Rise to Greatness (63 page)

proud of his physique: J. Rowan Herndon and Hardin Bale, quoted in
Herndon’s Informants,
pp. 7, 13.

180 pounds of muscle: Carpenter,
The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln: Six Months at the White House,
p. 217;
RW,
p. 507.

wasting away: Johnson Brigham, quoted in
Herndon’s Informants,
pp. 157–58.

sketch artist Alfred Waud: see Waud’s illustration in
Harper’s Weekly
6, no. 265 (Jan. 25, 1862), pp. 56–57.

“remarkably pensive and tender”: Carpenter,
The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln,
p. 218.

“never had a confidant”: Herndon and Weik,
Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life,
Vol. 2
,
p. 140.

“strange, friendless”:
CW,
Vol. 1, p. 320. This quote is emended to read “a strange[r]” in
CW,
but I agree with David Herbert Donald that it is more likely that Lincoln wrote it as he meant it. Donald,
“We Are Lincoln Men”: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends,
p. 10.

Bates had been struck: Bates diary, Dec. 31, 1861.

the price tag had doubled: Nicolay and Hay,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 6, pp. 227–30.

“The President has lost ground amazingly”: quoted in Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln: A Life,
Vol. 2, p. 203.

“I think to lose Kentucky”:
CW,
Vol. 4, pp. 531–33.

“poor white trash”: Wade to Zachariah Chandler, Sept. 23, 1861, quoted in Rafuse,
McClellan’s War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union,
p. 135.

“murdering your country by inches”: quoted in Trefousse,
The Radical Republicans: Lincoln’s Vanguard for Racial Justice,
p. 184.

“has not the power to command”: Bates diary, Dec. 31, 1861.

“[He] was charmed with Mary’s wit”: Elizabeth Todd Edwards, quoted in
Herndon’s Informants,
p. 443.

“so kindly, so considerate”: William O. Stoddard, quoted in Randall,
Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage,
p. 197.

Her temper was notorious: Burlingame, “Abraham Lincoln’s Emotional Life,” pp. 11–13,
http://www.lehrmaninstitute.org/lehrman/Hill-school-talk2.pdf
.

“bring him into disgrace”:
RW,
pp. 68–69.

“Flub-dubs”: French diary, Dec. 14, 1861.

“world-renowned whoremonger”: quoted in Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 2, pp. 274–75.

“Some very extraordinary storeys”: ibid.

Evidently, Wikoff had persuaded: A definitive treatment of Mary Lincoln’s scandalous associations is found in Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 2, pp. 162–84. See also Berry,
House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, a Family Divided by War,
pp. 100–103.

David Todd, an officer: Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 1, p. 180.

“A case of treasonable action”: McClellan to Cameron, Dec. 9, 1861.

“While others are asleep”:
RW,
pp. 192, 201.

“loved him like a brother”: Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 2, p. 200.

“I ain’t got any!”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Nov. 21, 1861.

She “looked remarkably well”: French diary, Nov. 24, 1861.

“eyes of a hyena”: Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 2, p. 282.

“It is not proper”: Ibid.

“a gawdy show”: Bates diary, Jan. 1, 1862.

“The most critical point”: Nicolay and Hay,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 5, p. 218.

“You may stand for this”: quoted in Foote,
The Civil War: A Narrative,
Vol. 1, p. 157.

His government was already annoyed: Duberman,
Charles Francis Adams, 1807–1886,
p. 43.

Europe’s “aristocracy [is] bent”: Dayton to Seward, Jan. 27, 1862.

“They [hope] for our ruin!”: quoted by Norman A. Graebner, “Northern Diplomacy and European Neutrality,” in Donald, ed.
, Why the North Won the Civil War,
p. 57.

more room to save face: Crook,
Diplomacy During the American Civil War,
pp. 84–85.

Seward devised an artful response: See, for example, Foreman,
A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War,
pp. 194–96.

“People are almost frantic”: Joseph Gillespie, quoted in Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 2, p. 228.

keep the foreign powers in check: Adams to Seward, Dec. 27, 1861. Even after the resolution of the
Trent
crisis, Adams pronounced himself “quite doubtful” about England’s future course.

This was the explanation:
CW,
Vol. 5, pp. 41–42.

Taney felt free to spurn: Simon,
Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President’s War Powers,
p. 222.

Lincoln’s powerful critiques: See, for example, Fehrenbacher,
Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s,
pp. 70–95.

priceless propaganda victory: Guelzo,
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America,
pp. 39, 117. This idea is the central thesis of Simon,
Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney.

“I very much doubt”: Trollope,
North America,
p. 172.

“They knew almost nothing”: Williams,
Lincoln and His Generals,
pp. 3–6.

none was a true warrior-general: Details of the officers’ biographies come from Heidler and Heidler, eds.,
Encyclopedia of the American Civil War,
in the articles titled with their respective names.

“I can do it all”: quoted in Hay diary, undated (describing the evening of Nov. 1, 1861), p. 30.

