Authors: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Young William Seward had no intention of recruiting others without volunteering himself. His decision to enlist aroused trepidation in the Seward household, for William’s new wife, Jenny, was expecting their first child in September. Jenny assured her husband that she would “be able to pass through her troubles,” but she worried that his departure might jeopardize his mother’s fragile health. In fact, although Frances had been heartbroken years before when Gus, now an army paymaster in Washington, had joined the Mexican War, her passionate feelings against slavery now outweighed her maternal anxiety. “As it is obvious all men are needed I made no objection,” Frances told Fred.
While the call was out for fresh reserves, Lincoln decided to make a personal visit to bolster the morale of the weary troops who had fought the hard battles on the Peninsula. Accompanied by Assistant Secretary of War Peter Watson and Congressman Frank Blair, he left Washington aboard the
Ariel
early on the morning of July 8, 1862, beginning the twelve-hour journey to McClellan’s new headquarters at Harrison’s Landing on the James River. “The day had been intensely hot,” an army correspondent noted, the temperature climbing to over 100 degrees. Even soldiers who lay in the shade of the trees found small respite from the “almost overpowering” heat. By 6 p.m., however, when General McClellan and his staff met the president at Harrison’s Landing, the setting sun had yielded to a pleasant, moonlit evening.
News of the president’s arrival spread quickly through the camp. Soldiers in the vicinity let out great cheers whenever they glimpsed him “sitting and smiling serenely on the after deck of the vessel.” Lincoln’s calm visage, however, masked his deep anxiety about McClellan and the progress of the war.
Equally troubled, the defeated McClellan had spent the hours before Lincoln’s arrival drafting what he termed a “strong frank letter” delineating changes necessary to win the war. “If he acts upon it the country will be saved,” he told his wife. McClellan handed the letter to Lincoln, who read it as the two sat together on the deck. Known to history as the “Harrison’s Landing” letter, the document imperiously outlined for the president what the policy and aims of the war should be. “The time has come when the government must determine upon a civil and military policy,” McClellan brazenly began, warning that without a clear-cut policy defining the nature of the war, “our cause will be lost.” Somewhat resembling in attitude Seward’s April 1 memo of fifteen months earlier, the presumptuous memo was even more astonishing in tone, as it came from a military officer.
“It should not be at all a war upon population,” McClellan proclaimed, and all efforts must be made to protect “private property and unarmed persons.” In effect, slave property must be respected, for if a radical approach to slavery were adopted, the “present armies” would “rapidly disintegrate.” To carry out this conservative policy, the president would need “a Commander-in-Chief of the Army—one who possesses your confidence.” While he did not specifically request that position for himself, McClellan made it clear that he was more than willing to retake the central command.
To McClellan’s disappointment and disgust, Lincoln “made no comments upon [the letter], merely saying, when he had finished it, that he was obliged to me for it.” Clearly, the president did not remain silent because he failed to grasp the political significance of the general’s propositions. In the days that followed, his actions would manifest his rejection of the general’s political advice. For the moment, however, Lincoln had come to see and support the troops, not to debate policy with his general.
For three hours, the president reviewed one division after another, riding slowly along the long lines of cheering soldiers. He was relieved to find the army in such high spirits after the bloody weeklong battle, which had decimated their ranks, leaving 1,734 dead and 8,066 wounded. “Mr. Lincoln rode at the right of Gen. McClellan,” an army correspondent reported, “holding with one hand the reins which checked a spirited horse, and with the other a large-sized stove-pipe hat” that he repeatedly tipped to acknowledge the cheers of the troops. His attempts to coordinate the reins and doff his tall hat were not entirely successful. His legs almost became “entangled with those of the horse he rode…while his arms were apparently liable to similar mishap.” One soldier admitted in a letter home that he had to lower his cap over his face “to cover a smile that overmastered” him at the “ludicrous sight.” Still, he added, the troops loved Lincoln. “His benignant smile as he passed on was a real reflection of his honest, kindly heart; but deeper, under the surface of that marked and not all uncomely face, were the unmistakable signs of care and anxiety…. In fact, his popularity in the army is and has been universal.”
