History of the United States, v.4, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 23, Part 2: Battles at Spotsylvania through The President’s Visit to the Army

The Confederate soldiers, believing in their invincibility on their own soil, thought that Grant, like the other Federal generals, would give it up and fall back; and Lee at one time held the opinion that he was retiring on Fredericksburg.4 But the Confederate general was too sagacious to base his entire action on one supposition, and, surmising that Grant might move to Spotsylvania, he sent thither part of his force, which, having the shorter and easier line of march, reached there first, and took position across the path of the Union
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4 G, C. Eggleston, Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 230, A Rebel's Recollections, p. 236; O.R., vol. xxxvi. part ii. p. 974.

army. The armies coming in contact, there were several days of fighting; at times raging and bloody battles, again naught but skirmishing and the firing of sharpshooters. It was on a day of this desultory work when Sedgwick, the commander of the Sixth Corps, fell. He was mourned by both friend and foe.1 May 11 Grant sent his celebrated despatch to Halleck. "We have now ended the sixth day of very heavy fighting. . . . I . . . propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." 2 After the furious battle the next day at the Salient — "the bloody angle " — there was a lull, due principally to the heavy and constant rains, which made the roads deep with mud and impassable. It is true, however, that the Union army needed rest, and that Grant was desirous of reinforcements to fill the gaps in his ranks caused by his heavy losses. In these battles at Spotsylvania he was almost invariably the attacking party; he assailed in front the Confederates, whose intrenchments, defended by rifled muskets and by artillery throughout, quadrupled their strength. It is said that the hurling of his men against Lee in chosen and fortified positions was unnecessary, as the roads in number and in direction lent themselves to the operation of turning either flank of the Confederate army.3 "To assault' all along the line,' " writes General Walker, "as was so often done in the summer of 1864, is the very abdication of leadership."4 But Grant was essentially an aggressive soldier, and an important feature of his plan of operations was, as he himself has stated it, "to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources until by mere attrition, if in no other way," the South should be subdued.5 Circumstances
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1 See Life of Lee, Fitzhugh Lee, p. 334.
2 O. R., vol. xxxvi. part i. p. 4. The battles In the Wilderness as well as those at Spotsylvania are counted in this summing up.
3 Humphreys, pp. 71, 75.
4 Life of Hancock, p. 193. "Praesertim cum non minus esset imperatoris consilio superare quam gladio." — Caesar, De Bello Civili, Comm. I. cap.
5 Report of July 22,1865, O. B. vol. xxxvi. part i. p. 13. The comment of General Sherman in a despatch to Stanton from Kingston, Ga., is interesting. "If General Grant," he said, "can sustain the confidence, the esprit, the pluck of his army, and impress the Virginians with the knowledge that the Yankees can and will fight them fair and square, he will do more good than to capture Richmond or any strategic advantage. This moral result must precede all mere advantages of strategic movements, and this is what Grant is doing. Out here the enemy knows we can and will fight like the devil, therefore he manoeuvres for advantage of ground." — O. R., vol. xxxviii. part iv. p. 294.

similar to the one which occurred in the Wilderness are to be noted. On May 10, and again on the 12th, at the fight at the "bloody angle," when the Confederates were on the verge of disaster, Lee rode to the head of a column, intending to lead a charge which he deemed might be necessary to save the day. On both occasions the soldiers refused to advance unless their general should go to the rear.1 Lee did not court danger, and was apparently reckless in the one case only after his lines had been broken, and in the other when the struggle for the Salient demanded the utmost from general and men. It is worthy of record that such incidents in the life of Lee did not take place until Grant came to direct the movements of the Army of the Potomac.

May 18 Grant attacked again, but failed to carry the Confederate intrenchments. On the next day a part of Lee's force in making a demonstration was met and repulsed. Several days later Grant crossed the North Anna River. Lee, concentrating his troops, interposed them between the two wings of the Union army, which were widely separated, and could reinforce neither the other without passing over the river twice. "Grant," write Nicolay and Hay, "was completely checkmated." 2 Lee begrudged every step Grant took towards Richmond, and had planned now to assume the offensive, when he fell ill. He declared impatiently on his sick-bed in his tent, "We must strike them, we must never let them pass us again;" 3 but before he had recovered sufficiently to take personal charge of an attack, Grant, "finding the enemy's position
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1 Life of Lee, Long, pp. 338, 341; do. Fitzhugh Lee, p. 338.
2 Vol. viii. p. 389.
3 Fitzhugh Lee, p. 339.

on the North Anna stronger than either of his previous ones,"1 withdrew, unmolested, to the north bank of the river. Meanwhile Butler, with an army, was moving up the James River, and, taking the Confederates by surprise, occupied, without opposition, City Point and Bermuda Hundred. It was in the chances that a skilful and daring general might have captured Petersburg or Richmond. Butler was neither, and dallied while Beauregard energetically gathered together the loose forces in North and South Carolina, and brought them to the defence of the two places. The result of his operations is thus accurately related by Grant: "His [Butler's] army, therefore, though in a position of great security, was as completely shut off from further operations directly against Richmond as if it had been in a bottle strongly corked." 2

Marching forward, and fighting on the way, Grant, by June 2, had gone a considerable distance farther south, had reached the ground which one wing of McClellan's army had occupied in May and June, 1862, and was in position near the scene of Fitz John Porter's gallant fight of Gaines's Mill, almost in sight of the spires of the Confederate capital. Lee, about six miles from the exterior fortifications of Richmond, held a position naturally strong, which by intrenchments he had made practically impregnable. Flanking movements being apparently at an end, Grant, with unjustifiable precipitation, ordered an assault in front.3 This was made at 4.30 in the morning of June 3, and constituted the Battle of Cold Harbor, the greatest blemish on his reputation as a general. The order having at first been given for the attack on the afternoon of the 2d, and then postponed for the morrow, officers and men had a chance to chew upon it,
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1 O. R., vol. xxxvi. part i. p. 21.
2 Report, July 22, 1S65, ibid., p. 20. The expressive phrase was Barnard's. It was seized upon by the public as an excellent statement of Butler's military incapacity, and its wide dissemination caused Grant annoyance afterwards. See Personal Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 152.
3 "Never attack in front a position which admits of being turned." — Military Maxims of Napoleon (New York 1845), p. 17.

and both knew that the undertaking was hopeless. Horace Porter, an aide-de-camp of Grant, relates that when walking among the troops on staff duty the evening before the battle, he noticed many soldiers of one of the regiments designated for the assault pinning on the backs of their coats slips of paper on which were written their names and home addresses, so that their dead bodies might be recognized on the field, and their fate be known to their families at the North.1

The soldiers sprang promptly to the assault. The history of Hancock's corps, the Second, is an epitome of the action. In about twenty-two minutes its repulse was complete.2 It had "lost over 3000 of its bravest and best, both of officers and men." 3 The true story of the day is told by General Lee: At one part of the Confederate line the Federals were "repulsed without difficulty;" at another, having penetrated a salient, they were driven out "with severe loss," at still another their "repeated attacks . . . were met with great steadiness and repulsed in every instance. The attack extended to our extreme left . . . with like results." Thus he concluded his despatch: "Our loss to-day has been small, and our success, under the blessing of God, all that we could expect."4 The casualties in the Union army were probably 7000.5 Grant at that time regretted the attack,6 as he did also near the close of his life, when he gave expression to his perpetual regret in his Personal Memoirs. "No advantage whatever," he added, "was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained."7 After the Battle of Cold Harbor
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1 Century Magazine, March, 1897, p. 720; see Recollections of a Private, Wilkeson, p. 128.
2 Life of Hancock, Walker, p. 222.
3 Memoranda of 2d Corps, O. R., vol. xxxvi. part i. p. 367.
4 Ibid., part iii. p. 869.
5 H. Porter, Century Magazine, March, 1897, p. 722; see also Humphreys, p. 182; Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 187.
6 Century Magazine, March, 1897, p. 722; Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 229. But in a later expression of opinion Grant does not appear to advantage.— Ibid.
7 Vol. ii. p. 276; also, J. R. Young, vol. ii. p. 304.

he determined to move his army south of the James, and June 12 took up his march, the advance corps reaching the river on the next night.

The loss of Grant from May 4 to June 12 in the campaign from the Rapidan to the James was 54,929,1 a number nearly equal to Lee's whole army at the commencement of the Union advance; that of the Confederates is not known, but it was certainly very much less. Nor do the bare figures tell the whole story. Of this enormous loss the flower of the Army of the Potomac contributed a disproportionate share. Fighting against such odds of position and strategy, the high-spirited and capable officers were in the thick of danger, and of the rank and file the veterans were always at the front: they were the forlorn hope. The bounty-jumpers and mercenaries skulked to the rear. The morale of the soldiers was much lower than on the day when, in high spirits, they had crossed the Rapidan. The confidence in Grant of many officers and of most of the men had been shaken.

In the judgment of many military critics, Grant had not been equal to his opportunities, had not made the best use of his advantages, and had secured no gain commensurate with his loss. Yet the friends of McClellan who maintain that because McClellan reached the same ground near Richmond with comparatively little sacrifice of life, his campaign had the greater merit, miss the main point of the situation, that the incessant hammering of Lee's army was a necessary concomitant of success. They attach to the capture of the Confederate capital the subjugation of the South, ignoring that Grant was supremely right in making Lee's army his first objective and Richmond only his second. His strategy was superior to McClellan's in that he grasped the aim of the war, and resolutely and grimly stuck to his purpose in spite of defeats and losses which would have dismayed any but the stoutest soul; and criticism of him is not sound unless it
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1 Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 182. The loss in Butler's Army of the James was 6215.

proves, as perhaps it does, that there might have been the same persistent fighting of the Army of Northern Virginia without so great a slaughter of Northern soldiers. The case is certainly stronger for Grant if we compare his work even thus far with the operations of Pope, Burnside, and Hooker. As for Meade, his name is so gratefully associated with the magnificent victory of Gettysburg that our judgment leans in his favor, and would fain rate at the highest his achievements; but it is difficult to see aught that he did afterwards in independent command towards bringing the war to a close. If the narrative be anticipated, and the comparison be made of Grant's total losses to the day on which he received the surrender of Lee's army, with the combined losses of the rest of the commanders of the Army of the Potomac, the result arrived at is that his aggregate was less than theirs,1 and his was the great achievement. The military literature of the South directly and by implication breathes a constant tribute to the effectiveness of his plan and his execution of it. It must not, however, be forgotten that McClellan and Meade had weakened in some measure the power of resistance of the Army of Northern Virginia.2

Sherman, whose headquarters had been at Chattanooga, began his advance on May 6. He was at the head of three armies: the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Ohio, commanded, respectively, by Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield, and aggregating 99,000 men. Joseph E. Johnston was at
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1 See J. W. Kirkley's computation, Army and Navy Journal, March 20, 1897; also, McClure's Magazine, May, 1898, p. 34.
2 My authorities for this account are the correspondence and reports in O. R., vol. xxxvi. parts i., ii., iii.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii.; Humphreys, The Virginia Campaign of 1864-65; Life of Lee, Long; do. Fitzhugh Lee; Taylor's Lee; Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. ii.; Horace Porter, Campaigning with General Grant, Century Magazine, 1896-97; Charles A. Dana's Reminiscences, McClure's Magazine, May, 1898; Century War Book, vol. iv.; Life of Hancock, Walker; W. F. Smith, From Chattanooga to Petersburg; Butler's Book; Recollections of a Private Soldier, Wilkeson; Swinton, Army of the Potomac; George Cary Eggleston's Recollections of a Rebel.

