' does not occur in it. It contemplates surrender and abas.e.m.e.nt.” Pressed upon the party by the peace contingent, the platform declared that ”after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war,” the time had come to ”demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities.” Strong predicted that if McClellan agreed to represent this dishonorable platform, ”he condemns his name to infamy.” Indeed, it was rumored that he would ”decline a nomination on such terms.” For Democrats, the capitulation called for in their platform proved to be exceedingly ill timed.

Three days later came the stunning news that Atlanta had fallen. ”Atlanta is ours, and fairly won,” Sherman wired Was.h.i.+ngton on September 3. This joyous news, which followed on the heels of Admiral David Farragut's capture of Mobile Bay, Alabama, prompted Lincoln to order that one hundred guns be fired in Was.h.i.+ngton and a dozen other cities to celebrate the victories. Jubilant headlines filled Northern newspapers. ”Atlanta is ours,” the New York Times repeated. ”The foundries, furnaces, rolling-mills, machine-shops, laboratories and railroad repair-shops; the factories of cannon and small arms; of powder, cartridges and percussion caps; of gun carriages, wagons, ambulances, harnesses, shoes and clothing, which have been acc.u.mulated at Atlanta, are ours now”-although, unbeknownst to the Times, the departing Confederates had set fire to nearly ”everything of military value.” Still, George Templeton Strong instantly understood the importance of Atlanta's fall. ”Glorious news this morning,” he exulted, ”it is (coming at this political crisis) the greatest event of the war.”

Seward received the news from the War Department while seated in his library in Auburn, where he had finally escaped for a few days to see his family. He had barely finished reading Stanton's telegram before a crowd gathered at his house to celebrate. As the news spread, the crowd swelled until it spilled over to the park adjoining his residence. ”Flags were hoisted in all parts of the city,” a local correspondent reported, ”all the bells commenced ringing, and a salvo of one hundred guns was fired.” At the request of the spirited a.s.semblage, which included ”several hundred volunteers, who were waiting to be mustered in,” Seward delivered a spontaneous talk that lasted more than an hour.

Seward's extemporaneous words were considered by one reporter present to be ”one of his most impressive and effective speeches.” He remarked that the twin victories should help inspire the three hundred thousand more men-”volunteers, if you will, drafted men if we must”-necessary ”to end the war.” He paid homage not only to the sailors and soldiers but to ”the wisdom and the energy of the war Administration,” pointing out that ”Farragut's fleet did not make itself, nor did he make it. It was prepared by the Secretary of the Navy. And he that shall record the history of this war impartially will write that, since the days of Carnot [the military organizer of the French Revolution], no man has organized war with ability equal to that of Stanton.” Seward ended with a moving tribute to his friend and president, telling the crowd that nothing was more important than Lincoln's reelection. ”If we do this, the rebellion will perish and leave no root.” The crowd roared its approval.

When Gideon Welles read Seward's speech, with its generous praise for the Navy Department, he professed himself delighted. ”For a man of not very compact thought...often loose in the expressions of his ideas,” Seward had set forth an argument, Welles believed, that would serve as ”the keynote” of the upcoming campaign. Welles understood that Atlanta's fall would wreak havoc on the plans of his old party, the Democrats. ”This intelligence will not be gratifying to the zealous partisans who have just sent out a peace platform, and declared the war a failure.... There is a fatuity in nominating a general and warrior in time of war on a peace platform.”