“Draw on me”: Ibid.

he had a low opinion: McClellan’s political philosophy, and its influence over his military strategy, is given a rich and sympathetic treatment by Ethan Rafuse in
McClellan’s War.

“By some strange operation”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, July 27, 1861.

“letter after letter”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Aug. 9 [10], 1861.

a dangerous blindness: cf. Hay diary, Oct. 26 and Nov. 11, 1861.

“The Commander-in-Chief”: quoted in Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 2, p. 197.

“unparalleled insolence”: Hay diary, Nov. 13, 1861.

Lincoln took the snub:
CW,
Vol. 5, pp. 34–35; McClellan to Lincoln, Dec. 10, 1861.

“It is terrible”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, circa Oct. 31, 1861.

“his reading was laborious”: Stoddard,
Inside the White House in War Times: Memoirs and Reports of Lincoln’s Secretary,
pp. 184–85.

In his Second Inaugural Address:
CW,
Vol. 8, pp. 333–34.

“Help me dodge”: McClellan to Samuel Barlow, Nov. 8, 1861.

his oft-spoken view: “Emancipation, for Lincoln, was never a question of the end but of how to construct the means in such a way that the end was not put into jeopardy.” Guelzo,
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation,
p. 26.

Lincoln never claimed:
RW,
p. 336.

“two of the most truculent”: Guelzo,
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation,
p. 57.

“hitch the whole thing”: Ibid., pp. 58–59.

“Timid, vacillating, & inefficient”: Ibid., p. 67.

“the gates were thrown open”:
New York Times,
Jan. 3, 1862.

Attorney General Bates fretted: Bates diary, Jan. 1, 1862.

“He goes at it with both hands”:
New York Times,
June 18, 1861.

“Anything that kept the people”: Hay, quoted in
Herndon’s Informants,
p. 331.

The foundation of political liberty: This theme recurs in many of Lincoln’s speeches. See, for example,
CW,
Vol. 3, pp. 312–15, from the famous 1858 debates: “No matter in what shape it comes, whether from a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.”

“scorned labour”: Joseph Gillespie, quoted in
Herndon’s Informants,
p. 183.

“This is the just”:
CW,
Vol. 5, pp. 52–53. Lincoln’s economic philosophy is thoroughly examined in Boritt,
Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream.

“one thing was necessary”: Leonard Swett, quoted in
Herndon’s Informants,
p. 165.

the holiday continued: Taft diary, Jan. 1, 1861.

“the bare possibility”: Dahlgren diary, Jan. 2, 1862.

boys lost joyfully: Taft diary, Jan. 1, 1862.

“We have no general”: Bates diary, Dec. 31, 1861.

“Every war is begun”: Nicolay and Hay,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 4, pp. 359–60.

“minority president … majority general”:
RW,
pp. 360–61.

“Times are exceedingly dark”: Dawes, quoted in Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 2, p. 215.

“Forty or fifty”: Taft diary, Jan. 15, 1862.

Measles: Boyden,
Echoes from Hospital and White House: A Record of Mrs. Rebecca R. Pomroy’s Experience in War-Times,
pp. 29–35.

“almost every Street”: Taft diary, Jan. 8, 1862.

“General McClellan is sick”:
CW,
Vol. 5, p. 84.

“There is no arrangement”: ibid.

“Too much haste”: ibid.

known as Old Brains: Marszalek,
Commander of All Lincoln’s Armies: A Life of Henry W. Halleck,
pp. 42–43.

Though only a few sentences long:
CW,
Vol. 5, p. 84.

“greatest living soldier”: quoted in Peskin,
Winfield Scott and the Profession of Arms,
p. 191.

“a real or feigned attack”:
CW,
Vol. 5, p. 84.

“a perfectly good mood”: ibid., p. 88.

2: JANUARY

A cold front swept: Taft diary, Jan. 2, 1862.

The president was in a low mood: Dahlgren diary, Jan. 2, 1862.

“very much better”:
CW,
Vol. 5, p. 88.

“browsing”: McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Oct. 31, 1861.

“Not a moment’s time”: McClellan to Henry Halleck, Jan. 3, 1862.

“condemned by every military authority”:
CW,
Vol. 5, pp. 87n, 92n, 95n.

Buell simply disappeared: ibid., p. 92n.

“Delay is ruining us”: ibid., p. 94.

“It is exceedingly discouraging”: ibid., p. 95.

an infuriating telegram from Buell: Miers,
Lincoln Day by Day: A Chronology,
Vol. 3, Jan. 6, 1862.

A light snow: Taft diary, Jan. 4–7, 1862.

Lincoln did much of his best thinking: Joshua Speed, quoted in
Herndon’s Informants,
p. 499.

“When he walked”: Herndon and Weik,
Abraham Lincoln,
Vol. 2, p. 295.

“The political consequences”: McClellan to Don Carlos Buell, Jan. 6, 1862.