Team of Rivals (104 page)

By the time the Capitol dome was visible to the rebel force, the opportunity for a successful attack had receded. “Before even the first brigade of the leading division was brought into line,” General Early later acknowledged, “a cloud of dust from the direction of Washington” revealed that Grant’s reinforcements had arrived. Furthermore, inspection of the Union fortifications revealed them “to be exceedingly strong…with a tier of lower works in front of each pierced for an immense number of guns.” Stretching “as far as the eye could reach,” the earthworks appeared in many places to be “impregnable.”

Still, Early refused to withdraw. He was determined to show the North how close he had come and sent a small force to engage the Union troops at Fort Stevens, about five miles from the White House. The skirmishing continued for several days, during which time Lincoln witnessed the action from a parapet, accompanied by Mary on one occasion, by Seward and Welles on another. The tall president’s presence in the line of fire made a vivid impression upon those who were there. “The President evinced a remarkable coolness and disregard of danger,” recalled General Horatio G. Wright. Even after a surgeon standing by his side was shot, “he still maintained his ground till I told him I should have to remove him forcibly. The absurdity of the idea of sending off the President under guard seemed to amuse Lincoln, but in consideration of my earnestness in the matter, he agreed to compromise by sitting behind the parapet instead of standing upon it.”

Still, Lincoln would periodically stand, provoking concern on the part of a young captain who shouted, “Get down, you fool!” Years later, the captain, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., son of the poet whom Lincoln greatly admired and himself to become a distinguished Supreme Court justice, would recall this unusual incident. For the normally sedentary Gideon Welles, to witness live action “was exciting and wild,” until the sight of dead soldiers carried away on stretchers instantly sobered his mind. “In times gone by I had passed over these roads little anticipating scenes like this, and a few years hence they will scarcely be believed to have occurred.”

Having made his point, Early retired as swiftly and mysteriously as he had come, leaving behind a spate of recriminations. The misguided command signals in Washington that allowed him to escape constituted “an egregious blunder,” acknowledged Stanton’s aide, Charles Dana. Blame was generally attributed to General Halleck, though Welles knew that in the eyes of the public, the entire administration appeared “contemptible.”

Mary Lincoln, sensing her husband’s profound disappointment that the rebels had escaped, turned on Stanton during a conversation at the Soldiers’ Home. “Mrs. Lincoln,” Stanton remarked with rare levity, “I intend to have a full-length portrait of you painted, standing on the ramparts at Fort Stevens overlooking the fight!”

“That is very well,” Mary replied, “and I can assure you of one thing, Mr. Secretary, if I had had a few
ladies
with me the Rebels would not have been permitted to get away as they did!”

Mary was not alone in her indignation. The sight of his ruined home provoked Monty Blair into openly defiant rants against the command structure in Washington directed by Halleck. His diatribes were reported to Halleck, who immediately wrote a furious letter to Stanton. “I am informed by an officer of rank,” he began, “that the Hon. M. Blair, Post Master Genl, in speaking of the burning of his house in Maryland, this morning said, in effect, that ‘the officers in command about Washington are poltroons; that there were not more than five hundred rebels on the Silver Spring road and we had a million of men in arms; that it was a disgrace.’” On behalf of those officers “who have devoted their time and energies night and day, and have periled their lives,” Halleck demanded to know whether “such wholesale denouncement & accusation by a member of the cabinet receives the sanction and approbation of the President of the United States. If so the names of the officers accused should be stricken from the rolls of the Army; if not, it is due to the honor of the accused that the slanderer should be dismissed from the cabinet.”

Stanton sent the letter to Lincoln, who replied the same day. “Whether the remarks were really made I do not know; nor do I suppose such knowledge is necessary to a correct response. If they were made I do
not
approve them; and yet, under the circumstances, I would not dismiss a member of the Cabinet thereof. I do not consider what may have been hastily said in a moment of vexation at so severe a loss, is sufficient ground for so grave a step.” Moreover, he concluded, “I propose continuing to be myself the judge as to when a member of the Cabinet shall be dismissed.” Then, to further underscore his authority in the matter, Lincoln composed a note to his cabinet colleagues, stating categorically that only he would decide when the time had come to let one of them go. “It would greatly pain me to discover any of you endeavoring to procure anothers removal, or, in any way to prejudice him before the public. Such endeavor would be a wrong to me; and much worse, a wrong to the country. My wish is that on this subject, no remark be made, nor question asked, by any of you, here or elsewhere, now or hereafter.”

