The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln (92 page)

David Hunter had accompanied Lincoln on the Presidential train to Washington. Lincoln had sent him to Missouri after his difficulties with Frémont, and then to Kansas. Hunter felt that the Kansas command was a very unimportant one. He wrote to Lincoln, telling him so in no uncertain terms. Lincoln replies to his dissatisfied general with his usual graciousness and tact
.

Executive Mansion, December 31, 1861

D
EAR
S
IR
: Yours of the 23d is received, and I am constrained to say it is difficult to answer so ugly a letter in good temper. I am, as you intimate, losing much of the great confidence I placed in you, not from any act or omission of yours touching the public service, up to the time you were sent to Leavenworth, but from the flood of grumbling despatches and letters I have seen from you since. I knew you were being ordered to Leavenworth at the time it was done; and I aver that with as tender a regard for your honor and your sensibilities as I had for my own, it never occurred to me that you were being “humiliated, insulted and disgraced!” nor have I, up to this day, heard an intimation that you have been wronged, coming from any one but yourself. No one has blamed you for the retrograde movement from Springfield, nor for the information you gave General Cameron; and this you could readily understand, if it were not for your unwarranted assumption that the ordering you to Leavenworth must necessarily have been done as a
punishment
for some
fault
. I thought then, and think yet, the position assigned to you is as responsible, and as honorable, as that assigned to Buell—I know that General McClellan expected more important results from it. My impression is that at the time you were assigned to the new Western Department, it had not been determined to replace General Sherman
in Kentucky; but of this I am not certain, because the idea that a command in Kentucky was very desirable, and one in the farther West undesirable, had never occurred to me. You constantly speak of being placed in command of only 3,000. Now tell me, is this not mere impatience? Have you not known all the while that you are to command four or five times that many?

I have been, and am sincerely your friend; and if, as such, I dare to make a suggestion, I would say you are adopting the best possible way to ruin yourself. “Act well your part, there all the honor lies.” He who does
something
at the head of one Regiment, will eclipse him who does
nothing
at the head of a hundred.

McClellan’s army was being assembled, equipped and drilled. Meanwhile the Government and the people were dissatisfied at seeing no action. Lincoln issues this General War Order so as to compel McClellan and his other commanders to move against the Confederate forces. The order was never carried out. McClellan successfully persuaded him that it would be inadvisable to do so, and by the time February 22 (the day for the general movement) had come, Lincoln was in the midst of grief over the loss of his son, Willie, who had died on February 20
.

Executive Mansion, January 27, 1862

O
RDERED
, That the 22d day of February, 1862, be the day for a general movement of all the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces. That especially the army at and about Fortress Monroe; the Army of the Potomac; the Army of Western Virginia; the army near Munfordville, Kentucky; the army and flotilla at Cairo, and a naval force in the Gulf of Mexico, be ready to move on that day.

That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective commanders, obey existing orders for the time, and be ready to obey additional orders when duly given.

That the heads of departments, and especially the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with all their subordinates, and the General-in-Chief, with all other commanders and subordinates of land and naval forces, will severally be held to their strict and full responsibilities for prompt execution of this order.

McClellan and Lincoln differed radically on the plan of campaign to be used against Richmond. Lincoln wanted the army to march due south and make a direct attack; McClellan wanted to attack by land and water, moving toward Richmond by a flanking approach up the Peninsula between the York and the James Rivers. Lincoln presents here, with the clarity of a lawyer’s brief, his argument for his own plan
.

Executive Mansion, February 3, 1862

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: You and I have distinct and different plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac—yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the railroad on the York River; mine to move directly to a point on the railroad southwest of Manassas.

If you will give me satisfactory answers to the following questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours.

F
IRST
. Does not your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of time and money than mine?

S
ECOND
. Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine?

T
HIRD
. Wherein is a victory more valuable by your plan than mine?

F
OURTH
. In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, that it would break no great line of the enemy’s communications, while mine would?

F
IFTH
. In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by your plan than mine?

