LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS ABRAHAM I,INCOI 86 Hickman 58 18 LINCOLN IN i860. 4 1 withstanding Governor Morgan's keen disappointment at the defeat of Seward, he was easily prevailed upon to remain at the head of the National Committee, thus charging him with the management of the national campaign. I called on Thurlow Weed at his headquarters during the evening after the nominations had been made, ex pecting that, with all his disappointment, he would be ready to co-operate for the success of the ticket. I found him sullen, and offensive in both manner and expression. He refused even to talk about the contest, and intimated very broadly that Pennsylvania, having defeated Seward, could now elect Curtin and Lincoln. Governor Curtin also visited Mr. Weed before he left Chicago, but re ceived no word of encouragement from the disappointed Seward leader. * Weed had been defeated in his greatest effort, and the one great dream of his life had perished. He never forgave Governor Curtin until the day of his death, nor did Seward maintain any more than severely civil relations with Curtin during the whole time that he was at the head of the State Department. I called on First. Second. Reeder 51* . . Banks 38^* - Davis (Henry Winter) . . . 8* Dayton 3 Houston . 3 Read i * Withdrawn. * I called on Morgan the night after the nomination was made. He treated me civilly, but with marked coolness, and I then called on Weed, who was very rude indeed. He said to me, "You have defeated the man who of all others was most revered by the people and wanted as President. You and Lane want to be elected, and to elect Lincoln you must elect yourselves." That was all, and I left him. Governor Curtirfs Letter to the Author, August 18, 1891. 4 2 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. Seward but once after the organization of the Lincoln Cabinet, and not for the purpose of soliciting any favors from him, but he was so frigid that I never ventured to trespass upon him again. Three months after the Chi cago convention, when the battle in Pennsylvania was raging with desperation on both sides, I twice wrote to Weed giving the condition of affairs in the State and urging the co-operation of himself and Chairman Mor gan to assure the success of the ticket in October. He made no response to either letter, and it so happened chat we never met thereafter during his life. Tlie contest in Pennsylvania was really the decisive battle of the national campaign. A party had to be created out of inharmonious elements, and the commer cial and financial interests of the State were almost sol idly against us. I cannot recall five commercial houses of prominence in the city of Philadelphia where I could have gone to solicit a subscription to the Lincoln cam paign with reasonable expectation that it would not be resented, and of all our prominent financial men I recall only Anthony J. Drexel who actively sympathized with the Republican cause. Money would have been useless for any but legitimate purposes, but the organization of a great State to crystallize incongruous elements was an immense task and involved great labor and expense. I visited Chairman Morgan in New York, presented the situation to him, but he was listless and indifferent, and not one dollar of money was contributed from New York State to aid the Curtin contest in Pennsylvania. The entire contributions for the State committee for that great battle aggregated only $12,000, of which $2000 were a contribution for rent of headquarters and $3000 were expended in printing. Three weeks before the election, when I felt reasonably confident of the success of the State ticket, I again visited Governor Morgan, and met LINCOLN IN i860. 43 with him Moses Taylor and one or two others, and they were finally so much impressed with the importance of carrying a Republican Congress that they agreed to raise $4300 and send it direct to some six or seven debatable Congressional districts I indicated. Beyond this aid ren dered to Pennsylvania from New York the friends of Mr. Seward took no part whatever in the great October bat tle that made Abraham Lincoln President. Curtin was elected by a majority of 32,164, and Lane was elected in Indiana by 9757. With Curtin the Republicans carried 19 of the 25 Congressmen, and with Lane the Republi cans of Indiana carried 7 of the n Congressmen of that State. Thus was the election of a Republican President substantially accomplished in October by the success of the two men who had defeated William H. Seward and nominated Abraham Lincoln at Chicago. A VISIT TO LINCOLN. I NEVER met Abraham Lincoln until early in Janu ary, 1 86 1, some two months after his election to the Presidency. I had been brought into very close and con fidential relations with him by correspondence during the Pennsylvania campaign of 1860. His letters were fre quent, and always eminently practical, on the then su preme question of electing the Republican State ticket in October. It was believed on all sides that unless Pennsylvania could be carried in October, Lincoln's de feat would be certain in November. Pennsylvania was thus accepted as the key to Republican success, and Lin coln naturally watched the struggle with intense interest. In accordance with his repeated solicitations, he was ad vised from the headquarters of the State Committee, of which I was chairman, of all the varied phases of the struggle. It soon became evident from his inquiries and versatile suggestions that he took nothing for granted. He had to win the preliminary battle in October, and he left nothing undone within his power to ascertain the exact situation and to understand every peril involved in it. The Republican party in Pennsylvania, although then but freshly organized, had many different elements and bitter factional feuds within its own household, and all who actively participated in party efforts were more or less involved in them. I did not entirely escape the bit- 44 (Photo by Brady, Washington.) ABRAHAM UNCOI,N, 1850. 46 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. terness that was displayed in many quarters. Had I been simply a private in the ranks, it would have been of little consequence to Lincoln whether I was compe tent to conduct so important a campaign or not ; but when he was advised, not only from within the State, but from friends outside the State as well, that the part}' organization in Pennsylvania was not equal to the press ing necessities of the occasion, he adopted his own cha racteristic methods to satisfy himself on the subject. I had met David Davis and Leonard Swett for the firct time at the Chicago Convention, and of course we knew little of each other personally. Some time toward mid summer, when the campaign in Pennsylvania was well under way, Davis and Swett entered my headquarters together and handed me a letter from Lincoln, in which he said that these gentlemen were greatly interested in his election that they were on East looking into the contest generally, and he would be pleased if I would furnish them every facility to ascertain the condition of affairs in the State. I was very glad to do so, and they spent two days at my headquarters, where every informa tion was given them and the methods and progress of the organization opened to them without reserve. They saw that for the first time in the history of Pennsylvania poli tics the new party had been organized by the State Com mittee in every election district of the State, and that everything that could be done had been done to put the party in condition for a successful battle. After Davis and Swett had finished their work and notified me of their purpose to leave during the night, they invited me to a private dinner at which none were present but ourselves. During the course of the dinner Swett informed me that they were very happy now to be able to tell me the real purpose of their mission that had their information been less satisfactory they would 'A VISIT TO LINCOLN. 47 have returned without advising me of it. He said that they had been instructed by Lincoln to come to Pennsyl vania and make personal examination into the condition of affairs, especially as to the efficiency of the party organization of the State, and that his reason for doing so was that he had been admonished that the direction of the campaign by the State Committee was incompe tent and likely to result in disaster. They added that, inasmuch as their answer to Lincoln must be that the organization was the best that they had ever known in any State, they felt entirely at liberty to disclose to me why they had come and what the result of their inquiry was. After their return to Illinois letters from Lincoln were not less frequent, and they were entirely confident in tone and exhibited the utmost faith in the direction of the great Pennsylvania battle. I twice sent him during the campaign once about the middle of August, and again in the latter part of September a carefully-pre pared estimate of the vote for Governor by counties that had been made up by a methodical and reasonably accu rate canvass of each election district of the State. The first gave Governor Curtin a majority of 12,000, leaving out of the estimate a considerable doubtful vote. The last estimate gave Curtin a majority of 17,000, also omit ting the doubtful contingent. The result not only justi fied the estimates which had been sent to him in the aggregate majority, but it justified the detailed estimates of the vote of nearly or quite every county in the State. Curtin' s majority was nearly double the last estimate given him because of the drift of the doubtful vote to our side, and, being successful in what was regarded as the decisive battle of the campaign, Lincoln accorded me more credit than I merited. From that time until the day of his death I was one of those he called into coun- 48 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. sel in every important political emergency. Much as I grieved over the loss of the many to me precious things which I had gathered about my home in Chambersburg, and serious as was the destruction of all my property when the vandals of McCausland burned the town in 1864, I have always felt that the greatest loss I sustained was in the destruction of my entire correspondence with Abraham Lincoln. About the ist of January, 1861, I received a telegram from Lincoln requesting me to come to Springfield. It is proper to say that this invitation was in answer to a telegram from me advising him against the appointment of General Cameron as Secretary of War. The factional feuds and bitter antagonisms of that day have long since perished, and I do not purpose in any way to revive them. On the 3ist of December, Lincoln had delivered to Cameron at Springfield a letter notifying him that he would be nominated for a Cabinet position. This fact became known immediately upon Cameron's return, and inspired very vigorous opposition to his appointment, in which Governor Curtin, Thaddeus Stevens, David Wil- mot, and many others participated. Although the Sen ate, of which I was a member, was just about to organize, I hastened to Springfield and reached there at seven o'clock in the evening. I had telegraphed Lincoln of the hour that I should arrive and that I must return at eleven the same night. I went directly from the depot to Lincoln's house and rang the bell, which was answered by Lincoln himself opening the door. I doubt whether I wholly concealed my disappointment at meeting him. Tall, gaunt, ungainly, ill clad, with a homeliness of manner that was unique in itself, I confess that my heart sank within me as I remembered that this was the man chosen by a great nation to become its ruler in the grav est period of its history. I remember his dress as if it A VISIT TO LINCOLN. 49 were but yesterday snuff-colored and slouchy panta loons ; open black vest, held by a few brass buttons ; straight or evening dress-coat, with tightly-fitting sleeves to exaggerate his long, bony arms, and all supplemented by an awkwardness that was uncommon among men of intelligence. Such was the picture I met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. We sat down in his plainly fur nished parlor, and were uninterrupted during the nearly four hours that I remained with him, and little by little, as his earnestness, sincerity, and candor were developed in conversation, I forgot all the grotesque qualities which so confounded me when I first greeted him. Before half an hour had passed I learned not only to respect, but, indeed, to reverence the man. It is needless to give any account of the special mis sion on which I was called to Springfield, beyond the fact that the tender of a Cabinet position to Pennsylvania was recalled by him on the following day, although re newed and accepted two months later, when the Cabinet was finally formed in Washington. It was after the Pennsylvania Cabinet imbroglio was disposed of that Lincoln exhibited his true self without reserve. For more than two hours he discussed the gravity of the situ ation and the appalling danger of civil war. Although he had never been in public office outside the Illinois Legislature, beyond a single session of Congress, and had little intercourse with men of national prominence dur ing the twelve years after his return from Washington, he exhibited remarkable knowledge of all the leading public men of the country, and none could mistake the patriotic purpose that inspired him in approaching the mighty responsibility that had been cast upon him by the people. He discussed the slavery question in all its aspects and all the various causes which were used as pretexts for rebellion, and he not only was master of the 4 50 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. whole question, but thoroughly understood his duty and was prepared to perform it. During this conversation I had little to say beyond answering an occasional ques tion or suggestion from him, and I finally left him fully satisfied that he understood the political conditions in Pennsylvania nearly as well as I did myself, and entirely assured that of all the public men named for the Presi dency at Chicago he was the most competent and the safest to take the helm of the ship of State and guide it through the impending storm. I saw many dark days akin to despair during the four years which recorded the crimsoned annals from Sumter to Appomattox, but I never had reason to change or seriously question that judgment. I next met Abraham Lincoln at Harrisburg on the 22d of February, 1861, when he passed through the most trying ordeal of his life. He had been in Philadelphia the night before, where he was advised by letters from General Winfield Scott and his prospective Premier, Senator Seward, that he could not pass through Balti more on the 23d without grave peril to his life. His route, as published to the world for some days, was from Philadelphia to Harrisburg on the morning of the 22d ; to remain in Harrisburg over night as the guest of Governor Curtin; and to leave for Washington the next morning by the Northern Central Railway, that would take him through Baltimore about midday. A number of detectives under the direction of President Felton of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad, and Allan Pinkerton, chief of the well-known detective agency, were convinced from the information they obtained that Lincoln would be assassinated if he attempted to pass through Baltimore according to the published programme. A conference at the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia on the night of the 2ist, at which A VISIT TO LINCOLN. 51 Lincoln was advised of the admonitions of Scott and Seward, had not resulted in any final determination as to his route to Washington. He was from the first ex tremely reluctant about any change, but it was finally decided that he should proceed to Harrisburg on the morning of the 22d and be guided by events. The two speeches made by Lincoln on the 22d of Feb ruary do not exhibit a single trace of mental disturbance from the appalling news he had received. He hoisted the stars and stripes to the pinnacle of Independence Hall early in the morning and delivered a brief address that was eminently characteristic of the man. He arrived at Harrisburg about noon, was received in the House of Representatives by the Governor and both branches of the Legislature, and there spoke with the same calm de liberation and incisiveness which marked all his speeches during the journey from Springfield to Washington. After the reception at the House another conference was held on the subject of his route to Washington, and, while every person present, with the exception of Lin coln, was positive in the demand that the programme should be changed, he still obstinately hesitated. He did not believe that the danger of assassination was serious. The afternoon conference practically decided nothing, but it was assumed by those active in directing Lincoln's journey that there must be a change. Lincoln dined at the Jones House about five o' clock with Governor Curtin as host of the occasion. I recall as guests the names of Colonel Thomas A. Scott, Colonel Sumner, Colonel La- mon, Dr. Wallace, David Davis, Secretary Slifer, Attor ney-General Purviance, Adjutant-General Russell, and myself. There were others at the table, but I do not recall them with certainty. Of that dinner circle, as I remember them, only three are now living Governor 52 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. Curtin, Colonel Lamon, and the writer hereof. Mr. Judd was not a guest, as he was giving personal attention to Mrs. Lincoln, who was much disturbed by the suggestion to separate the President from her, and she narrowly es caped attracting attention to the movements which re quired the utmost secrecy. It was while at dinner that it was finally determined that Lincoln should return to Philadelphia and go thence to Washington that night, as had been arranged in Phila delphia the night previous in the event of a decision to change the programme previously announced. No one who heard the discussion of the question could efface it from his memory. The admonitions received from Gen eral Scott and Senator Seward were made known to Gov ernor Curtin at the table, and the question of a change of route was discussed for some time by every one with the single exception of Lincoln. He was the one silent man of the party, and when he was finally compelled to speak he unhesitatingly expressed his disapproval of the movement. With impressive earnestness he thus an swered the appeal of his friends: "What would the na tion think of its President stealing into the Capital like a thief in the night?" It was only when the other guests were unanimous in the expression that it was not a question for Lincoln to determine, but one for his friends to determine for him, that he finally agreed to submit to whatever was decided by those around him. It was most fortunate that Colonel Scott was one of the guests at that dinner. He was wise and keen in percep tion and bold and swift in execution. The time was short, and if a change was to be made in Lincoln's route it was necessary for him to reach Philadelphia by eleven o' clock that night or very soon thereafter. Scott at once became master of ceremonies, and everything that was done was in obedience to his directions. There was a A VISIT TO LINCOLN. 53 crowd of thousands around the hotel, anxious to see the new President and ready to cheer him to the uttermost. It was believed to be best that only one man should ac company Lincoln in his journey to Philadelphia and Washington, and Lincoln decided that Lamon should be his companion. Colonel Sumner, who felt that he had been charged with the safety of the President-elect, and whose silvered crown seemed to entitle him to prece dence, earnestly protested against Lincoln leaving his immediate care, but it was deemed unsafe to have more than one accompany him, and the veteran soldier was compelled to surrender his charge. That preliminary question settled, Scott directed that Curtin, Lincoln, and Lamon should at once proceed to the front steps of the hotel, where there was a vast throng waiting to receive them, and that Curtin should call distinctly, so that the crowd could hear, for a carriage, and direct the coach man to drive the party to the Executive Mansion. That was the natural thing for Curtin to do to take the Presi dent to the Governor's mansion as his guest, and it ex cited no suspicion whatever. Before leaving the dining-room Governor Curtin halted Lincoln and Lamon at the door and inquired of Lamon whether he was well armed. Lamon had been chosen by Lincoln as his companion because of his exceptional physical power and prowess, but Curtin wanted assurance that he was properly equipped for defense. Lamon at once uncovered a small arsenal of deadly weapons, show ing that he was literally armed to the teeth. In addition to a pair of heavy revolvers, he had a slung-shot and brass knuckles and a huge knife nestled under his vest. The three entered the carriage, and, as instructed by Scott, drove toward the Executive Mansion, but when near there the driver was ordered to take a circuitous route and to reach the railroad depot within half an 54 LINCOLN AND M&N OF WAR-TIMES. hour. When Curtin and his party had gotten fairly away from the hotel I accompanied Scott to the railway depot, where he at once cleared one of his lines from Harrisburg to Philadelphia, so that there could be no obstruction upon it, as had been agreed upon at Phila delphia the evening before in case the change should be made. In the mean time he had ordered a locomotive and a single car to be brought to the eastern entrance of the depot, and at the appointed time the carriage arrived. Lincoln and Lamon emerged from the carriage and en tered the car unnoticed by any except those interested in the matter, and after a quiet but fervent ' ' Good-bye and God protect you!" the engineer quietly moved his train away on its momentous mission. As soon as the train left I accompanied Scott in the work of severing all the telegraph lines which entered Harrisburg. He was not content with directing that it should be done, but he personally saw that every wire was cut. This was about seven o'clock in the evening. It had been arranged that the eleven o'clock train from Philadelphia to Washington should be held until Lin coln arrived, on the pretext of delivering an important package to the conductor. The train on which he was to leave Philadelphia was due in Washington at six in the morning, and Scott kept faithful vigil during the entire night, not only to see that there should be no res toration of the wires, but waiting with anxious solicitude for the time when he might hope to hear the good news that Lincoln had arrived in safety. To guard against every possible chance of imposition a special cipher was agreed upon that could not possibly be understood by any but the parties to it. It was a long, weary night of fretful anxiety to the dozen or more in Harrisburg who had knowledge of the sudden departure of Lincoln. No one attempted to sleep. All felt that the fate of the na- A VISIT TO LINCOLN 55 tion hung on the safe progress of Lincoln to Washington without detection on his journey. Scott, who was of heroic mould, several times tried to temper the severe strain of his anxiety by looking up railway matters, but he would soon abandon the listless effort, and thrice we strolled from the depot to the Jones House and back again, in aimless struggle to hasten the slowly-passing hours, only to find equally anxious watchers there and a wife whose sobbing heart could not be consoled. At last the eastern horizon was purpled with the promise of day. Scott reunited the broken lines for the lightning messen ger, and he was soon gladdened by an unsigned dispatch from Washington, saying, u Plums delivered nuts safely." He whirled his hat high in the little telegraph office as he shouted, " Lincoln's in Washington," and we rushed to the Jones House and hurried a messenger to the Ex ecutive Mansion to spread the glad tidings that Lincoln had safely made his midnight journey to the Capital. I have several times heard Lincoln refer to this jour ney, and always with regret Indeed, he seemed to regard it as one of the grave mistakes in his public career. He was fully convinced, as Colonel Lamon has stated it, that " he had fled from a danger purely imag inary, and he felt the shame and mortification natural to a brave man under such circumstances. ' ' Mrs. Lincoln and her suite passed through Baltimore on the 23d with out any sign of turbulence. The fact that there was not even a curious crowd brought together when she passed through the city which then required considerable time, as the cars were taken across Baltimore by horses con firmed Lincoln in his belief. It is needless now to dis cuss the question of real or imaginary danger in Lincoln passing through Baltimore at noonday according to the original programme. It is enough to know that there were reasonable grounds for apprehension that an attempt 56 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TlJMl^S. might be made upon his life, even if there was not the organized band of assassins that the detectives believed to exist. His presence in the city would have called out an immense concourse of people, including thousands of thoroughly disloyal roughs, who could easily have been inspired to any measure of violence. He simply acted the part of a prudent man in his reluctant obedience to the unanimous decision of his friends in Harrisburg when he was suddenly sent back to Philadelphia to take the midnight train for Washington, and there was no good reason why he. should have regretted it; but his naturally sensitive disposition made him always feel humiliated when it recurred to him. The sensational stories published at the time of his disguise for the journey were wholly untrue. He was reported as having been dressed in a Scotch cap and cloak and as entering the car at the Broad and Prime station by some private alley-way, but there was no truth whatever in any of these statements. I saw him leave the dining-room at Harrisburg to enter the carriage with Curtin and Lamon. I saw him enter the car at the Har risburg depot, and the only change in his dress was the substitution of a soft slouch hat for the high one he had worn during the day. He wore the same overcoat that he had worn when he arrived at Harrisburg, and the only extra apparel he had about him was the shawl that hung over his arm. When he reached West Philadelphia he was met by Superintendent Kenney, who had a car riage in waiting with a single detective in it. Lincoln and Ivamon entered the carriage and Kenney mounted the box with the driver. They were in advance of the time for the starting of the Baltimore train, and they were driven around on Broad street, as the driver was informed, in search of some one wanted by Kenney and the detective, until it was time to reach the station. A VISIT TO LINCOLN. 