As Lincoln approached each division, the “successive booming of salutes made known his progress,” until finally, “his tall figure, like Saul of old,” came into view, provoking wild applause. The tonic of the president’s unexpected visit to the enervated regiments was instantaneous. As Lincoln reviewed the “thinned ranks of some of the divisions” and came upon regimental colors “torn almost to shreds by the balls of the enemy,” the
Times
noted, he “more than once exhibited much emotion,” affording the fatigued soldiers “the assurance of the nation’s hearty sympathy with their struggle.”
Returning to the steamer, Lincoln conferred again with McClellan. Making no mention of McClellan’s letter, which remained in his pocket, he set sail for Washington the next morning. “On the way up the Potomac,” the
New York Herald
reported, “the boat was aground for several hours on the Kettle Shoals, and the whole party, including the President, availed themselves of the opportunity to take a bath and swim in the river.”
The visit invigorated the spirits of all who accompanied Lincoln. Frank Blair’s sister Elizabeth noted that “Frank was as heart sick as man could be when he went off to the Army but he & the President came back greatly cheered.” Despite Lincoln’s enthusiasm for the mettle of the soldiers, however, his opinion of General McClellan had not improved. Less than forty-eight hours after his return, he summoned General Henry Halleck to Washington to assume the post of general in chief that McClellan had hoped would be his. Halleck’s victories in the West, largely due to Grant, had made him a logical choice for the post. Known as “Old Brains,” he had written several books on military strategy that were widely respected.
Even before McClellan heard the news, he suspected an unwelcome turn of events. “I do not know what paltry trick the administration will play next,” he wrote his wife on the day after Lincoln’s visit. “I did not like the Presdt’s manner—it seemed that of a man about to do something of which he was much ashamed. A few days will however show, & I do not much care what the result will be. I feel that I have already done enough to prove in history that I am a General.”
Although Halleck’s appointment met with widespread approval, the clamor for further changes was undiminished. Radicals called for McClellan’s dismissal, while conservatives continued their assault on Stanton. The arguments on both sides were heated. In a hotel lobby, Senator Chandler of Michigan called McClellan a “liar and coward,” provoking a friend of McClellan’s to angrily counter: “It is you who are the liar and the coward.” The charges against Stanton were equally caustic, portraying him as brusque, domineering, and unbearably unpleasant to work with. Nonetheless, Lincoln was determined, as Browning advised, to “make up his mind calmly [and] deliberately,” to “adhere firmly to his own opinions, and neither to be bullied or cajoled out of them.”
In fact, not once during the vicious public onslaught against the secretary of war did Lincoln’s support for Stanton waver. During the hours he had spent each day awaiting battlefront news in the telegraph office, Lincoln had taken his own measure of his high-strung, passionate secretary of war. He concluded that Stanton’s vigorous, hard-driving style was precisely what was needed at this critical juncture. As one War Department employee said of Stanton, “much of his seeming harshness to and neglect of individuals” could be explained by the “concentration and intensity of his mind on the single object of crushing the rebellion.”
And, as always, the president refused to let a subordinate take the blame for his own decisions. He insisted to Browning “that all that Stanton had done in regard to the army had been authorized by him the President.” Three weeks later, Lincoln publicly defended the beleaguered Stanton before an immense Union meeting on the Capitol steps. All the government departments had closed down at one o’clock so that everyone could attend. Commissioner French believed he had “never seen more persons assembled in front of the Capitol except at an inauguration, which it very much resembled.” Lincoln sat on the flag-draped platform with the members of his cabinet, including Chase, Blair, and Bates, as “the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon, and music from the Marine Band” heralded the speakers. After a speech by Treasury Registrar Lucius Chittenden, Lincoln turned to Chase, who sat beside him. “‘Well! Hadn’t I better say a few words and get rid of myself?’ Hardly waiting for an answer, he advanced at once to the stand.”
“I believe there is no precedent for my appearing before you on this occasion,” he affably began, “but it is also true that there is no precedent for your being here yourselves.” Reminding his audience that he was reluctant to speak unless he might “produce some good by it,” Lincoln declared that something needed to be said, and it was “not likely to be better said by some one else,” for it was
“a matter in which we have heard some other persons blamed for what I did myself.”
