6: War
<< 5: Secession || 7: Lincoln >>
On the day following the inauguration, commissioners of the newly
formed Confederacy appeared at Washington and applied to the
Secretary of State for recognition as envoys of a foreign power.
Seward refused them such recognition. But he entered into a
private negotiation with them which is nearly, if not quite, the
strangest thing in our history. Virtually, Seward intrigued
against Lincoln for control of the Administration. The events of
the next five weeks have an importance out of all proportion to
the brevity of the time. This was Lincoln's period of final
probation. The psychological intensity of this episode grew from
the consciousness in every mind that now, irretrievably, destiny
was to be determined. War or peace, happiness or adversity, one
nation or two—all these were in the balance. Lincoln entered
the episode a doubtful quantity, not with certainty the master
even in his own Cabinet. He emerged dominating the situation,
but committed to the terrible course of war.
One cannot enter upon this great episode, truly the turning point
in American history, without pausing for a glance at the
character of Seward. The subject is elusive. His ablest
biographer1 plainly is so constantly on guard not to appear an
apologist that he ends by reducing his portrait to a mere
outline, wavering across a background of political details. The
most recent study of Seward2 surely reveals between the lines
the doubtfulness of the author about pushing his points home. The
different sides of the man are hard to reconcile. Now he seemed
frank and honest; again subtle and insincere. As an active
politician in the narrow sense, he should have been sagacious and
astute, yet he displayed at the crisis of his life the most
absolute fatuity. At times he had a buoyant and puerile way of
disregarding fact and enveloping himself in a world of his own
imagining. He could bluster, when he wished, like any demagogue;
and yet he could be persuasive, agreeable, and even personally
charming.
But of one thing with regard to Seward, in the first week of
March, 1861, there can be no doubt: he thought himself a great
statesman —and he thought Lincoln "a Simple Susan." He
conceived his role in the new administration to involve a subtle
and patient manipulation of his childlike superior. That Lincoln
would gradually yield to his spell and insensibly become his
figurehead; that he, Seward, could save the country and would go
down to history a statesman above compare, he took for granted.
Nor can he fairly be called conceited, either; that is part of
his singularity.
Lincoln's Cabinet was, as Seward said, a compound body. With a
view to strengthening his position, Lincoln had appointed to
cabinet positions all his former rivals for the Republican
nomination. Besides Seward, there was Chase as Secretary of the
Treasury; Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania as Secretary of War;
Edward Bates of Missouri as Attorney-General. The appointment of
Montgomery Blair of Maryland as Postmaster-General was intended
to placate the border Slave States. The same motive dictated the
later inclusion of James Speed of Kentucky in the Cabinet. The
Black-Stanton wing of the Democrats was represented in the Navy
Department by Gideon Welles, and in course of time in the War
Department also, when Cameron resigned and Stanton succeeded him.
The West of that day was represented by Caleb B. Smith of
Indiana.
Seward disapproved of the composition of the Cabinet so much
that, almost at the last moment, he withdrew his acceptance of
the State Department. It was Lincoln's gentleness of argument
which overcame his reluctance to serve. We may be sure, however,
that Seward failed to observe that Lincoln's tactlessness in
social matters did not extend to his management of men in
politics; we may feel sure that what remained in his mind was
Lincoln's unwillingness to enter office without William Henry
Seward as Secretary of State.