57 When there they entered by the public doorway on Broad street, arid passed directly along with other pas sengers to the car, where their berths had been engaged. The journey to Washington was entirely uneventful, and at six in the morning the train entered the Washington station on schedule time. Seward had been advised, by the return of his son from Philadelphia, of the probable execution of this programme, and he and Washburne were in the station and met the President and his party, and all drove together to Willard's Hotel. Thus ends the story of Lincoln's midnight journey from Harrisburg to the National Capital. (Photo by Brady, Washington.) LIEUT. -GENERAI, WINFIELD SCOTT, l86l. LINCOLN'S SORE TRIALS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN arrived in Washington on the /v. 2 ^d of February, 1861, to accept the most appalling responsibilities ever cast upon any civil ruler of modern times. ' If he could have commanded the hearty confi dence and co-operation of the leaders of his own party, his task would have been greatly lessened, but it is due to the truth of history to say that few, very few, of the Republican leaders of national fame had faith in Lin coln's ability for the trust assigned f o him. I could name a dozen men, now idols of the nation, whose open distrust of Lincoln not only seriously embarrassed, but grievously pained and humiliated, him. They felt that the wrong man had been elected to the Presidency, and only their modesty prevented them, in each case, from naming the man who should have been chosen in his stead. Looking now over the names most illustrious in the Republican councils, I can hardly recall one who en couraged Lincoln by the confidence he so much needed. Even Seward, who had been notified as early as the 8th of December that he would be called as Premier of the new administration, and who soon thereafter had signi fied his acceptance of the office and continued in the most confidential relations with Lincoln, suddenly, on the 2d of March, formally notified Lincoln of his recon sideration of his acceptance. The only reason given was that circumstances had occurred since his acceptance 59 60 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. which seemed to render it his duty " to ask leave to withdraw that consent. ' ' The circumstances referred to were the hopeless discord and bitter jealousies among party-leaders both in and out of the Cabinet. Lincoln found a party without a policy ; the strangest confusion and bitterest antagonisms pervading those who should have been in accord, not only in purpose, but in earnest sympathy, with him in the discharge of his great duties, and he was practically like a ship tempest-tossed without compass or rudder. Even the men called to his Cabinet did not give Ivincoln their confidence and co operation. No two of them seemed to have the same views as to the policy the administration should adopt. Seward ridiculed the idea of serious civil war, and then and thereafter renewed his bond for peace in sixty days, only to be protested from month to month and from year to year. Chase believed in peaceable disunion as alto gether preferable to fraternal conflict, and urged his views with earnestness upon the President. Cameron, always eminently practical, was not misled by any senti mental ideas and regarded war as inevitable. Welles was an amiable gentleman without any aggressive quali ties whatever, and Smith and Bates were old and con servative, while Blair was a politician with few of the qualities of a statesman. A reasonably correct idea of the estimate placed upon Lincoln's abilities for his position may be obtained by turning to the eulogy on Seward delivered by Charles Francis Adams in 1873. Adams was a Republican mem ber of Congress when Ivincoln was chosen President, and he was Lincoln's Minister to England during the entire period of the war. In eulogizing Seward as the master spirit of the administration and as the power behind the throne stronger than the throne itself, he said: "I must affirm, without hesitation, that in the history of our gov- LINCOLN 1 S SORE TRIALS. 61 ernment down to this hour no experiment so rash has ever been made as that of electing to the head of affairs a man with so little previous preparation for his task as Mr. Lincoln." Indeed, Lincoln himself seems to have been profoundly impressed with his want of fitness for the position when he was first named as a candidate from his State. In 1859, a fter he had attained national repu tation by his joint discussion with Douglas in the contest for Senator, Mr. Pickett, the editor of an Illinois Repub lican journal, wrote to him, urging that he should permit the use of his name for President. To this he answered: " I must in candor say I do not think myself fit for the Presidency. I certainly am flattered and gratified that some partial friends think of me in that connection, but I really think it best for our cause that no concerted effort, such as you suggest, should be made." Seward evidently agreed with his eulogist, Mr. Adams. That is clearly shown by the fact that in less than one month after the administration had been inaugurated he wrote out and submitted to the President a proposition to change the national issue from slavery to foreign war, in which he advised that war be at once declared against Spain and France unless satisfactory explanations were promptly received, and that the enforcement of the new policy should be individually assumed by the President himself or devolved on some member of his Cabinet. He added that while it was not in his special province, "I neither seek to evade nor assume the responsibility." In other words, Seward boldly proposed to change the national issue by a declaration of war against some for eign power, and to have himself assigned practically as Dictator. He assumed that the President was incompe tent to his task, that his policy, if accepted, would be committed to himself for execution, and that he meant to be Dictator is clearly proved by the fact that in his 62 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. formal proposition he provides that the policy "once adopted, the debates on it must end and all agree and abide." Outside of the Cabinet the leaders were equally dis cordant and quite as distrustful of the ability of Lincoln to fill his great office. Sumner, Trumbull, Chandler, Wade, Henry Winter Davis, and the men to whom the nation then turned as the great representative men of the new political power, did not conceal their distrust of Lin coln, and he had little support from them at any time during his administration. Indeed, but for the support given him by the younger leaders of that day, among whom Blaine and Sherman were conspicuous, he would have been a President almost without a party. The one man who rendered him the greatest service of all at the beginning of the war was Stephen A. Douglas, his old competitor of Illinois. When the Republican leaders were hesitating and criticising their President, Douglas came to the front with all his characteristic courage and sagacity, and was probably the most trusted of all the Senators at the White House. It is not surprising that there was great confusion in the councils of the Repub lican leaders when suddenly compelled to face civil war, but it will surprise many intelligent readers at this day to learn of the general distrust and demoralization that ex isted among the men who should have been a solid pha lanx of leadership in the crisis that confronted them. It must be remembered that there were no precedents in history to guide the new President. The relation of the States to the National Government had never been de fined. The dispute over the sovereignty of the States had been continuous from the organization of the Re public until that time, and men of equal intelligence and patriotism widely differed as to the paramount authority of State and Nation. Nor were there any precedents in LINCOLN'S SORE TRIALS, 63 history of other civilizations that could throw any light upon the dark path of Lincoln. There have been re publics and civil wars, but none that furnish any rule that could be applied to the peculiar condition of our dissevered States. The President was therefore com pelled to decide for himself in the multitude of conflict ing counsels what policy the administration should adopt, and even a less careful and conservative man than Lin coln would have been compelled, from the supreme ne cessities which surrounded him, to move with the utmost caution. Lincoln could formulate no policy beyond mere gen eralities declaring his duty to preserve the integrity of the Union. He saw forts captured and arsenals gutted and States seceding with every preparation for war, and yet he could take no step to prepare the nation for the defense of its own life. The Border States were trem bling in the balance, with a predominant Union senti ment in most of them, but ready to be driven into open rebellion the moment that he should declare in favor of what was called " coercion " by force of arms. Coercion and invasion of the sacred soil of the Southern States were terms which made even the stoutest Southern Union man tremble. As the administration had no policy that it could declare, every leader had a policy of his own, with every invitation to seek to magnify himself by declaring it. The capital was crowded with politicians of every grade. The place-seekers swarmed in numbers almost equal to the locusts of Egypt, and the President was pestered day and night by the leading statesmen of the country, who clamored for offices for their henchmen. I well remember the sad picture of despair his face presented when I happened to meet him alone for a few moments in the Executive Chamber as he spoke of the heartless spoilsmen who seemed to be 64 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. utterly indifferent to the grave dangers which threatened the government. He said: " I seem like one sitting in a palace assigning apartments to importunate applicants while the structure is on fire and likely soon to perish in ashes." Turn where Lincoln might, there was hardly a silver lining to the dark cloud that overshadowed him. The Senate that met in Executive session when he was in augurated contained but 29 Republicans to 32 Democrats, with i bitterly hostile American, and 4 vacancies from Southern States that never were filled. It was only by the midsummer madness of secession and the retirement of the Southern Senators that he was given the majority in both branches of Congress, and when he turned to the military arm of the government he was appalled by the treachery of the men to whom the nation should have been able to look for its preservation. If any one would study the most painful and impressive object-lesson on this point, let him turn to Greeley's American Conflict and learn from two pictures how the stars of chieftains glittered and faded until unknown men filled their places and led the Union armies to victory. In the first volume of Greeley's history, which was written just at the begin ning of the war and closed with the commencement of hostilities, there is a page containing the portraits of twelve men, entitled "Union Generals." The central figure is the veteran Scott, and around him are Fremont, Butler, McDowell, Wool, Halleck, McClellan, Burnside, Hunter, Hooker, Buell, and Anderson. These were the chieftains in whom the country then confided, and to whom Lincoln turned as the men who could be en trusted with the command of armies. In the second volume of Greeley's history, published after the close of the war, there is another picture entitled "Union Generals," and there is not one face to be found in the LINCOLN'S SORE TRIALS. 65 last that is in the first. Grant is the central figure of the Heroes of the Union at the close of the war, with the faces of Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Meade, Han cock, Blair, Howard, Terry, Curtis, Banks, and Gilmore around him. In short, the military chieftains who saved the Union in the flame of battle had to be created by the exigencies of war, while the men upon whom the President was compelled to lean when the conflict began one by one faded from the list of successful generals. The ability of the government to protect its own life when wanton war was inaugurated by the Southern Con federacy may be well illustrated by an interview between the President, General Winfield Scott, Governor Curtin, and myself immediately after the surrender of Sumter. The President telegraphed to Governor Curtin and to me as Chairman of the Military Committee of the Senate to come to Washington as speedily as possible for consulta tion as to the attitude Pennsylvania should assume in the civil conflict that had been inaugurated. Pennsylvania was the most exposed of all the border States, and, being the second State of the Union in population, wealth, and military power, it was of the utmost importance that she should lead in defining the attitude of the loyal States. Sumter was surrendered on Saturday evening, the i3th of April, 1 86 1, and on Monday morning Governor Cur tin and I were at the White House to meet the President and the Commander-in-Chief of the armies at ten o'clock in the morning. . I had never before met General Scott. I had read of him with all the enthusiasm of a boy, as he was a major-general before I was born, had noted with pride his brilliant campaign in Mexico, and remem bered that he was accepted by all Americans as the Great Captain of the Age. I assumed, of course, that he was infallible in all matters pertaining to war, and when I 5 66 LINCOLN AND MEN OP met him it was with a degree of reverence that I had seldom felt for any other mortal. Curtin and I were a few minutes in advance of the ap pointed time for the conference, and as the Cabinet was in session we were seated in the reception-room. There were but few there when we entered it, and a number of chairs were vacant. We sat down by a window looking out upon the Potomac, and in a few minutes the tall form of General Scott entered. In the mean time a number of visitors had arrived and every chair in the room was occupied. Scott advanced and was cordially greeted by Governor Curtin and introduced to me. He was then quite feeble, unable to mount a horse by reason of a dis tressing spinal affection; and I well remember the punc tilious ideas of the old soldier, who refused to accept either Curtin' s chair or mine because there were not three vacant chairs in the room, although he could not remain standing without suffering agony. We presented the ludicrous spectacle of three men standing for nearly half an hour, and one of them feeble in strength and greatly the senior of the others in years, simply because there were not enough chairs for the entire party. With all his suffering he was too dignified even to lean against the wall, although it was evident to both of us that he was in great pain from his ceremonial ideas about ac cepting the chair of another. When we were ushered into the President's room the practical work of our mis sion was soon determined. The question had been fully considered by the President and the Secretary of War, who was a Pennsylvanian. Governor Curtin speedily perfected and heartily approved of the programme they had marked out, and we had little to do beyond inform ing them how speedily it could be executed. How quickly Pennsylvania responded to the request of the government will be understood when I state that in a ;* LINCOLN'S SORE TRIALS. 67 single day a bill embracing all the features desired was passed by both branches and approved by Governor Curtin. It was only after the work of Pennsylvania had been defined and disposed of that I began to get some insight into the utterly hopeless condition of the government. I found General Scott disposed to talk rather freely about the situation, and I ventured to question him as to the condition of the capital and his ability to defend it in case of an attack by General Beauregard. The answer to the first question I ventured was very assuring, coming from one whom I supposed to know all about war, and to one who knew just nothing at all about it. I asked Gen eral Scott whether the capital was in danger. His an swer was, ' ' No, sir, the capital is not in danger, the cap ital is not in danger. ' ' Knowing that General Scott could not have a large force at his command, knowing also that General Beauregard had a formidable force at his command at Charleston, and that the transportation of an army from Charleston to Washington would be the work of only a few days, I for the first time began to inquire in my own mind whether this great Chieftain was, after all, equal to the exceptional necessities of the occasion. I said to him that, if it was a proper question for him to answer, I would like to know how many men he had in Washington for its defense. His prompt an swer was, " Fifteen hundred, sir; fifteen hundred men and two batteries." I then inquired whether Washing ton was a defensible city. This inquiry cast a shadow over the old veteran's face as he answered, " No, sir; Washington is not a defensible city. ' ' He then seemed to consider it necessary to emphasize his assertions of the safety of the capital, and he pointed to the Potomac, that was visible from the President's window. Said he : u You see that vessel? a sloop of war, sir, a sloop of 68 LINCOLN AND. MEN OF WAR-TIMES, war. ' ' I looked out and saw the vessel, but I could not help thinking, as I looked beyond to Arlington Heights, that one or two batteries, even of the ineffective class of those days, would knock the sloop of war to pieces in half an hour. As Johnson, Cooper, and a number of other able sol diers had left the army but a short time before, I felt some anxiety to know who were commanding the forces under General Scott in Washington. He gave me their names, and within three days thereafter I saw that two of them had resigned and were already in Richmond and enlisted in the Confederate service. My doubts mul tiplied, and a great idol was shattered before I left the White House that morning. I could not resist the con viction that General Scott was past all usefulness ; that he had no adequate conception of the contest before us ; and that he rested in confidence in Washington when there was not a soldier of average intelligence in that city who did not know that Beauregard could capture it at any time within a week. My anxiety deepened with my doubts, and I continued my inquiries with the old warrior by asking how many men General Beauregard had at Charleston. The old chieftain's head dropped almost upon his breast at this question, and a trace of despair was visible as he answered in tremulous tones : " General Beauregard commands more men at Charles ton than I command on the continent east of the fron tier." I asked him how long it would require Beaure gard to transport his army to Washington. He answered that it might be done in three or four days. I then re peated the question, ' ' General, is not Washington in great danger ?' ' The old warrior was at once aroused, straightened himself up in his chair with a degree of dignity that was crushing, and answered "No, sir, the LINCOLN'S SORE TRIALS. 69 capital can' the taken; the capital can't be taken, sir." President Lincoln listened to the conversation with evi dent interest, bnt said nothing. He sat intently gazing at General Scott, and whirling his spectacles around in his fingers. When General Scott gave the final answer that the capital could not be taken, Lincoln, in his quaint way, said to General Scott, ' ' It does seem to me, general, that if I were Beauregard I would take Wash ington. ' ' This expression from the President electrified the old war-lion again, and he answered with increased emphasis, "Mr. President, the capital can't be taken, sir; it can't be taken." There was but one conclusion that could be accepted as the result of this interview, and that was that the great Chieftain of two wars and the worshiped Captain of the Age was in his dotage and utterly unequal to the great duty of meeting the impending conflict. Governor Curtin and I left profoundly impressed with the convic tion that the incompetency of General Scott was one of the most serious of the multiplied perils which then con fronted the Republic. I need not repeat how General Scott failed in his early military movements ; how he divided his army and permitted the enemy to unite and defeat him at Bull Run ; how General McClellan, the Young Napoleon of the time, was called from his vic tories in Western Virginia to take command of the army ; how that change reinspired the loyal people of the nation in the confidence of speedy victories and the overthrow of the rebellion; how he and his Chief soon got to cross purposes; and how, after months of quarrel, the old Chieftain was prevailed upon to resign his place. The inside history of his retirement has never been writ ten, and it is best that it should not. President Lincoln, Secretary Cameron, and Thomas A. Scott were the only men who could have written it from personal knowledge, 7 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. They are dead, and an interesting chapter of history has perished with them. Such was the condition of the government at the open ing of our civil war. A great soldier was at the head of our army, with all his faculties weakened by the infirm ities of age, and we were compelled to grope in the dark day after day, week after week, month after month, and even year after year, until chieftains could be created to lead our armies to final victories. It must be remem bered also that public sentiment had at that time no conception of the cruel sacrifices of war. The fall of a single soldier, N Colonel Ellsworth, at Alexandria cast a profound gloom over the entire country, and the loss of comparatively few men at Big Bethel and Ball's Bluff convulsed the people from Maine to California. No one dreamed of the sacrifice of life that a desperate war must involve. I remember meeting General Burnside, Gen eral Heintzelman, and one or two other officers of the Army of the Potomac at Willard's Hotel in December, 1 86 1. The weather had been unusually favorable, the roads were in excellent condition, and there was general impatience at McClellan's tardiness in moving against Manassas and Richmond. I naturally shared the impa tience that was next to universal, and I inquired of Gen eral Burnside why it was that the army did not move. He answered that it would not be a difficult task for McClellan's army to capture Manassas, march upon Richmond, and enter the Confederate capital; but he added with emphasis that he regarded as conclusive that "It would cost ten thousand men to do it." I was appalled to silence when compelled to consider so great a sacrifice for the possession of the insurgents' capital. Ten times ten thousand men, and even more, fell in the battles between the Potomac and Richmond before the bars fell from fbe Richmond State House, but LINCOLN'S SORE TRIALS. 7 1 in the fall of 1861 the proposition to sacrifice ten thou sand lives to possess the Confederate capital would have been regarded by all as too appalling to contemplate. Indeed, we were not only utterly unprepared for war, but we were utterly unprepared for its sacrifices and its bereavements; and President Lincoln was compelled to meet this great crisis and patiently await the fullness of time to obtain chieftains and armies and to school the people to the crimsoned story necessary to tell of the safety of the Republic. LINCOLN'S CHARACTERISTICS. ABRAHAM UNCOIyN was eminently human. As -TlL the old lady said about General Jackson when she had finally reached his presence, " He's only a man, after all. ' ' Although much as other men in the varied quali ties which go to make up a single character, taking him all in all, ' ' none but himself can be his parallel. ' ' Of all the public men I have met, he was the most difficult to analyze. His characteristics were more original, more diversified, more intense in a sober way, and yet more flexible under many circumstances, than I have ever seen in any other. Many have attempted to portray Lincoln's characteristics, and not a few have assumed to do it with great confidence. Those who have spoken most confidently of their knowledge of his personal qualities are, as a rule, those who saw least of them below the surface. He might have been seen every day during his Presidential term without ever reaching the distinctive qualities which animated and guided him, and thus hundreds of writers have assumed that they understood him when they had never seen the inner in spirations of the man at all. He was a stranger to deceit, incapable of dissembling; seemed to be the frankest and freest of conversationalists, and yet few understood him even reasonably well, and none but Lincoln ever thor oughly understood Lincoln. If I had seen less of him 72 (Photo by Gutekunst, Philadelphia.) ABRAHAM I,1NCOI,N AND HIS SON TAD. 74^ LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. I might have ventured with much greater confidence to attempt a portrayal of his individuality, but I saw him many times when Presidential honors were forgotten in Presidential sorrows, and when his great heart throbbed upon his sleeve. It was then that his uncommon quali ties made themselves lustrous and often startled and con fused his closest friends. I regard Lincoln as very widely misunderstood in one of the most important attributes of his character. It has been common, during the last twenty-five years, to see publications relating to Lincoln from men who assumed that they enjoyed his full confidence. In most and per haps all cases the writers believed what they stated, but those who assumed to speak most confidently on the sub ject were most mistaken. Mr. Lincoln gave his confi dence to no living man without reservation. He trusted many, but he trusted only within the carefully-studied limitations of their usefulness, and when he trusted he confided, as a rule, only to the extent necessary to make that trust available. He had as much faith in mankind as is common amongst men, and it was not because he was of a distrustful nature or because of any specially selfish attribute of his character that he thus limited his confidence in all his intercourse with men. In this view of Lincoln I am fully sustained by those who knew him best. The one man who saw more of him in all the varied vicissitudes of his life from early manhood to his elevation to the Presidency was William H. Herndon, who was his close friend and law-partner for a full score of years. In analyzing the character of Lincoln he thus refers to his care as to confidants: u Mr. Lincoln never had y a confidant, and therefore never unbosomed himself to others. He never spoke of his trials to me, or, so far as I knew, to any of his friends." David Davis, in whose sober judgment Lincoln had more confidence than LttfCOLtf'S CHARACTERISTICS. 