A Menacing Pause
Lincoln had now reached his final stature. In contact with the world his note was an inscrutable serenity. The jokes which he continued to tell were but transitory glimmerings. They crossed the surface of his mood like quick flickers of golden light on a stormy March day,-- witnesses that the sun would yet prevail,--in a forest-among mountain shadows. Or, they were lightning glimmers in a night sky; they revealed, they did not dispel, the dark beyond. Over all his close associates his personal ascendency was complete. Now that Chase was gone, the last callous spot in the Cabinet had been amputated. Even Stanton, once so domineering, so difficult to manage, had become as clay in his hands.
But Lincoln never used power for its own sake, never abused his ascendency. Always he got his end if he could without evoking the note of command. He would go to surprising lengths to avoid appearing peremptory. A typical remark was his smiling reply to a Congressman whom he had armed with a note to the Secretary, who had returned aghast, the Secretary having refused to comply with the President's request and having decorated his refusal with extraordinary language.
"Did Stanton say I was a damned fool?" asked Lincoln. "Then I dare say I must be one, for Stanton is generally right and he always says what he means."
Nevertheless, the time had come when Lincoln had only to say the word and Stanton, no matter how fierce his temper might' be, would acknowledge his master. General Fry, the Provost Marshal, witnessed a scene between them which is a curious commentary on the transformation of the Stanton of 1862. Lincoln had issued an order relative to the disposition of certain recruits. Stanton protested that it was unwarranted, that he would not put it into effect. The Provost Marshal was called in and asked to state at length all the facts involved. When he had finished Stanton broke out excitedly--
"'Now, Mr. President, those are the facts and you must see that your order can not be executed.'
"Lincoln sat upon a sofa with his legs crossed and did not say a word until the Secretary's last remark. Then he said in a somewhat positive tone, 'Mr. Secretary, I reckon you'll have to execute the order.'
"Stanton replied with asperity, 'Mr. President, I can not do it. The order is an improper one, and I can not execute it."
Lincoln fixed his eye upon Stanton, and in a firm voice with an accent that clearly showed his determination, he said, 'Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done.'"[1] At this point, General Fry discreetly left the room. A few moments later, he received instructions from Stanton to execute the President's order.
In a public matter in the June of 1864 Lincoln gave a demonstration of his original way of doing things. It displayed his final serenity in such unexpected fashion that no routine politician, no dealer in the catchwords of statecraft, -could understand it. Since that grim joke, the deportation of Vallandigham, the Copperhead leader had not had happy time. The Confederacy did not want him. He had made his way to Canada. Thence, in the spring of 1864 he served notice on his country that he would perform a dramatic Part, play the role of a willing martyr-in a word, come home and defy the government to do its worst. He came. But Lincoln did nothing. The American sense of humor did the rest. If Vallandigham had not advertised a theatrical exploit, ignoring him might have been dangerous. But Lincoln knew his people. When the show did not come off, Vallandigham was transformed in an instant from a martyr to an anticlimax. Though he went busily to work, though he lived to attend the Democratic National Convention and to write the resolution that was the heart of its platform, his tale was told.
Turning from Vallandigham, partly in amusement, partly in contempt, Lincoln grappled with the problem of reinforcing the army. Since the Spring of 1863 the wastage of the army had been replaced by conscription. But the system had not worked well. it contained a fatal provision. A drafted man might escape service by paying three hundred dollars. Both the Secretary of War and the Provost Marshal had urged the abolition of this detail. Lincoln had communicated their arguments to Congress with his approval and a new law had been drawn up accordingly. Nevertheless, late in June, the House amended it by restoring the privilege of commuting service for money.[2] Lincoln bestirred himself. The next day he called together the Republican members of the House. "With a sad, mysterious light in his melancholy eyes, as if they were familiar with things hidden from mortals" he urged the Congressmen to reconsider their action. The time of three hundred eighty thousand soldiers would expire in October. He must have half a million to take their places. A Congressman objected that elections were approaching; that the rigorous law he proposed would be intensely unpopular; that it might mean the defeat, at the polls, of many Republican Representatives; it might even mean the President's defeat. He replied that he had thought of all that.
"My election is not necessary; I must put down the rebellion; I must have five hundred thousand more men."[3]
He raised the timid politicians to his own level, inspired them with new courage. Two days later a struggle began in the House for carrying out Lincoln's purpose. On the last day of the session along with the offensive Reconstruction Bill, he received the new Enrollment Act which provided that "no payment of money shall be accepted or received by the Government as commutation to release any enrolled or drafted man from personal obligation to perform military service."