The promptness with which Seward assumed the role of prime
minister bears out this inference. The same fact also reveals a
puzzling detail of Seward's character which amounted to
obtuseness—his forgetfulness that appointment to cabinet offices
had not transformed his old political rivals Chase and Cameron,
nor softened the feelings of an inveterate political enemy,
Welles, the Secretary of the Navy. The impression which Seward
made on his colleagues in the first days of the new Government
has been thus sharply recorded by Welles: "The Secretary of State
was, of course, apprised of every meeting [of ministers] and
never failed in his attendance, whatever was the subject-matter,
and though entirely out of his official province. He was
vigilantly attentive to every measure and movement in other
Departments, however trivial—as much so as to his own—watched
and scrutinized every appointment that was made, or proposed to
be made, but was not communicative in regard to the transaction
of the State Department." So eager was Seward to keep all the
threads of affairs in his own hands that he tried to persuade
Lincoln not to hold cabinet meetings but merely to consult with
particular ministers, and with the Secretary of State, as
occasion might demand. A combined protest from the other
Secretaries, however, caused the regular holding of Cabinet
meetings.
With regard to the Confederacy, Seward's policy was one of
non-resistance. For this he had two reasons. The first of these
was his rooted delusion that the bulk of the Southerners were
opposed to secession and, if let alone, would force their leaders
to reconsider their action. He might have quoted the nursery
rhyme, "Let them alone and they'll come home"; it would have been
like him and in tune with a frivolous side of his nature. He was
quite as irresponsible when he complacently assured the North
that the trouble would all blow over within ninety days. He also
believed that any display of force would convert these
hypothetical Unionists of the South from friends to enemies and
would consolidate opinion in the Confederacy to produce war. In
justice to Seward it must be remembered that on this point time
justified his fears.
His dealings with the Confederate commissioners show that he was
playing to gain time, not with intent to deceive the Southerners
but to acquire that domination over Lincoln which he felt was his
by natural right. Intending to institute a peace policy the
moment he gained this ascendency, he felt perfectly safe in
making promises to the commissioners through mutual friends. He
virtually told them that Sumter would eventually be given up and
that all they need do was to wait.
Seward brought to bear upon the President the opinions of various
military men who thought the time had passed when any expedition
for the relief of Sumter could succeed. For some time Lincoln
seemed about to consent, though reluctantly, to Seward's lead in
the matter of the forts. He was pulled up standing, however, by
the threatened resignation of the Postmaster-General, Blair.
After a conference with leading Republican politicians the
President announced to his Cabinet that his policy would include
the relief of Sumter. "Seward," says Welles, "...was evidently
displeased."
Seward now took a new tack. Fort Pickens, at Pensacola, was a
problem similar to that of Sumter at Charleston. Both were
demanded by the Confederates, and both were in need of supplies.
But Fort Pickens lay to one side, so to speak, of the public
mind, and there was not conspicuously in the world's eye the
square issue over it that there was over Sumter. Seward
conceived the idea that, if the President's attention were
diverted from Sumter to Pickens and a relief expedition were sent
to the latter but none to the former, his private negotiations
with the Confederates might still be kept going; Lincoln might
yet be hypnotized; and at last all would be well.
On All-Fools' Day, 1861, in the midst of a press of business, he
obtained Lincoln's signature to some dispatches, which Lincoln,
it seems, discussed with him hurriedly and without detailed
consideration. There were now in preparation two relief
expeditions, one to carry supplies to Pensacola, the other to
Charleston. Neither was to fight if it was not molested. Both
were to be strong enough to fight if their commanders deemed it
necessary. As flagship of the Charleston expedition, Welles had
detailed the powerful warship Powhatan, which was rapidly being
made ready at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Such was the situation as
Welles understood it when he was thinking of bed late on the
night of the 6th of April. Until then he had not suspected that
there was doubt and bewilderment about the Powhatan at Brooklyn.
One of those dispatches which Lincoln had so hastily signed
provided for detaching the Powhatan from the Charleston
expedition and sending it safe out of harm's way to Pensacola.