Dalton, Georgia, strongly intrenched with a force of 53,000.1 The campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta, which now commenced, is remarkable for the vigor and pertinacity of the attack, the skill and obstinacy of the defence. Two giants met. The greater numbers of Sherman corresponded merely to the nature of his work. In the invasion of an enemy's country, with a constantly lengthening line of supply and a resulting diminution of force by detachments to protect it, an army twice as great as the resistant was necessary to accomplish the object of the campaign, which was the destruction or surrender of the opposing host. Johnston had not as able lieutenants as Sherman, and did not win from them as great a measure of devotion, nor had he in other respects a personnel equal to that of the Union commander, whose army, moreover, had derived confidence for the future from its victory at Chattanooga. But, taking everything into consideration, the conditions of the contest were nearly even. Sherman's work became easier, as will be seen, when he had as antagonist a commander of inferior parts. On the other hand, it cannot be maintained with show of reason that Johnston could have been driven constantly and steadily southward, from position to position, by a general who did not possess a high order of ability. The more one studies this inch-by-inch struggle, the better will one realize that in the direction and supply of each of these brute forces there was a master mind, with the best of professional training, with the profit of three years of warfare. The strife between the two was characterized by honor, as has been that of all noble spirits since Homer's time, who have fought to the end. Either would have regarded the killing of the other as a happy fortune of war, though, indeed, he might have apostrophized his dead body as did Mark Antony that of Brutus;2 yet twenty-seven years
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1 Maj. E. C. Dawes, Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 281. This number is variously given. I have preferred to follow Dawes, who has studied the subject with care. I think the same manner of computation which makes Sherman's force 98,797, will ascribe to Johnston 52,992.
2 Julius Caesar, act v. scene 5

later, when the victor in this campaign had succumbed to death, the magnanimous Johnston, though aged and feeble, travelled from Washington to New York to act as a pallbearer and to grieve as a sincere mourner at his funeral.1

The position of the Confederates at Dalton was too strong to justify an assault in front, and must therefore be turned. Sherman sent McPherson through Snake Creek Gap against Resaca, while Thomas and Schofield pressed Johnston's front. Somewhat later, with all of his army but one corps and some cavalry, he followed McPherson. This caused Johnston to evacuate Dalton on the night of May 12, and concentrate his army in front of the Union troops at Resaca. On the 14th there was fighting, and the afternoon and evening of the next day "a heavy battle." 2 "We intend to fight Joe Johnston until he is satisfied," telegraphed Sherman, "and I hope he will not attempt to escape. If he does, my bridges are down, and we will be after him."3 Meanwhile he had sent a division across the Oostanaula River to throw up intrenchments. The position of the Confederates becoming untenable, they withdrew from Resaca the night of May 15, crossed the river, and burned the railroad bridge behind them.

Sherman, however, was untiring in his pursuit. May 20 he was able to send this report: "I am in possession of Rome, Kingston, and Cassville, with the line of Etowah. . . . We have fought all the way from Resaca. I think Johnston is now at Allatoona. Railroads and telegraphs are repaired up to our army, and all are in good condition and spirits."4 The day previous, when at Cassville, Johnston had determined to accept battle and had issued an address to his soldiers, saying: "By your courage and skill you have repulsed every assault of the enemy. By marches by day and by
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1 Sherman died February 14,1891; Johnston five weeks later, of heart failure aggravated by a cold taken at the funeral of Sherman.
2 O. R., vol. xxxviii. part i. p. 64.
3 May 15, ibid., part iv. p. 189.
4 Ibid., p. 262.

marches by night you have defeated every attempt upon your communications. Your communications are secured. You will now turn and march to meet his advancing columns."1 But that evening he ascertained in conference that two of his corps commanders did not approve his plan, and without their full sympathetic support he did not deem it wise to risk a battle with a force so much his superior.2 He therefore gave the order to retreat south of the Etowah River. He was right in wishing to try the fortune of war at this time in this comparatively open country, for in his retreat he had been picking up detachments, while Sherman, from the necessity of protecting the railroad in his rear, his only line of supply, had diminished his numbers for fighting, and the two armies, both of which had received reinforcements, were more nearly equal than at any other time during the campaign.3 Sherman had ever been eager for a battle since he began his advance, and this eagerness was shared by his men. The continual avoidance of it by Johnston when it was constantly offered increased their confidence, which had been high from the outset, and they went forward sure of victory and enduring with patience the privations and hardships of the march. All this while news of the operations in Virginia was furnished to both armies, the one hearing of Union victories in the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania, the other that " Lee has whipped Grant" and "General Lee beat Grant again." 4

Arrived at Kingston, Sherman gave his army a few days of rest. He thus wrote, May 23: "I am already within fifty miles of Atlanta, and have added one hundred miles to my railroad communications, every mile of which is liable to attack by
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1 O. R., vol. xxxviii. part iv. p. 728.
2 Johnston's Narrative, p. 323; Sherman's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 40.
3 O. R., vol. xxxviii. part iv. pp. 274, 725; J. D. Cox, Atlanta, p. 63; Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 281.
4 O. R., vol. xxxviii. part iv. pp. 110, 172, 682, 683. Lieut.-Col. C. F. Morse of the 2d Mass., who had been with the Army of the Potomac until the autumn of 1863 and who was now in Hooker's corps, Thomas's army, wrote, May 20: "The news from Virginia is grand, but the details terrible." — Letters privately printed, p. 166.

cavalry."1 This despatch gives some idea of the labor attending the invasion of the enemy's territory. Men needed not only marching and fighting qualities, but the temper to endure without grievous murmurs the deprivation of many creature comforts of ordinary army life. The baggage and tents had mainly been left behind,2 and a tent fly was the shelter for brigade and division headquarters; but the food, consisting of meat, bread, coffee, and sugar, was good and in plentiful supply.3 All the supplies came over the single line of railroad running from Chattanooga to Atlanta, of which the track was torn up, and the bridges burned by the Confederates, as they retreated. But the engineer corps in charge of the railway repairs was skilful and energetic, renewing bridges as if by magic, to the wonder of Johnston's men, who, under the illusion that their destroying work would cause great delays, were startled to hear the whistle of the locomotive bringing up the supply trains in the rear of the Union army.4
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1 O. R, vol. xxxviii. part iv. p. 294. From Kingston he wrote his brother, May 20: "I will make for Atlanta, 59 miles from here and about 50 from the advance." — Sherman Letters, p. 235. The distances by rail are, Chattanooga to Kingston, 80; Kingston to Atlanta, 58.
2 For the exception see O. R., vol. xxxviii. part iv. p. 507.
3 Morse wrote home, June 9: "We don't indulge ourselves now in any irregularities of diet, but stick consistently to our pork and hardtack moistened with coffee. Most of us probably eat about a third as much in weight as if we were at home doing nothing. Still, I have never felt in better health in my life, and feel strong and fit for work, notwithstanding the hot sun." — Letters privately printed, p. 169.
4 This subject is well treated by General J. D. Cox, Atlanta, chap. vii.; see Sherman Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 22. Sherman wrote his brother, June 9: "My long and single line of railroad to my rear, of limited capacity, is the delicate point of my game, as also the fact that all of Georgia, except the cleared bottoms, is densely wooded, with few roads, and at any point an enterprising enemy can, in a few hours, with axes and spades, make across our path formidable works, whilst his sharpshooters, spies, and scouts in the guise of peaceable farmers can hang around us and kill our wagon men, messengers, and couriers. It is a big Indian war; still thus far I have won four strong positions, advanced a hundred miles, and am in possession of a large wheat-growing region and all the iron mines and works of Georgia." — Letters, p. 236.

At Kingston Sherman was in a country which, as a lieutenant of artillery, he had ridden over on horseback twenty years before. Knowing from his youthful impressions1 that Johnston's position at Allatoona Pass was very strong and would be hard to force,2 he formed the design of turning it, and to that end left the railroad on May 25, made a circuit to the right, and brought on the hard battle of New Hope Church, accomplishing his object, so that when he returned to the railroad he occupied it from Allatoona to Big Shanty in sight of Kenesaw Mountain. The story from June 13 to the 23d is well told by Sherman in his contemporaneous despatches, brief extracts from which will answer our general purpose. June 13 he wrote: "We have had hard and cold rains for about ten days. . . . The roads are insufficient here, and the fields and new ground are simply impassable to wheels. As soon as possible I will study Johnston's position on the Kenesaw and Lost Mountains, and adopt some plan to dislodge him or draw him out of his position. We cannot risk the heavy losses of an assault at this distance from our base." June 15: "We killed Bishop Polk3 yesterday, and have made good progress to-day. . . . General Grant may rest easy that Joe Johnston will not trouble him if I can help it by labor or thought." "Losses to-day very small, it having been one grand skirmish, extending along a front of eight miles." June 17: "By last night we had worked so close to Johnston's centre that he saw that the assault must follow. He declined it, and abandoned Lost Mountain, and some six miles of as good field-works as I ever saw." June 23: "We continue to press forward, operating on the principle of an advance against fortified positions. The whole country is one vast fort, and Johnston must have full fifty miles of connected trenches, with abatis and finished batteries. We gain ground daily, fighting all the time. . . . Our lines are now
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1 "Der Mensch kann seine Jugendeindrucke nicht los werden."—• Goethe, Gesprache von Eckermann, 12 April, 1829.
2 Sherman's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 42.
3 Polk had the rank of Lieutenant-General.

in close contact, and the fighting incessant with a good deal of artillery. As fast as we gain one position the enemy has another all ready, but I think he will soon have to let go Kenesaw, which is the key to the whole country. The weather is now better, and the roads are drying up fast. Our losses are light, and, notwithstanding the repeated breaks of the road to our rear, supplies are ample."1

For some reason Sherman now disregarded his determination of June 13,2 and resolved to make an assault in front on Johnston's almost impregnable position at Kenesaw Mountain,3 an operation which is admittedly a flaw in this otherwise well-conceived and admirably executed campaign. It is a tradition in the Army of the Cumberland that it was a spasmodic decision adopted in a state of excited restlessness, but if this were so it did not preclude a careful preparation for the attack. June 24 Sherman issued the orders for it,4 and the onslaught was not made until eight o'clock in the morning three days later. The veteran soldiers entered upon the assault with great courage, but, soon discovering that one rifle in the trench was worth five in front of it,5 they demonstrated that the works could not be carried except by an immense sacrifice of life; and with the consent of the division and corps commanders, they abandoned the attempt. Sherman's loss was nearly 3000,6 Johnston's 800.7 In his report two months and one half later, Sherman justified the assault, saying, "Failure as it was, and for which I assume the entire responsibility, I yet claim it produced good fruits, as it demonstrated to General Johnston that I would assault, and that
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1 All these despatches are from Big Shanty. — O. R., vol. xxxviii. part iv. pp. 466, 480, 481, 498, 572, 573.
2 See ibid., p. 466; also that of June 5, ibid., p. 408.
3 Morse spoke of it, June 24, as a " line so strong that if decently well held I don't think it could be carried by assault by the best infantry in the world." — Letters privately printed, p. 171.
4 O. R., vol. xxxviii. part iv. pp. 582, 588.
5 Cox, Atlanta, p. 129.
6 Report, O. R., vol. xxxviii. part 1. p. 69.
7 Johnston's Narrative, p. 343.