75 in that of his other friends, and who held as intimate relations to him as was possible by any, says: "I knew the man so well; he was the most reticent, secretive man I ever saw or expect to see. ' ' Leonard Swett is well known to have been the one whose counsels were among the most welcome to Lin coln, and who doubtless did counsel him with more free dom than any other man. In a letter given in Herndon's Life of Lincoln he says: "From the commencement of his life to its close I have sometimes doubted whether he ever asked anybody's advice about anything. He would listen to everybody; he would hear everybody; but he rarely, if ever, asked for opinions." He adds in the same letter: "As a politician and as President he arrived at all his conclusions from his own reflections, and when his conclusions were once formed he never doubted but what they were right." Speaking of his generally as sumed frankness of character, Swett says, ' ( One great public mistake of his [Lincoln's] character as generally received and acquiesced in is that he is considered by the people of this country as a frank, guileless, and unso phisticated man. There never was a greater mistake. Beneath a smooth surface of candor and apparent decla ration of all his thoughts and feelings he exercised the most exalted tact and wisest discrimination. He handled and moved men remotely as we do pieces upon a chess board. He retained through life all the friends he ever had, and he made the wrath of his enemies to praise him. This was not by cunning or intrigue in the low acceptation of the term, but by far-seeing reason and discernment. He always told only enough of his plans and purposes to induce the belief that he had communi cated all; yet he reserved enough to have communicated nothing. ' ' Mr. Herndon, in a lecture delivered on Lincoln to a 76 LINCOLN AND- MEN OF WAR-TIMES. Springfield audience in 1866, said: "He [Lincoln] never revealed himself entirely to any one man, and therefore he will always to a certain extent remain enveloped in doubt. I always believed I could read him as thor oughly as any man, yet he was so different in many re spects from any other one I ever met before or since his time that I cannot say I comprehended him. ' ' Mr. Lamon, who completes the circle of the men who were closest to Lincoln, the man who was chosen by Lincoln to accompany him on his midnight journey from Harris- burg to Washington, and whom he appointed Marshal of the District of Columbia to have him in the closest touch with himself, thus describes Lincoln in his biog raphy: " Mr. Lincoln was a man apart from the rest of his kind unsocial, cold, impassive; neither a good hater nor fond friend." And he adds that Lincoln u made simplicity and candor a mask of deep feelings carefully concealed, and subtle plans studiously veiled from all eyes but one." I have seen Lincoln many times when he seemed to speak with the utmost candor, I have seen him many times when he spoke with mingled candor and caution, and I have seen him many times when he spoke but lit tle and with extreme caution. It must not be inferred, because of the testimony borne to Lincoln's reticence generally and to his singular methods in speaking on subjects of a confidential nature, that he was ever guilty of deceit. He was certainly one of the most sincere men I have ever met, and he was also one of the most saga cious men that this or any other country has ever pro duced. He was not a man of cunning, in the ordinary acceptation of the word; not a man who would mislead in any way, unless by silence; and when occasion de manded he would speak with entire freedom as far as it was possible for him to speak at all. I regard him as LINCOLN'S CHARACTERISTICS. 77 one who believed that the truth was not always to be spoken, but who firmly believed, also, that only the truth should be spoken when it was necessary to speak at all. Lincoln's want of trust in those closest to him was often a great source of regret, and at times of morti fication. I have many times heard Mr. Swett and Mr. Lamon, and occasionally Mr. Davis, speak of his per sistent reticence on questions of the gravest public mo ment which seemed to demand prompt action by the President. They would confer with him, as I did my self at times, earnestly advising and urging action on his part, only to find him utterly impassible and incompre hensible. Neither by word nor expression could any one form the remotest idea of his purpose, and when he did act in many cases he surprised both friends and foes. When he nominated Mr. Stanton as Secretary of War there was not a single member of his Cabinet who had knowledge of his purpose to do so until it was done, and when he appointed Mr. Chase Chief-Justice there was not a man living, of the hundreds who had advised him and pressed their friends upon him, who had any inti mation as to even the leaning of his mind on the subject. I remember on one occasion, when we were alone in the Executive Chamber, he discussed the question of the Chief-Justiceship for fully half an hour; named the men who had been prominently mentioned in connection with the appointment; spoke of all of them with apparent freedom; sought and obtained my own views as to the wisdom of appointing either of them, and when the conversation ended I had no more idea as to the bent of his mind than if I had been conversing with the Sphinx. I suggested to him, in closing the conversation, that his views on the subject were very much more important than mine, and that I would be very glad to have them, 78 LINCOLN AND 'MEN OF WAR-TIMES. to which he gave this characteristic answer: "Well, McClure, the fact is I'm 'shut pan' on that question." Lincoln's intellectual organization has been portrayed by many writers, but so widely at variance as to greatly confuse the general reader. Indeed, he was the most difficult of all men to analyze. He did not rise above the average man by escaping a common mingling of greatness and infirmities. I believe he was very well described in a single sentence by Mr. Herndon when he said: "The truth about Mr. Lincoln is, that he read less and thought more than any man in his sphere in Amer ica." Tested by the standard of many other great men, Lincoln was not great, but tested by the only true stand ard of his owi achievements, he may justly appear in history as one of the greatest of American statesmen. Indeed, in some most essential attributes of greatness I doubt whether any of our public men ever equaled him. We have had men who could take a higher intellectual grasp of any abstruse problem of statesmanship, but few have ever equaled, and none excelled, Lincoln in the practical, common-sense, and successful solution of the gravest problems ever presented in American history. He possessed a peculiarly receptive and analytical mind. He sought information from every attainable source. He sought it persistently, weighed it earnestly, and in the end reached his own conclusions. When he had once reached a conclusion as to a public duty, there was no human power equal to the task of changing his pur pose. He was self-reliant to an uncommon degree, and yet as entirely free from arrogance of opinion as any public man I have ever known. Judged by the records of his administration, Lincoln is now regarded as the most successful Exectitive the Republic has ever had. When it is considered what peculiarly embarrassing and momentous issues were pre- LINCOLN'S CHARACTERISTICS. 79 sented to him for decision, and issues for which history had no precedents, it is entirely safe to say that no man has ever equaled him as a successful ruler of a free people. This success was due chiefly to one single qual ity of the man the will of the people was his guiding star. He sprang from the people and from close to Mother Earth. He grew up with the people, and in all his efforts, convictions, and inspirations he was ever in touch with the people. When President he looked solely to the considerate judgment of the American people to guide him in the solution of all the vexed questions which were presented to him. In all the struggles of mean ambition and all the bitter jealousies of greatness which constantly surged around him, and in all the con stant and distressing discord that prevailed in his Cabinet during the dark days which shadowed him with grief, Lincoln ever turned to study with ceaseless care the in telligent expression of the popular will. Unlike all Presidents who had preceded him, he came into office without a fixed and accepted policy. Civil war plunged the government into new and most per plexing duties. The people were unschooled to the sad necessities which had to be accepted to save the Re public. Others would have rushed in to offend public sentiment by the violent acceptance of what they knew must be accepted in the end. These men greatly vexed and embarrassed Lincoln in his sincere efforts to advance the people and the government to the full measure of the sacrifices which were inevitable ; but Lincoln waited patiently waited until in the fullness of time the judg ment of the people was ripened for action, and then, and then only, did Lincoln act. Had he done otherwise, he would have involved the country in fearful peril both at home and abroad, and it was his constant study of, and obedience to, the honest judgment of the people of the 80 LINCOLN AND -MEN OF WAR-TIMES. nation that saved the Republic and that enshrined him in history as the greatest of modern rulers. If there are yet any intelligent Americans who believe that Lincoln was an innocent, rural, unsophisticated cha racter, it is time that they should be undeceived. I ven ture the assertion, without fear of successful contradiction, that Abraham Lincoln was the most sagacious of all the public men of his day in either political party. He was therefore the master-politician of his time. He was not a politician as the term is now commonly applied and understood; he knew nothing about the countless meth ods which are employed in the details of political effort; but no man knew better indeed, I think no man knew so well as he did how to summon and dispose of polit ical ability to attain great political results; and this work he performed with unfailing wisdom and discretion in every contest for himself and for the country. A pointed illustration of his sagacity and of his cau tious methods in preventing threatened evil or gaining promised good is presented by his action in 1862 when the first army draft was made in Pennsylvania. There was then no national conscription law, and volunteering had ceased to fill up our shattered armies. A draft under the State law was necessary to fill a requisition made upon Pennsylvania for troops. The need for immediate reinforcements was very pressing, and in obedience to the personal request of both Lincoln and Governor Cur- tin I accepted the ungracious task of organizing and executing the draft under the State laws. How promptly the task was executed may be understood when I say that within sixty days the entire State was enrolled, quotas adjusted, the necessary exemptions made, the draft exe cuted, and seventeen organized regiments sent to the front, and without a dollar of cost to either the State or National Governments for duties performed in my office LINCOLN'S CHARACTERISTICS. 8 1 beyond the salaries of two clerks. While there were mutterings of disloyalty in a very few sections of Penn sylvania, and they only within a very limited circle, there was one sore spot where open rebellion was threat ened. That was Cass township, Schuylkill county. The Mollie Magtiires were then just approaching the zenith of their criminal power, and Cass township was the cen tre of that lawless element. Thirteen murders had been committed in that district within a few years, and not one murderer had been brought to punishment. This banded criminal organization was as disloyal to the gov ernment as it was to law, and it was with the utmost dif ficulty that even an imperfect enumeration had been made and the quota adjusted to be supplied by draft. The draft was made, however, and on the day fixed for the conscripts to take the cars and report at Harrisburg the criminal element of the district not only refused to respond to the call, but its leaders came to the station and drove other conscripts violently from the depot. It was open, defiant rebellion. I at once reported the facts to Secretary Stanton, who promptly answered, di recting that the draft should be enforced at every hazard, and placing one Philadelphia regiment and one regiment at Harrisburg subject to the orders of the Governor, with instructions to send them at once to the scene of revolt. Fearing that the Secretary did not fully comprehend the peril of a conflict between the military and the citizens, Governor Curtin directed me to telegraph more fully to Secretary Stanton, suggesting his further consideration of the subject. His answer was promptly given, repeat ing his order for the military to move at once to Cass township and enforce the law at the point of the bayonet. The regiments were given marching orders, and reached Pottsville on the following day. I felt that a conflict between the military and citizens in any part of the State 82 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. must be very disastrous to the loyal cause, and after full consultation with Governor Curtin, in obedience to his directions, I telegraphed to Lincoln in cipher asking him to consider the subject well. This was in the early part of the day, and I was surprised and distressed when even ing came without any reply. When I entered the break fast-room of the hotel the next morning I saw seated at the table Assistant Adjutant-General Townsend of the United States Army. I knew him well, and when he saw me he beckoned me to his side and asked me to breakfast with him. We were out of hearing of any others at the table, and he at once stated to me the pur pose of his visit. He had arrived at three o'clock in the morning, and was waiting to see me as soon as I should appear. He said : u I have no orders to give you, but I came solely to deliver a personal message from President Lincoln in these words: ' Say to McClure that I am very desirous to have the laws fully executed, but it might be well, in an extreme emergency, to be content with the appearance of executing the laws; I think McClure will understand.'" To this General Townsend added: "I have now fulfilled my mission ; I do not know to what it relates." I of course made no explanation to General Townsend, but hurried from the breakfast- table to summon Benja min Bannan from Pottsville to Harrisburg as speedily as possible. He was the commissioner of draft for that county, a warm friend of the President, and a man of unusual intelligence and discretion. He reached Harris- burg the same day, and Lincoln's instructions were frankly explained to him. No one had any knowledge of them but ourselves and the Governor. Commissioner Bannan appreciated the necessity of avoiding a collision between the military and the citizens of Cass township, but, said he, ' ' How can it be done ? How can the laws LINCOLN'S CHARACTERISTICS. 83 even appear to have been executed ?' ' I told him that in a number of cases evidence had been presented, after the quotas had been adjusted and the draft ordered, to prove that the quotas had been filled by volunteers who had enlisted in some town or city outside of their townships. In all such cases, where the evidence was clear, the order for the draft was revoked because the complement of men had been filled. I said only by such evidence from Cass township could the order for the draft be revoked and the arrest of the conscripted men for service be avoided. He intuitively comprehended the gravity of the situation, and took the first train home. By the next evening he was back and laid before me a number of affidavits in regular form, apparently executed by citi zens of Cass township, which, if uncontradicted, proved that their quota was entirely full. I asked no explana tions, but at once indorsed upon the testimony that as the quota of Cass township had been filled by volunteers, the draft was inoperative in that district and its con scripts would not be held to sendee. I have never made inquiry into the method of obtain ing those affidavits, and there is none now living who could give any information about it, as Mr. Bannan has long since joined the great majority beyond. The Gov ernor had, in the mean time, halted the troops at Potts- ville, and as the laws seemed to be executed in peace, the regiments were ordered back by the Governor and the conflict between the military and the Mollie Maguires was averted. Stan ton never had knowledge of Lincoln's action in this matter, nor did a single member of his ad ministration know of his intervention. Had Stanton been permitted to have his sway, he would have ruled in the tempest, and Pennsylvania would have inaugurated a rebellion of her own that might have reached fearful proportions, and that certainly would have greatly para- 84 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. lyzed the power of the loyal people of the State. I am quite sure that not until after the war was ended, and probably not for years thereafter, did any but Lincoln, Curtin, Bannan, and myself have any knowledge of this important adjustment of the Cass township rebellion. LINCOLN IN POLITICS. IF Abraham Lincoln was not a master politician, I am entirely ignorant of the qualities which make up such a character. In a somewhat intimate acquaintance with the public men of the country for a period of more than a generation, I have never met one who made so few mistakes in politics as Lincoln. The man who could call Seward as Premier of his administration, with Weed the power behind the Premier, often stronger than the Premier himself, and yet hold Horace Greeley even within the ragged edges of the party lines, and the man who could call Simon Cameron to his Cabinet in Penn sylvania without alienating Governor Curtin, and who could remove Cameron from his Cabinet without alien ating Cameron, would naturally be accepted as a man of much more than ordinary political sagacity. Indeed, I have never known one who approached Lincoln in the peculiar faculty of holding antagonistic elements to his own support, and maintaining close and often apparently confidential relations with each without offense to the other. This is the more remarkable from the fact that Lincoln was entirely without training in political man agement. I remember on one occasion, when there was much concern felt about a political contest in Pennsyl vania, he summoned half a dozen or more Pennsylvania Republicans to a conference at the White House. When 85 LINCOLN'S HOME IN CHILDHOOD. *^jzsS^^ LINCOLN'S HOME IN SPRINGFIELD. LINCOLN IN POLITICS. $7 we had gathered there he opened the subject in his quaint way by saying: "You know I never was a con triver; I don't know much about how things are done in politics, but I think you gentlemen understand the situation in your State, and I want to learn what may be done to ensure the success we all desire. ' ' He made exhaustive inquiry of each of the persons present as to the danger-signals of the contest, specially directing his questions to every weak point in the party lines and every strong point of the opposition. He was not con tent with generalities; he had no respect for mere enthu siasm. What he wanted was sober facts. He had abid ing faith in the people, in their intelligence and theii patriotism; and he estimated political results by ascer taining, as far as possible, the popular bearing of every vital question that was likely to arise, and he formed his conclusions by his keen intuitive perception as to how the people would be likely to deal with the issues. While Lincoln had little appreciation of himself as candidate for President as late as 1859, the dream of reaching the Presidency evidently took possession of him in the early part of 1860, and his first efforts to advance himself as a candidate were singularly awkward and infelicitous. He had then no experience whatever as a leader of leaders, and it was not until he had made several discreditable blunders that he learned how much he must depend upon others if he would make himself President. Some Lincoln enthusiast in Kansas, with much more pretensions than power, wrote him in March, 1860, proposing to furnish a Lincoln delegation from that State to the Chicago Convention, and suggesting that Lincoln should pay the legitimate expenses of organ izing, electing, and taking to the convention the prom ised Lincoln delegates. To this Lincoln replied that LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. ( ' in the main, the use of money is wrong, but for cer tain objects in a political contest the use of some is both right and indispensable. ' ' And he added, ' ' If you shall be appointed a delegate to Chicago I will furnish $100 to bear the expenses of the trip. ' ' He heard nothing further from the Kansas man until he saw an announcement in the newspapers that Kansas had elected delegates and instructed them for Seward. This was Lincoln's first disappointment in his effort to organize his friends to attain the Presidential nomination, but his philosophy was well maintained. Without waiting to hear from his friend who had contracted to bring a Lincoln delegation from Kansas he wrote him, saying, U I see by the dis patches that since you wrote Kansas has appointed dele gates instructed for Seward. Don't stir them up to anger, but come along to the convention, and I will do as I said about expenses." It is not likely that that unfortunate experience cost Lincoln his $100, but it is worthy of note that soon after his inauguration as Pres ident he gave the man a Federal office with a comfort able salary. When he became seriously enlisted as a candidate for the Presidential nomination, he soon learned that while he could be of value as an adviser and organizer, the great work had to be performed by others than himself. He gathered around him a number of the ablest poli ticians of the West, among whom were Norman P. Judd, David Davis, Leonard Swett, O. M. Hatch, and Mr. Medill of the Chicago Tribune. These men had, for the first time, brought a National Convention to the West, and they had the advantage of fighting for Lincoln on their own ground with the enthusiasm his name inspired as a potent factor in their work. They went there to win, and they left nothing undone within the range of political effort to give him the nomination. Two posi- LINCOLN IN POLITICS. 89 tions in the Cabinet, one for Pennsylvania and one for Indiana, were positively promised by David Davis at an early period of the contest, when they feared that there might be serious difficulty in uniting the delegations of those States on Lincoln. It is proper to say that Lincoln had no knowledge of these contracts, and had given no such authority, and it is proper, also, to say that the con tracts were made in both cases with comparatively irre sponsible parties who had little power, if any, in guiding the actions of their respective delegations. Certainly Lane and Curtin, who were the most important factors in bringing their States to the support of Lincoln, not only were not parties to these contracts, but were entirely ignorant of them until their fulfillment was demanded after Lincoln's election. I have good reason to know that in the case of Pennsylvania that contract, while it did not of itself make General Cameron Secretary of War, had much to do with resolving Lincoln's doubts in favor of Cameron's appointment in the end. There were no political movements of national import ance during Lincoln's administration in which he did not actively, although often hiddenly, participate. It was Lincoln who finally, after the most convulsive efforts to get Missouri into line with the administration, effected a reconciliation of disputing parties which brought Brown and Henderson into the Senate, and it was Lincoln who in 1863 took a leading part in attaining the declination of Curtin as a gubernatorial candidate that year. Grave apprehensions were felt that Curtin could not be re- elected because of the bitterness of the hostility of Cam eron and his friends, and also because there were 70,000 Pennsylvania soldiers in the field who could not vote. Lincoln was Curtin' s sincere friend, but when Curtin' s supporters suggested that his broken health called for his retirement, Lincoln promptly agreed to tender Curtin a 90 LINCOLN AND 'MEN OF WAR-TIMES. first-class foreign mission if he decided to decline a re- nomination. Curtin accepted the proffered mission, to be assumed at the close of his term, and he published his acceptance and his purpose to withdraw from the field for Governor. Curtin' s declination was responded to within a week by a number of the leading counties of the State per emptorily instructing their delegates to vote for his re- nomination for Governor. It soon became evident that the party would accept no other leader in the desperate conflict, and that no other candidate could hope to be elected. Curtin was compelled to submit, and he was nominated on the first ballot by more than a two- thirds vote, although bitterly opposed by a number of promi nent Federal officers in the State. Lincoln was disap pointed in the result not because he was averse to Cur tin, but because he feared that party divisions would lose the State. Both Lincoln and Stanton made exhaustive efforts to support Curtin after he had been nominated, and all the power of the government that could be wielded with effect was employed to promote his elec tion. The battle was a desperate one against the late Chief-Justice Woodward, who was a giant in intellectual strength, and who commanded the unbounded confidence and enthusiastic support of. his party, but Curtin was elected by over 15,000 majority. One of the shrewdest of Lincoln's great political schemes was the tender, by an autograph letter, of the French mission to the elder James Gordon Bennett. No one who can form any intelligent judgment of the polit ical exigencies of that time can fail to understand why the venerable independent journalist received this maik of favor from the President. Lincoln had but one of the leading journals of New York on which he could for positive support, That w Mr, LINCOLN IN POLITICS. 9 1 New York Times. Mr. Greeley's Tribune was the most widely read Republican journal of the country, and it was unquestionably the most potent in moulding Repub lican sentiment. Its immense weekly edition, for that day, reached the more intelligent masses of the people in every State of the Union, and Greeley was not in accord with Lincoln. Lincoln knew how important it was to have the support of the Herald, and he carefully studied how to bring its editor into close touch with himself. The outlook for Lincoln's re-election was not promising. Bennett had strongly advocated the nomi nation of General McClellan by the Democrats, and that was ominous of hostility to Lincoln; and when McClel lan was nominated he was accepted on all sides as a most formidable candidate. It was in this emergency that Lincoln's political sagacity served him sufficiently to win the Herald to his cause, and it was done by the confidential tender of the French mission. Bennett did not break over to Lincoln at once, but he went by grad ual approaches. His first step was to declare in favor of an entirely new candidate, which was an utter impossi bility. He opened a leader on the subject thus: "Lin coln has proved a failure; McClellan has proved a fail ure; Fremont has proved a failure; let us have a new candidate." Lincoln, McClellan, and Fremont were then all in the field as nominated candidates, and the Fremont defection was a serious threat to Lincoln. Of course, neither Lincoln nor McClellan declined, and the Herald, failing to get the new man it knew to be an impossibility, squarely advocated Lincoln's re-election. Without consulting any one, and without any public announcement whatever, Lincoln wrote to Bennett, ask ing him to accept the mission to France. The offer was declined, Bennett valued the offer vety much more than 92 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. the office, and from that day until the day of his death he was one of Lincoln's most appreciative friends and hearty supporters on his own independent line. The tender of the French mission to Bennett has been dis puted, but I am not mistaken about it. W. O. Bartlett, a prominent member of the New York bar, and father of the present Judge Bartlett of the Supreme Court of that State, had personal knowledge of Lincoln's auto graph letter that was delivered to Bennett, and Judge Bartlett yet has the original letter, unless he has parted with it within the last few years. Bennett was not only one of the ablest and one of the most sagacious editors of his day, but he was also one of the most independent, and in controversy one of the most defiant. He was in a position to render greater service to Lincoln and to the country in its desperate civil war than any other one man in American journalism. He did not pretend to be a Republican; on the contrary, he was Democratic in all his personal sympathies and convictions, but he gave a faithful support to the war, although often freely criti cising the policy of the administration. He had no de sire for public office, but he did desire, after he had ac quired wealth and newspaper power, just the recognition that Lincoln gave him, and I doubt whether any one thing during Bennett's life ever gave him more sincere gratification than this voluntary offer of one of the first- class missions of the country, made in Mr. Lincoln's own handwriting, and his opportunity to decline the same. Looking as Lincoln did to the great battle for his re-elec tion, this was one of the countless sagacious acts by which he strengthened himself from day to day, and it did much, very much, to pave the way for his over whelming majority of 1864. That Lincoln understood practical politics after he had been nominated for a second term is very clearly illus- LINCOLN IN POLITICS. 