Addressing the charge that Stanton had withheld troops from McClellan, he explained that every possible soldier available had been sent to the general. “The Secretary of War
is not to blame for not giving when he had none to give.”
As the applause began to mount, he continued,
“I believe he is a brave and able man,
and I stand here, as justice requires me to do,
to take upon myself what has been charged on the Secretary of War.”
French was profoundly moved by Lincoln’s speech. “He is one of the best men God ever created,” he asserted. Chase, too, was impressed by the “originality and sagacity” of the address. “His frank, genial, generous face and direct simplicity of bearing, took all hearts.” The great rally concluded to the strains of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and a salute of sixty-eight guns, two for each state in the Union. Reported fully in every newspaper, Lincoln’s defense of his beleaguered secretary brought the campaign against Stanton to an end.
A
S THE SUMMER PROGRESSED,
Lincoln and his family found some respite from the pressure and grief that had seemed so relentless throughout the cruel spring. At last, Mary’s intense depression began to lift. Reporters noted that she had begun riding with her husband once more in the late afternoons. On Sundays, she returned to Dr. Gurley’s church, though a parishioner seated behind her observed that “she was so hid behind her immense black veil—and very deep black flounces—that one could scarcely tell she was there.”
Commissioner French reported that “she seemed to be in excellent spirits” as she prepared to take up residence for the summer at the Soldiers’ Home, situated on almost 300 acres in the hills three miles north of the city. Created in the 1850s as a retirement community for disabled veterans, the Soldiers’ Home consisted of a main building that could accommodate 150 boarders, an infirmary, a dining hall, and administrative offices. The property also encompassed a number of spacious cottages, including the two-story brick house where the Lincoln family would stay. Known as the Anderson Cottage, it had served as a country residence for George Riggs, founder of the Riggs Bank, before the federal government purchased the property.
Buchanan had been the first president to summer at the Soldiers’ Home, where the cooling breeze brought relief from the oppressive heat of the city. Surrounded by abundant flowers, shrubs, and trees, it seemed almost “an earthly paradise,” one visitor recalled. The beautiful gravel walks and winding carriage ways, all of which were open to the public, had become a choice destination for Washingtonians out for weekend rides in their carriages. Another visitor in the summer of 1862 claimed he had seen nothing in the capital more charming than “this quiet and beautiful retreat,” from which “we look down upon the city and see the whole at a glance”—the Capitol dome, “huge, grand, gloomy, ragged and unfinished, like the war now waging for its preservation,” the Potomac River, “stretching away plainly visible for twelve miles, Alexandria, Arlington, Georgetown, and the long line of forts that bristle along the hills.”
At Mary’s urging, Lincoln agreed to settle in with his family for the summer, riding his horse the three miles to the White House each morning and returning at night. “We are truly delighted, with this retreat,” Mary wrote her friend Fanny Eames, “the drives & walks around here are delightful, & each day, brings its visitors. Then too, our boy Robert [home from Harvard], is with us, whom you may remember. We consider it a ‘pleasant time’ for us, when his vacations, roll around, he is very companionable, and I shall dread when he has to return to Cambridge.” For Tad, whose companionship and daily routine had been obliterated by the death of his brother and the banishment of the Taft boys, the Soldiers’ Home was a godsend. His lively, cheerful disposition earned him the affection of the soldiers assigned to guard his father. They dubbed him a “3rd Lieutenant,” allowing him to join in their drills during the day and their meals around the campfire at night.
In the evenings, the Lincolns could entertain guests on the wide porch overlooking the grounds or in a formal parlor illuminated by gas lamps. Relaxing in his slippers, Lincoln was fond of reciting poetry or reading aloud from favorite authors. Though intermittent cannonfire was audible in the distance, the idyllic retreat provided precious privacy and space for conversation among family and friends. For Lincoln, the historian Matthew Pinsker observes, the soldiers assigned to his security detail “helped him recreate some of the spirit of fraternity that he had once enjoyed as a younger politician and circuit-riding attorney in Illinois.”