boldly."1 Thomas had no liking for such a method of operation, deeming it a useless sacrifice of men, and, after giving Sherman the information that he had called for that afternoon, added: "We have already lost heavily to-day without gaining any material advantage; one or two more such assaults would use up this army." Sherman replied: "Our loss is small compared with some of those East. It should not in the least discourage us. At times assaults are necessary and inevitable." In a later communication he asked, "Are you willing to risk the move on Fulton, cutting loose from our railroad?" Thomas answered quickly, "If with the greater part of the army, I think it decidedly better than butting against breastworks twelve feet thick and strongly abatised."2 Sherman then made a flank movement, causing Johnston to relax his hold of Kenesaw. July 4 he had "a noisy but not a desperate battle;"3 and still pushing the Confederates, he compelled them, by July 9, to retreat across the Chattahoochee River, leaving him in full possession of its north and west banks, and in sight of Atlanta. The loss of the Union army during the months of May and June was 16,800; that of the Confederate 14,500.4

The allusion to the correspondence between Sherman and Thomas the day of the Battle of Kenesaw Mountain affords an inkling of the difference between their characters and their modes of operation. June 18 Sherman wrote Grant: "My chief source of trouble is with the Army of the Cumberland, which is dreadfully slow. A fresh furrow in a ploughed field will stop the whole column, and all begin to intrench. I have again and again tried to impress on Thomas that we must assail and not defend; we are the offensive, and yet it
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1 O. R., vol. xxxviii. part iv. p. 69. See his earlier defence, cited by Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 24.
2 This correspondence is June 27, O. R., vol. xxxviii. part iv. pp. 610, 611, 612.
3 Sherman's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 66.
4 Ibid., pp. 47, 63; Johnston's Narrative, pp. 325, 576.

seems that the whole Army of the Cumberland is so habituated to be on the defensive that, from its commander down to the lowest private, I cannot get it out of their heads."1 On proposing the movement to Fulton, he relates, "General Thomas, as usual, shook his head."2 On the other hand, the officers of the Army of the Cumberland for the most part believed that Sherman's restlessness and impetuosity, which had got them into trouble at Kenesaw, would have led them to other disasters had he not been restrained by the discretion and prudence of Thomas. In this controversy the layman may not venture a decision, and since the campaign was successful to the point which the story has reached, and eminently so to the end of it, he would like to believe that the differing gifts of Sherman and Thomas wrought together to advantage, and that they accomplished in their union, jarring though it was at times, what neither one alone would have done so completely and so well.3

Not alone with military campaigns has the story of 1864 to occupy itself: it must take into account the political campaign, the nomination and the election of a President. The important question was whether Lincoln should succeed himself, and this could not be kept in abeyance even during the preceding year. He was, in a measure, held responsible for the military failures of the summer of 1862, for the disaster of Fredericksburg in December, for that of Chancellorsville in May, 1863, with the result that many came to doubt whether he had the requisite ability and decision to carry on the great undertaking. But he came in for a share of the glory of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and from that time forward his political position became greatly strengthened. Yet
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1 O. R., vol. xxxviii. part iv. p. 507.
2 Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 61.
3 My authorities for this account are the reports and correspondence in O. R., vol. xxxviii. parts i. and iv.; J. D. Cox, Atlanta; Sherman's Memoirs, vol. ii.; Johnston's Narrative; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix.; Century War Book, vol. iv.; Life of Thomas, Van Horne.

the disaffection had been strong enough to seek a head, and had found it in Chase, whose craving for the presidency was exceedingly strong. Theoretically, he might seem a formidable candidate. He was the representative of the radical Republicans, and was regarded by them as the counterpoise of Lincoln, who had gone too slow to suit them in his blows against slavery, and was now arousing their antagonism in his policy for the reconstruction of the Union. Chase had made a success of his management of the Treasury, and was in character and ability fit for the office of President. The opponents of Lincoln made an adroit use of the custom then long prevalent of limiting the occupation of the White House to four years: since Jackson was re-elected, in 1832, no man had been chosen for a second term. Van Buren had, indeed, received the nomination for it, but had been beaten at the polls; and since then Presidents in office had been candidates for renomination, but none had even been renominated by their party conventions. This had seemed to become a settled practice.

In August, 1863, Chase declared that he was not anxious for the presidency, and that if the currents of popular sentiment turned towards him he would not take the office unless it came to him without any pledge in relation to appointments. But the desire feeding on itself increased. He listened eagerly to the men who solicited him, and he was sought, writes one of his biographers, "less by strong men and by good men than by weak men and by bad men."1 It needs no acute judgment to detect the lurking ambition in his letter of apparent self-effacement to his son-in-law, ex-Governor Sprague. "If T were controlled by mere personal sentiments," he wrote, "I should prefer the re-election of Mr. Lincoln to that of any other man. But I doubt the expediency of re-electing anybody, and I think a man of differing qualities from those the President has will be needed for the next four years. I am not anxious to be regarded as that man; and I am quite willing to leave that question to
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1 Warden, p. 530; see, also, pp. 533, 536.

the decision of those who agree in thinking that some such man should be chosen."1

During the month of January, 1864, a committee of senators, representatives, and citizens was formed with the avowed object of securing the nomination of Chase. Some of them had interviews with him; and he, after exhibiting the usual and feigned coyness of presidential candidates, consented to allow the submission of his name "to the consideration of the people." He desired the support of Ohio, but if "a majority of our friends" should "indicate a preference for another," he would cheerfully acquiesce in their decision.3 His private correspondence at this time is pervaded with anxiety for the nomination, and makes one think that he was, with a certain dignity and in his own manner, working hard for it, while he disclaimed everything of the sort. "Some friends are sanguine that my name will receive favorable consideration from the people in connection with the presidency," he wrote. "I tell them that I can take no part in anything they may propose to do, except by trying to merit confidence where I am."8 "So far as the presidency is concerned," are his words, two days later, "I must leave that wholly to the people."4

The committee, that has just been referred to, issued a circular, signed by Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, its chairman, which was circulated widely by mail, the pith of which was that radical ideas, the policy of a vigorous prosecution of the war, and the safety of the country would be subserved better by the choice of Chase for President than by that of Lincoln.5 By the first of February, however, Chase learned that there was little probability of his receiving the support of his own State,6 and he prepared his mind to submit with as much
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1 November 26, 1863, Schuckers, p. 494.
2 Warden, pp. 560, 573.
3 January 26, 1864, ibid., p. 563.
4 Ibid., p. 565.
5 The circular is dated February 1864. —Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1864, p. 783; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 319; Pomeroy's remarks, Senate, March 10, Globe, p. 1025.
6 Warden, p. 568.

cheerfulness as possible to the almost certain choice of his chief. "The signs of the times, "he wrote, "seem to indicate the renomination of Mr. Lincoln. His personal popularity is great and deserved. If to his kindliness of spirit and good sense he joined strong will and energetic action, there would be little left to wish for in him." But the committee, he continued, "think there will be a change in the current, which, so far as it is not spontaneous, is chiefly managed by the Blairs."1 February 20 the Pomeroy circular was printed in the Washington Constitutional Union,2 and called forth a letter from Chase to the President, in which he made a frank avowal of his connection with the Pomeroy committee in respect to his candidacy for President, saying in it, "I have thought this explanation due to you as well as to myself. If there is anything in my action or position which, in your judgment, will prejudice the public interest under my charge, I beg of you to say so. I do not wish to administer the Treasury Department one day without your entire confidence."8

Lincoln had long known of Chase's striving for the presidency, and while it may have disturbed him at times,4 the attitude of his mind towards it after he had back of him Gettysburg and Vicksburg was expressed in his remark in October, 1863, to his private secretary. "I have determined," he said, "to shut my eyes, so far as possible, to everything of the sort. Mr. Chase makes a good Secretary, and I shall keep him where he is. If he becomes President, all right. I hope we may never have a worse man. I have observed, with regret, his plan of strengthening himself. Whenever he sees that an important matter is troubling me, if I am compelled to decide in a way to give offence to a man of some influence, he always ranges himself in opposition to me, and persuades the victim that he has been hardly dealt
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1 February 2, .Warden, p. 569. The Blairs were Francis P. Sr.; Montgomery, the Postmaster-General; Francis P. Jr.
2 See Warden, p. 573.
3 February 22, Warden, p. 574; see Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 321. 4 See McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, p. 120 et seq.

with, and that he would have arranged it very differently. It was so with General Fremont, with General Hunter when I annulled his hasty proclamation, with General Butler when he was recalled from New Orleans. ... I am entirely indifferent as to his success or failure in these schemes so long as he does his duty at the head of the Treasury Department."1 Now he acknowledged at once Chase's note of February 22, but deferred a full reply for a week, when he wrote a kind, considerate, and magnanimous letter, ending with, "Whether you shall remain at the head of the Treasury Department is a question which I will not allow myself to consider from any standpoint other than my judgment of the public service; and, in that view, I do not perceive occasion for a change."2

February 25 the Union members of the Ohio legislature held a caucus and declared for the renomination of Lincoln.3 March 5 Chase wrote to an Ohio friend that, owing to this action, "it becomes my duty ... to ask that no further consideration be given to my name."4 If Chase had been as good and wise a man as Lincoln, the jarring between them would now have come to an end.

The declaration in Ohio was only one of many similar indications. By legislative caucuses, by letters, by political conventions, by declarations of the Union Leagues, the Union or Republican party pronounced in favor of the renomination of Lincoln.5 Admitting even all that was urged by his opponents
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1 Diary of John Hay, Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 316.
2 Warden, p. 575; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 322.
3 Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1864, p. 783; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 324. The Columbus, Ohio, correspondent of the New York Tribune, which opposed the nomination of Lincoln, said, February 26: "About 63 out of the 105 of the Union members of the Legislature met in caucus and passed a resolution saying that the people of Ohio and soldiers in the army demand the re-election of Abraham Lincoln. Before the adoption of the resolution nearly all the Chase men had left the hall, and there were not at the time a majority of Union members present."
4 Schuckers, p. 503.
5 Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1864, p. 783; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 324, vol. ix. p. 52 et seq.

of the manipulation by office-holders and politicians, there remains no doubt that the mass of citizens were lending aid to these movements. The President had gained the support of the plain people, of business men, and of a good part of the highest intelligence of the country. Nothing in the study of popular sentiment can be more gratifying than this oneness of thought between farmers, small shop-keepers, salesmen, clerks, mechanics, and the men who stood intellectually for the highest aspirations of the nation. Motley said in a private letter, "My respect for the character of the President increases every day." 1 Lowell wrote in the North American Review: "History will rank Mr. Lincoln among the most prudent of statesmen and the most successful of rulers. If we wish to appreciate him, we have only to conceive the inevitable chaos in which we should now be weltering had a weak man or an unwise one been chosen in his stead." 2 "Homely, honest, ungainly Lincoln," wrote Asa Gray to Darwin, "is the representative man of the country." 3