93 trated in the letter he wrote to General Sherman on the 1 9th of September, 1864. The States of Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania then voted in October for State offices, and Indiana was desperately contested. Ohio was re garded as certain, and Pennsylvania had only Congress men and local officers to elect. The soldiers of Indiana could not vote in the field, and Lincoln's letter to Sher man, who commanded the major portion of the Indiana troops, appeals to him, in Lincoln's usual cautious man ner, to furlough as many of his soldiers home for the October election as he could safely spare. His exact language is : " Anything you can safely do to let your soldiers, or any part of them, go home to vote at the State election will be greatly in point." To this he adds: "This is in no sense an order; it is simply in tended to impress you with the importance to the army itself of your doing all you safely can, yourself being the judge of what you can safely do." While this was "in no sense an order, ' ' it was practically a command that Sherman promptly and generously obeyed, and the result was that Morton was elected Governor by some 22,000 majority. It was at Lincoln's special request that Gen eral Logan left his command and missed the march to the sea, to stump Indiana and Illinois in the contest of 1864. He was one of the ablest and most impressive of all the campaigners of the West, and it was regarded by Lincoln as more important that Logan should be on the hustings than in command of his corps. I recall a pointed illustration of Lincoln's rare sagacity when confronted with embarrassing political complica tions that occurred in 1862, when I was in charge of the military department of Pennsylvania pertaining to the draft for troops made under the State law. Harrisburg was an important centre of military supplies, as well as the political centre of the State. Immense army con- 94 LINCOLN AND' MEN OF WAR-TIMES. tracts were there awarded and executed under officers assigned to duty at that place. After the draft had been made the conscripts began to pour into the capital by thousands, and, as the demand for reinforcements in the field was very pressing, I called upon the military officer of the city and urged upon him the necessity of muster ing the new men as promptly as possible. To my sur prise, he mustered only two companies the first day out of a thousand men. On the second day, notwithstand ing my earnest appeal to him, he mustered no more than two companies, and on the third day, when I had over 5000 men in camp, a mere mob without organization or discipline, the same tedious process of mustering was continued. I telegraphed Secretary Stanton that I had many men in camp, and that they were arriving in large numbers, but that I could not have them mustered that I could forward a regiment of troops every day if the government would furnish the officers to muster and or ganize them. A prompt answer came that it would be done. The following morning a new officer appeared, of course subordinate to the commandant of the place who had charge of the mustering., and he promptly mus tered an entire regiment the first day. On the following morning he was relieved from duty and ordered else where, and the mustering again fell back to two com panies a day. In the mean time over 7000 men had been gathered into the camp, and it was evident that the question of supplying the camp and the interests of contractors had become paramount to the reinforcement of the army. I f elegraphed Lincoln that I would see him in Washing ton that night, and hurried on to correct the evil by per sonal conference with him. The case was a very simple one, and he readily took in the situation. He knew that I had labored day and night for two months, without LINCOLN IN POLITICS. 95 compensation or the expectation of it, to hasten the Pennsylvania troops to the aid of our soldiers in the field, and I said to him that if he would send mustering officers to organize them promptly, I would return and finish the work ; if not, I would abandon it and go home. Lincoln was greatly pained at the development, but he understood that a change of military officers at Harris- burg, such as this occasion seemed to demand, would involve serious political complications. He was of all things most desirous to strengthen our shattered armies, and it was evident very soon that he meant to do so in some way, but without offense to the political power that controlled the military assignments at Harrisburg. With out intimating his solution of the problem, he rang his bell and instructed his messenger to bring Adjutant-Gen eral Thomas to the Executive Chamber. Soon after the Adjutant-General appeared, and Lincoln said: "General, what is the military rank of the senior officer at Harris- burg?" To which the Adjutant-General replied: " Cap tain, sir," and naming the officer. Lincoln promptly said in reply : * ' Bring me a commission immediately for Alexander K. McClure as Assistant Adjutant-General of the United States Volunteers, with the rank of major. ' ' The Adjutant-General bowed himself out, when I imme diately said to Lincoln that I could not consent to be sub ject to arbitrary military orders that I desired no com pensation for the work I performed, and I must decline the honor he proposed to confer upon me. In his quiet way he replied: "Well, McClure, try my way; I think that will get the troops on without delay and without treading on anybody's toes. I think if you will take your commission back to Harrisburg, call upon the cap tain in command there to muster you into the service of the United States, and show him your assignment to duty there, you will have no trouble whatever in getting 9 6 LINCOLN AND 'MEN OF WAR-TIMES, the troops organized and forwarded as rapidly as you wish. Now try it, won't you?" I saw the wisdom of the suggestion, and well under stood why the President desired to avoid the offense that would have been given by the removal of the military officers, and I agreed to try his plan. When I returned to Harrisburg the next day I sent for the senior officer to come to my office. He came in with all the dignity and arrogance of an offended Caesar and spoke to me with bare civility. I quietly handed him my commission, requested him to muster me into the military service, and also exhibited the order assigning me for duty at Harrisburg. When he saw my commission his hat was immediately removed and he was as obsequious as he had been insolent before. When he had finished mus tering me into the service I said to him, ' ' I presume you understand what this means. I don't propose to make any display of military authority or to interfere with anything except that which I have immediately in hand. There must be a regiment of troops mustered and for warded from this State every day until the troops in camp are all sent to the field. Good-morning." He immediately bowed himself out, saluting in military stylo as he did so a grace that I had not yet mastered sufficiently to return and from that day until the camp was emptied of conscripts a regiment of troops was mus tered daily and forwarded to Washington. That was the only military authority I ever exercised, and few knew of the military dignity I had so suddenly attained. When the troops were forwarded to the field and the accounts settled I resigned my commission as quietly as I received it and sent my resignation to the President, who, as he had voluntarily promised, ordered its imme diate acceptance. The officer who was thus so unex pectedly superseded, and who was so promptly made LINCOLN IN POLITICS. 97 to render efficient service to the country by Lincoln's admirable strategy, is no longer among the living, and I omit his name. He learned how Lincoln could discipline a soldier, and he profited by the lesson. LINCOLN AND EMANCIPATION. ABRAHAM LINCOLN was not a sentimental Aboli- -T\ tionist. Indeed, he was not a sentimentalist on any subject. He was a man of earnest conviction and of sublime devotion to his faith. In many of his public letters and State papers he was as poetic as he was epi grammatic, and he was singularly felicitous in the pathos that was so often interwoven with his irresistible logic. But he never contemplated the abolition of slavery until the events of the war not only made it clearly possible, but made it an imperious necessity. As the sworn Ex ecutive of the nation it was his duty to obey the Consti tution in all its provisions, and he accepted that duty without reservation. He knew that slavery was the im mediate cause of the political disturbance that culminated in civil war, and I know that he believed from the begin ning that if war should be persisted in, it could end only in the severance of the Union or the destruction of slav ery. His supreme desire was peace, alike before the war, during the war, and in closing the war. He exhausted every means within his power to teach the Southern peo ple that slavery could not be disturbed by his administra tion as long as they themselves obeyed the Constitution and laws which protected slavery, and he never uttered a word or did an act to justify, or even excuse, the South LINCOLN'S TOMB AT SPRINGFIELD. 1 00 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. in assuming that he meant to make any warfare upon the institution of slavery beyond protecting the free Ter ritories from its desolating tread. It was not until the war had been in progress for nearly two years that Lincoln decided to proclaim the policy of Emancipation, and then he was careful to as sume the power as warranted .under the Constitution only by the supreme necessities of war. There was no time from the inauguration of Lincoln until the ist of Janu ary, 1863, that the South could not have returned to the Union with slavery intact in every State. His prelimi nary proclamation, dated September 22, 1862, gave notice that on the ist of January, 1863, he would by public proclamation, "warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, ' ' declare that * * all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of the State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be thenceforward and for ever free. ' ' Every insurgent State had thus more than three months' formal notice that the war was not prosecuted for the abolition of slavery, but solely for the restoration of the Union, and that they could, by returning and accepting the authority of the National Government at any time before the ist of January, 1863, preserve slavery indef initely. Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley, written just one month before his preliminary Emancipation Procla mation, presents in the clearest and most concise manner Lincoln's views on the subject of slavery and the Union. After saying that if he could save the Union without freeing any slaves he would do it; that if he could save it by freeing all the slaves he would do it; and that if he could save it by freeing some and leaving others he would also do that, he adds: "What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear I forbear LINCOLN AND EMANCIPATION. IO i because I do not believe it would help to save the Union." As President of the Republic, Lincoln was governed at every step by his paramount duty to prevent the dis memberment of the nation and to restore the Union and its people to fraternal relations. The best expression of his own views and aims in the matter is given in a single brief sentence, uttered by himself on the I3th of Sep tember, 1862, only nine days before he issued the pre liminary proclamation. It was in response to an appeal from a large delegation of Chicago clergymen, represent ing nearly or quite all the religious denominations of that city, urging immediate Emancipation. He heard them patiently, as he always did those who were entitled to be heard at all, and his answer was given in these words: 1 ' I have not decided against the proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement, and I can assure you the matter is on my mind by day and by night more than any other. Whatever shall appear to be God's will I will do." However Lincoln's relig ious views may be disputed, he had a profound belief in God and in God's immutable justice, and the sentence I have just quoted tells the whole story of Lincoln's action in the abolition of slavery. He did not expect miracles indeed, he was one of the last men to believe in mira cles at all but he did believe that God overruled all human actions; that all individuals charged with grave responsibility were but the means in the hands of the Great Ruler to accomplish the fulfillment of justice. Congressman Arnold, whom Lincoln once declared to me to be the one member of the House in whose per sonal and political friendship he had absolute faith, speaking of the earnest appeals made to Lincoln for Emancipation, says: "Mr. Lincoln listened not un moved to such appeals, and, seeking prayerful guidance 102 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. of Almighty God, the Proclamation of Emancipation was prepared. It had been, in fact, prepared in July, 1862." Thus from July until September, during which time there was the greatest possible pressure on Lincoln for an Emancipation policy, his proclamation had been for mulated, but his usual caution had prevented him from intimating it to any outside of his Cabinet. It was the gravest step ever taken by any civil ruler in this or any other land, and military success was essential to main tain and execute the policy of Emancipation after it had been declared. Had McClellan been successful in his Peninsula campaign, or had Lee been defeated in the second conflict of Manassas, without bringing peace, the proclamation would doubtless have been issued with the prestige of such victory. Under the shivering hesitation among even Republicans throughout the North, Lincoln felt that it needed the prestige of a military victory to assure its cordial acceptance by very many of the sup porters of the government. The battle of Antietam, fought by the only general of that time who had pub licly declared against an Emancipation policy, was the first victory the Army of the Potomac had achieved in 1862, and five days after the Antietam victory the pre liminary proclamation was issued. Only the careful student of the history of the war can have any just conception of the gradual manner in which Lincoln approached Emancipation. He long and earn estly sought to avoid it, believing then that the Union could be best preserved without the violent destruction of slavery; and when he appreciated the fact that the leaders of the rebellion were unwilling to entertain any proposition for the restoration of the Union, he accepted the destruction of slavery as an imperious necessity, but he sought to attain it with the least possible disturbance. LINCOLN AND EMANCIPATION. 103 The first direct assault made upon slavery was "by Sec retary Cameron's overruled annual report in December, 1 86 1, in which he advised the arming of slaves. The first Congress that sat during the war made steady strides toward the destruction of slavery by the passage of five important laws. The first abolished slavery in the District of Columbia; the second prohibited slavery in all the Territories of the United States; the third gave freedom to the escaped slaves of all who were in rebellion; the fourth gave lawful authority for the enlist ment of colored men as soldiers; and the fifth made a new article of war, prohibiting any one in the military or naval service from aiding in the arrest or return of a fugitive slave under pain of dismissal. Slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia as early as April, 1862, the act having passed the Senate by 29 to 6, and the House by 92 to 38. A bill prohibiting slavery in the Territories was passed on the i9th of June, and a bill giving freedom to slaves of rebellious masters who per formed military service was passed on the i;th of July. Thus was Congress steadily advancing toward Eman cipation, and as early as March, 1862, Lincoln had pro posed his plan of compensated Emancipation. On the 6th of March he sent a special message to Congress recommending the adoption of the following joint reso lution: RESOLVED, That the United States ought to co-operate with, any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giv ing to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to compensate for the inconvenience, public and pri vate, produced by such change of system. His message very earnestly pressed upon Congress the importance of adopting such a policy, and upon the country the importance of accepting it, North and South, His concluding sentence is; "In full view of 104 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. my great responsibility to my God and to my country, I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the people to the subject" Again, when revoking General Hunter's order of the 9th of May, 1862, declaring all slaves free within his military district, Lincoln made a most im pressive appeal to the people of the South on the sub ject of compensated Emancipation. He said: u I do not argue; I beseech you to make the argument for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. . . . The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done by any one effort in all past time as, in the providence of God, it is now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it" Soon after this Lincoln had an interview with the Congressional dele gations from the Border Slave States, at which he again earnestly urged them to accept compensated Emanci pation. Speaking of that interview, Lincoln said: "I believed that the indispensable necessity for military Emancipation and arming the blacks would come unless averted by gradual and compensated Emancipation." Again in July, 1862, only two months before he issued the preliminary proclamation, Lincoln summoned the delegates from the Border Slave States to a conference with him, and again most persuasively appealed to them to accept gradual and compensated Emancipation. He said to them: " I do not speak of Emancipation at once, but of a decision at once to emancipate gradually. ' ' He also clearly foreshadowed to them that if they refused it, more violent Emancipation must come. He said : ( ' The pressure in this direction is still upon me and is increas ing. By conceding what I now ask you can relieve me, and much more can relieve the country, on this import- LINCOLN AND EMANCIPATION. 105 ant point." He concluded with these eloquent words: " Our common country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views and boldest action to bring a speedy relief. Once relieved, its form of government is saved to the world; its beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated, and its happy future fully assured and ren dered inconceivably grand. To you, more than to any others, the privilege is given to assure that happiness and swell that grandeur, and to link your names there with for ever." Strange as it may now seem, in view of the inevitable tendency of events at that time, these appeals of Lincoln were not only treated with contempt by those in rebel lion, but the Border State Congressmen, who had every thing at stake, and who in the end were compelled to accept forcible Emancipation without compensation, al though themselves not directly involved in rebellion, made no substantial response to Lincoln's efforts to save their States and people. Thus did the States in rebel lion disregard repeated importunities from Lincoln to accept Emancipation with payment for their slaves. During long weary months he had made temperate utterance on every possible occasion, and by every official act that could direct the attention of the coun try he sought to attain the least violent solution of the slavery problem, only to learn the bitter lesson that slavery would make no terms with the government, and that it was the inspiration of rebellious armies seeking the destruction of the Republic. Soon after his appeal to the Congressmen of the Border States in July, 1862, Lincoln prepared his Emancipation Proclamation, and quietly and patiently waited the fullness of time for pro claiming it, still hoping that peace might come without resort to the extreme measure of military and uncompen- sated Emancipation. Seeing that the last hope of any io6 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TlMES. other method of peace had failed, he issued the prelim inary proclamation on the 22d of September, 1862, and his final proclamation on the ist of January following; and there never was a day from that time until Lin coln's death that he ever entertained, even for a mo ment, the question of receding from the freedom he had proclaimed to the slaves. But while he was compelled to accept the issue of revolutionary Emancipation, he never abandoned the idea of compensated Emancipation until the final overthrow of Lee's army in 1865. He proposed it to his Cabinet in February of that year, only to be unanimously rejected, and I personally know that he would have suggested it to Stephens, Campbell, and Hunter at the Hampton Roads Conference in February, 1865, had not Vice-President Stephens, as the immediate representative of Jefferson Davis, frankly stated at the outset that he was instructed not to entertain or discuss any proposition that did not recognize the perpetuity of the Confederacy. That statement from Stephens pre cluded the possibility of Lincoln making any propo sition, or even suggestion, whatever on the subject. In a personal interview with Jefferson Davis when I was a visitor in his house at Bevoir, Mississippi, fifteen years after the close of the war, I asked him whether he had ever received any intimation about Lincoln's desire to close the war by the payment of $400,000,000 for eman cipated slaves. He said that he had not heard of it I asked him whether he would have given such in structions to Stephens if he had possessed knowledge of the fact. He answered that he could not have given Stephens any other instructions than he did under the circumstances, because as President of the Confederacy he could not entertain any question involving its dis solution, that being a subject entirely for the States themselves. LINCOLN AND EMANCIPATION. IO^ Lincoln treated the Emancipation question from the beginning as a very grave matter-of-fact problem to be solved for or against the destruction of slavery as the safety of the Union might dictate. He refrained from Emancipation for eighteen months after the war had begun, simply because he believed during that time that he might best save the Union by saving slavery, and had the development of events proved that belief to be cor rect he would have permitted slavery to live with the Union. When he became fully convinced that the safety of the government demanded the destruction of slavery, he decided, after the most patient and exhaustive con sideration of the subject, to proclaim his Emancipation policy. It was not founded solely or even chiefly on the sentiment of hostility to slavery. If it had been, the proclamation would have declared slavery abolished in every State of the Union; but he excluded the slave States of Delaware, Maryland, and Tennessee, and cer tain parishes in Louisiana, and certain counties in Vir ginia, from the operation of the proclamation, declaring, in the instrument that has now become immortal, that "which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.' 5 Thus if only military Emancipation had been achieved by the Presi dent's proclamation, it would have presented the singular spectacle of Tennessee in the heart of the South, Mary land and Delaware north of the Potomac, and nearly one- half of Louisiana and one-half of Virginia with slavery protected, while freedom was accorded to the slaves of all the other slaveholding States. Lincoln evidently regarded the Emancipation policy as the most moment ous in the history of American statesmanship, and as justified only by the extreme necessity of weakening the rebellion that then threatened the severance of the Union. 108 LINCOLN AND- MEN OF WAR-TIMES. From the very day of his inauguration until he issued his Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln was constantly importuned by the more radical element of his supporters to declare his purpose to abolish slavery. Among them were a number of the ablest leaders of his party in the Senate and House, and some of them as impracticable in their methods as they were imperious in their demands. That he was glad of the opportunity to destroy slavery none can doubt who knew him, but he patiently bore the often irritating complaints of many of his friends until he saw that slavery and the Union could not survive to gether, and that the country was at least measurably pre pared to accept and support the new policy. He was many times threatened with open rebellion against his administration by some of the most potent Republicans because of his delay in declaring the Emancipation pol icy, but he waited until the time had come in the fall of 1862, when he felt that it was not only a necessity of war, but a political necessity as well. Another very grave consideration that led him to accept Emancipation when he did was the peril of England and France recognizing the Confederacy and thereby involving us in war with two of the greatest powers of Europe. The pretext on which was based the opposition of England to the Union cause in the early part of the war was the maintenance of slavery by the government while prosecuting a war against a slaveholders' rebellion, and it seemed to be an absolute necessity that our government should accept the Emancipation policy to impair the force of the public sentiment in England that demanded the recognition of the South as an independent government. These three weighty considerations, each in itself sufficient to have decided Lincoln's action, combined to dictate his Eman cipation policy in the early fall of 1862. The proclama tion did not in itself abolish slavery, but the positive LINCOLN AND EMANCIPATION. 