Against this inflexible determination to fight to a finish, this indifference to the political consequences of his determination, Lincoln beheld arising like a portentous specter, a fury of pacifism. It found expression in Greeley. Always the swift victim of his own affrighted hope, Greeley had persuaded himself that both North and South had lost heart for the war; that there was needed only a moving appeal, and they would throw down their arms and the millennium would come. Furthermore, on the flimsiest sort of evidence, he had fallen into a trap designed to place the Northern government in the attitude of suing for peace. He wrote to Lincoln demanding that he send an agent to confer with certain Confederate officials who were reported to be then in Canada; he also suggested terms of peace.[4] Greeley's terms were entirely acceptable to Lincoln; but he had no faith in the Canadian mare's nest. However, he decided to give Greeley the utmost benefit of the doubt, and also to teach him a lesson. He commissioned Greeley himself to proceed to Canada, there to discover "if there is or is not anything in the affair." He wrote to him, "I not only intend a sincere effort for peace, but I intend that you shall be a personal witness that it is made."[5]
Greeley, who did not want to have any responsibility for anything that might ensue, whose joy was to storm and to find fault, accepted the duty he could not well refuse, and set out in a bad humor.
Meanwhile two other men had conceived an undertaking somewhat analogous but in a temper widely different. These were Colonel Jaquess, a clergyman turned soldier, a man of high simplicity of character, and J. R. Gilmore, a writer, known by the pen name of Edmund Kirke. Jaquess had told Gilmore of information he had received from friends in the Confederacy; he was convinced that nothing would induce the Confederate government to consider any terms of peace that embraced reunion, whether with or without emancipation. "It at once occurred to me," says Gilmore, "that if this declaration could be got in such a manner that it could be given to the public, it would, if scattered broadcast over the North, destroy the peace-party and reelect Mr. Lincoln." Gilmore went to Washington and obtained an interview with the President. He assured him--and he was a newspaper correspondent whose experience was worth considering--that the new pacifism, the incipient "peace party," was schooling the country in the belief that an offer of liberal terms would be followed by a Southern surrender. The masses wanted peace on any terms that would preserve the Union; and the Democrats were going to tell them in the next election that Lincoln could save the Union by negotiation, if he would. Unless the popular mind were disabused of this fictitious hope, the Democrats would prevail and the Union would collapse. But if an offer to negotiate should be made, and if "Davis should refuse to negotiate--as he probably would, except on the basis of Southern independence--that fact alone would reunite the North, reelect Lincoln, and thus save the Union."[6]
"Then," said Lincoln, "you would fight the devil with fire. You would get that declaration from Davis and use it against him."
Gilmore defended himself by proposing to offer extremely liberal terms. There was a pause in the conversation. Lincoln who was seated at his desk "leaned slightly forward looking directly into (Gilmore's) eyes, but with an absent, far-away gaze as if unconscious of (his) presence." Suddenly, relapsing into his usual badinage, he said, "God selects His own instruments and some times they are queer ones: for instance, He chose me to see the ship of state through a great crisis."[7] He went on to say that Gilmore and Jaquess might be the very men to serve a great purpose at this moment. Gilmore knew the world; and anybody could see at a glance that Jaquess never told anything that wasn't true. If they would go to Richmond on their own responsibility, make it plain to President Davis that they were not official agents, even taking the chance of arrest and imprisonment, they might go. This condition was accepted. Lincoln went on to say that no advantage should be taken of Mr. Davis; that nothing should be proposed which if accepted would not be made good. After considerable further discussion he drew up a memorandum of the terms upon which he would consent to peace. There were seven items:
Gilmore and Jaquess might say to Davis that they had private but sure knowledge that the President of the United States would agree to peace on these terms. Thus provided, they set forth.