In spite of these many and different manifestations of public opinion, those adverse to the President did not relinquish the hope of defeating his nomination. After the abortive Pomeroy circular their action took the shape of an endeavor to postpone the national convention. Greeley, in a letter to the Independent, urged this plan,4 and in an article in the Tribune enunciated by indirection the opinion that Chase, Fremont, Butler, or Grant would make as good a President as Lincoln, and he added that the selection of any one of them would preserve "the salutary one-term principle."5 It is lamentable that a leader of public sentiment should have rated Fremont or Butler as high as Lincoln, and while the Tribune
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1 From Vienna, December 29, 1863, Motley's Letters, vol. ii. p. 146.
2 January 1864.
3 February 16, Gray's Letters, vol. ii. p. 523.
4 February 25.
5 February 23. I have attributed this article to Greeley on internal evidence solely. The National Republican Committee met February 22, and fixed June 7 as the day of the assembling of the convention.

had much less influence now than it had before the war, yet in this judgment it spoke undoubtedly for numbers of well-meaning men. Fremont was strong in a certain popular estimation, and Butler even stronger. In January, 1865, after Lincoln had been chosen for his second term, Thaddeus Stevens, the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, declared: "If the question could be put to the loyal people of the United States whom they would select for the next President, a majority of them would vote for General Butler."1 A prominent writer, in an article in the Independent, made unequivocal reference to the present administration in saying: "The country cannot afford to risk any second-rate committee chosen at hap-hazard to be its President and cabinet." 2 A newspaper editor of prominence from the interior of Pennsylvania, who supported warmly the President, came to Washington during the winter of 1864, and said to Thaddeus Stevens: "Introduce me to some member of Congress friendly to Mr. Lincoln's renomination." "Come with me," was the reply, and, going to the seat of Arnold, who represented the Chicago district and was a personal friend of the President, Stevens broke forth: "Here is a man who wants to find a Lincoln member of Congress. You are the only one I know, and I have come over to introduce my friend to you." 8 March 25 many "friends of the government and supporters of the present administration," men of character and political standing, with William Cullen Bryant at their head, wrote to the National Executive Committee of the Union and Republican parties, suggesting the postponement of the convention until September.4 Surely Greeley and the Tribune,


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1 Arnold's Lincoln, p. 386, note; Globe, p. 400. I cite this as a remarkable statement of a political leader in touch with the people. Of course it was not true, but that Stevens should have thought so is significant.
2 February 18. The New York World stated that the article was evidently from the pen of Beecher, but Thomas Shearman assures me that Beecher did not write it, and that he was, on the contrary, in favor of the renomination of Lincoln.
3 Arnold's Lincoln, p. 385, note. This, again, was not exactly true, but significant. See the rest of the note quoted.
4 Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, p. 785.

Bryant and the Evening Post, and the New York Independent, Stevens, Julian,1 and many other members of the House, a number of senators and those men besides who were devoted to the political fortunes of Chase, represented a formidable discontent;2 but Lincoln was so confident of his hold on the people that all of this opposition did not greatly disturb him for any length of time. He read public sentiment with accuracy, and felt sure that he would receive the nomination of his party.3

The effort to bring Chase forward as a candidate and that to postpone the convention failed, and with this failure there was a diminishing quantity and strength of opposition to Lincoln, but there was still enough of it to call a convention and name a candidate. Three calls were issued, asking the people to assemble in Cleveland, May 31, "for consultation and concert of action in respect to the approaching presidential election." One came from a committee of radical Republicans, headed by B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri; a second emanated from New York, the first name on the list of signers being
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1 Political Recollections, p. 237.
2 Julian wrote: "Opposition to Mr. Lincoln, however, continued, and was secretly cherished by many of the ablest and most patriotic men in the party." — Ibid., p. 238. Riddle describes a visit to the White House of April 28: "There were a number of people in the President's anteroom, and I very soon found that the President himself was undergoing a rude roasting at the hands of those who were waiting for admission to his presence. Even my amiable and excellent friend Worcester spoke ironically of him as 'that great and good man.' The one most loud and bitter was Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts. His open assaults were amazing. I withdrew to the President's desk to escape, but was annoyed by it even there, and I turned upon the senator in indignant surprise, asking why he did not assault him in the Senate, — get a seat in the June convention, instead of opening on him in the streets and in the lobbies and offices of the Executive Mansion itself. He conceded what I asserted — that the entire North stood with the President and would renominate him, and said that 'bad as that would be, the best must be made of it.' " — Recollections of War Times, p. 267.
3 In this study of public opinion, besides the authorities specifically quoted, I have been helped by Morse's Lincoln; Greeley's American Conflict; the files of the New York Tribune, World, Times, Independent, Boston Advertiser, Chicago Tribune, and Columbus Crisis.

Lucius Robinson; while a third had the countenance of a number of abolitionists. A few hundred men gathered together at the appointed time and place, adopted a platform, and nominated Fremont for President and General John Cochrane, of New York, for Vice-President.1 A friend who related their proceedings to Lincoln said that instead of the many thousands expected in mass convention there were present only four hundred. Lincoln opened his Bible and read: "And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men."2 In such a spirit of derision was the work of this convention received by the Republican press, while the Democratic newspapers magnified its importance.3 The real danger of the movement will appear as the story goes on.

I have given an account of the military operations that preceded the National Union or Republican Convention which had been summoned for the 7th of June. The condition of the public mind during these exciting days when the tension was the greatest is also well worth a glance. Before the campaign in Virginia commenced, it was that of breathless suspense. "All eyes and hopes now centre on Grant," said Thurlow Weed, April 17, in a private letter. "If he wins in Virginia, it will brighten the horizon and make him President." 4 "My hopes under God," wrote Chase on the day that the Army of the Potomac was crossing the Rapidan, "are almost wholly in Grant and his soldiers." 5 Such outbursts of feeling imaged
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1 Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1864, p. 785 et seq. Two of the calls, the platform, and Fremont's letter of acceptance are printed in full; see also Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. chap. ii.
2 1 Samuel xxii. 2 ; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 40. The reference to the "political cave of Adullam" by John Bright in the House of Commons was not until 1866.
3 New York Times, June 2; Boston Advertiser, June 3; Chicago Tribune, June 1; New York World, June 2; Columbus Crisis, June 8. 4 Memoir of Weed, vol. ii. p. 443. 8 Warden, p. 684.

the thoughts of all rational men. The bloody work of the Virginia campaign began and went on. Those who made up their minds from the accounts printed in the newspapers and their editorial comments had not so clear a perception of the events and their consequences as we have at the present time. Their view of the military advantage was, on the whole, more favorable. They had days of joy in great victories, in a general success during the week's campaign, in the nation's triumph, and the vanquishing of Lee's army.1 To those who read another journal of wide influence, which had implicit confidence in Grant, one day brought "hope and solicitude," the next joy with trembling; still another, the impression that the military aspect was not very hopeful; then, May 14, exultation at the intelligence that the Army of the Potomac had "won a decided if not a decisive victory;" finally, June 2, the assurance that the troops had been "skilfully, and bravely handled," and " that General Grant has succeeded, if not in defeating Lee, certainly in turning his strong position and forcing him to retreat step by step to the very confines of Richmond."2 The Boston Advertiser doubted, May 11, whether our successes "should be called a
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1 The New York Tribune said : May 10, "General Grant has won a great victory." May 12, "The Army of the Potomac has fought another great battle and again is victorious." May 13, "If any doubt has been felt as to the general success on our side during the week's campaign, it must be dispelled by the official despatch of General Grant. The Lieutenant-General is the last man in America to discount in advance expected successes, so when he says, 'The result to this time is much in our favor,' the country knows that it is in our favor — knows that General Grant probably understates the truth. As for the concluding sentence, there is but one man on the continent who could have written, 'I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer' — but one man from whose lips it would be accepted by the country as assurance of ultimate success." May 14, "The Nation's Triumph [double-leaded|, Gratitude to God, the Giver of all good. . . . The .Rebel army of Virginia has been thoroughly vanquished. . . . We believe Lee's army as an effective force has practically ceased to exist." May 25 the Tribune takes a very much less hopeful view. June 6 it shows no appreciation of the disaster of Cold Harbor. June 16 it begins to have some comprehension of Grant's poor success.
2 New York World, May 2, 11,12, 13, 14, June 2.

victory or an escape," but two days later it believed Grant's statement when he said "that the general result is good," and declared that "the duty of all patriots is epitomized" in his words "to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." On the morrow confidence was expressed that the "upshot of the week's operations" was "an advance for the cause," yet seven days afterwards it admitted that the feeling was "undeniably less buoyant than was hoped for."1

The President took a sanguine view. May 9 he recommended by proclamation that all patriots "unite in common thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God;" and the same day, in a speech responding to a serenade, he said: "I believe, I know that General Grant has not been jostled in his purposes, that he has made all his points, and to-day he is on his line as he purposed before he moved his armies. ... I am very glad at what has happened." May 24, to Governor Brough, who had asked for "something cheering," he replied by endorsing virtually a despatch from Grant which he had just seen, "Everything looks exceedingly favorable for us." June 15, after he must have realized the extent of the disaster at Cold Harbor, he telegraphed to Grant, "I begin to see it: you will succeed. God bless you all." 2

Chase saw the military situation accurately, and wrote in a private letter: "The people are crazy or I am. I don't see the recent military successes. Most earnestly do I pray that we may see them hereafter. All, under God, depends on Grant. So far he has achieved very little, and that little has cost beyond computation. Still, my hope is in him. He seems the ablest and most persistent man we have. Sherman has done well and
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1 See, also, New York Times, May 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, June 4, 7, 13, 20; the Independent, May 12, June 9,16; Chicago Tribune, May 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, June 24; Columbus Crisis, May 11, 18, June 29.
2 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. pp. 519, 520, 525, 533. This despatch of June 15, however, was after Grant had announced to Halleck his purpose of crossing the James. Lincoln was very anxious and sad during the battles in the Wilderness. — Six Months at the White House, Carpenter, p. 30.

apparently more than Grant." 1 Senator Grimes took a more gloomy view than Chase. He wrote to his wife, May 12: "I think that Grant will in the end destroy Lee's army, but his own will be also destroyed." May 18: "I wish I could satisfy your fears about the Army of the Potomac. Thus far we have won no victory. We have suffered a terrible loss of killed and wounded (nearly fifty thousand), and Lee is in an impregnable position. . . . The news from different directions is not at all pleasant to me. I confess that just at this present writing I feel pretty blue."2 June 19: "Grant's campaign is regarded by military critics as being thus far a failure. He has lost a vast number of men, and is compelled to abandon his attempt to capture Richmond on the north side and cross the James River. The question is asked significantly, Why did he not take his army south of the James at once, and thus save seventy-five thousand men ?" 3

The excellent and real progress being made by Sherman was not of a sufficiently striking character to distract the attention of the public mind, even in the Western States whose sons made up his army,4 from the duel between Grant and Lee.
A few hours of dejection, leaving their effect behind, were caused by the publication, May 18, of a proclamation purporting to come from the President, which, admitting by implication the failure of Grant's campaign, appointed a solemn day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, and called for 400,000 men. It was a cleverly conceived and executed forgery, intended for stock-jobbing purposes, and only by certain happy accidents did it fail to appear in nearly all of the journals in New York City connected with the associated
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1 May 23, Warden, p. 594.
2 Salter, Life of Grimes, p. 262.
3 Ibid., p. 263. All the letters from Grimes at this time are interesting reading.
4 "The public attention is so overwhelmingly absorbed with the state of things in Virginia that it is almost in danger of forgetting that a vast army, which includes our old heroes of the West for the most part, is moving to victory in Georgia." —Chicago Tribune, May 15.

press. It was printed in the New York World and New York Journal of Commerce, Democratic newspapers, which had assailed the administration with virulence. Their editors strove earnestly to correct the error into which they had fallen innocently, and made adequate and apparently satisfactory explanations to Dix, the commanding general of the department, but before these were transmitted to Washington, the President had ordered their arrest and imprisonment and the suppression of their journals. A lieutenant with a file of soldiers seized their offices, and held possession of them for several days, but the order of personal arrest was rescinded.1

"The country is entering on a new and perilous time," wrote Seward, — "a canvass for the presidency in time of civil war." 2 The culminating reverse of Cold Harbor happened June 3, and the National Union Convention met at Baltimore four days later, but the shadow of this disaster was not over the proceedings. The extent of it was not comprehended. The usual enthusiasm which characterizes such gatherings when the main result is a foregone conclusion, prevailed. The proceedings and platform 3 showed confidence and decision, but the sentiment of the delegates was best displayed by the almost unanimous renomination of Lincoln, who received all of the votes except those of Missouri.