109 declaration in the proclamation ' ' that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and main tain the freedom of said persons," gave notice to every slaveholder and promise to every slave that every bond man brought within the lines of the Union Army would thereafter be for ever free. While the Emancipation Proclamation inflicted a mor tal wound upon slavery and assured its absolute extinc tion, sooner or later, throughout the entire country, Lin coln fully appreciated the fact that much was yet to be done, even beyond victories in the field, to efface the blot of slavery from the Republic. As early as the i4th of January, 1863, Representative Wilson of Iowa, then chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and now a United States Senator, reported a proposed amendment to the Constitution declaring slavery "for ever prohibited in the United States." On the loth of February, 1864, Senator Trumbull reported from the Judiciary Com mittee of that body a proposed amendment that was finally adopted in 1865, and is now part of the funda mental law of the nation. It was passed in the Senate on the 1 8th of April by a vote of 38 to 6. It was de feated in the House by a vote of 93 in its favor and 65 against it, lacking the requisite two-thirds. Seeing that the amendment was lost, Ashley of Ohio changed his vote from the affirmative to the negative with a view of entering a motion to reconsider, and the subject went over until the next session. On the 6th of January, 1865, Ashley made his motion to reconsider and called up the proposed amendment for another vote. One of the most interesting and able debates of that time was precipitated by Ashley's motion, and the notable speech of the occasion was made by Mr. Rollins of Missouri, who had been a large slaveholder, and who declared that 110 LINCOLN ANti MEN OF WAR-TIMES. " the rebellion instigated and carried on by slaveholders has been the death-knell of the institution." Stevens^ the great apostle of freedom from Pennsylvania and the Great Commoner of the war, closed the debate, and probably on no other occasion in the history of Congress was such intense anxiety exhibited as when the roll was called on the adoption or rejection of the amendment. The Republicans did not have two-thirds of the House, but several Democrats openly favored the amendment and a number of others were known to be uncertain. The first break in the Democratic line was when the name of Coffroth of Pennsylvania was called, who promptly answered ay, and was greeted with thunders of applause in the House and galleries. He was fol lowed by Ganson, Herrick, Nelson, Odell, Radford, and Steele, Democrats from New York, by English from Connecticut, and by McAlister from Pennsylvania, and when the Speaker declared that the amendment had been adopted by 119 yeas to 56 nays, being more than the requisite constitutional majority, the great battle of Emancipation was substantially won, and Lincoln hailed it with a measure of joy second only to his delight at the announcement of Lee's surrender. Before the mem bers left their seats salvos of artillery announced to the people of the capital that the Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery had been adopted by Congress, and the victorious leaders rushed to the White House to congratulate Lincoln on the final achievement of Emancipation. The acceptance of the proposed amendment by the requisite number of States was not a matter of doubt, and the absolute overthrow of slavery throughout the entire Republic dates from the adoption of the amend ment to the Constitution in the House of Representatives on the 6th of January, 1865. Illinois, the home of Lin- LINCOLN AND EMANCIPATION. in coin, fitly led off in ratifying the amendment. Massa chusetts and Pennsylvania both ratified on the 8th of February, and one of the most grateful recollections of my life is that as a member of the popular branch of the Pennsylvania Legislature I supported and voted for that measure. Owing to the delay in the meeting of Legis latures in a number of the States the official proclamation of the ratification of the amendment was not made until the 1 8th of December, 1865, on which day Secretary Seward formally declared to the country and the world that the amendment abolishing slavery had "become to all intents and purposes valid as a part of the Constitu tion of the United States. ' ' Lincoln had thus dealt the deathblow to slavery by his proclamation, but it was not until after he had sealed his devotion to free government by giving his life to the assassin's hate that the great work was consummated and the Republic was entirely free from the stain of human bondage. The most earnest discussions I ever had with Lincoln were on the subject of his Emancipation Proclamation. I knew the extraordinary pressure that came from the more radical element of the Republican party, embracing a number of its ablest leaders, such as Sumner, Chase, Wade, Chandler, and others, but I did not know, and few were permitted to know, the importance of an Emancipation policy in restraining the recognition of the Confederacy by France and England. I was earn estly opposed to an Emancipation Proclamation by the President. For some weeks before it was issued I saw Lincoln frequently, and in several instances sat with him for hours at a time after the routine business of the day had been disposed of and the doors of the White House were closed. I viewed the issue solely from a political standpoint, and certainly had the best of reasons for the views I pressed upon Lincoln, assuming that political 112 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. expediency should control his action. I reminded him that the proclamation would not liberate a single slave that the Southern armies must be overthrown, and that the territory held by them must be conquered by military success, before it could be made effective. To this Lin coln answered: " It does seem like the Pope's bull against the comet;" but that was the most he ever said in any of his conversations to indicate that he might not issue it. I appealed to him to issue a military order as Com mander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, proclaiming that every slave of a rebellious owner should be for ever free when brought within our lines. Looking simply to practical results, that would have accomplished every thing that the Emancipation Proclamation achieved; but it was evident during all these discussions that Lincoln viewed the question from a very much higher standpoint than I did, although, as usual, he said but little and gave no clue to the bent of his mind on the subject. I reminded Lincoln that political defeat would be in evitable in the great States of the Union in the elections soon to follow if he issued the Emancipation Proclama tion that New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois would undoubtedly vote Democratic and elect Democratic delegations to the next Congress. He did not dispute my judgment as to the political effect of the proclamation, but I never left him with any rea sonable hope that I had seriously impressed him on the subject. Every political prediction I made was fearfully fulfilled in the succeeding October and November elec tions. New York elected Seymour Governor by 10,700 majority, and chose 17 Democratic and 14 Republican Congressmen. New Jersey elected a Democratic Gov ernor by 14,500, and 4 Democrats and i Republican to Congress. Pennsylvania elected the Democratic State ticket by 3500 majority and 13 Democrats and n Re- LINCOLN AND EMANCIPATION. 113 publicans to Congress, with a Democratic Legislature that chose Buckalew to the United States Senate. Ohio elected the Democratic State ticket by 5500 majority and 14 Democrats and 2 Republicans to Congress, Ashley and Schenck being the only two who escaped in the political Waterloo. Indiana elected the Democratic State ticket by 9500 majority and 7 Democrats and 4 Republicans to Congress, with 30 Democratic majority in the Legis lature. Illinois elected the Democratic State ticket by 16,500 majority and 9 Democrats and 5 Republicans to Congress, and 28 Democratic majority in the Legislature. Confidently anticipating these disastrous political results, I could not conceive it possible for Lincoln to success fully administer the government and prosecute the war with the six most important loyal Spates of the Union declaring against him at the polls; but Lincoln knew that the majority in Congress would be safe, as the rebel lious States were excluded, and the far West and New England were ready to sustain the Emancipation policy; and he appreciated, as I did not, that the magnitude of his act cast all mere considerations of expediency into nothingness. He dared to do the right for the sake of the right. I speak of this the more freely because, in the light of events as they appear to-day, he rose to the sublimest duty of his life, while I was pleading the mere expedient of a day against a record for human freedom that must be immortal while liberty has worshipers in any land or clime. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation be cause it was an imperious duty, and because the time had come when any temporizing with the question would have been more fatal than could possibly be any temporary revolt against the manly declaration of right. He felt strong enough to maintain the freedom he pro claimed by the military and naval power of the govern- 8 114 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. ment. He believed it to be the most mortal wound that could be inflicted upon the Confederacy. He believed that it would disarm the strong anti-Union sentiment that seemed to be fast pressing the English government to the recognition of the South, and he believed that, however public sentiment might falter for a time, like the disturbed and quivering needle it would surely settle to the pole. He did not issue it for the mere sentiment of unshackling four millions of slaves, nor did he then dream of universal citizenship and suffrage to freedmen. In the last public address that he ever delivered, on the nth of April, 1865, speaking of negro suffrage, he said: 4 ( I would myself prefer that suffrage were now conferred upon the very intelligent and on those who served our cause as soldiers. ' ' He believed it to be simply an act of justice that every colored man who had fought for his freedom and for the maintenance of the Union, and was honorably discharged from the military service, should be clothed with the right of franchise; and he believed that "the very intelligent" should also be enfranchised as exemplars of their race and an inspiration to them for advancement. He was always stubbornly for justice, stubbornly for the right, and it was his sublime devotion to the right in the face of the most appalling opposition that made the name of Abraham Lincoln immortal as the author of the Emancipation Proclamation, on which he justly invoked " the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. ' ' LINCOLN AND HAMLIN. THE fact that Abraham Lincoln conceived and exe cuted the scheme to nominate Andrew Johnson for Vice-President in 1864 has been feebly disputed, but is now accepted as the truth of history. It was not an arbitrary exercise of political power on the part of Lin coln. He had no prejudice against Hannibal Hamlin to inspire him to compass Hamlin' s defeat. He had no special love for Andrew Johnson to lead him to over throw his old associate of 1860 and make the Military Governor of an insurgent State his fellow-candidate for 1864. Hamlin was not in closa sympathy with Lincoln; on the contrary, he was known as one who passively rather than actively strengthened a powerful cabal of Republican leaders in their aggressive hostility to Lin coln and his general policy; but Lincoln was incapable of yielding to prejudice, however strong, in planning his great campaign for re-election in 1864. Had Hamlin been ten times more offensive than he was to Lincoln, it would not have halted Lincoln for a moment in favor ing Hamlin' s renomination if he believed it good politics to do so. He rejected Hamlin not because he hated him ; he accepted Johnson not because he loved him. He was guided in what he did, or what he did not, in planning the great campaign of his life, that he believed involved the destiny of the country itself, by the single purpose of making success as nearly certain as possible. 115 (Photo by Brady, Washington.) HANNIBAI, HAMUlv, 1890. LINCOLN AND HAMLIN. 117 Hamlin was nominated for the Vice- Presidency in 1860 simply because he was a representative Republican fresh from the Democratic party. Another consideration that favored his selection was the fact that his State had been carried into the Republican party under his leadership, and that its State election in September would be the finger-board of success or defeat in the national contest. His position as Representative, Senator, and Governor, and his admitted ability and high character, fully justi fied his nomination as the candidate for Vice- President; but when elected there was the usual steadily widening chasm between him and the Executive, and, like nearly or quite all Vice- Presidents, he drifted into the embrace of the opposition to his chief. It was this opposition, led by men of such consummate ability as Wade of Ohio and Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, that admonished Lincoln of the necessity of putting himself in the strong est possible attitude for the then admittedly doubtful bat tle of 1864. While the defeat of Lee at Gettysburg and the surrender of Vicksburg the year before had done much to inspire faith in the success of the war, the Con federacy was stubbornly maintaining its armies. The opening of the new year of 1864 called for large drafts of men to fill the thinned ranks of the Union forces, and there was a powerful undertow of despondency among the loyal people of the North. The war was costing $3,000,000 a day, and after three years of bloody conflict the end was not in view. The Republican leaders in the early part of 1864 were divided in councils, distracted by the conflicts of ambition, and very many of the ablest of them regarded the defeat of the party as not only possi ble, but more than probable. The one man who fully understood the peril and who studied carefully how to avert it was Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, as was his usual custom, consulted with all LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. who came within his reach, and developed his views from time to time with extreme caution. In the early part of the year he reached the conclusion that it would be eminently wise to nominate a conspicuous War Demo crat for Vice- President along with himself for President. A number of prominent men who acted with the Demo cratic party in 1860 against Lincoln's election, but who patriotically entered the military service and won dis tinction by their heroism, represented a very large class of Democratic voters upon whom Lincoln felt he must rely for his re-election. Hamlin had been a Democrat, but he did not come under the class of War Democrats, while Butler, Dix, Dickinson, Johnson, Holt, and others represented a distinctive and very formidable class of citizens who, while yet professing to be Democrats, were ready to support the war under Lincoln until it should be successfully terminated by the restoration of the Union. Lincoln's first selection for Vice- President was General Butler. I believe he reached that conclusion without specially consulting with any of his friends. As early as March, 1864, he sent for General Cameron, to whom he proposed the nomination of Butler, and that, I as sume, was his first declaration of his purpose to any one on the subject. He confided to Cameron the mission to Fortress Monroe to confer confidentially with Butler. On that journey Cameron was accompanied by Ex-Con gressman William H. Armstrong of Pennsylvania, who was first informed of the real object of Cameron's visit when they were returning home, and after Butler had declined to permit his name to be considered. Butler was at that time a strong man in the loyal States. He had not achieved great military success, but his adminis tration in New Orleans had made him universally popu lar throughout the North, in which the vindictive vitu peration of the Southern people heaped upon him was LINCOLN AND HAMLlN. 119 an important factor. Butler's declination was peremp tory, and Cameron returned home without learning in what direction Lincoln would be likely to look for a candidate for Vice- President. In a later conference with Cameron, in which the names of Johnson, Dickinson, and Dix were seriously discussed, Lincoln expressed his preference for Johnson, to which Cameron, with unconcealed reluctance, finally assented. While Lincoln at that time decided in favor of Johnson, he did not himself regard it as final. His extreme caution and exceptional sagacity made him carefully consider all possible weak points in Johnson's candidacy before he launched the movement for his nomination. He summoned General Sickles to Wash ington, and sent him to Tennessee on a confidential mis sion to examine and make report to him of the success of Johnson's administration as Military Governor. That State was in a revolutionary condition ; Johnson was charged with violent and despotic official acts, and Lin coln meant to know fully whether Johnson might, by reason of his administration, be vulnerable as a national candidate. Sickles had no knowledge of the real pur pose of his mission. The question of nominating John son for the Vice- Presidency was never suggested or even intimated to Sickles, and he fulfilled his trust and re ported favorably on Johnson's administration, without even a suspicion that he was to determine the destiny of Andrew Johnson, make him Vice-President of the United States, and thus President. Lincoln's purpose in seeking Johnson as his associate on the national ticket in 1864 was much more far reach ing than any but himself at the time supposed. He meant to guard against possible defeat by getting a number of the insurgent States in some sort of line to enable their Electoral votes to be counted if needed. 120 LINCOLN AND 'MEN OF WAR-TIMES. His most promising experiment was in Tennessee under the guidance of Johnson, but he obviously intended that the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, and West Virginia with Tennessee should be organized with the semblance of full Statehood to make their Electoral votes available should the national contest be close. Had he developed this policy to his party or to Congress, it would have been met with positive and aggressive opposition, but he developed it in the quietest way possible. His first movement in that line was to have delegations elected to the National Convention from the Southern States named, and when they appeared at the Baltimore Con vention on the yth of June the battle for their admission was led with consummate skill by the few who under stood Lincoln's policy. Tennessee being in the strong est attitude, the delegation from that State was selected on which to make the fight. It was desperately con tested, because it was then well understood to mean the nomination of Johnson for Vice-President; but the Ten nessee delegates were admitted by more than a two- thirds vote. With Tennessee accepted as entitled to representation, the contest was ended, and Louisiana and Arkansas were given the right of representation without a serious struggle. When Congress met again after the election in No vember, and when Lincoln's election by an overwhelm ing popular as well as Electoral vote was assured, the question of counting the Electoral votes of Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas was raised and elaborately dis cussed in both branches. As Lincoln had 212 Electoral votes to 21 for McClellan, exclusive of the votes of the three insurgent States referred to, there was no political necessity to induce Congress to strain a point for the ac ceptance of these votes; and a joint resolution was finally passed declaring " that no valid election for Electors of LINCOLN AND HAMLIN. 12 r President and Vice-President of the United States" had been held in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Lin coln approved the resolution, but took occasion by spe cial message to disclaim approval of the recital of the preamble. Had the votes of these three States been needed to elect a Republican President, I hazard little in saying that they would have been treated as regular and lawful and counted with the approval of both the Senate and House ; as they were not needed and as the develop ment of these States was Lincoln's own conception, those who were not specially friendly scored an empty victory against him. He moved with masterly sagacity at every step in his efforts to nominate Johnson, and his selection of General Cameron as early as March to be his first ambassador in search of a War Democrat for Vice-President was not one of the least of his many shrewd conceptions. The relations between Lincoln and Cameron had been some what strained by Cameron's retirement from the Cabinet in 1862. At least Lincoln assumed that they might be somewhat strained on the part of Cameron, and he took early caution to enlist Cameron in his renomination. He knew the power of Cameron in the manipulation of dis cordant political elements, and he fully appreciated the fact that Cameron's skill mfide him a dangerous oppo nent. He bound Cameron to himself by making him one of his trusted leadeis in the selection of a candidate for Vice-President. The man who was probably closest to Lincoln in this movement was Henry J. Raymond, but in this as in all Lincoln's movements his confidence was limited with each of his trusted agents. Raymond was then editor of the only prominent New York journal that heartily supported Lincoln ; and he, with the aid of Seward and Weed, who early entered into the movement for the nomination of Johnson, overthrew Dickinson in 122 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. his own State and was the confessed Lincoln leader in the Baltimore Convention of 1864. With Dickinson beaten in New York and with Hamlin's forces demoral ized early in the contest, the nomination of Johnson was easily accomplished, chiefly because it was what Lincoln desired. Neither Swett nor Lamon had any knowledge of Lin coln's positive movement for the nomination of Johnson until within a day or two of the meeting of the conven tion. Colonel Lamon has recently given a description of the scene between Lincoln, Swett, and himself a day or two before they went to Baltimore to aid in Lincoln's renomination. Swett earnestly and even passionately protested against the overthrow of Hamlin, but after hearing Lincoln fully on the subject he consented to go to the convention, in which he was a delegate from Illi nois, and support the nomination of Johnson; but he wisely declared Holt to be his candidate, as a foil to pro tect Lincoln. Swett naturally felt uncertain as to how the suggestion of Johnson's name would be received at Baltimore, as he had no knowledge of the extent to which Lincoln had progressed in the Johnson move ment. In answer to his inquiry whether he was at lib erty to say that Lincoln desired Johnson's nomination, Lincoln answered in the negative, and, as quoted by Colonel Lamon in a recent public letter, said: "No, I will address a letter to Lamon here embodying my views, which you, McClure, and other friends may use if it be found absolutely necessary; otherwise it may be better that I shall not appear actively on the stage of this theatre. ' ' The letter was written by Lincoln and deliv ered to Lamon, who had it with him at Baltimore, but, as there was no occasion for using it, it was never shown to any one and was returned to Lincoln after the con vention at his request LINCOLN AND HAMLIN. 