The commander of the ship had before him the conflicting orders,
one from the President, one from the Secretary of the Navy. He
was about to sail under the President's orders for Pensacola; but
wishing to make sure of his authority, he had telegraphed to
Washington. Gideon Welles was a pugnacious man. His dislike for
Seward was deepseated. Imagine his state of mind when it was
accidently revealed to him that Seward had gone behind his back
and had issued to naval officers orders which were contradictory
to his own! The immediate result was an interview that same
night between Seward and Welles in which, as Welles coldly
admitted in after days, the Secretary of the Navy showed "some
excitement." Together they went, about midnight, to the White
House. Lincoln had some difficulty recalling the incident of the
dispatch on the 1st of April; but when he did remember, he took
the responsibility entirely upon himself, saying he had had no
purpose but to strengthen the Pickens expedition, and no thought
of weakening the expedition to Charleston. He directed Seward to
telegraph immediately cancelling the order detaching the
Powhatan. Seward made a desperate attempt to put him off,
protesting, it was too late to send a telegram that night. "But
the President was imperative," writes Secretary Welles, in
describing the incident, and a dispatch was sent.
Seward then, doubtless in his agitation, did a strange thing.
Instead of telegraphing in the President's name, the dispatch
which he sent read merely, "Give up the Powhatan...Seward." When
this dispatch was received at Brooklyn, the Powhatan was already
under way and had to be overtaken by a fast tug. In the eyes of
her commander, however, a personal telegram from the Secretary of
State appeared as of no weight against the official orders of the
President, and he continued his voyage to Pensacola.
The mercurial temper of Seward comes out even in the caustic
narrative written afterwards by Welles. Evidently Seward was
deeply mortified and depressed by the incident. He remarked,
says Welles, that old as he was he had learned a lesson, and that
was that he had better attend to his own business. "To this,"
commented his enemy, "I cordially assented."
Nevertheless Seward's loss of faith in himself was only
momentary. A night's sleep was sufficient to restore it. His
next communication to the commissioners shows that he was himself
again, sure that destiny owed him the control of the situation.
On the following day the commissioners had got wind of the relief
expedition and pressed him for information, recalling his
assurance that nothing would be done to their disadvantage. In
reply, still through a third person, Seward sent them the famous
message, over the precise meaning of which great debate has
raged: "Faith as to Sumter fully kept; wait and see." If this
infatuated dreamer still believed he could dominate Lincoln,
still hoped at the last moment to arrest the expedition to
Charleston, he was doomed to bitterest disappointment.
On the 9th of April, the expedition to Fort Sumter sailed, but
without, as we have seen, the assistance of the much needed
warship, the Powhatan. As all the world knows, the expedition
had been too long delayed and it accomplished nothing. Before it
arrived, the surrender of Sumter had been demanded and refused
—and war had begun. During the bombardment of Sumter, the
relief expedition appeared beyond the bar, but its commander had
no vessels of such a character as to enable him to carry aid to
the fortress. Furthermore, he had not been informed that the
Powhatan had been detached from his squadron, and he expected to
meet her at the mouth of the harbor. There his ships lay idle
until the fort was surrendered, waiting for the Powhatan—for
whose detachment from the squadron Seward was responsible.
To return to the world of intrigue at Washington, however, it
must not be supposed, as is so often done, that Fort Sumter was
the one concern of the new government during its first six weeks.
In fact, the subject occupied but a fraction of Lincoln's time.
Scarcely second in importance was that matter so curiously bound
up with the relief of the forts—the getting in hand of the
strangely vain glorious Secretary of State. Mention has already
been made of All-Fools' Day, 1861. Several marvelous things took
place on that day. Strangest of all was the presentation of a
paper by the Secretary of State to his chief, entitled "Thoughts
for the President's Consideration". Whether it be regarded as a
state paper or as a biographical detail in the career of Seward,
it proves to be quite the most astounding thing in the whole
episode. The "Thoughts" outlined a course of policy by which the
buoyant Secretary intended to make good his prophecy of domestic
peace within ninety days. Besides calmly patronizing Lincoln,
assuring him that his lack of "a policy either domestic or
foreign" was "not culpable and...even unavoidable," the paper
warned him that "policies...both domestic and foreign" must
immediately be adopted, and it proceeded to point out what they
ought to be. Briefly stated, the one true policy which he
advocated at home was to evacuate Sumter (though Pickens for some
unexplained reason might be safely retained) and then, in order
to bring the Southerners back into the Union, to pick quarrels
with both Spain and France; to proceed as quickly as possible to
war with both powers; and to have the ultimate satisfaction of
beholding the reunion of the country through the general
enthusiasm that was bound to come. Finally, the paper intimated
that the Secretary of State was the man to carry this project
through to success.