For a good while before the convention it was evident that Lincoln would be its nominee, and he looked forward to its assembling with equanimity. "The people are determined
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1 New York World, May 23; Manton Marble, the editor of the World, to President Lincoln, same issue, which was the first reappearance of that newspaper; New York Tribune, May 19; Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, p. 389; Life of Dix, Morgan Dix, vol. ii. p. 96 et seq.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 47. Nicolay and Hay state that the order for the arrest of the editors and the suppression of the newspapers was issued by "the fiery Secretary of War." Nevertheless, it is dated Executive Mansion, signed by the President, and countersigned by the Secretary of State. — Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 523.
2 June 1, Life, vol. iii. p. 223; see, also, Life of T. Weed, vol. ii. p. 443.
3 The platform is printed in Appleton's Ann. Cyc., 1864, p. 788; Greeley's American Conflict, vol. ii. p. 659; Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 529.

to support and re-elect their excellent President Lincoln," wrote Asa Gray, May 3, "whether Fremont and the like make a coalition with the copperheads or not . . . Lincoln will walk the course. God bless him!" 1 David Davis and Senator Edwin D. Morgan, of New York, did not believe that the withdrawal of Chase from the canvass was sincere,2 but the tenor of his private correspondence is that of sullen acquiescence in the inevitable. At all events, his name was not presented to the convention. Missouri, although altering her voice in order to make a unanimous nomination of Lincoln, at first cast her twenty-two votes for General Grant, who might have been a formidable candidate after the battle of Chattanooga if he had not refused positively to give those who beset him any encouragement for the use of his name. Touching the attempt to bring Grant forward, Lincoln exhibited his usual shrewdness. "If he takes Richmond," he said, "let him have it [the nomination]," 3 and he wrote a discreet letter to the mass meeting which was held in New York the Saturday before the convention for the purpose of testifying gratitude to Grant, and was planned undoubtedly in the hope that something would turn up to deflect the current of the delegates' favor from the President to the General.4 In the nomination of Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, for Vice-President, the convention made an unfortunate choice. Nicolay, who was in Baltimore, asked Hay "whether the President has any preference [for Vice-President] either personally or on the score of policy," and received this reply in Lincoln's handwriting, "Wish not to interfere about V. P."5 Johnson was selected for the reason that he was a
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1 Letters, vol. ii. p. 515.
2 See their letters of March 21, May 29, to Weed, Life of Weed, vol. ii. p. 445.
3 Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 59.
4 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 527; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 50; New York World, June 6.
5 June 6, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 528.

War Democrat and Border State man.1 It was entirely in line with the policy of Republicans to nominate War Democrats for important positions, thereby giving significance to the name Union party and strengthening their ticket with the people.2 Another sentiment unquestionably had influence. The Republicans were still disturbed at the taunt that theirs was a sectional party, that both their candidates in 1860 had come from the North; and here was an opportunity to end that reproach by choosing for Vice-President a man from the South who had done good service for the Union cause.3 A severe scrutiny of Johnson's personal character would have prevented this nomination, and either of his competitors was fitter for the place, but the ballot for Vice-President was a rush to the rising man. Johnson had 200 votes, Hamlin4 150, Dickinson of New York 108, various other candidates an aggregate of 61; but before the result was announced all of the delegates except twenty-six changed their votes to Johnson, whose nomination was thus made almost unanimous.5

In his reply to a delegation from the National Union League, who congratulated him, Lincoln made use of apt and memorable words. "I do not allow myself," he said, "to suppose that either the convention or the League have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or best man in America, but rather they have concluded it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap."6
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1 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 528; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 72. For the Nicolay-McClure controversy see McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, appendix; Life of Hannibal Hamlin, C. E. Hamlin, chap. xxxvi and Supplement; Morse's Lincoln, p. 264.
2 "We were accustomed during the war to turning down our own men for Democrats who were not so good, but who were better than the majority of their party." —Riddle, Recollections of War Times, p. 282.
3 Johnson was military governor of Tennessee.
4 Hamlin was the actual Vice-President.
5 Greeley's Amer. Conflict, vol. ii. p. 660; Stanwood, A History of the Pres., p. 303.
6 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 632. The remarks are somewhat differently given in Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1864, p. 789. Touching the nomination of Lincoln and Johnson, I will give two citations from the New York World, which was the ablest and most influential Democratic journal in the country, the organ of the high-toned Democrats of New York City and State, and which inspired throughout the country the most respectable opposition to the administration. It said, June 9: "The age of statesmen is gone; the age of rail-splitters and tailors, of buffoons, boors, and fanatics, has succeeded. ... In a crisis of the most appalling magnitude, requiring statesmanship of the highest order, the country is asked to consider the claims of two ignorant, boorish, third-rate backwoods lawyers, for the highest stations in the government. Such nominations, in such a conjuncture, are an insult to the common-sense of the people. God save the Republic!" It said, June 20: "A leading member of one of the great religious organizations which have recently been passing resolutions and sending deputations to the White House, and who was intrusted with the speech-making part of the business, publicly describes the demeanor of Mr. Lincoln on this occasion as 'a buffoon and gawk — disgracefully unfit for the high office' to which he again aspires. He says that he departed from the East Room with a sickening sense of hopelessness of our cause which has never left him since. . . . Here again is a Republican Senator honored by the Empire State, and held in high esteem by the religious denomination of which he is a member, reported to have left the President's presence because his self-respect would not permit him to stay and listen to the language which he employed."

During the military and political campaigns Congress was in session. The House of Representatives attempted to interfere with the management of foreign relations by the Executive, and, April 4, under the leadership of Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, adopted unanimously a resolution expressing in substance its disapproval of the occupation of Mexico by France, and declaring that the establishment of any monarchical government in America by overthrowing a republic, did not accord with the policy of the United States. The House spoke indubitably the public opinion of the country, but it was, nevertheless, an injudicious utterance. Our democracy and our representatives in Congress probably will never learn that the delicate questions of diplomacy, until they reach the point where constitutionally the Senate and the House must be partakers in the action, ought to be left to the executive. It will prove generally, as it did certainly in this case, that the President and the Secretary of State can deal with such matters with greater foresight and wisdom. The course of our diplomacy and the result in Mexico show with what patience and discretion Lincoln and Seward handled this affair, preserving peace with France during our critical period, and gaining in the end all that the most ardent shouter for war could have desired, with a moral influence worth troops of soldiers and many hattle-ships.1 Sumner deserves credit for his part in the transaction. When the resolution went to the Senate, it was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, where his influence and power as chairman were sufficient to keep it slumbering the rest of the session.2

An additional evidence that the public mind was stirred by the French invasion is one of the resolutions adopted by the Union National Convention. Ostensibly an approval of the position of the government, the spirit of it was the same as that of the resolve of the House of Representatives. That Lincoln clung to his prerogative is evident from his reference to this resolution in his brief letter accepting his renomination, which is the more significant because he alluded to no other but the formal tribute to the soldiers and sailors. "While," he wrote, "the resolution in regard to the supplanting of republican government upon the western continent is fully concurred in, there might be misunderstanding were I not to say that the position of the government in relation to the action of France in Mexico, as assumed through the State Department and approved and indorsed by the convention, among the measures and acts of the executive, will be faithfully maintained so long as the state of facts shall leave that position pertinent and applicable." 3

Slavery was virtually dead, but it was not legally abolished. To the congressional acts dealing with it, to the President's
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1 Edward Everett wrote Motley, April 11: "Mr. Seward has certainly managed the delicate affair with discretion, as he has many others. Our House of Representatives have, by a unanimous vote, passed a resolution couched in moderate terms, but of pretty significant import." — Motley's Letters, vol. ii. p. 159.
2 Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 118.
3 Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 538.

Proclamation of Emancipation, there were exceptions, while there were differences of opinion as to their scope. To make freedom sure, to rest it on an impregnable legal base, to "meet and cover all cavils,"1 a constitutional amendment was necessary, abolishing slavery forever.2 A movement with this end
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1 Lincoln's words, Jane 9, ibid., p. 529.
2 Senator Trumbull, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, one of the ablest lawyers of the Senate, in reporting such a constitutional amendment, March 28, stated with clearness this point. After speaking of the congressional enactments against slavery, he considered the proclamation, saying: "The force and effect of this proclamation are understood very differently by its advocates and opponents. The former insist that it is and was within the constitutional power of the President, as commander-in-chief, to issue such a proclamation ; that it is the noblest act of his life or the age ; and that by virtue of its provisions all slaves within the localities designated become, ipso facto, free ; while others declare that it was issued without competent authority, and has not and cannot effect the emancipation of a single slave. These latter insist that the most the President could do, as commander of the armies of the United States, would be, in the absence of legislation, to seize and free the slaves which came within the control of the army; that the power exercised by the commander-in-chief, as such, must be a power exercised in fact, and that beyond his lines where his armies cannot go, his orders are mere brutum. fulmen, and can neither work a forfeiture of property nor freedom of slaves ; that the power of Fremont and Hunter, commanders-in-chief for a certain time in their departments, who assumed to free the slaves within their respective commands, was just as effective within the boundaries of their commands as that of the commander-in-chief of all the departments, who as commander could not draw to himself any of his presidential powers ; and that neither had or could have any force except within the lines and where the army actually had the power to execute the order ; that to that extent the previous acts of Congress would free the slaves of rebels, and if the President's proclamation had any effect it would only be to free the slaves of loyal men, for which the laws of the land did not provide. I will not undertake to say which of these opinions is correct, nor is it necessary for my purposes to decide. It is enough for me to show that any and all these laws and proclamations, giving to each the largest effect claimed by its friends, are ineffectual to the destruction of slavery. The laws of Congress, if faithfully executed, would leave remaining the slaves belonging to loyal masters, which, considering how many are held by children and females not engaged in the rebellion, would be no inconsiderable number, and the President's proclamation excepts from its provisions all of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and a good portion of Louisiana and Virginia — almost half the slave States. If then we are to get rid of the institution, we must have some more efficient way of doing it than by the proclamations that have been issued or the acts of Congress which have been passed. ... In my judgment, the only effectual way of ridding the country of slavery, and so that it cannot be resuscitated, is by an amendment of the Constitution forever prohibiting it within the jurisdiction of the United States. This amendment adopted, not only does slavery cease, but it can never be re-established by State authority, or in any other way than by again amending the Constitution. Whereas, if slavery should now be abolished by act of Congress or proclamation of the President, assuming that either has the power to do it, there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent any State from re-establishing it." — Globe, pp. 1313, 1314.
Reverdy Johnson, another able lawyer, said, April 5, in the debate on the constitutional amendment: "In my judgment, if the war was to terminate to-day, or whenever it shall terminate, without any provision being made for the condition of the slaves who have not come within the actual control of the military authority of the United States, they will be decided by the courts of the United States to be slaves still. ... If the rebellion was terminated to-morrow, and the authority of the United States was reinstated in every one of the States now in rebellion, the proclamation would have no influence at all upon the status of those bondsmen who were not brought antecedently under the influence and control of the military power." — Ibid., p. 1421. See Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 50 et seq.