123 How shrewdly Lincoln moved, and with what extreme caution he guarded his confidence, is well illustrated by the fact that while he consulted Cameron confidentially about the nomination of Johnson some months before the convention, and consulted me on the same subject the day before the convention met, neither of us supposed that the other was acting in the special confidence of Lincoln. On the contrary, I supposed that Cameron was sincerely friendly to Hamlin and would battle for his re- nomination, until he finally proposed to me the night before the convention met that we give a solid compli mentary vote to Hamlin, and follow it with a solid vote for Johnson. Another evidence of his extreme caution in politics is given by the fact that while he carefully concealed from both Cameron and myself the fact that the other was in his confidence in the same movement, he surprised me a few weeks before the convention by sending for me and requesting me to come to the con vention as a delegate-at-large. I had already been unani mously chosen as a delegate from my own Congressional district, and was amazed, when I informed Lincoln of that fact, to find that he still insisted upon me going before the State Convention and having myself elected as a delegate-at-large. To all my explanations that a man in the delegation was good for just what he was worth, whether he represented the district or the State, Lincoln persisted in the request that I should come as a delegate-at-large. When I finally pressed him for an explanation of what seemed to me to be a needless re quest involving great embarrassment to me, he finally with evident reluctance answered : ' ( General Cameron has assured me that he will be a delegate-at-large from your State, and while I have no reason to question his sincerity as my friend, if he is to be a delegate-at-large from Pennsylvania I would much prefer that you be one I2 4 LINCOLN AND MEN CF WAR TIMES. with, him." Had he been willing to tell me the whole truth, he would have informed me that Cameron was en listed in the Johnson movement, and that he specially desired at least two of the delegates-at-large, representing opposing factions, to be active supporters of Johnson's nomination. There could be no other reasonable expla nation of his earnest request to me to accept the embar rassing position of seeking an election from the State Convention when I was already an elected delegate from my district. A fortunate combination of circumstances made it possible for me to be elected without a serious contest, Cameron and I receiving nearly a unanimous vote. Lincoln realized the fact that the chances were greatly against his re-election unless he should be saved by the success of the Union army. There was no period from January, 1864, until the 3d of September of the same year when McClellan would not have defeated Lincoln for President. The two speeches of that campaign which turned the tide and gave Lincoln his overwhelming vic tory were Sherman's dispatch from Atlanta on the 3d of September, saying: " Atlanta is ours and fairly won;" and Sheridan's dispatch of the i9th of September from the Valley, saying: "We have just sent them (the enemy) whirling through Winchester, and we are after them to morrow. ' ' From the opening of the military campaign in the spring of 1864 until ^Sherman announced the cap ture of Atlanta, there was not a single important victory of the Union army to inspire the loyal people of the country with confidence in the success of the war. Grant's campaign from the Rapidan to the James was the bloodiest in the history of the struggle. He had lost as many men in killed, wounded, and missing as Lee ever had in front of him, and there was no substantial victory in all the sacrifice made by the gallant Army of LINCOLN AND HAMLIN. I2 5- the Potomac. Sherman had been fighting continuously for four months without a decisive success. The people of the North had become heartsick at the fearful sacri fices which brought no visible achievement. Democratic sentiment had drifted to McClellan as the opposing can didate, and so profoundly was Lincoln impressed by the gloomy situation that confronted him that on the 23d of August, seven days before the nomination of McClellan and ten days before the capture of Atlanta, he wrote the following memoranda, sealed it in an envelope, and had it endorsed by several members of the Cabinet, including Secretary Welles, with written instructions that it was not to be opened until after the election: EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 23, 1864. This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to co-operate with the President-elect so as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such grounds that he cannot possibly save it afterward. A. LINCOLN. Nor was Lincoln alone in his apprehension of defeat. Distrust and disintegration were common throughout the entire Republican organization, and nearly all of the sin cere supporters of Lincoln were in next to utter despair of political success. I spent an hour with him in the Executive Chamber some ten days before he wrote the memoranda before given, and I never saw him more de jected in my life. His face, always sad in repose, was then saddened until it became a picture of despair, and he spoke of the want of sincere and earnest support from the Republican leaders with unusual freedom. I dis tinctly remember his reference to the fact that of all the Republican members of the House he could name 126 LINCOLN' AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. but one in whose personal and political friendship he could absolutely confide. That one man was Isaac N. Arnold of Illinois. Stevens, the Great Commoner of the war, while sincerely desiring Lincoln's re-election because he hated McClellan worse than he hated Lin coln, and because he felt that the election of Lincoln was necessary to the safety of the Union, was intensely bitter against Lincoln personally, and rarely missed an opportunity to thrust his keenest invectives upon him. New York had a Democratic Governor of matchless abil ity, and that great State was regarded as almost hope lessly lost. Pennsylvania was trembling in the balance, as was confirmed by the failure of the Republicans to carry the State at the October election, and Indiana would have been almost in rebellion but for the vic tories of Sherman and Sheridan during the month of September. At this interview Lincoln seemed to have but one over mastering desire, and that was to attain peace on the basis of a restored Union. He took from a corner of his desk a paper written out in his own handwriting, proposing to pay to the South $400,000,000 as compensation for their slaves, on condition that the States should return to their allegiance to the government and accept Emancipation. I shall never forget the emotion exhibited by Lincoln when, after reading this paper to me, he said: "If I could only get this proposition before the Southern peo ple, I believe they would accept it, and I have faith that the Northern people, however startled at first, would soon appreciate the wisdom of such a settlement of the war. One hundred days of war would cost us the $400,000,000 I would propose to give for Emancipation and a restored Republic, not to speak of the priceless sacrifice of life and the additional sacrifice of property; but were I to make this offer now it would defeat me inevitably and LINCOLN AND tiAMLltf. 12 7 probably defeat Emancipation. ' ' I had seen him many times when army disasters shadowed the land and op pressed him with sorrow, but I never saw him so pro foundly moved by grief as he was on that day, when there seemed to be not even a silvery lining to the polit ical cloud that hung over him. Few now recall the grave perils to Lincoln's re-election which thickened almost at every turn in 1864 until the country was elec trified by Sherman's inspiring dispatch from Atlanta, followed by Sheridan's brilliant victories in the Valley and Sherman's memorable march to the sea; and it was these grave perils and these supreme necessities, long un derstood by Lincoln, which made him, in his broad and sagacious way, carefully view the field for the strongest candidate for Vice- President, and finally led him to nomi nate Andrew Johnson. To Lincoln, and to Lincoln alone, Johnson owed his nomination. I had no personal knowledge of Lincoln's purpose to nominate Johnson for Vice-President until the day before the Baltimore Convention met. He telegraphed me to visit Washington before attending the convention, and I did so. He opened the conversation by advising me to give my vote and active support to Johnson as his asso ciate on the ticket. It was evident that he confidently relied on my willingness to accept his judgment in the matter. I had expected to support the renomination of Hamlin. I had little respect for Andrew Johnson, and of all the men named for the position he was the last I would have chosen if I had been left to the exercise of my own judgment. It is more than probable that I would have obeyed the wishes of Lincoln even if he had not presented the very strong and, indeed, conclusive reasons for his request; but after hearing the arguments which had led him to the conclusion that Johnson should be nominated as his associate, I was quite as ready to ac- 128 LINCOLN AND .MEN OF WAR-TIMES. cept the wisdom of the proposition as to obey the wishes of the President. There was not a trace of bitterness, prejudice, or even unfriendliness toward Hamlin in all that Lincoln said about the Vice-Presidency, and he was careful to say that he did not desire the nomination of Johnson to gratify any personal preference of his own. He natu rally preferred a new man, as Hamlin was not in sympa thy with Lincoln personally or with the general policy of his administration, but he preferred Johnson for two reasons, which he presented with unanswerable clear ness: First, he was the most conspicuous, most aggres sive, and the most able of all the War Democrats of that time, and was just in the position to command the largest measure of sympathy and support from that very import ant political element. Dix, Dickinson, Butler, and Holt had made no such impressive exhibition of their loyalty as had Johnson in Tennessee. He was then just in the midst of his great work of rehabilitating his rebellious State and restoring it to the Union, and his loyal achieve ments were therefore fresh before the people and certain to continue so during the campaign. There was really no answer to Lincoln's argument on this point. Second, the stronger and more imperative reason for Lincoln pre ferring Johnson was one that I had not appreciated fully until he had presented it. The great peril of the Union at that day was the recognition of the Confederacy by England and France, and every month's delay of the overthrow of the rebellious armies increased the danger. Extraordinary efforts had been made by Lincoln to stim ulate the Union sentiment, especially in England, but with only moderate success, and there was no safety from one day to another against a war with England and France that would have been fatal to the success of the Union cause. The only possible way to hinder recog- LINCOLN AND HAM LIN. 129 nition was to show successful results of the war in restor ing the dissevered States to their old allegiance, and Lin coln was firmly convinced that by no other method could the Union sentiment abroad be so greatly inspired and strengthened as by the nomination and election of a rep resentative Southern man to the Vice- Presidency from one of the rebellious States in the very heart of the Con federacy. These reasons decided Lincoln to prefer John son for Vice-President, and Lincoln possessed both the power to make the nomination and the wisdom to dic tate it without jarring the party organization. The fact that Lincoln did not make known to Hamlin and his friends his purpose to nominate another for Vice- President in 1864 does not accuse him of deceit or insin cerity; and the additional fact that when the Convention was in session and he was asked for a categorical answer as to his position on the Vice-Presidency, he declined to express his wishes or to avow his interference with the action of the party, cannot be justly construed into polit ical double-dealing. It was quite as much a necessity for Lincoln to conceal his movements for the nomination of Johnson as it was, in his judgment, a necessity for him to nominate a Southern man and a War Democrat, and he simply acted with rare sagacity and discretion in his movements and with fidelity to the country, the safety of which was paramount with him. Hamlin was pro foundly grieved over his defeat, as were his many friends, and had they seen the hand of Lincoln in it they would have resented it with bitterness; but Hamlin himself was not fully convinced of Lincoln's opposition to his renomi- nation until within two years of his death. I have in my possession an autograph letter from Hamlin to Judge Pettis of Pennsylvania, to whom Lincoln had expressed his desire for Johnson's nomination on the morning of the day the convention met, in which he says that he 9 130 LINCOLN AKD MEN- OF WAR-TIMES. had seen and heard statements relating to Lincoln's action in the matter, but he did not believe them until the evidence had lately been made conclusive to his mind. In this letter he says: U I was really sorry to be disabused." And he adds: "Mr. L. [Lincoln] evidently became some alarmed about his re-election, and changed his position. That is all I care to say. ' ' I have thus the conclusive evidence from Hamlin himself, that in Sep tember, 1889, he had full knowledge of Lincoln's direct intervention to nominate Johnson for Vice-President in 1864. Hamlin gave an earnest support to the ticket, believing that the supreme sentiment of Republicanism had set him aside in the interest of the public welfare. He maintained his high position in the party for many years thereafter, filling the office of Collector of Portland and subsequently returning to the Senate, where he served until he had passed the patriarchal age, and then voluntarily retired to enjoy the calm evening of a well- spent life. (Photo by Gutekunst, Philadelphia.) SALMON P. CHASE. LINCOLN AND CHASE. SALMON P. CHASE was the most irritating fly in the Lincoln ointment from the inauguration of the new administration in 1 86 1. until the 29th of June, 1864, when his resignation as Secretary of the Treasury was finally accepted. He was an annual resigner in the Cabi net, having petulantly tendered his resignation in 1862, again in 1863, and again in 1864, when he was probably surprised by Mr. Lincoln's acceptance of it. It was soon after Lincoln's unanimous renomination, and when Chase's dream of succeeding Lincoln as President had perished, at least for the time. He was one of the strong est intellectual forces of the entire administration, but in politics he was a theorist and a dreamer and was unbal anced by overmastering ambition. He never forgave Lincoln for the crime of having been preferred for Presi dent over him, and while he was a pure . and conscien tious man, his prejudices and disappointments were vastly stronger than himself, and there never was a day during his continuance in the Cabinet when he was able to ap proach justice to Lincoln. Like Sumner, he entered public life ten years "before the war by election to the Senate through a combination of Democrats and Free- Soilers, and it is worthy of note that these two most brilliant and tireless of the great anti-slavery leaders cast their last votes for Democratic candidates for President 132 LINCOLN AND CHASE. 133 From the day that Chase entered the Cabinet he seems to have been consumed with the idea that he must be Lincoln's successor in 1864, and to that end he system atically directed his efforts, and often sought, by flagrant abuse of the power of his department, to weaken his chief. He will stand in history as the great financier of the war; as the man who was able to maintain the na tional credit in the midst of rebellion and disruption, and who gave the country the best banking system the world has ever known. In that one duty he was practical and amenable to wholesome counsel, and his unblemished personal and official integrity gave great weight to his policy as Secretary of the Treasury. With all the vexa tion he gave Lincoln, and with the many reasons he gave his chief to regard him as perfidious, Lincoln never ceased to appreciate his value as a Cabinet officer. In 1863, when Chase had become an open candidate for the Presidency, and when many of his political movements were personally offensive to the President, Lincoln said of Chase: " I have determined 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." This expression from Lincoln conveys a very mild idea of his real feelings on the sub ject. In point of fact, Lincoln was not only profoundly grieved at Chase's candidacy, but he was constantly irri tated at the methods Chase employed to promote his nomination. I never saw Lincoln unbalanced except during the fall of 1863, when Chase was making his most earnest efforts to win the Republican nomination. The very widespread distrust toward Lincoln cherished by Republican leaders gave him good reason to apprehend the success of a com- 134 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. bination to defeat him. Scores of national leaders were at that time disaffected, but when they were compelled to face the issue of his renomination or Republican de feat, they finally yielded with more or less ill grace, and supported him. Lincoln saw that if the disaffected ele ments of the party should be combined on one strong candidate, his own success would be greatly endangered. It was the only subject on which I ever knew L/incoln to lose his head. I saw him many times during the sum mer and fall of 1863, when the Chase boom was at its height, and he seemed like one who had got into water far beyond his depth. I happened at the White House one night when he was most concerned about the Chase movement, and he detained me until two o'clock in the morning. Occasionally he would speak with great seri ousness, and evidently felt very keenly the possibility of his defeat, while at other times his face would suddenly brighten up with his never-ending store of humor, and he would illustrate Chase's attitude by some pertinent story, at which he would laugh immoderately. After reviewing the situation for an hour, during which I as sured him that Chase could not be the Republican can didate, whoever might be, and that I regarded his re- nomination as reasonably certain, I rose at midnight, shook hands with him, and started to go. He followed me to the end of the Cabinet table nearest his desk, swung one of his long legs over the corner of it, and stopped me to present some new phase of the Chase bat tle that had just occurred to him. After he had gotten through with that I again bade him good-night and started to the door. He followed to the other end of the Cabinet table, again swung his leg over the corner of it, and started in afresh to discuss the contest between Chase and himself. It was nearly one o'clock when I again bade Lincoln LINCOLN AND CHASE. 135 good-night, and got as far as the door, but when just about to open it he called me and with the merriest twinkling of his eye, he said: " By the way, McClure, how would it do if I were to decline Chase?" I was surprised of course at the novel suggestion, and said to him, "Why, Mr. Lincoln, how could that be done?" He answered, "Well, I don't know exactly how it might be done, but that reminds me of a story of two Democratic candidates for Senator in Egypt, Illinois, in its early political times. That section of Illinois was almost solidly Democratic, as you know, and nobody but Democrats were candidates for office. Two Democratic candidates for Senator met each other in joint debate from day to day, and gradually became more and more exasperated at each other, until their discussions were simply disgraceful wrangles, and they both became ashamed of them. They finally agreed that either should say anything he pleased about the other and it should not be resented as an offense, and from that time on the campaign progressed without any special display of ill temper. On election night the two candidates, who lived in the same town, were receiving their returns together, and the contest was uncomfortably close. A distant precinct, in which one of the candidates confi dently expected a large majority, was finally reported with a majority against him. The disappointed can didate expressed great surprise, to which the other can didate answered that he should not be surprised, as he had taken the liberty of declining him in that district the evening before the election. He reminded the de feated candidate that he had agreed that either was free to say anything about the other without offense, and added that under that authority he had gone up into that district and taken the liberty of saying that his opponent had retired from the contest, and therefore the 136 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. vote of the district was changed, and the declined can didate was thus defeated. I think," added Lincoln, with one of his heartiest laughs, "I had better decline Chase." It was evident that the question of inducing Chase to decline was very seriously considered by Lin- coin. He did not seem to know just how it could be done, but it was obvious that he believed it might be done in one way or another, and what he said in jest he meant in sober earnest. Lincoln's anxiety for a renomination was the one thing ever uppermost in his mind during the third year of his administration, and, like all men in the struggles of ambition, he believed that his only motive in his de sire for his own re-election was to save the country, rather than to achieve success for himself. That he was profoundly sincere and patriotic in his purpose and efforts to save the Union, and that he would willingly have given his life as a sacrifice had it been necessary to accomplish that result, none can doubt who knew him ; but he was only human, after all, and his ambition was like the ambition of other good men, often stronger than himself. In this as in all political or administrative movements Lincoln played the waiting game. When he did not know what to do, he was the safest man in the world to trust to do nothing. He carefully veiled his keen and sometimes bitter resentment against Chase, and waited the fullness of time when he could by some fortuitous circumstance remove Chase as a competitor, or by some shrewd manipulation of politics make him a hopeless one. His inexperience in the details of politics made him naturally distrustful and apprehensive as to his renomination. He could not, at that early day, get together the political forces necessary to make him feel safe in the battle, and it was not until about the close of 1863 or e arly in 1864 that he finally formulated in his LINCOLN AND CHASE. 137 mind his political policy, and began the work of consoli dating his forces for action. He did this with a degree of sagacity and method that would have done credit to the ripest politician of the age, but there was no time until the Baltimore Convention met that Lincoln felt secure. Even after an overwhelming majority of the delegates had been instructed in his favor, and when to all but himself it was evident that there could be no effective opposition to him in the convention, he was never entirely free from doubts as to the result. Within a month of his nomination, and when his more violent enemies had abandoned the effort to defeat him, as was evidenced by the Fremont Convention called at Cleve land, he was yet perplexed with anxiety over the possi bility of his defeat. In discussing the question as late as May, 1864, I was surprised to find the apprehensions he cherished. I told him that his nomination was a foregone conclusion, and that it was not possible for any combination to be made that could endanger his success. I presented the attitude of the various States, and re ferred to their delegations to prove to him that his nomi nation must be made on the first ballot by a two-thirds vote, if not with absolute unity. To this he responded: "Well, McClure, what you say seems to be unanswer able, but I don't quite forget that I was nominated for President in a convention that was two-thirds for the other fellow." It is needless to say that the official and personal rela tions between Chase and Lincoln during the latter part of the year 1863 and the early part of 1864 were severely strained. Lincoln felt it deeply, but said little to any one on the subject, and never permitted Chase to know how keenly he grieved him. He knew that Chase sin cerely desired to be honest in the performance of his public duty, and he judged his infirmities with generous 138 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. charity. He fully appreciated the fact, so well stated by Chase's biographer, Judge Warden, that Chase "was indeed sought less by strong men and by good men than by weak men and by bad men." Indeed, Chase, with all his towering intellect and all his admitted devotion to the country's cause, was the merest plaything of the political charlatans who crossed his path, and he was thus made to do many things which were unworthy of him, and which, with any other than Lincoln to judge him, would have brought him to absolute disgrace. He wrote many letters to his friends in different parts of the country habitually complaining of Lincoln's incom- petency and of the hopeless condition of the war. In none of the many letters which have reached the light did he give Lincoln credit for capacity or fitness for his responsible trust. In disposing of the patronage of his department he was often fretful and generally ill-advised. With all these infirmities of temper and of ambition, Lincoln bore with Chase with marvelous patience until after Lincoln's unanimous renomination in 1864, when Chase sent his third resignation to the President. In his letter of resignation he said: "My position here is not altogether agreeable to you, and it is certainly too full of embarrassment and difficulty and painful respon sibility to allow in me the least desire to retain it." For the first time Lincoln recognized the fact that he and Chase could not get along together, and he promptly answered Chase's letter of resignation in the following terse but expressive note: " Your resignation of the office of Secretary of the Treasury, sent me yesterday, is ac cepted. Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity I have nothing to unsay, and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relation which it seems cannot be overcome or long sustained consistently with the public service." LINCOLN AND CHASE. 139 Like all irritable men who are the prey of infirmities, Chase believed, and recorded in his diary, that the em barrassments which arose between him and Lincoln were not of his creation. He thus expresses it in his own language : "I had found a good deal of embarrass ment from him, but what he had found from me I can not imagine, unless it has been caused by my unwilling ness to have offices distributed as spoils or benefits." Chase retired from the Cabinet believing that he had severed all political relations with Lincoln for the re mainder of his life, and the last thing that he then could have dreamed of was that his name would ever be considered by the President for the office of Chief Justice of the United States. When Chase retired from the Cabinet, in the latter part of June, he did not expect to support Lincoln for re-election. Within a week thereafter he recorded in his diary the fact that Senator Pomeroy could not support Lincoln, and he added: " I am much of the same senti ment, though not willing now to decide what duty may demand next fall. ' ' But he then hoped much from the revolutionary attitude of the supporters of Fremont and the bold assault made upon Lincoln by Senator Wade and Representative Henry Winter Davis. Chase retired to the White Mountains to await events, and it soon be came evident that the revolt against Lincoln would not materialize. On the contrary, every week brought way ward stragglers into the Lincoln camp, until at last Fre mont himself had to surrender the side-show nomination he had accepted and fall into line in support of the ad ministration, and the manifesto of Wade and Davis had fallen upon listless ears. It soon became evident that the sulking Republican leaders must choose between Lincoln and McClellan between supporting the war and opposing the war, for the McClellan platform distinctly declared 140 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. the war a failure and demanded the restoration of the Union by some other method than an appeal to arms. When Chase returned from his rest in the mountains in the latter part of September, he visited Washington, and of course paid his respects to the President. It is evi dent from Chase's own report of his interview with Lin coln that he was not greatly inspired by Lincoln's pro fessions of devotion. He notes the fact that Lincoln was ' ' not at all demonstrative, either in speech or manner, ' ' and he adds, ' ' I feel that I do not know him. " It is evident that Chase returned to Washington with the view of getting into some sort of friendly relations with the President. He twice visited Lincoln during his short stay in Washington, and within a week thereafter he publicly declared himself in favor of Lincoln's election at his home in Ohio. He voted the Republican State ticket in October, and sent a congratulatory telegram to Lincoln on the result of the election. It was known to all about Washington during the fall of 1864 that Chief Justice Taney could not long survive, and after the first of September he was likely to die any day. It would be unjust to Chase to say that he was in fluenced in his political action by the hope of succeeding Chief Justice Taney, but the fact that his name was pressed upon Lincoln simultaneously by his friends throughout the country, even before the dead Chief Justice had been consigned to the tomb, proves that Chase had cherished the hope of reaching that exalted judicial position. Taney died on the I2th of October, 1864, within two weeks after Chase declared himself in favor of the election of Lincoln, and on the I3th of Oc tober Chase's name was on the lips of all his friends as the man for Chief Justice. The movement was digni fied by the active and earnest efforts of Senator Sumner, who was in a position to exert considerable influence 9 LINCOLN AND CHASE. 