Lincoln's thoughts were speedily claimed by an event which had no Suggestion of peace. At no time since Jackson threw the government into a panic in the spring of 1862, had Washington been in danger of capture. Now, briefly, it appeared to be at the mercy of General Early. in the last act of a daring raid above the Potomac, he came sweeping down on Washington from the North. As Grant was now the active commander-in-chief, responsible for all the Northern armies, Lincoln with a fatalistic calm made no move to take the capital out of his hands. When Early was known to be headed toward Washington, Lincoln drove out as usual to spend the night at the Soldiers' Home beyond the fortifications. Stanton, in whom there was a reminiscence at least of the hysterical Secretary of 1862, sent after him post haste and insisted on his returning. The next day, the eleventh of July, 1864, Washington was invested by the Confederate forces. There was sharp firing in front of several forts. Lincoln--and for that matter, Mrs. Lincoln also-made a tour of the defenses. While Fort Stevens was under fire, he stood on the parapet, "apparently unconscious of danger, watching with that grave and passive countenance the progress of the fight, amid the whizzing bullets of the sharp shooters, until an officer fell mortally wounded within three feet of him, and General Wright peremptorily represented to him the needless risk he was running." Hay recorded in his diary "the President in good feather this evening . . . not concerned about Washington's safety . . . only thought, can we bag or destroy the force in our front.'" He was much disappointed when Early eluded the forces which Grant hurried to the Capitol. Mrs. Lincoln was outspoken to the same effect. The doughty little lady had also been under fire, her temper being every whit as bold as her husband's. When Stanton with a monumental playfulness proposed to have her portrait painted in a commanding attitude on the parapet of Fort Stevens, she gave him the freedom of her tongue, because of the inadequacy of his department.[9]
This incident had its aftermath. A country-place belonging to the Postmaster General had been laid waste. its owner thought that the responsibility for permitting Early to come so near to Washington fell chiefly on General Halleck. He made some sharp criticisms which became public the General flew into a rage and wrote to the Secretary of War: "The Postmaster General ought to be dismissed by the President from the Cabinet." Stanton handed his letter to the President, from whom the next day the General received this note: "Whether the remarks were made I do not know, nor do I suppose such knowledge is necessary to a correct response. if they were made, I do not approve them; and yet, under the circumstances, I would not dismiss a member of the Cabinet therefor. I do not consider what may have been hastily said in a moment of vexation at so severe a loss is sufficient ground for so grave a step. Besides this, truth is generally the best vindication against slander. I propose continuing to be myself the judge as to when a member of the Cabinet shall be dismissed." Lincoln spoke of the affair at his next conference with his Ministers. "I must, myself, be the judge," said he, "how long to retain in and when to remove any of you from his position. It would greatly pain me to discover any of you endeavoring to procure another's removal, or in any way to prejudice him before the public. Such an endeavor would be a wrong to me, and much worse, a wrong to the country. My wish is that on this subject no remark be made nor question asked by any of you, here or elsewhere, now or hereafter."[10]
Not yet had anything resulted either from the Canadian mission of Greeley, or from the Richmond adventure of Gilmore and Jaquess. There was a singular ominous pause in events. Lincoln could not be blind to the storm signals that had attended the close of Congress. What were the Vindictives about? As yet they had made no Sign. But it was incredible that they could pass over his defiance without a return blow. When would it come? What would it be?
He spent his nights at the Soldiers' Home. As a rule, his family were with him. Sometimes, however, Mrs. Lincoln and his sons would be absent and his only companion was one of the ardent young secretaries. Then he would indulge in reading Shakespeare aloud, it might be with such forgetfulness of time that only the nodding of the tired young head recalled him to himself and brought the reading to an end. A visitor has left this charming picture of Lincoln at the Soldiers' Home in the sad sweetness of a summer night:
"The Soldiers' Home is a few miles out of Washington on the Maryland side. It is situated on a beautiful wooded hill, which you ascend by a winding path, shaded on both sides by wide-spread branches, forming a green arcade above you. When you reach the top you stand between two mansions, large, handsome and substantial, but with nothing about them to indicate the character of either. That on the left is the Presidential country house; that directly before you, is the 'Rest,' for soldiers who are too old for further service . . . in the graveyard near at hand there are numberless graves--some without a spear of grass to hide their newness--that hold the bodies of volunteers.
"While we stood in the soft evening air, watching the faint trembling of the long tendrils of waving willow, and feeling the dewy coolness that was flung out by the old oaks above us, Mr. Lincoln joined us, and stood silent, too, taking in the scene.
"'How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
By all their country's
wishes blest," he said, softly. . .
"Around the 'Home' grows every variety of tree, particularly of the evergreen class. Their branches brushed into the carriage as we passed along, and left us with that pleasant woody smell belonging to leaves. One of the ladies, catching a bit of green from one of these intruding branches, said it was cedar, and another thought it spruce.