in view began at this session of Congress. December 14,1863, Representatives Ashley of Ohio and Wilson of Iowa each introduced into the House such an amendment. Somewhat later similar propositions differing in phraseology were brought before the Senate by Henderson of Missouri and Sumner, and were referred to the Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Trumbull, reported as the joint resolution to be considered what is now the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution. April 8 this passed the Senate by a vote of 38 to 6. June 15 the House voted on it; the yeas were 93, the nays 65, not voting 23; lacking the requisite two-thirds, it was lost. In order to be able to move a reconsideration of the amendment, Ashley changed his vote to the negative, and later made the proper motion, which was entered on the journal and gave him the opportunity to call up the resolution at some future day. Here the matter rested for this session.1 The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and such parts of the Act
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1 A good account of this movement may be found in Sumner's Works, vol. viii. p. 351 et seq. ; Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 183.

of 1793 as still remained in force were repealed June 28. It was due largely to Sumner's persistent championship of it that the repeal passed the Senate. When he entered that body in 1851, he had deemed it a special mission to use his best endeavors to secure the abrogation of "the infamous Act of 1850;" and with that aim he had labored in season and out of season, and was now happy in its accomplishment, writing in a private letter, "The repeal of all fugitive slave acts is of immense importance for us abroad; but its practical importance at home is not great."1

We must now return to the relations between Lincoln and Chase. In December, 1862, as has been related, the Secretary offered his resignation, but since it was not accepted he resumed the duties of his post.2 A little more than two months afterwards a difference over the appointment of an internal-revenue collector in Connecticut induced him to write a letter giving up his office, but before sending it the difficulty was patched up and it was withheld.3 Later, trouble occurred about a collector of customs at Puget Sound. As Lincoln insisted on having his way, Chase again tendered his resignation, on May ll.4 The President drove to his house, handed him his letter, begged him to think no more about it, and made a compromise appointment.5 The New York custom-house with the factional fight in the dominant party for its possession, has perplexed and troubled many presidents, and at this time plagued Lincoln. In the early part of 1864 he desired, for what he deemed sufficient reasons, that Barney should resign his office of collector of customs in New York City, and proposed then to appoint him minister to Portugal. This scheme Chase resisted, and in the end seemed to have
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1 Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 176. Pierce gives a good history of this transaction, and a full one may be found in Sumner's Works, vol. viii. p. 403. For an account of other anti-slavery legislation and for Sumner's efforts to secure equal rights of the colored people, see Pierce, p. 177 et seq.
2 Ante.
3 Warden, p. 523.
4 Ibid., p. 527.
5 Field, Memories of Many Men, p. 303.

gained his point; at all events, at this time Barney neither resigned nor was he removed from office.1

Another cause of jar followed. Chase disliked the Blairs^ and a speech which Francis P. Blair Jr. made in the House of Representatives, April 23, transmuted his dislike into rage and hate.2 Blair charged him "with sacrificing a vast public interest to advance his ambition," saying that he had used the power of his office in prescribing trade regulations with the South in a way to provide a fund to carry on the operations of the Pomeroy committee, that is, to secure his own nomination for the presidency. Blair read private letters supporting these accusations, and imparted a communication from a gentleman at the head of one of the largest moneyed institutions of New York City which spoke of the rumors afloat there concerning the Secretary of the Treasury: that he had "given to his son-in-law Governor Sprague a permit to buy cotton at the South, by which he will probably make . . . $2,000,000," and that he had allowed Jay Cooke & Co., the financial agents of the government, to secure extravagant and irregular profits in the disposal of the five-twenty bonds.3
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1 Warden, pp. 572, 601; Schuckers, p. 477; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 85; Field, p. 304.
2 Riddle, Recollections of War Times, p. 267.
3 Globe, p. 1829 et seq. Hendricks said in the Senate, March 11: "I might refer to the fact that a banking company has been made very rich by its intimate relations with the Treasury Department. Perhaps a million dollars has been made by the firm of Jay Cooke & Co., by being made the special and exclusive agent of the Treasury Department in disposing of the bonds of the government which might have been disposed of by the ordinary machinery of that department." — Ibid., p. 1046. Sherman replied: "Jay Cooke was employed as agent to negotiate the five-twenty loan only after other expedients had been tried and failed. He was selected because of his great activity and success in promoting the negotiation of prior loans, and for his undoubted standing and credit. . . . But the senator says that an enormous commission was given to Jay Cooke & Co., and that it was done secretly; that the bankers in the West did not know that Jay Cooke & Co. received this commission. The senator is mistaken. The amount paid to Jay Cooke was published in the newspapers, was known as publicly and broadly as the five-twenty loan; and not only so, but every bank and banker, and every agent who was employed in the negotiation of the loan received two-thirds of the very commission that the senator talks about. The entire expense to the United States of negotiating the loan was limited to three-eighths of one per cent., and every bank and banker employed received one-fourth of one per cent., so that there was left to Cooke only one-eighth of one per cent. Out of the commission allowed the agent paid all the expenses of this loan. ... I have examined the loans made by the British and French Governments, and I find that the ordinary allowance there in the form of expenses is from one-half of one per cent. to one per cent., and, besides, various facilities are allowed." — Globe, pp. 1046,1047.

Chase was angry with the President on learning that the same day on which Blair had made this speech he was restored to his command in the army. He thought that Lincoln had endorsed the "outrageous calumny," and had an inclination to resign his office, but from this was dissuaded by Governor Brough and other friends.1 His envy and inflamed ambition led him to misjudge the President, who, instead of sanctioning Blair's speech, was much annoyed at it. "I knew," he said, "that another beehive was kicked over." 2 He restored Blair to his military command on account of a previous promise, and had sent the necessary instructions before he knew of the speech; but on hearing of it he was on first thoughts disposed to cancel the order that assigned the Congressman to the army. He concluded, however, to let it stand,3 and a great deal of management of common friends was required to placate the angry Secretary.4

The continual sneers of Chase at the President and his associates reveal the state of mind to which he gave way. "I preside over the funnel," he said in a private letter; "everybody else, and especially the Secretaries of War and the Navy, over the spigots — and keep them well open, too." "Nothing except the waste of life," he wrote to another friend, "is more painful in this war than the absolutely reckless waste of means. A very large part of the frauds which disgrace us may be traced to the want of systematic supervision; and yet what encouragement is there to endeavors
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1 Warden, p. 584.
2 Riddle, p. 275.
2 Ibid.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. Ix. p. 80.
3 Warden, pp. 583, 584, 593, 594; Riddle, chap, xxxviii.

towards economy? Such endeavors league against him who makes them all the venality and corruption which is interested in extravagance." "It seems as if there were no limit to expense," he wrote to one of his young admirers. "Contrary to all rules, the spigot in Uncle Abe's barrel is made twice as big as the bung-hole. He may have been a good flat-boatman and rail-splitter, but he certainly never learned the true science of coopering."1

Richard H. Dana, with his vivid pen lets us penetrate affairs at Washington with the eye of a keen and favored observer. "I have had interviews," he wrote, May 4, "with the President, Seward, Blair, Stanton, Welles, and a short one with Chase. The cabinet is at sixes and sevens, or' Isaac and Josh,' as my witness said. They say dreadful things of one another. (Not Seward; I have never heard him speak harshly of one of them.) ... I spent a half-hour or more with the President. I cannot describe the President; it is impossible. He was sobered in his talk, told no extreme stories, said some good things and some helplessly natural and naive things. You can't help feeling an interest in him, a sympathy and a kind of pity; feeling, too, that he has some qualities of great value, yet fearing that his weak points may wreck him or wreck something. His life seems a series of wise, sound conclusions, slowly reached, oddly worked out, on great questions, with constant failures in administration of details and dealings with individuals." 2

The final rupture between the President and his Secretary of the Treasury did not occur until after the enthusiastic renomination of Lincoln. John J. Cisco, who had held the office of assistant treasurer in New York City since the commencement of Pierce's administration, and was in every way qualified for it, had offered his resignation, to take effect June 30, at the close of the fiscal year. As this position was next in consequence financially to that of the Secretary of the
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1 January 24, 28, May 7, Warden, pp. 562, 565, 586.
2 Adams's Dana, vol. ii. pp. 273, 274.

Treasury, it was important that a man of special capacity should be selected for the office; and as politics entered into the matter, it was desirable that the wishes of the New York senators should be regarded. In fact, the President wrote to Chase that any one agreed upon by the three would be satisfactory to him.1 Senator Morgan, whose business judgment was excellent, took the greater part in the negotiations, and he and the Secretary agreed successively on two men, both of whom, however, declined the office.2 Chase then proposed Maunsell B. Field, one of the assistant secretaries of the Treasury, who was a gentleman of breeding, position, and culture, but had not beyond these the necessary qualifications for the post, and was opposed firmly by Morgan. He, in his turn, named three men, any one of whom would be satisfactory to him and his colleague; but Chase would have none of them. June 28 the President sent his Secretary two kind notes, in which he said that he did not think he could appoint Field, rendering for his refusal cogent and sufficient reasons. In the mean time Chase had urged Cisco to withdraw his resignation, and he with patriotism responded affirmatively to the request. This ought to have ended the difficulty, but Chase took umbrage at one of Lincoln's notes, and, June 29, resigned his office.3

To the summoning of Chittenden, the register of the Treasury, for counsel touching a matter of routine, we owe a knowledge of the thoughts of the President after he had ruminated on the missive which came from his Secretary. When the intelligence was imparted to Chittenden, he exclaimed: "Where is the man" that can be a successor to Chase ?" Mr. President, this is worse than another Bull Run defeat. Pray let me go to Secretary Chase, and see if I cannot induce him to withdraw his resignation. Its acceptance now might cause a financial panic." Lincoln replied:
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1 June 28, Warden, p. 611.
1 Ibid., pp. 605, 608.
3 Ibid., p. 609 et seq.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 91 et seq.; Schuckers, p. 484.