141 with the President, although, on many questions they had seriously differed. He desired a Chief Justice who could be trusted on the slavery question, and, believing that Chase was the safest of all on that important issue, he made an exhaustive struggle to win the position for Chase. Secretary Stanton, who had been in general harmony with Chase in the Cabinet, was also his earnest friend in the struggle for the Chief Justiceship, but the opposition aroused at the mention of his name came from every part of the country, and from very many of the ablest and most earnest of Lincoln's friends. It was argued against Chase that while his ability was admit ted, his practical knowledge of law was limited, and that he was without legal training, because his life had been devoted almost exclusively to politics. He was elected to the Senate a dozen years before the war; he retired from the Senate to become Governor of Ohio, in which position he served two terms, and he was re-elected to the Senate at the close of his gubernatorial service. He gave up the Senatorship to enter the Cabinet in 1861, so that for many years he had given no thought or efforts to the law, and he was regarded by very many , as lacking in the special training necessary to the first judicial office of the national government. Strong as was the hostility to Chase's appointment in every section of the Union, the most intense opposition came from his own State of Ohio. The suggestion that he should become Chief Justice was resented by a large majority of the leading Republicans of the State, and they severely tested Lincoln's philosophy by the violence of their opposition, and especially by the earnestness with which they insisted that it was an insult to Lin coln himself to ask him to appoint Chase. Pennsylva nia's most prominent official connected with the admin istration, and one of her most learned lawyers, Joseph J. 142 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. Lewis, then Commissioner of Internal Revenue, reflected the general Republican sentiment of Pennsylvania by his unusual proceeding of sending a formal protest to Lincoln against Chase's appointment. He declared that Chase ( ' was not a man of much legal or financial know ledge; that his selfishness had gradually narrowed and contracted his views of things in general; that he was amazingly ignorant of men; that it was the opinion in the department that he really desired, toward the end of his term of office, to injure, and as far as possible to destroy, the influence and popularity of the adminis tration." I have, in a previous chapter, related an interview I had with Lincoln a short time before he appointed Chase. It was very evident from Lincoln's manner, rather than from what he said, that he was much per plexed as to his duty in the selection of a Chief Justice. In that conversation he discussed the merits of the half dozen or more prominent men who were suggested for the place. It is hardly proper to say that Lincoln dis cussed the matter, for the conversation was little else on his part than a succession of searching inquiries to ob tain the fullest expression of my views as to the merits and demerits of the men he seemed to have under con sideration. As to his own views he was studiously reti cent. I tried in various ways to obtain some idea of the leaning of his mind on the subject, but did not succeed. The many inquiries he made about Stanton, and the earnestness he exhibited in discussing, or rather having me discuss, Stanton as the possible Chief Justice, im pressed me with the belief that he was entertaining the idea of appointing his Secretary of War; but he gave no expression that could have warranted me in assuming that I could correctly judge the bent of his mind on the subject. The fact that he delayed the appointment for LINCOLN AND CHASE. 143 nearly two months after the death of Taney proves that Lincoln gave the subject not only very serious but pro tracted consideration, and I doubt whether he had fully decided in his own mind whom he would appoint until the 6th of December, the day that he sent the name of Chase to the Senate for Chief Justice. At no time during Lincoln's administration had he ever submitted to an equal pressure in deciding any pub lic appointment, and, excepting the Emancipation Proc lamation, I doubt whether any question of policy was ever so earnestly pressed and opposed by his friends as was the appointment of Chase. Any other President than Lincoln would not have appointed Chase. His personal affronts to Lincoln had been continuous and flagrant from the time he entered the Cabinet until he resigned from it a little more than three years thereafter, and I am quite sure that at no time during that period did Lincoln ever appeal to Chase for advice as his friend. He had many consultations with him, of course, on mat ters relating to the government, but that Lincoln regarded Chase as his bitter and even malignant enemy during all that period cannot now be doubted. The only pretense of atonement that Chase had ever made was his hesi tating and ungracious support of Lincoln's re-election, but only after the brilliant success of the Union armies under Sherman and Sheridan had absolutely settled the contest in Lincoln's favor. Grant overlooked a malig nant assault made upon him by Admiral Porter when he promoted him to succeed Farragut; but in that case Por ter's record clearly entitled him to the distinction, and Grant simply yielded personal resentment to a public duty. It was not pretended that Chase had any claim to the Chief Justiceship on the ground of eminent legal attainments or of political fidelity, and Lincoln's appoint ment of Chase was simply one of the many exhibitions 144 LINCOLN AND M&N OF WAR-TIMES. of the matchless magnanimity that was one of the great est attributes of his character. He appointed him not because he desired Chase for Chief Justice so much as because he feared that, in refusing to appoint him, he might permit personal prejudice to do injustice to the nation. * Of course, Chase promptly and effusively thanked the President when he learned that his name had been sent to the Senate for Chief Justice. In his letter to Lincoln he said : ' ' Before I sleep I must thank you for this mark of your confidence, and especially for the manner in which the nomination was made. ' ' But before he was * You give a wrong impression as to Chase's legal training. He was a thorough student of the law, and a careful, painstaking lawyer till he entered the Senate at the age of forty -two. He even was so fond of law as to take up superfluous drudgery, editing with notes and citations the Ohio Statutes. He kept out of poli tics till he was thirty-three. While in the Senate he argued cases in the Supreme Court as one involving the title to lands in and about Keokuk. Now, it is the study and practice a lawyer has before forty which determine his quality and equipment as a jurist, and these are not much affected by diversions afterward. A man culmi nates professionally by forty : witness B. R. Curtis, Choate, Fol- lett, etc. Edmunds has been in the Senate twenty or twenty-five years, but he has not lost his legal ability acquired before he entered it. My own impression is, from the conversations with Lincoln which different persons have reported to me and from some manuscript letters of Sumner, that Lincoln intended all along to appoint Chase, though somewhat doubting whether Chase would settle down quietly in his judicial office and let politics alone. That was a sincere apprehension which others shared, but I do not think that Lincoln's mind at all rested on any other person. I began to write this note only to make the points that Chase had ample legal training, and that his intellect was naturally judicial. See his able argument in the Van Landt case, about 1846. Edward L. Pierce to the Author, December 7, 1891. LINCOLN AND CHASE. 145 three months in the high office conferred upon him by Lincoln he became one of Lincoln's most obtrusive and petulant critics, and his last letter to Lincoln, written on the very day of Lincoln's assassination, was a harsh criti cism on the President's action in the Louisiana case. Immediately after the death of Lincoln, writing to an old political associate in Ohio, Chase said: "The schemes of politicians will now adjust themselves to the new con ditions; I want 110 part in them." Indeed, the only specially kind words from Chase to Lincoln that I have been able to discover in all the publications giving Chase's views I find in the one expression of hearty gratitude and friendship, written on the impulse of the moment, when he was first notified of his nomination to the Chief Justiceship. The new conditions of which he spoke after the death of Lincoln, and in which he de clared he could have no part, speedily controlled the new Chief Justice in his political actions. The leader of the radical Republicans when he became Chief Justice, he gradually gravitated against his party until he was ready to accept the Democratic nomination for President in 1868, and he never thereafter supported a Republican candidate for President. He hoped to receive the Presi dential nomination from the New York Convention of 1868. It had been agreed upon by some who believed that they controlled the convention that Chase should be nominated, and Governor Seymour retired from the chair at the appointed time, as is generally believed, to make the nomination to the convention; but Samuel J. Tilden had no love for Chase, and it was he who inspired the spontaneous movement that forced the nomination of Seymour while he was out of the chair, and carried it like a whirlwind. Tilden did not guide the convention to the nomination of Seymour because he specially de sired Seymour's nomination ; he did it because he desired JO 146 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. to defeat the nomination of Chase. The result was the keenest disappointment to the Chief Justice. He defined his political position during the contest of 1868 as fol lows: "The action of the two parties has obliged me to resume, with my old faith, my old position that of Democrat; by the grace of God free and independent." After 1868, Chase was unknown as a factor in politics. In June, 1870, he was attacked by paralysis, and from that time until his death, on the 7th of May, 1873, he was a hopeless invalid. His last political deliverance was a feeble declaration in favor of Greeley's election in 1872, when he was shattered in mind and body. It may truthfully be said of him that from 1861 until his death his public life was one continued and consuming disap pointment, and the constant training of his mind to poli tics doubtless greatly hindered him in winning the dis tinction as Chief Justice that he might have achieved had he given up political ambition and devoted himself to the high judicial duties he had accepted. While one of the greatest intellects among all the Republican lead ers, he was an absolute failure as a politician, and his persistence in political effort made him fail to improve other opportunities. His life may be summed up in the single sentence: He was an eminently great, a strangely unbalanced, and a sadly disappointed man. LINCOLN AND CAMERON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN had more varied and compli- thus speak to Lincoln. He was a man of extreme moods; often petulant, irritating, and senselessly unjust, and at times one of the most amiable, genial, and delightful conversationalists I have ever met. He loved antago nism, and there was hardly a period during his remark able service as War Minister in which he was not, on some more or less important point, in positive antago nism with the President. In his antagonisms he was, as a rule, offensively despotic, and often pressed them upon Lincoln to the very utmost point of Lincoln's for bearance; but he knew when to call a halt upon himself, as he well knew that there never was a day or an hour during his service in the Cabinet that Lincoln was not his absolute master. He respected Lincoln's authority because it was greater than his own, but he had little respect for Lincoln's fitness for the responsible duties of the Presidency. I have seen him at times as tender and gentle as a woman, his heart seeming to agonize over the sorrows of the humblest; and I have seen him many more times turn away with the haughtiest contempt from appeals which should at least have been treated with re spect. He had few personal and fewer political friends, and he seemed proud of the fact that he had more per sonal and political enemies than any prominent officer of the government. Senators, Representatives, and high military commanders were often offended by his wanton arrogance, and again thawed into cordial relations by his effusive kindness. Taken all in all, Edwin M. Stanton was capable of the grandest and the meanest actions of any great man I have ever known, and he has reared imperishable monuments to the opposing qualities he possessed. Stanton had rendered an incalculable service to the nation by his patriotic efforts in the Cabinet of Bu- 172 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. chanan. Cass had resigned from the Premiership be cause he was much more aggressive in his ideas of meet ing rebellion than was the President. Attorney-General Black was promoted to the head of the Cabinet, and Stanton was called in as Black's successor. It was Judge Black who saved Buchanan's administration from sud den and irretrievable wreck at the outset of the issue, and he doubtless dictated the appointment of Stanton, who was his close personal friend. From the time that Stanton entered the Buchanan Cabinet the attitude of the administration was so pointedly changed that none could mistake it. He was positively and aggressively loyal to the government, and as positively and aggres sively hated rebellion. While Stanton and Black gen erally acted in concert during the few remaining months of the Buchanan administration, they became seriously estranged before the close of the Lincoln administration so much so that Black, in an article published in the Galaxy of June, 1870, said of Stanton: "Did he accept the confidence of the President (Buchanan) and the Cabi net with a predetermined intent to betray it?" After Stanton' s retirement from the Buchanan Cabinet when Lincoln was inaugurated, he maintained the closest con fidential relations with Buchanan, and wrote him many letters expressing the utmost contempt for Lincoln, the Cabinet, the Republican Congress, and the general pol icy of the administration. These letters, given to the public in Curtis' s life of Buchanan, speak freely of the "painful imbecility of Lincoln," of the "venality and corruption ' ' which ran riot in the government, and ex pressed the belief that no better condition of things was possible ' ' until JefF Davis turns out the whole concern. ' ' He was firmly impressed for some weeks after the battle of Bull Run that the government was utterly overthrown, as he repeatedly refers to the coming of Davis into the LINCOLN AND STANTON. 173 National Capital. In one letter he says that " in less than thirty days Davis will be in possession of Washing ton;" and it is an open secret that Stanton advised the revolutionary overthrow of the Lincoln government, to be replaced by General McClellan as military dictator. These letters published by Curtis, bad as they are, are not the worst letters written by Stanton to Buchanan. Some of them were so violent in their expressions against Lincoln and the administration that they have been charitably withheld from the public, but they remain in the possession of the surviving relatives of President Buchanan. Of course, Lincoln had no knowledge of the bitterness exhibited by Stanton to himself personally and to his administration, but if he had known the worst that Stanton ever said or wrote about him, I doubt not that he would have called him to the Cabinet in Janu ary, 1862. The disasters the army suffered made Lin coln forgetful of everything but the single duty of sup pressing the rebellion. From the day that McClellan was called to the command of the Army of the Potomac in place of McDowell, Stanton was in enthusiastic accord with the military policy of the government. The con stant irritation between the War Department and mili tary commanders that had vexed Lincoln in the early part of the war made him anxious to obtain a War Min ister who was not only resolutely honest, but who was in close touch with the commander of the armies. This necessity, with the patriotic record that Stanton had made during the closing months of the Buchanan ad ministration, obviously dictated the appointment of Stan- ton. It was Lincoln's own act. Stanton had been dis cussed as a possible successor to Cameron along with many others in outside circles, but no one had any reason to anticipate Stanton' s appointment from any intimation given by the President Lincoln and Stanton had no 174 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. personal intercourse whatever from the time of Lincoln's inauguration until Stanton became his War Minister. In a letter to Buchanan, written March i, 1862, Stanton says : ' ' My accession to my present position was quite as sudden and unexpected as the confidence you bestowed upon me- in calling me to your Cabinet." In another letter, written on the i8th of May, 1862, he said: "I hold my present position at the request of the President, who knew me personally, but to whom I had not spoken from the 4th of March, 1861, until the day he handed me my commission." The appointment was made be cause Lincoln believed that Stan ton's loyal record in the Buchanan Cabinet and his prominence as the foe of every form of jobbery would inspire the highest degree of con fidence in that department throughout the entire country. In that he judged correctly. From the day that he en tered the War Office until the surrender of the Confeder ate armies, Stanton, with all his vagaries and infirmities, gave constant inspiration to the loyal sentiment of the country, and rendered a service that probably only Edwin M. Stanton could have rendered at the time. Lincoln was not long in discovering that in his new Secretary of War he had an invaluable but most trouble some Cabinet officer, but he saw only the great and good offices that Stanton was performing for the imperiled Re public. Confidence was restored in financial circles by the appointment of Stanton, and his name as War Min ister did more to strengthen the faith of the people in the government credit than would have been probable from the appointment of any other man of that day. He was a terror to all the hordes of jobbers and speculators and camp-followers whose appetites had been whetted by a great war, and he enforced the strictest discipline through out our armies. He was seldom capable of being civil to any officer away from the army on leave of absence un- LINCOLN AND STAN TON. 175 less he had been summoned by the government for con ference or special duty, and he issued the strictest orders from time to time to drive the throng of military idlers from the capital and keep them at their posts. He was stern to savagery in his enforcement of military law. The wearied sentinel who slept at his post found no mercy in the heart of Stanton, and many times did Lin coln's humanity overrule his fiery minister. Any neglect of military duty was sure of the swiftest punishment, and seldom did he make even just allowance for inevitable military disaster. He had profound, imfaltering faith in the Union cause, and, above all, he had unfaltering faith in himself. He believed that he was in all things except in name Commander-in-Chief of the armies and the navy of the nation, and it was with unconcealed reluctance that he at times deferred to the authority of the Presi dent. He was a great organizer in theory, and harsh to the utmost in enforcing his theories upon military com manders. He at times conceived impossible things, and peremptorily ordered them executed, and woe to the man who was unfortunate enough to demonstrate that Stan- ton was wrong. If he escaped without disgrace he was more than fortunate, and many, very many, would have thus fallen unjustly had it not been for Lincoln's cautious and generous interposition to save those who were wan tonly censured. He would not throw the blame upon Stanton, but he would save the victim of Stanton's in justice, and he always did it so kindly that even Stanton could not complain beyond a churlish growl. Stanton understood the magnitude of the rebellion, and he understood also that an army to be effective must be completely organized in all its departments. He had no favorites to promote at the expense of the public ser vice, and his constant and honest aim was to secure the best men for every important position. As I have said, 1 76 LINCOLN AND MN OF WAR-TIMES. he assumed, in his own mind, that he was Commander- in-Chief, and there was nothing in military movements, or in the quartermaster, commissary, hospital, secret ser vice, or any other department relating to the war, that he did not claim to comprehend and seek to control in his absolute way. * I doubt whether his partiality ever unjustly promoted a military officer, and I wish that I * Mr. Stanton's theory was that everything concerned his own department. It was he who was carrying on the war. It was he who would be held responsible for the secret machinations of the enemy in the rear as well as the unwarranted success of the en emy in front. Hence he established a system of military censor ship which has never, for vastness of scope or completeness of detail, been equaled in any war before or since or in any other country under the sun. The whole telegraphic system of the United States, with its infinite ramifications, centered in his office. There, adjoining his own personal rooms, sat Gen. Eck- ert, Hymer D. Bates, Albert B. Chandler, and Charles A. Tinker, all of them young men of brilliant promise and now shining lights in the electrical world. Every hour in the day and night, under all circumstances, in all seasons, there sat at their instru ments sundry members of this little group. The passage be tween their room and the Secretary's was unobstructed. It was an interior communication they did not have even to go through the corridor to reach him and every dispatch relating to the war or party politics that passed over the Western Union wires, North or South, they read. Cipher telegrams were considered especially suspicious, so every one of those was reported. The young men I have mentioned were masters of cipher- translation. Every message to or from the President or any member of his house hold passed under the eye of the Secretary. If one Cabinet Min ister communicated with another over the wire by a secret code, Mr. Stanton had the message deciphered and read to him. If Gen. McClellan telegraphed to his wife from the front, Mr. Stan- ton knew the contents of every dispatch. Hence, as far as the conduct of the war was concerned, Mr. Stanton knew a thousand secrets where Mr. Lincoln knew one; for the Secretary's instruc tions were that telegrams indiscriminately should not be shown to the President. Albert E. H. Johnson, Stanton's confidential clerk, in Washington Post, July 14, 1891, LINCOLN AND STANTON. 177 could say that his prejudices had never hindered the pro motion or driven from the service faithful and competent military commanders. His hatreds were intense, im placable, and yielded to the single authority of Lincoln, and that authority he knew would be exercised only in extreme emergencies. The effect of such a War Minis ter was to enforce devotion to duty throughout the entire army, and it is impossible to measure the beneficent re sults of Stanton's policy in our vast military campaigns. Great as he was in the practical administration of his office that could be visible to the world, he added im measurably to his greatness as War Minister by the im press of his wonderful personality upon the whole mili tary and civil service. Stanton's intense and irrepressible hatreds were his greatest infirmity and did much to deform his brilliant record as War Minister. A pointed illustration of his bitter and unreasonable prejudices was given in the case of Jere McKibben, whom he arbitrarily confined in Old Capitol Prison without even the semblance of a pretext to excuse the act. The Constitution of Pennsylvania had been so amended during the summer of 1864 as to authorize soldiers to vote in the field. The Legislature was called in extra session to provide for holding elec tions in the army. It was in the heat of the Presi dential contest and party bitterness was intensified to the uttermost. Despite the earnest appeals of Governor Curtin and all my personal importunities with promi nent legislators of our own party, an election law was passed that was obviously intended to give the minority no rights whatever in holding army elections. The Governor was empowered to appoint State Commis sioners, who were authorized to attend the elections without any direct authority in conducting them. As the law was violent in its character and liable to the 12 1 78 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. grossest abuses, without any means to restrain election frauds, the Democrats of the State and country justly complained of it with great earnestness. The Governor decided, as a matter of justice to the Democrats, to ap point several Democratic Commissioners, but it was with difficulty that any could be prevailed upon to accept. He requested me to see several prominent Democrats and obtain their consent to receive his commission and act under it. As McKibben had three brothers in the Army of the Potomac, I supposed it would be pleasant for him to make a visit there in an official way, and I suggested it to him. He promptly answered: "Why, Stanton would put me in Old Capitol Prison before I was there a day. He hates our family for no other reason that I know of than that my father was one of his best friends in Pittsburg when he needed a friend. ' ' I assured him that Stanton would not attempt any vio lence against a man who held the commission of the Governor of our State, and he finally consented to go, having first solemnly pledged me to protect him in case he got into any difficulty. McKibben and the other Commissioners from Phila delphia were furnished the election papers and started down to the army, then quietly resting on the James River. On the second day after he left I received a tele gram from him dated Washington, saying: " Stanton has me in Old Capitol Prison ; come at once. ' ' I hastened to Washington, having telegraphed to Lincoln to allow me to see him between eleven and twelve o'clock that night, when I should arrive. I went direct to the White House and told the President the exact truth. I explained the character of the law of our State; that I had personally prevailed upon McKibben to go as a Commissioner to give a semblance of decency to its execution; that he was not only guiltless of any offense, as he knew how LINCOLN AND STANTON. 