All this is not opera bouffe, but serious history. It must have
taxed Lincoln's sense of humor and strained his sense of the
fitness of things to treat such nonsense with the tactful
forbearance which he showed and to relegate it to the pigeonhole
without making Seward angry. Yet this he contrived to do; and he
also managed, gently but firmly, to make it plain that the
President intended to exercise his authority as the chief
magistrate of the nation. His forbearance was further shown in
passing over without rebuke Seward's part in the affair of
Sumter, which might so easily have been made to appear
treacherous, and in shouldering himself with all responsibility
for the failure of the Charleston expedition. In the wave of
excitement following the surrender, even so debonair a minister
as Seward must have realized how fortunate it was for him that
his chief did not tell all he knew. About this time Seward began
to perceive that Lincoln had a will of his own, and that it was
not safe to trifle further with the President. Seward thereupon
ceased his interference.
It was in the dark days preceding the fall of Sumter that a crowd
of office-seekers gathered at Washington, most of them men who
had little interest in anything but the spoils. It is a
distressing commentary on the American party system that, during
the most critical month of the most critical period of American
history, much of the President's time was consumed by these
political vampires who would not be put off, even though a
revolution was in progress and nations, perhaps, were dying and
being born. "The scramble for office," wrote Stanton, "is
terrible." Seward noted privately: "Solicitants for office
besiege the President.... My duties call me to the White House
two or three times a day. The grounds, halls, stairways,
closets, are filled with applicants who render ingress and egress
difficult."
Secretary Welles has etched the Washington of that time in his
coldly scornful way:
"A strange state of things existed at that time in Washington.
The atmosphere was thick with treason. Party spirit and old
party differences prevailed, however, amidst these accumulated
dangers. Secession was considered by most persons as a political
party question, not as rebellion. Democrats to a large extent
sympathized with the Rebels more than with the Administration,
which they opposed, not that they wished Secession to be
successful and the Union divided, but they hoped that President
Lincoln and the Republicans would, overwhelmed by obstacles and
embarrassments, prove failures. The Republicans on the other
hand, were scarcely less partisan and unreasonable. Patriotism
was with them no test, no shield from party malevolence. They
demanded the proscription and exclusion of such Democrats as
opposed the Rebel movement and clung to the Union, with the same
vehemence that they demanded the removal of the worst Rebels who
advocated a dissolution of the Union. Neither party appeared to
be apprehensive of, or to realize the gathering storm."
Seen against such a background, the political and diplomatic
frivolity of the Secretary of State is not so inexplicable as it
would otherwise be. This background, as well as the intrigue of
the Secretary, helps us to understand Lincoln's great task inside
his Cabinet. At first the Cabinet was a group of jealous
politicians new to this sort of office, drawn from different
parties, and totally lacking in a cordial sense of previous
action together. None of them, probably, when they first
assembled had any high opinion of their titular head. He was
looked upon as a political makeshift. The best of them had to
learn to appreciate the fact that this strange, ungainly man,
sprung from plainest origin, without formal education, was a
great genius. By degrees, however, the large minds in the
Cabinet became his cordial admirers. While Lincoln was quietly,
gradually exercising his strong will upon Seward, he was doing
the same with the other members of his council. Presently they
awoke—the majority of them at least—to the truth that he, for
all his odd ways, was their master.