"Chase thinks he has become indispensable to the country; that his intimate friends know it, and he cannot comprehend why the country does not understand it. He also thinks he ought to be President; he has no doubt whatever about that. It is inconceivable to him why people have not found it out; why they don't, as one man, rise up and say so. He is . . . an able financier; ... he is a great statesman, and, at the bottom, a patriot. Ordinarily he discharges a public trust, the duties of a public office, with great ability — with greater ability than any man I know. Mind, I say ordinarily" but he has become "irritable, uncomfortable, so that he is never perfectly happy unless he is thoroughly miserable, and able to make everybody else just as uncomfortable as he is himself. He knows that the nomination of Field would displease the Unionists of New York, would delight our enemies, and injure our friends. He knows that I could not make it without seriously offending the strongest supporters of the government in New York, and that the nomination would not strengthen him anywhere or with anybody. Yet he resigns because I will not make it. He is either determined to annoy me, or that I shall pat him on the shoulder and coax him to stay. I don't think I ought to do it. I will not do it. I will take him at his word." 1 In his letter accepting his Secretary's resignation, he put these thoughts into terse and dignified words.2

He offered the position to David Tod, of Ohio, who declined it, and afterwards he actually forced it upon Senator William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine. The senator calling upon the President to recommend Hugh McCulloch, and being told that his own nomination had been sent to the Senate, exclaimed: "You must withdraw it. I cannot accept [it]." "If you decline," said Lincoln, "you must do it in open day, for I shall not recall the nomination." "We talked about it for some time," he related, "and he went away less decided
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1 Chittenden, Rec. of Lincoln, p. 879.
2 Warden, p. 614.

in his refusal."1 The nomination was confirmed promptly, and the appointment was generally approved. "It is very singular," said the President, "considering that this appointment is so popular when made, that no one ever mentioned his name to me for that place. Thinking over the matter, two or three points occurred to me: first, his thorough acquaintance with the business; as chairman of the Senate Committee of Finance, he knows as much of this special subject as Mr. Chase; he possesses a national reputation and the confidence of the country; he is a radical without the petulant and vicious fretfulness of many radicals. There are reasons why this appointment ought to be very agreeable to him. For some time past he has been running in rather a pocket of bad luck; the failure to renominate Mr. Hamlin makes possible a contest between him and the Vice-President, the most popular man in Maine, for the election which is now imminent. A little while ago in the Senate, you know, Trumbull told him his ill temper had left him no friends; but this sudden and most gratifying manifestation of good feeling over his appointment, his instantaneous confirmation, the earnest entreaties of everybody that he should accept, cannot but be very grateful to his feelings." 2 Fessenden, sighing for the cool sea-breezes of his native State, and congratulating himself that the adjournment of Congress would soon allow him to escape from the sultry and enervating atmosphere of Washington, showed a high sense of patriotic duty in making the personal sacrifice involved in the acceptance of this harassing office.

In the controversy about the appointment of the Assistant Treasurer it is evident that the President was in the right and the Secretary in the wrong, and it was the fault of the latter that their relations had reached the point which Lincoln thus described: "When Chase comes to see me, I feel
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1 Diary of John Hay, Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 99; see, also, Chittenden, p. 381.
2 Diary of John Hay, Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 100.

awkward and he seems constrained."1 The President was considerate and forbearing, because he thought the welfare of the country was furthered by having Chase at the head of the Treasury Department, and he did not request the resignation of his Secretary when he and his friends were doing palpable work to secure the nomination for the presidency, and when, moreover, the supporters of Lincoln charged that he was using the extensive patronage of the Treasury for his own political advancement.2 But Chase wrote in a private letter, "I should despise myself if I felt capable of appointing or removing a man for the sake of the presidency." 3 If Lincoln's political managers had seen this, they would have laughed these words to scorn; and although in Chase's ascriptions to himself of virtue, one is sometimes reminded of Pecksniff, there is no reason to doubt that he was in his own way sincere, yet he did not hesitate to impute to Lincoln conduct which he would so strongly reprobate in himself. Speaking of a bill which would create some new offices, he wrote in his diary, "The President would almost certainly put in men from political considerations,"4 which, in the judgment of the machine workers who supported Lincoln, was a matter of course. To know to what extent the President lent himself to such management would require a laborious and minute investigation,5 but from the atmosphere of the time I have no doubt that he made appointments with a view to the control of the machinery by which delegates were sent to the National Convention. A President who selected unfit generals for the reason that they represented phases of public opinion would hardly hesitate to name postmasters and collectors who could be relied on as a personal following. Yet he and the nation were so bound up together that it would have been easy for him to assure himself that, taking a large survey, these
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1 Warden, p. 618.
2 See Life of Weed, vol. ii. p. 445.
3 Schuckers, p. 497.
4 Warden, p. 612.
5 I may say, as Gibbon did in a somewhat similar case, "Such inquiries would divert me too long from the design of the present work." — Chap. xxxi.

appointments were for the good of the country rather than dictated by his desire to succeed himself, which was unquestionably very great.

In these controversies, therefore, the blame must be imputed to Chase, and to the practice of making political appointments to purely administrative posts. What a commentary on the system, that when the nation was in the agony of its life struggle the best man in the country for President and the best man for Secretary of the Treasury should be at loggerheads on a question of "the offices"! This breach could not have occurred had the rule of appointing men solely for their fitness obtained. Had it not been for the patriotic sacrifice of Fessenden, the withdrawal of Chase from the cabinet would have been a blow to the cause, for it is difficult to name another successor who would not have given a shock to public confidence. The radicals even now so regarded the change. This is not surprising, as Chase had a strong hold on public sentiment, which, added to his grasp of financial conditions, in a time of chaos made him a potent minister.

At this time, of the leaders of the Republicans and war Democrats who constituted the Union party, Lincoln had by all odds the most powerful influence on public opinion; while next to him I conceive that Butler and Fremont must be ranked, and after them Chase and Sumner. The Butler Fremont element was made up largely of self-seeking and erratic people and while such were not absent from the Chase-Sumner following, and while many of the Secretary's political workers were not men of character, it is undeniable that he and the Massachusetts senator had the backing of educated, moral, and religious men, who contributed signally to the strength of the nation.

The sixth resolution of the Union National Convention was a sop given to the radicals, who undoubtedly construed its generality of phrase to mean that the President ought to reconstruct his cabinet by the removal of Seward and Blair.

That, instead of the displacement of either of the men whom they did not regard as "worthy of public confidence and official trust," Chase, their representative, should have resigned, or perhaps have been forced out of the cabinet, was a bitter disappointment. This was a rupture with the President on men; soon afterwards there came to a head a difference on a matter of principle. Towards the reconstruction of the Union Lincoln had early taken tentative steps by appointing, in the spring and early summer of 1862, military governors of Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Sumner, at the same time, had formulated the doctrine of "State suicide "as a definition of the status of the seceded States.1 This meant that the States had ceased to exist, and that Congress had the same power over them which it had over the Territories.2 Lincoln did not deem it necessary to affirm or deny this thesis. Outlining his plan in his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, and his Message of December 8, 1863, he wrote in the original draft of the message that he considered "the discussion as to whether a State had been at any time out of the Union as vain and profitless. We know they were, we trust they shall be in the Union. It does not greatly matter whether in the mean time they shall be considered to have been in or out;" 3 but this he did not allow to stand, deeming the admission that the States might have been out of the Union dangerous. The plan of the President was this: If one-tenth of the qualified voters, according to the election laws before the secession, of any one or all of the Confederate States (the standard being the number of votes cast at the presidential election of 1860), take an oath of fealty to the Constitution, and abidance by the Acts of Congress and by the Proclamations of the President having reference to slaves,4 and "shall re-establish a State government," "such shall be recognized as the true government of
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1 Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 72; Sumner's Works, vol. vii. p. 14.
2 See Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 105 et seq.
3 Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 111.
4 So long as not "declared void by the decision of the Supreme Court."

the State."1 The radical Republicans objected to this scheme, and gave their adherence to one reported in the form of a bill in February, 1864, by Henry Winter Davis, which required a majority of the white male citizens to constitute the new State, and exacted that their Constitution should prohibit slavery forever. Neither plan made any provision for negro suffrage, but in addition to the other differences there was a germ of variance regarding the treatment of the freedmen, which, though playing no part in the present disagreement, was ominous of future dissension. The President, in writing to Michael Hahn, the newly elected governor of Louisiana under his plan of reconstruction, said: "Now you are about to have a convention, which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in — as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom."2 The feeling of many, if not all, of the radical Republicans was that the negroes ought to be admitted to the suffrage on an equal footing with the whites.3

March 22 Davis, an orator, and a man of brilliant parts, who thought the President's scheme neither coherent nor orderly, and objected to it strongly because it did not contain a sufficient guarantee for the abolition of slavery, made an energetic speech in the House, advocating the plan of his committee and of the radicals. May 4 this bill passed the House by a vote of 73 to 59, and, July 2, after a disagreement and a conference, it received the assent of the Senate. On July 4, the day on which Congress was to adjourn,4 it
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1 Certain persons were exempted from the benefit of these provisions.—. Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 443.
2 March 13, ibid., p. 496.
3 See proceedings on the Reconstruction bill, Senate, July 1. — Globe, p 3449; Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 217.
4 At half-past twelve.

reached the President, when he was in his room at the Capitol, signing bills. He laid it aside; but Sumner, Boutwell, and others were there, solicitous as to the fate of the bill, and Senator Zachariah Chandler asked the President if he intended signing it. Lincoln replied: "This bill has been placed before me a few moments before Congress adjourns. It is a matter of too much importance to be swallowed in that way." "If it is vetoed," exclaimed Chandler, "it will damage us fearfully in the Northwest. The important point is that one prohibiting slavery in the reconstructed States." "That is the point," said the President, "on which I doubt the authority of Congress to act." "It is no more than you have done yourself," retorted the Senator. Lincoln rejoined: "I conceive that I may, in an emergency, do things on military grounds which cannot be done constitutionally by Congress;" and when Chandler, deeply chagrined, went out, he said to the members of the cabinet who were with him: "I do not see how any of us now can deny and contradict what we have always said, that Congress has no constitutional power over slavery in the States."1

All the members of the cabinet2 agreed with him, but the dissent among the Republican members of Congress was almost unanimous.3 Chase, in his diary, spoke for this feeling with a lack of candor. "The President," he wrote, "pocketed the great bill providing for the reorganization of the rebel States as loyal States. He did not venture to veto, and so put it in his pocket. It was a condemnation of his Amnesty Proclamation and of his general policy of reconstruction, rejecting the idea of possible reconstruction with slavery, which neither the President nor his chief advisers
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1 Diary of John Hay, Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. pp. 120, 121.
2 Ibid., p. 122. Fessenden said: "I have even had my doubts as to the constitutional efficacy of your own decree of emancipation, in those cases where it has not been carried into effect by the actual advance of the army." — Ibid., p. 121.
3 Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 218; Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress, vol. ii. p. 43; Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. iii. pp. 525, 527.

have, in my opinion, abandoned."1 July 5 he returned to the subject, making this entry: "Garfield, Schenck, and Wetmore . . . were bitter against the timid and almost proslavery course of the President."2

July 8 the President, in a public proclamation, gave his reasons for not signing the bill, and went on to say: "Nevertheless, I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration contained in the bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it, and I am, and at all times shall be, prepared to give the executive aid and assistance to any such people."3

The convictions of the extremest radicals found expression in a Protest signed by Wade, who had charge of the Reconstruction bill in the Senate, and Henry Winter Davis, which was published, August 5, in the New York Tribune, and is known as the Wade-Davis manifesto. It is a bitter attack on the President, remarkable as coming from leaders of his own party after he had received a unanimous nomination from a convention that had made no pronouncement on the question at issue.4
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1 Warden, p. 623.
2 Ibid., p. 625.
3 Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 545.
4 This is printed in full in Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia for 1864, p. 307. It is the right and duty of the supporters of the administration, they said, "to check the encroachments of the Executive on the authority of Congress, and to require it to confine itself to its proper sphere." The President's proclamation of July 8 is a "political manifesto" proposing "a grave Executive usurpation." Then follows a minute scathing and unreasonable criticism of the proclamation. "The President," they continued, "by preventing this bill from becoming a law holds the electoral votes of the rebel States at the dictation of his personal ambition. ... He strides headlong toward the anarchy his proclamation of the 8th of December inaugurated. ... A more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people has never been perpetrated. . . . The President has greatly presumed on the forbearance which the supporters of his Administration have so long practised, in view of the arduous conflict in which we are engaged, and the reckless ferocity of our political opponents. But he must understand that our support is of a cause and not of a man; that the authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected; that the whole body of the Union men of Congress will not submit to be impeached by him of rash unconstitutional legislation; and if he wishes our support he must confine himself to his Executive duties — to obey and execute, not make the laws — to suppress by arms armed rebellion, and leave political reorganization to Congress."