"'Let me discourse on a theme I understand,' said the President. 'I know all about trees in right of being a backwoodsman. I'll show you the difference between spruce, pine and cedar, and this shred of green, which is neither one nor the other, but a kind of illegitimate cypress. He then proceeded to gather specimens of each, and explain the distinctive formation of foliage belonging to each."[11]
Those summer nights of July, 1864, had many secrets which the tired President musing in the shadows of the giant trees or finding solace with the greatest of earthly minds would have given much to know. How were Gilmore and Jaquess faring? What was really afoot in Canada? And that unnatural silence of the Vindictives, what did that mean? And the two great armies, Grant's in Virginia, Sherman's in Georgia, was there never to be stirring news of either of these? The hush of the moment, the atmosphere of suspense that seemed to envelop him, it was just what had always for his imagination had such strange charm in the stories of fated men. He turned again to Macbeth, or to Richard II, or to Hamlet. Shakespeare, too, understood these mysterious pauses--who better!
The sense of the impending was strengthened by the alarms of some of his best friends. They besought him to abandon his avowed purpose to call for a draft of half a million under the new Enrollment Act. Many voices joined the one chorus: the country is on the verge of despair; you will wreck the cause by demanding another colossal sacrifice. But he would not listen. When, in desperation, they struck precisely the wrong note, and hinted at the ruin of his political prospects, he had his calm reply: "it matters not what becomes of me. We must have men. if I go down, I intend to go like the Cumberland, with my colors flying."[12]
Thus the days passed until the eighteenth of July. Meanwhile the irresponsible Greeley had made a sad mess of his Canadian adventure. Though Lincoln had given him definite instructions, requiring him to negotiate only with agents who could produce written authority from Davis, and who would treat on the basis of restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery, Greeley ignored both these unconditional requirements.[13] He had found the Confederate agents at Niagara. They had no credentials. Nevertheless, he invited them to come to Washington and open negotiations. Of the President's two conditions, he said not a word. This was just what the agents wanted. It could easily be twisted into the semblance of an attempt by Lincoln to sue for peace. They accepted the invitation. Greeley telegraphed to Lincoln reporting what he had done. Of course, it was plain that he had misrepresented Lincoln; that he had far exceeded his authority; and that his perverse unfaithfulness must be repudiated. On July eighteenth, Hay set out for Niagara with this paper in Lincoln's handwriting.[14]
"To whom it may concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the executive government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have, safe conduct both ways. ABRAHAM LINCOLN."
This was the end of the negotiation. The agents could not accept these terms. Immediately, they published a version of what had happened: they had been invited to come to Washington; subsequently, conditions had been imposed which made it impossible for them to accept Was not the conclusion plain? The Washington government was trying to open negotiations but it was also in the fear of its own supporters playing craftily a double game. These astute diplomats saw that there was a psychological crisis in the North. By adding to the confusion of the hour they had well served their cause. Greeley's fiasco was susceptible of a double interpretation. To the pacifists it meant that the government, whatever may have been intended at the start, had ended by setting impossible conditions of peace. To the supporters of the war, it meant that whatever were the last thoughts of the government, it had for a time contemplated peace without any conditions at all. Lincoln was severely condemned, Greeley was ridiculed, by both groups of interpreters. Why did not Greeley come out bravely and tell the truth? Why did he not confess that he had suppressed Lincoln's first set of instructions; that it was he, on his own responsibility, who had led the Confederate agents astray; that he, not Lincoln was solely to blame for the false impression that was now being used so adroitly to injure the President? Lincoln proposed to publish their correspondence, but made a condition that was characteristic. Greeley's letters rang with cries of despair. He was by far the most influential Northern editor. Lincoln asked him to strike out these hopeless passages. Greeley refused. The correspondence must be published entire or not at all. Lincoln suppressed it. He let the blame of himself go on; and he said nothing in extenuation.[15]
He took some consolation in a "card" that appeared in the Boston Transcript, July 22. it gave a brief account of the adventure of Gilmore and Jaquess, and stated the answer given to them by the President of the Confederacy. That answer, as restated by the Confederate Secretary of State, was: "he had no authority to receive proposals for negotiations except by virtue of his office as President of an independent Confederacy and on this basis alone must proposals be made to him."[16]
There was another circumstance that may well have been Lincoln's consolation in this tangle of cross-purposes. Only boldness could extricate him from the mesh of his difficulties. The mesh was destined to grow more and more of a snare; his boldness was to grow with his danger. He struck the note that was to rule his conduct thereafter, when, on the day he sent the final instructions to Greeley, in defiance of his timid advisers, he issued a proclamation calling for a new draft of half a million men.[17]