Meanwhile the gradual readjustment of all factions in the North
was steadily going forward. The Republicans were falling into
line behind the Government; and by degrees the distinction
between Seward and Lincoln, in the popular mind, faded into a
sort of composite picture called "the Administration." Lincoln
had the reward of his long forbearance with his Secretary. For
Seward it must be said that, however he had intrigued against his
chief at Washington, he did not intrigue with the country.
Admitting as he had, too, that he had met his master, he took the
defeat as a good sportsman and threw all his vast party influence
into the scale for Lincoln's fortunes. Thus, as April wore on,
the Republican party settled down to the idea that it was to
follow the Government at Washington upon any course that might
develop.
The Democrats in the North were anti-Southern in larger
proportion, probably, than at any other time during the struggle
of the sections. We have seen that numbers of them had frankly
declared for the Union. Politics had proved weaker than
propinquity. There was a moment when it seemed—delusively, as
events proved—that the North was united as one man to oppose the
South.
There is surely not another day in our history that has witnessed
so much nervous tension as Saturday, April 13, 1861, for on that
morning the newspapers electrified the North with the news that
Sumter had been fired on from Confederate batteries on the shore
of Charleston Harbor. In the South the issue was awaited
confidently, but many minds at least were in that state of awed
suspense natural to a moment which the thoughtful see is the
stroke of fate. In the North, the day passed for the most part
in a quiet so breathless that even the most careless could have
foretold the storm which broke on the following day. The account
of this crisis which has been given by Lincoln's private
secretary is interesting:
"That day there was little change in the business routine of the
Executive office. Mr. Lincoln was never liable to sudden
excitement or sudden activity.... So while the Sumter telegrams
were on every tongue...leading men and officials called to learn
or impart the news. The Cabinet, as by common impulse, came
together and deliberated. All talk, however, was brief,
sententious, formal. Lincoln said but little beyond making
inquiries about the current reports and criticizing the
probability or accuracy of their details, and went on as usual
receiving visitors, listening to suggestions, and signing routine
papers throughout the day." Meanwhile the cannon were booming at
Charleston. The people came out on the sea-front of the lovely
old city and watched the duel of the cannon far down the harbor,
and spoke joyously of the great event. They saw the shells of
the shore batteries ignite portions of the fortress on the
island. They watched the fire of the defenders—driven by the
flames into a restricted area—slacken and cease. At last the
flag of the Union fluttered down from above Fort Sumter.
When the news flashed over the North, early Sunday morning, April
14th, the tension broke. For many observers then and afterward,
the only North discernible that fateful Sabbath was an enraged,
defiant, impulsive nation, forgetful for the moment of all its
differences, and uniting all its voices in one hoarse cry for
vengeance. There seemed to be no other thought. Lincoln gave it
formal utterance, that same day, by assembling his Cabinet and
drawing up a proclamation which called for 75,000 volunteer
troops.
An incident of this day which is as significant historically as
any other was on the surface no more than a friendly talk between
two men. Douglas called at the White House. For nearly two
hours he and Lincoln conferred in private. Hitherto it had been
a little uncertain what course Douglas was going to take. In the
Senate, though condemning disunion, he had opposed war. Few
matters can have troubled Lincoln more deeply than the question
which way Douglas's immense influence would be thrown. The
question was answered publicly in the newspapers of Monday, April
15th. Douglas announced that while he was still "unalterably
opposed to the Administration on all its political issues, he was
prepared to sustain the President in the exercise of all his
constitutional functions to preserve the Union, and maintain the
Government, and defend the federal capital."
There remained of Douglas's life but a few months. The time was
filled with earnest speechmaking in support of the Government.
He had started West directly following his conference with
Lincoln. His speeches in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, were perhaps
the greatest single force in breaking up his own following,
putting an end to the principle of doing nothing, and forcing
every Democrat to come out and show his colors. In Shakespeare's
phrase, it was—"Under which king, Bezonian? speak or die!" In
Douglas's own phrase: "There can be no neutrals in this war; Only Patriots—Or Traitors."