We left the Army of the Potomac marching from Cold Harbor to the James River. Grant had hoped to destroy or defeat totally Lee's army north of Richmond, and, failing to do either, had decided to transfer his troops to the south side of the James, and from that quarter besiege the Confederates in their capital.1 This movement, which began June 12 and ended the 16th, was very successfully accomplished. The precision of the march, the skilful work of the engineers in bridging the river, the orderly crossing showed how like a fine machine the Army of the Potomac, even in its crippled state, responded to efficient direction. The strategy of Grant had deceived Lee, who failed to divine the movement, and did nothing, therefore, to impede it.2 The capture of Petersburg, the possession of which would undoubtedly within a brief period compel the fall of the Confederate capital, was included in the plan of the Union general, and was within his grasp. "The enemy shows no signs yet of having brought troops to the south side of Richmond," is his despatch of June 14 to Halleck. "I will have Petersburg secured, if possible, before they get there in much force. Our movement from Cold Harbor to the James River has been made with great celerity, and so far without loss or accident."3 Sending W. F. Smith with his corps to Bermuda Hundred, Grant despatched at the same time to Butler, there in command of the Army of the James, a conditional order "to seize and hold Petersburg."4 This he followed up by a personal visit three days later, and an order for its immediate and
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1 Grant's despatch of June 5, also report July 22, 1865, O. R., vol. xxxvi. part i. pp. 11, 22.
2 Humphreys, pp. 202, 209; Walker's Hancock, p. 230. "A plan of campaign should anticipate everything which the enemy can do, and contain within itself the means of baffling him." — Military Maxims of Napoleon, p. 5.
3 O. R., vol. xl. part i. p. 12.
4 June 11, ibid., vol. xxxvi. part iii. p. 754

capture,1 and forthwith returned to the Army of the Potomac to hasten its crossing, and throw it forward by divisions to support this attack. If Butler had been a soldier, he would have led out all his available force and captured Petersburg the next day, knowing, as he did, that its garrison was weak, amounting to about 2500 men.2 By Grant's orders he sent forward Smith, who, by nine o'clock on the evening of June 15, had carried the formidable works to the northeast of Petersburg, gaining, in the opinion of Grant, important advantages; and if everything had been properly ordered and carried out, the city itself might that day have been captured and the Appomattox River reached.3

But the golden opportunity was let slip. Beauregard ordered all the available troops in his department to Petersburg, and on June 16 had the works pretty well manned. He asked reinforcements from Lee, but did not get them, for he was unable to convince his commander that the Army of the Potomac had crossed the James, and was thundering at the gates of the city.4 Grant and Meade were now on the ground, and on June 16, 17, and 18 ordered successive assaults, which failed to take Petersburg, and resulted in a loss of about
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1 June 14, Report, ibid, part i. p. 25.
2 Beauregard, who was in command, says an effective of 2200. — Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 540; see, also, Humphreys, p. 213, note 1; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 409; O. R., vol. xl part ii. p. 675.
3 See Grant's report, O. R., vol. xxxvi. part i. p. 25; Humphreys, pp. 210,212, 213; letter of Hancock, June 26, Meade to Grant, June 27, unsigned and unsent letter of Grant to Meade in his handwriting, June 28, O. R., vol. xl. part i. pp. 314, 315; Hancock's report, September 21, 1865, ibid., p. 304; Grant, Personal Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 293 et seq.; W. F. Smith, From Chattanooga to Petersburg, pp. 60-134; Smith's report, June 16, O. R. vol. xl. part i. p. 705; Walker, Life of Hancock, p. 231 et seq., The Second Army Corps, p. 527; Beauregard's article, Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 541; Wilkeson, Rec. of a Private, p. 156 et seq.; Life of Lee, Fitzhugh Lee, pp. 846, 347; Long's Lee, p. 373; Butler's Book, p. 687 et seq.
In the Nation of June 9, 1898, p. 445, General J. D. Cox has skilfully analyzed the evidence and thrown new light upon these operations.
4 Beauregard's article, Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 541; Fitzhugh Lee, p. 348; incidentally the Confederate corr., O. R.; see, also, Humphreys, p. 213 et seq.

10,000 men.1 Owing to the much greater number of the Union soldiers, the attempt on the first two days was feasible; but the work, according to one on Grant's staff, was not "equal to our previous fighting, owing to our heavy loss in superior officers."2 If an intelligent private may be believed, the soldiers of the Second Corps were so discouraged that they had not been sent into Petersburg the night of the 15th, that they went forward to the subsequent assaults without heart and without determination to fight stanchly.3 Although not fully convinced that the Army of the Potomac was on the south side of the James, Lee sent a division to Beauregard, which arrived early in the morning of June 18, and Lee himself reached Petersburg before noon of the same day.4 The severe repulse of the Union troops, which took place afterwards, demonstrated that any further attempt to carry the place by storm would be foolhardy. Dana's remark in his despatch to Stanton of June 19 formulates what the situation required: "General Grant has directed that no more assaults shall be made. He will now manoeuvre;"5 also Grant's determination, as announced six days later: "I shall try to give the army a few days' rest, which they now stand much in need of."6

The Army of the Potomac was worn out. The continual fighting for forty-five days at a disadvantage and without success, and the frequent marches by night, had exhausted and disheartened the men. Gallant and skilful officers by the score, brave veterans by the thousands, had fallen. The morale of the troops was distinctly lower than it was even the day after Cold Harbor. Reinforcements were constantly sent
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1 Humphreys, p. 224.
2 Dana to Stanton, June 19, O. R., vol. xl. part i. p. 24. The staff officer added: "The men fight as well, but are not directed with the same skill and enthusiasm."
3 Wilkeson, Rec. of a Private, p. 160 et seq.
4 Beauregard, Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 543; Humphreys, p. 221. 5 O. R., vol. xl. part i. p. 25.
6 Ibid. On June 22 an unexpected combat had occurred, resulting also disastrously.

to Grant,1 but they were for the most part mercenaries, many of whom were diseased, immoral, or cowardly. Such men were now in too large a proportion to insure efficient work. They needed months of drill and discipline to make good soldiers. Indeed, a reconstitution and reorganization of the army were necessary: these were made during the many weeks of inaction from June 18 to the spring of 1865, covered by the siege of Petersburg, which now commenced.2

At this time the President paid a visit to the army.3 With the impression which I have tried to convey of the unsuccess of the costly operations of Grant and of the demoralization of the army, the imagination might conjure up a private interview between Lincoln and Grant, in which the President entreated the general to be more careful of the lives of his soldiers, and warned him that the country could not or would
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1 Halleck wrote Grant, June 7 : "I inclose a list of the troops forwarded from this department to the Army of the Potomac since the campaign opened — 48,265 men. I shall send you a few regiments more, when all resources will be exhausted till another draft is made." — O. R., vol. xxxvii. part i. p. 602.
2 Humphreys, p. 225; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ix. p. 412; Walker, Life of Hancock, p. 246, The Second Army Corps, p. 555; Ropes, Papers of the Military Historical Society Mass., vol. x. p. 267; Porter, Century Magazine, April, 1897, p. 830; Wilkeson, Rec. of a Private, p. 185. Wilkeson writes (p. 191): "After the battle of June 18, 1864, the enlisted men frequently discussed the condition of the Army of the Potomac. They sat o' nights in groups behind the intrenchments and talked, talked, talked, of the disintegrating force which Grant commanded. Enormous losses of prisoners were reported, losses that were incurred while charging earthworks, which fact clearly showed that our troops had surrendered after reaching the Confederate intrenchments — surrendered rather than attempt to take them or to return to our line under the deadly accurate fire of the Confederate infantry. Many of the volunteers vehemently asserted that the bounty-paid recruits really deserted during action to seek safety in Confederate prison pens. The enlisted men who had gathered into ranks under McClellan, and who had been forged into soldiers by that admirable drill-master, all said that the Army of the Potomac of 1862 was far superior, man to man, to that which crossed the Rapidan in May of 1864, and immeasurably superior to the army which lay in the trenches before Petersburg in July of 1864. They also asserted, and truthfully, that if the original volunteers, or men as good as they were, were commanded by Grant, he would capture Richmond in twenty-four hours."
3 June 21.

not supply the waste of another such campaign of attrition. So far, however, as I know, there is not any evidence of such an entreaty or warning. It is unlikely that the thought of either entered Lincoln's head, inconsistent as it would have been with his despatch of six days earlier;1 and nothing had since occurred to change his view except the unsuccessful assaults on the intrenchments of Petersburg, while the failure to capture that stronghold was not at this time regarded as so serious a mishap as it came to be later. The opinion of the country, and probably that of the President, assumed a different color after Early's invasion of Maryland. Kindness of heart and humanity, rather than criticism of his general, was shown in his words when contemplated battles were spoken of. "I cannot pretend to advise," he said, "but I do sincerely hope that all may be accomplished with as little bloodshed as possible." 2

Horace Porter has given an interesting account of this visit, which one loves to dwell upon for a moment in the midst of the gloom which had settled down on the Army of the Potomac, and was soon to spread over the country. The President on horseback, wearing a high silk hat, frock coat, and black trousers, rode with Grant along the line. A civilian, mounted, was always an odd sight amid the crowd of uniformed and epauletted officers; and Lincoln, although a good horseman, was ever awkward, and now, covered with dust, presented "the appearance of a country farmer riding into town, wearing his Sunday clothes.” But the character of the man disarmed the keen sense of the ridiculous of the American soldiers, and as the word was passed along that "Uncle Abe is with us," he was greeted with cheers and shouts that came from the heart. He visited a division of colored soldiers who had won distinction by their bravery in Smith's assault on the works at Petersburg. They flocked around the liberator of their race, kissing his hands, touching his clothes
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1 Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 533; ante, p. 466.
2 Porter, Century Magazine, April, 1897, p. 835.

for the virtue they conceived to be in them, cheering, laughing, singing hymns of praise, shouting, "God bress Massa Lincoln," "De Lord save Fader Abraham," "De day of jubilee am come, shuah." His head was bare, his eyes were full of tears, his voice broke with emotion. As the picture of Lincoln would not be complete did not humor succeed pathos, it reveals him, in the evening, with a group of staff officers before the general's tent, a willing raconteur, plying his wit "to teach them truth," pleased by their appreciation, egged on by their hearty laughs.1
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1 Century Magazine, April, 1897, p. 832 et seg.; Dana to Stanton, June 21, O. R., vol. xl. part i. p. 27, also see p. 21. Sumner wrote the Duchess of Argyll, July 4: "The President, on his return from General Grant's headquarters, told me that the general, who is a man of a very few words, said to him: 'I am as far off from Richmond now as I ever shall be. I shall take the place; but as the rebel papers say, it may require a long summer's day.' The President describes Grant as full of confidence, and as wanting nothing. His terrible losses have been promptly made up by reinforcements." — Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 194.


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.4. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].