Lincoln’s restrained reaction was validated by Blair’s conduct once the shock of seeing his gutted homestead wore off. Learning that Ben Butler had torched a Confederate officer’s house in retaliation for the burning of Falkland, Monty implored the general to avoid any more like actions. “If we allow the military to invade the rights of private property on any other grounds than those recognized by civilized warfare,” he cautioned, “there will soon cease to be any security whatever for the rights of civilians on either side.” When friends offered to raise funds for him to rebuild, he graciously declined their help. “The loss is a very great one to me it is true,” but it did not compare “to the losses suffered by the unknown millions in this great struggle for the life of the nation. Could I consent to have my house rebuilt by friends, whilst my neighbor a poor old blacksmith is unrelieved[?]” Monty Blair had confirmed Lincoln’s faith in him as a man and as a responsible public figure. The postmaster general would retain his post until Lincoln himself decided it was time for him to go.

“T
HE MONTH OF
A
UGUST
does not open cheerfully,” Noah Brooks reported. The steady progression of unfavorable events—the shocking slaughter at Petersburg, the raid on Washington, and the failure to capture Jubal Early’s troops—had created a mood of widespread despondency throughout the North. In addition, the president’s mid-July call for five hundred thousand additional volunteers had disturbed many Republicans, who feared negative repercussions on the fall elections. Lincoln himself acknowledged the “dissatisfaction” with his new recruiting effort but emphasized that “the men were needed, and must be had, and that should he fall in consequence, he would at least have the satisfaction of going down with the colors flying.”

Meanwhile, dispatches from Grant revealed a continuing stalemate in the siege against Petersburg. An ingenious attempt by a regiment of former coal miners to mine under the Confederate earthworks and blow a hole in the enemy lines had resulted in a spectacular tragedy instead. In the confusion after the explosion, Union soldiers advanced into the 32-foot-deep crater itself, rather than circle around it, and had become trapped. “Piled on top of each other like frightened sheep,” they were easy targets for slaughter. By day’s end, Grant had lost nearly four thousand men. “It was the saddest affair I have witnessed in the war,” Grant wired Halleck. “Such opportunity for carrying fortifications I have never seen and do not expect again to have.”

The appalling event left Gideon Welles in a depressed state, “less however from the result, bad as it is, than from an awakening apprehension that Grant is not equal to the position assigned him…. A blight and sadness comes over me like a dark shadow when I dwell on the subject, a melancholy feeling of the past, a foreboding of the future.” Edward Bates shared his colleague’s despair. In his diary he admitted feeling heartsick when he contemplated “the obstinate errors and persistent blunders of certain of our generals.”

Unlike Welles or Bates, Lincoln refused to let the incident shake his faith in Grant. The day after the Battle of the Crater, he met with Grant at Fort Monroe, where the two men looked resolutely toward the future. Grant had received intelligence that the hard-riding Early had once again crossed the Potomac, spreading fear and devastation in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He dispatched General Philip Sheridan, one of his best commanders, to the Shenandoah Valley with instructions to find Early “and follow him to the death. Wherever the enemy goes let our troops go also.” Lincoln, as determined as Grant to take the battle directly to the enemy without respite, replied: “This, I think, is exactly right.”

A few days later, Commissioner French enjoyed “a long and very pleasant talk” with Lincoln. “He said we must be patient, all would come out right—that he did not expect Sherman to take Atlanta in a day, nor that Grant could walk right into Richmond,—but that we should have them both in time.” Lincoln’s confidence was not now shared by the country. The ongoing disasters had combined to create “much wretchedness and great humiliation in the land,” a doleful Welles noted. “The People are wild for Peace,” Thurlow Weed cautioned Seward.