Side by side with Douglas's manifesto to the Democrats there
appeared in the Monday papers Lincoln's call for volunteers. The
militia of several Northern States at once responded.
On Wednesday, the 17th of April, the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment
entrained for Washington. Two days later it was in Baltimore.
There it was attacked by a mob; the soldiers fired; and a number
of civilians were killed as well as several soldiers.
These shots at Baltimore aroused the Southern party in Maryland.
Led by the Mayor of the city, they resolved to prevent the
passage of other troops across their State to Washington.
Railway tracks were torn up by order of the municipal
authorities, and bridges were burnt. The telegraph was cut. As
in a flash, after issuing his proclamation, Lincoln found himself
isolated at Washington with no force but a handful of troops and
the government clerks. And while Maryland rose against him on one
side, Virginia joined his enemies on the other. The day the
Sixth Massachusetts left Boston, Virginia seceded. The Virginia
militia were called to their colors. Preparations were at once
set on foot for the seizure of the great federal arsenal at
Harper's Ferry and the Navy Yard at Norfolk. The next day a
handful of federal troops, fearful of being overpowered at
Harper's Ferry, burned the arsenal and withdrew to Washington.
For the same reason the buildings of the great Navy Yard were
blown up or set on fire, and the ships at anchor were sunk. So
desperate and unprepared were the Washington authorities that
they took these extreme measures to keep arms and ammunition out
of the hands of the Virginians. So hastily was the destruction
carried out, that it was only partially successful and at both
places large stores of ammunition were seized by the Virginia
troops. While Washington was isolated, and Lincoln did not know
what response the North had made to his proclamation, Robert E.
Lee, having resigned his commission in the federal army, was
placed in command of the Virginia troops.
The secretaries of Lincoln have preserved a picture of his
desperate anxiety, waiting, day after day, for relief from the
North which he hoped would speedily come by sea. Outwardly he
maintained his self-control. "But once, on the afternoon of the
23d, the business of the day being over, the Executive office
being deserted, after walking the floor alone in silent thought
for nearly half an hour, he stopped and gazed long and wistfully
out of the window down the Potomac in the direction of the
expected ships; and, unconscious of other presence in the room,
at length broke out with irrepressible anguish in the repeated
exclamation, "Why don't they come! Why don't they come!"
During these days of isolation, when Washington, with the
telegraph inoperative, was kept in an appalling uncertainty, the
North rose. There was literally a rush to volunteer. "The
heather is on fire," wrote George Ticknor, "I never before knew
what a popular excitement can be." As fast as possible militia
were hurried South. The crack New York regiment, the famous,
dandified Seventh, started for the front amid probably the most
tempestuous ovation which until that time was ever given to a
military organization in America. Of the march of the regiment
down Broadway, one of its members wrote, "Only one who passed as
we did, through the tempest of cheers two miles long, can know
the terrible enthusiasm of the occasion."
To reach Washington by rail was impossible. The Seventh went by
boat to Annapolis. The same course was taken by a regiment of
Massachusetts mechanics, the Eighth. Landing at Annapolis, the
two regiments, dandies and laborers, fraternized at once in the
common bond of loyalty to the Union. A branch railway led from
Annapolis to the main line between Washington and Baltimore. The
rails had been torn up. The Massachusetts mechanics set to work
to relay them. The Governor of Maryland protested. He was
disregarded. The two regiments toiled together a long day and
through the night following, between Annapolis and the Washington
junction, bringing on their baggage and cannon over relaid
tracks. There, a train was found which the Seventh appropriated.
At noon, on the 25th of April, that advance guard of the Northern
hosts entered Washington, and Lincoln knew that he had armies
behind him.
1Frederic Bancroft, Life of William H. Seward.
2Gamaliel Bradford, Union Portraits.
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