During the summer of 1860, Captain Nathaniel Gordon of Portland, Maine, had taken his ship, the
Erie,
to Africa, where he had exchanged a cargo of liquor for a cargo of eight hundred and ninety slaves. All but one hundred and seventy-two of these were children who were safe to carry since there was no danger of resistance from them. His ship was overtaken by the U. S. Mohican near Cuba. The Negroes were sent to the free colony in Liberia, while Gordon was taken to New York for trial. His ship was seized and sold at auction, and he himself was sentenced to be hanged. His friends interceded with the President for a commutation of sentence, but in this case the ordinarily soft-hearted Lincoln was adamant; he simply granted a short respite so Gordon might prepare himself for death. There were threats that a rescuing mob would storm the New York City jail on the day he was hanged. He was led into the jailyard under a heavy guard from the Navy Yard shortly before noon on the day appointed for his death. He almost collapsed on the gallows, but the sentence was carried through, and the slaver was hanged
.

February 4, 1862

W
HEREAS
it appears that … Nathaniel Gordon was indicted and convicted for being engaged in the slave trade, and was … sentenced to be put to death by hanging by the neck on Friday the 7th day of February,
A. D
. 1862;

And whereas
a large number of respectable citizens have earnestly besought me to commute the said sentence of the
said Nathaniel Gordon to a term of imprisonment for life, which application I have felt it to be my duty to refuse;

And whereas
it has seemed to me probable that the unsuccessful application made for the commutation of his sentence may have prevented the said Nathaniel Gordon from making the necessary preparation for the awful change which awaits him:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, have granted and do hereby grant unto him, the said Nathaniel Gordon, a respite of the above-recited sentence until Friday, the 21st day of February,
A. D
. 1862, between the hours of twelve o’clock at noon and three o’clock in the afternoon of the said day, when the said sentence shall be executed.

In granting this respite it becomes my painful duty to admonish the prisoner that, relinquishing all expectation of pardon by human authority, he refer himself alone to the mercy of the common God and Father of all men.

The legally trained Lincoln regarded it as unfair to free slaves that represented property without providing some kind of compensation for their owners. In this message to Congress he presents a plan whereby a state desiring to free its slaves would be given financial compensation by the United States Government
.

March 6, 1862

F
ELLOW
-C
ITIZENS OF THE
S
ENATE AND
H
OUSE OF
R
EPRESENTATIVES
: I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable bodies, which shall be substantially as follows:

R
ESOLVED
, That the United States ought to co-operate with any
State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.

If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet the approval of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it does command such approval, I deem it of importance that the States and people immediately interested should be at once distinctly notified of the fact, so that they may begin to consider whether to accept or reject it. The Federal Government would find its highest interest in such a measure, as one of the most efficient means of self-preservation. The leaders of the existing insurrection entertain the hope that this government will ultimately be forced to acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaffected region, and that all the slave States north of such part will then say, “The Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we now choose to go with the Southern section.” To deprive them of this hope substantially ends the rebellion; and the initiation of emancipation completely deprives them of it as to all the States initiating it. The point is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation; but that while the offer is equally made to all, the more Northern shall, by such initiation, make it certain to the more Southern that in no event will the former ever join the latter in their proposed confederacy. I say “initiation” because, in my judgment, gradual and not sudden emancipation is better for all. In the mere financial or pecuniary view, any member of Congress, with the census tables and treasury reports before him, can readily see for himself how very soon the current expenditures of this war would purchase, at fair valuation, all the slaves in any named State. Such a proposition on the part of the General Government sets up no claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere with slavery within State limits, referring, as it does, the absolute control of the subject in each
case to the State and its people immediately interested. It is proposed as a matter of perfectly free choice with them.…

Lincoln explains how his plan for gradual emancipation with compensation compared in cost with the expense of the War
.

Executive Mansion, March 14, 1862

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: As to the expensiveness of the plan of gradual emancipation with compensation, proposed in the late message, please allow me one or two brief suggestions.

Less than one-half-day’s cost of this war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware at four hundred dollars per head.

Thus, all the slaves in Delaware by the census of 1860, are	1,798
	400
Cost of the slaves	$719,200
One day’s cost of the war	$2,000,000

Again, less than eighty-seven days’ cost of this war would, at the same price, pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri.

Thus,	slaves in	Delaware	1,798
”	”	Maryland	87,188
”	”	District of Columbia.	3,181
”	”	Kentucky	225,490
”	”	Missouril	114,965
			432,622
			400
		Cost of slaves	$173,048,800
		Eighty-seven days’ cost of the war	$174,000,000