Even before this train of events, Horace Greeley had taken it upon himself to counsel Lincoln. Greeley had received word that
“two Ambassadors”
representing Jefferson Davis had come to Niagara Falls in Canada
“with full & complete powers for a peace.”
Urging the president to meet with them immediately, he reminded Lincoln that “our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country also longs for peace—shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of human blood. And a wide-spread conviction that the Government…[is] not anxious for Peace, and do not improve proffered opportunities to achieve it, is doing great harm.”

Though fairly certain that the so-called “ambassadors” had not been authorized by Jefferson Davis, Lincoln nonetheless discussed the matter with Seward and commissioned Horace Greeley to go to Niagara Falls. If the Confederate envoys were genuinely carrying legitimate propositions for peace, Greeley should offer them “safe conduct” and escort them to Washington. In addition, Lincoln dispatched John Hay to join Greeley at Niagara Falls and deliver a handwritten, confidential note to the envoys. “To Whom it may concern,” the note read. “Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery…will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points.”

As Lincoln suspected, the two envoys had “no credentials whatever” and could offer no assurances that Jefferson Davis was ready to stop the war. He hoped the failed mission would demonstrate to Greeley and others the absurdity of the claims that
he
was the one preventing peace. Unfortunately, his intention backfired when the Confederate envoys sent Lincoln’s confidential letter to the newspapers, falsely proclaiming that Lincoln’s inadmissible demand for abolition had torpedoed the negotiations. Democratic newspapers embellished the story, accusing Lincoln of continuing the war for the sole purpose of freeing the slaves.

Leading Republicans were also upset by the president’s “To Whom it may concern” letter. Looking simply for restoration of the Union, Thurlow Weed complained, the people “are told that the President will only listen to terms of Peace on condition Slavery be ‘abandoned.’” Deeply disheartened, Weed and other leading Republicans became convinced that their party would be defeated in November. Weed journeyed to Washington during the first week in August and told Lincoln “that his re-election was an impossibility.” Leonard Swett felt compelled to inform his friend of a growing movement to “call a convention and supplant him.” A date for the new convention had been set for September 22 in Cincinnati, three weeks after the Democratic Convention. Swett warned Lincoln that a “most alarming depression” had overtaken his erstwhile supporters, and that unless something were done “to stem the tide,” the situation was hopeless.

Dissatisfaction was rife inside the cabinet as well. Both Gideon Welles and Montgomery Blair were mystified by Lincoln’s decision to “impose conditions” that were “inadmissible” by their very nature. Knowing that only Seward and Fessenden had been privy to his plan, Welles questioned the president’s right “to assume this unfortunate attitude without consulting his Cabinet.”

Henry Raymond, editor of the
New York Times
and chairman of the Republican National Party, added to Lincoln’s woes. “I am in active correspondence with your staunchest friends in every state and from them all I hear but one report,” wrote Raymond in late August. “The tide is setting strongly against us.” Raymond went on to predict that if the election were held immediately, Lincoln would be beaten in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. Raymond ascribed two causes for “this great reaction in public sentiment,—the want of military successes, and the impression in some minds, the fear and suspicion in others” that the Confederates were ready for reunion and peace, but for the absolute demand that slavery be abandoned. He recognized the inaccuracy of this perception but argued that it could “only be expelled by some authoritative act, at once bold enough to fix attention.” He recommended sending a commissioner to meet with Jefferson Davis
“to make distinct proffers of peace…on the sole Condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the Constitution,”
leaving all remaining issues to be settled later.

Lincoln’s response to these extraordinary pressures reveals much about his character. “I confess that I desire to be re-elected,” he told Thaddeus Stevens and Simon Cameron that August. “I have the common pride of humanity to wish my past four years administration endorsed; and besides I honestly believe that I can better serve the nation in its need and peril than any new man could possibly do. I want to finish this job of putting down the rebellion, and restoring peace and prosperity to the country.”