179 delicately he was situated, but that he was powerless to do any wrong, and I insisted upon McKibben's imme diate discharge from prison. Lincoln knew of Stanton's hatred for the McKibbens, as he had been compelled to protect four of McKibben's brothers to give them the promotion they had earned by most heroic conduct in battle, and he was much distressed at Stanton's act. He sent immediately to the War Department to get the charge against McKibben, and it did not require five minutes of examination to satisfy him that it was utterly groundless and a malicious wrong committed by Stanton. He said it was a ' ' stupid blunder, ' ' and at once proposed to discharge McKibben on his parole. I urged that he should be discharged unconditionally, but Lincoln's cau tion prevented that. He said : " It seems hardly fair to discharge McKibben unconditionally without permitting Stanton to give his explanation;" and he added, "You know, McClure, McKibben is safe, parole or no parole, so go and get him out of prison. ' ' I saw that it would be useless to attempt to change Lincoln's purpose, but I asked him to fix an hour the next morning when I could meet Stanton in his presence to have McKibben dis charged from his parole. He fixed ten o'clock the next morning for the meeting, and then wrote, in his own hand, the order for McKibben's discharge, which I hurriedly bore to Old Capitol Prison and had him released. Promptly at ten o'clock the next morning I went to the White House to obtain McKibben's discharge from his parole. Lincoln was alone, but Stanton came in a few minutes later. He was pale with anger and his first expression was: "Well, McClure, what damned rebel are you here to get out of trouble this morning ?' ' I had frequently been to Washington before when arbitrary and entirely unjustifiable arrests of civilians had been I So LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR- TIMES. made in Pennsylvania, to have the prisoners discharged from military custody; and as I had never applied in such a case without good reason, and never without suc cess even when opposed by Stanton, he evidently meant to square up some old accounts with me over McKibben. I said to him and with some feeling: "Your arrest of McKibben was a cowardly act; you knew McKibben was guiltless of any offense, and you did it to gratify a brutal hatred." I told him also that I had prevailed upon McKibben, against his judgment, to act as a State Commissioner to give a semblance of decency to what would evidently be a farcical and fraudulent election in the army, and that if he had examined the complaint soberly for one minute, he would have seen that it was utterly false. I told him that I had requested his ap pearance there with the President to have McKibben discharged from his parole, and that I now asked him to assent to it. He turned from me, walked hurriedly back and forth across the room several times before he an swered, and then he came up to me and in a voice trem ulous with passion said: "I decline to discharge McKib ben from his parole. You can make formal application for it if you choose, and I will consider and decide it." His manner was as offensive as it was possible even for Stanton to make it, and I resented it by saying: "I don't know what McKibben will do, but if I were Jere McKibben, as sure as there is a God I would crop your ears before. I left Washington. ' * He made no reply, but suddenly whirled around on his heel and walked out of the President's room. Lincoln had said nothing. He was used to such ebullitions from Stanton, and after the Secretary had gone he remarked in a jocular way, "Well, McClure, you didn't get on very far with Stan- ton, did you? but he'll come all right; let the matter rest," Before leaving the President's room I wrote out LINCOLN AND STAN TON. I8l a formal application to Stanton for the discharge of McKibben from his parole. Several days after I re ceived a huge official envelope enclosing a letter, all in Stanton' s bold scrawl, saying that the request for the discharge of Jere McKibben from his parole had been duly considered, and ' ' the application could not be granted consistently with the interests of the public service. ' ' McKibben outlived Stanton, but died a pris oner on parole. After such a turbulent interview with Stanton it would naturally be supposed that our intercourse thereafter would be severely strained, if not wholly interrupted ; but I had occasion to call at the War Department within a few weeks, and never was greeted more cordially in my life than I was by Stanton. The election was over, the mili tary power of the Confederacy was obviously broken, and the Secretary was in the very best of spirits. He promptly granted what I wanted done, which was not a matter of much importance, and it was so cheerfully and gener ously assented to that I carefully thought of everything that I wanted from his department, all of which was done in a most gracious manner. I puzzled my brain to make sure I should not forget anything, and it finally occurred to me that a friend I much desired to serve had lately appealed to me to aid in obtaining promotion for a young officer in the quartermaster's department whom I did not know personally. It seemed that this was the chance for the young officer. I suggested to Stanton that Quartermaster was reputed to be a very faithful and efficient officer, and entitled to higher pro motion than he had received. Stanton picked up his pen, saying: "It will give me great pleasure, sir; what is his name?" I had to answer that I could not recall his name in full, but he took down the officer's rank and last name and assured me that he would be promptly pro- 1 82 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES, moted. I supposed that a change of mood would make him forgetful of this promise; but the young quarter master wore new shoulder-straps within ten days, and won distinction as the chief of his department in large independent army movements in Virginia. I never had the pleasure of meeting the worthy officer who thus un expectedly secured his promotion, and he is doubtless ignorant to this day of the peculiar way in which it was accomplished. Stanton's hatred for McClellan became a consuming passion before the close of the Peninsular campaign. When McClellan was before Yorktown and complaining of his inadequate forces to march upon Richmond, Stan- ton summed him up in the following expression: " If he (McClellan) had a million men, he would swear the en emy had two millions, and then he would sit down in the mud and yell for three." He was impatient and often fearfully petulant in his impatience. He was dis appointed in McClellan not marching directly upon Richmond by Manassas, and he was greatly disappointed again when McClellan laid siege to Yorktown, but he was ever ready to congratulate, in his blunt way, when anything was accomplished. When General ' ' Baldy ' ' Smith made a reconnoissance at Yorktown that produced the first successful results of that campaign, Stanton an swered McClellan' s announcement of the movement: 4 ' Good for the first lick ; hurrah for Smith and the one- gun battery!" but from that time until the withdrawal of the army from the Peninsula, Stanton never found occasion to commend McClellan, and McClellan was a constant bone of contention between Stanton and Lin coln. Lincoln's patience and forbearance were marked in contrast with Stanton's violence of temper and inten sity of hatred. McClellan so far forgot himself as to telegraph to Stanton after the retreat to the James River: LINCOLN AND STAN TON. 183 " If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other person in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army. ' ' Any other President than Lincoln would have immediately relieved McClellan of his command, and Stanton not only would have relieved him, but would have dismissed him from the service. Lincoln exhibited no resentment whatever for the ill-advised and insubordinate telegram from McClellan. On the contrary, he seemed inclined to continue McClellan in command, and certainly ex hibited every desire to sustain him to the utmost. In a letter addressed to the Secretary of State on the same day that McClellan' s telegram was received he expressed his purpose to call for additional troops, and said: "I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or I am conquered, or my term expires, or Con gress or the country forsakes me." This was one of the most perplexing situations in which Lincoln was ever placed. The defeat of the army would not, in itself, have been so serious had Lincoln been able to turn to commanders in whom he could im plicitly confide. He had abundant resources and could supply all needed additional troops, but where could he turn for safe advice? He had, to a very large extent, lost faith in McClellan. When he counseled with Stan- ton he encountered insuperable hatreds, and he finally, as was his custom, decided upon his own course of action and hurried off to West Point to confer with General Scott. His visit to West Point startled the country and quite as much startled the Cabinet, as not a single mem ber of it had any intimation of his intended journey. What passed at the interview between Lincoln and Scott was never known to any, so far as I have been able to learn, and I believe that no one has pretended to have had knowledge of it. It is enough to know that Pope 184 LINCOLN AND MEN OA WAR-TlMLS. was summoned to the command of a new army, called the Army of Virginia, embracing the commands of Fre mont, Banks, and McDowell, and that Halleck was made General-in-Chief. The aggressive campaign of Lee, re sulting in the second battle of Bull Run and the utter defeat of Pope, brought the army back into the Washing ton intrenchments in a most demoralized condition. It was here that Lincoln and Stanton came into conflict again on the question of the restoration of McClellan to command. Without consulting either the General-in- Chief or his War Minister, Lincoln assigned McClellan to the command of the defenses of Washington, and as the various commands of Pope's broken and demoralized army came back into the intrenchments in utter confu sion they thereby came again under the command of McClellan. When it was discovered that McClellan was thus prac tically in command of the Army of the Potomac again, Stanton was aroused to the fiercest hostility. He went so far as to prepare a remonstrance to the President in writing against McClellan' s continuance in the com mand of that army or of any army of the Union. This remonstrance was not only signed by Stanton, but by Chase, Bates, and Smith, with the concurrence of Welles, who thought it indelicate for him to sign it. After the paper had been prepared under Stanton' s impetuous lead, some of the more considerate members of the Cabinet who had joined him took pause to reflect that Lincoln was in the habit not only of having his own way, but of having his own way of having his own way, and the protest was never presented. Lincoln knew McClellan' s great organizing powers, and he knew the army needed first of all a commander who was capable of restoring it to discipline. To use his own expressive language about the emergency, he believed that ' ' there is no one in LINCOLN AND STANTON. 185 the army who can command the fortifications and lick those troops of ours into shape one-half as well as he could." It was this conviction that made Lincoln forget all of McClellan's failings and restore him to command, and Stan ton was compelled to submit in sullen silence. Lincoln's restoration of McClellan to command in dis regard of the most violent opposition of Stanton was only one of the many instances in which he and his War Min ister came into direct and positive conflict, and always with the same result; but many times as Stanton was vanquished in his conflicts with Lincoln, it was not in his nature to be any the less Edwin M. Stanton. As late as 1864 he had one of his most serious disputes with Lin coln, in which he peremptorily refused to obey an order from the President directing that certain prisoners of war, who expressed a desire to take the oath of alle giance and enter the Union army, should be mustered into the service and credited to the quotas of certain districts. An exact account of this dispute is preserved by Provost- Marshal General Fry, who was charged with the execution of the order, and who was present when Lincoln and Stanton discussed it. Stanton positively refused to obey the order, and said to Lincoln: u You must see that your order cannot be executed. ' ' Lincoln answered with an unusually peremptory tone for him: u Mr. Secretary, I reckon you'll have to execute the order." Stanton replied in his imperious way: u Mr. President, I cannot do it; the order is an improper one, and I cannot execute it. ' ' To this Lincoln replied in a manner that forbade all further dispute: u Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done. ' ' A few minutes thereafter, as stated by Provost-Marshal General Fry in a communica tion to the New York Tribune several years ago, Stanton 1 86 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. issued instructions to him for the execution of the Presi dent's order. Notwithstanding the many and often irritating con flicts that LincTn had with Stanton, there never was an hour during Stan ton's term as War Minister that Lincoln thought of removing t iim. Indeed, I believe that at no period during the war, after Stanton had entered the Cabinet, did Lincoln feel that any other man could fill Stanton' s place with equal usefulness to the country. He had the most unbounded faith in Stanton' s loyalty and in his public and private integrity. He was in hearty sympathy with Stanton' s aggressive earnestness for the prosecution of the war, and at times hesitated, even to the extent of what he feared was individual in justice, to restrain Stanton' s violent assaults upon others. It will be regretted by the impartial historian of the future that Stanton was capable of impressing his in tense hatred so conspicuously upon the annals of the country, and that Lincoln, in several memorable in stances, failed to reverse his War Minister when he had grave doubts as to the wisdom or justice of his methods. It was Stanton' s fierce resentment that made just verdicts impossible in some military trials which will ever be his toric notably, the unjust verdict depriving Fitz John Porter at once of his commission and citizenship, and the now admittedly unjust verdict that sent Mrs. Surratt to the gallows. Lincoln long hesitated before giving his assent to the judgment against Porter, as is clearly shown by the fact that, with Pope's accusations against Porter fresh before him, he assented to McClellan's request and assigned Porter to active command in the Antietam cam paign, and personally thanked Porter on the Antietam field, after the battle, for his services. Another enduring monument of Stanton' s resentment is the Arlington Na tional Cemetery. The home of Lee was taken under the LINCOLN AND STANTON. 187 feeblest color of law that Stanton well knew could not be maintained, and the buildings surrounded with graves even to the very door of the venerable mansion, so that it might never be reclaimed as the home of the Confed erate chieftain. The government made lestitution to the Lees in obedience to the decision of its highest court, but the monument of hate is imperishable. Soon after the surrender of Lee, Stanton, severely broken in health by the exacting duties he had per formed, tendered his resignation, believing that his great work was finished. Lincoln earnestly desired him to re main, and he did so. The assassination of Lincoln called him to even graver duties than had before confronted him. His bitter conflict with Johnson and his violent issue with Sherman stand out as exceptionally interest ing chapters of the history of the war. It was President Johnson's attempted removal of Stanton in violation of the Tenure-of-OfHce Act that led to the President's im peachment, and Stanton persisted in holding his Cabinet office until Johnson was acquitted by the Senate, when he resigned and was succeeded by General Schofield on the 2d of June, 1868. After his retirement Stanton never exhib ited any great degree of either physical or mental vigor. I last saw him in Philadelphia in the fall of 1868, where he came in answer to a special invitation from the Union League to deliver a political address in the Academy of Music in favor of Grant's election to the Presidency. I called on him at his hotel and found him very feeble, suffering greatly from asthmatic* disorders, and in his public address he was often strangely forgetful of facts and names, and had to be prompted by gentlemen on the stage. It may be said of Stanton that he sacrificed the vigor of his life to the service of his country in the sorest trial of its history, and when President Grant nominated him as Justice of the Supreme Court, on the 1 88 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TJMES. aoth of December, 1869, all knew that it was an empty honor, as he was both physically and mentally unequal to the new duties assigned to him. Four days thereafter the inexorable messenger came and Edwin M. Stantou joined the great majority across the dark river. LINCOLN AND GRANT. ABRAHAM LINCOLN and Ulysses S. Grant were ^~V entire strangers to each other personally until the 9th of March, 1864, when Lincoln handed Grant his commission as Lieutenant-General, which made him three days later Commander-in-Chief of. all the armies of the Union. Although Grant entered the army as a citizen of Lincoln's own State, he had resided there only a little more than a year. When he retired from the army by resignation on the 3ist of July, 1854, as a cap tain, he selected Missouri as his home and settled on a farm near St. Louis. He had won promotion at the battles of Molino del Rey and Chapultepec in the Mex ican War, and was brevetted for special gallantry. Dur ing the nearly seven years between his retirement from the army and re-entering the military service at the be ginning of the civil war he had done little or nothing to make himself known to fame. He had moved from Missouri to Galena early in 1860 to improve his worldly condition by accepting a salary of $600 from his two brothers, who were then engaged in the leather business. After remaining with them for a year his salary was ad vanced to #800, and in a letter to a friend he exhibited his gratification at his business success and expressed the hope of reaching what then seemed to be his highest ambition a partnership in the firm. His life in Galena was quiet and unobtrusive as was Grant's habit under 189 (Photo by Gutekunst, Philadelphia.) GENERAI, U. S. GRANT, 1864. LINCOLN AND GRANT. 19* all circumstances; and when the first call for troops was issued and Grant brought a company from Galena to Springfield without any friends to press his promotion, it is not surprising that, while political colonels were turned out with great rapidity, Grant remained without 'a command. He served on the staff of Governor Yates for several weeks, giving him the benefit of his military experience in organizing new troops, but it does not seem to have occurred to Grant to suggest his own ap pointment to a command or to Governor Yates to tender him one. He returned to Galena, and on the 24th of May, 1 86 1, sent a formal request to the Adjutant-General of the army at Washington for an assignment to military duty " until the close of the war in such capacity as may be offered. ' ' To this no reply was ever received, and a month later he made a personal visit to the headquarters of General McClellan, then in command of the Ohio volunteers at Cincinnati, hoping that McClellan would tender him a position on his staff; but he failed to meet McClellan, and returned home without suggesting to any one a desire to enter the service under the Cin cinnati commander. It was a wayward and insubordinate regiment at Springfield that called Grant back to the military ser vice and started him on his matchless career. The Twenty-first Illinois defied the efforts of Governor Yates to reduce it to discipline, and in despair he telegraphed to the modest Captain Grant at Galena, asking him to come and accept the colonelcy. The prompt answer came: U I accept the regiment and will start imme diately." It is needless to say that the appearance of a plain, ununiformed, and modest man like Grant made little impression at first upon his insubordinate com mand, but in a very short time he made it the best dis ciplined regiment from the State, and the men as proud I9 2 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. of their commander as he was of them. The story of Grant's military achievements from Belmont to Shiloh is familiar to every reader of American history. It was Grant's capture of Fort Henry, soon followed by the capture of Fort Donelson and Nashville, that opened the second year of the war with such brilliant promise of an early overthrow of the Confederate armies. It was his sententious answer to General Buckner at Fort Don elson that proclaimed to the nation his heroic qualities as a military commander. He said: "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted; I propose to move immediately upon your works. ' ' He soon became popularly known as ' ' Unconditional Sur render Grant, ' ' and while his superior officers, including General-in-Chief McClellan and his immediate division commander Halleck, seemed to agree only in hindering Grant in his military movements, the country profoundly appreciated his victories. Soon after the capture of Nashville he was ordered by Halleck to make a new military movement that was rendered impossible by im mense floods which prevailed in the Western waters. Halleck reported him to McClellan, complaining that he had left his post without leave and had failed to make reports, etc., to which McClellan replied: u Do not hesi tate to arrest him at once if the good of the service re quires it, and place C. F. Smith in command." Halleck immediately relieved Grant and placed Smith in com mand of the proposed expedition. Grant gave a tem perate explanation of the injustice done to him, but as the wrong was continued he asked to be relieved from duty. In the mean time Halleck had discovered his error, and atoned for it by answering to Grant: " Instead of relieving you, I wish you, as soon as your new army is in the field, to assume the immediate command and lead it on to new victories." LINCOLN AND GRANT. 193 It was not "until after the battle of Shiloh, fought on the 6th and yth of April, 1862, that Lincoln was placed in a position to exercise a controlling influence in shap ing the destiny of Grant. The first day's battle at Shiloh was a serious disaster to the Union army commanded by Grant, who was driven from his position, which seems to have been selected without any special reference to re sisting an attack from the enemy, and, although his army fought most gallantly in various separate encoun ters, the day closed with the field in possession of the enemy and Grant's. army driven back to the river. For tunately, the advance of Buell's army formed a junction with Grant late in the evening, and that night all of Buell's army arrived, consisting of three divisions. The two generals arranged their plans for an offensive move ment early the next morning, and, after another stub born battle, the lost field was regained and the enemy compelled to retreat with the loss of their commander, General Albert Sidney Johnston, who had fallen early in the first day's action, and with a larger aggregate loss of killed, wounded, and missing than Grant suffered. The first reports from the Shiloh battle-field created profound alarm throughout the entire country, and the wildest exaggerations were spread in a floodtide of vituperation against Grant. It was freely charged that he had ne glected his command because of dissipation, that his army had been surprised and defeated, and that it was saved from annihilation only by the timely arrival of Buell. The few of to-day who can recall the inflamed condi tion of public sentiment against Grant caused by the dis astrous first day's battle at Shiloh will remember that he was denounced as incompetent for his command by the public journals of all parties in the North, and with almost entire unanimity by Senators and Congressmen 13 *94 LINCOLN AND MZX OF WAR- TIMES. without regard to political faith. Not only in Washing ton, but throughout the loyal States, public sentiment seemed to crystallize into an earnest demand for Grant's dismissal from the army. His victories of Forts Henry and Donelson, which had thrilled the country a short time before, seemed to have been forgotten, and on every side could be heard the emphatic denunciation of Grant because of his alleged reckless exposure of the army, while Buell was universally credited with having saved it. It is needless to say that owing to the excited condi tion of the public mind most extravagant reports gained ready credence, and it was not uncommon to hear Grant denounced on the streets and in all circles as unfitted by both habit and temperament for an important military command. The clamor for Grant's removal, and often for his summary dismissal, from the army surged against the President from every side, and he was harshly criti cized for not promptly dismissing Grant, or at least re lieving him from his command. I can recall but a single Republican member of Congress who boldly defended Grant at that time. Elihu B. Washburne, whose home was in Galena, where Grant had lived before he went into the army, stood nearly or quite alone among the members of the House in wholly justifying Grant at Shiloh, while a large majority of the Republicans of Congress were outspoken and earnest in condemning him. I did not know Grant at that time; had neither par tiality nor prejudice to influence my judgment, nor had I any favorite general who might be benefited by Grant's overthrow, but I shared the almost universal conviction of the President's friends that he could not sustain him self if he attempted to sustain Grant by continuing him in command. Looking solely to the interests of Lincoln, feeling that the tide of popular resentment was so over- LINCOLN AND GRANT. 1 95 whelming against Grant that Lincoln must yield to it, I had repeated conferences with some of his closest friends, including Swett and Lamon, all of whom agreed that Grant must be removed from his command, and com plained of Lincoln for his manifest injustice to himself by his failure to act promptly in Grant's removal. So much was I impressed with the importance of prompt action on the part of the President after spending a day and evening in Washington that I called on Lincoln at eleven o'clock at night and sat with him alone until after one o'clock in the morning. He was, as usual, worn out with the day's exacting duties, but he did not permit me to depart until the Grant matter had been gone over and many other things relating to the war that he wished to discuss. I pressed upon him with all the earnestness I could command the immediate removal of Grant as an imperious necessity to sustain himself. As was his cus tom, he said but little, only enough to make me continue the discussion until it was exhausted. He sat before the open fire in the old Cabinet room, most of the time with his feet up on the high marble mantel, and exhibited un usual distress at the complicated condition of military affairs. Nearly every day brought some new and per plexing military complication. He had gone through a long winter of terrible strain with McClellan and the Army of the Potomac; and from the day that Grant started on his Southern expedition until the battle of Shiloh he had had little else than jarring and confusion among his generals in the West. He knew that I had no ends to serve in urging Grant's removal, beyond the single desire to make him be just to himself, and he lis tened patiently. I appealed to Lincoln for his own sake to remove Grant at once, and in giving my reasons for it I simply voiced the admittedly overwhelming protest from the J 9 6 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. loyal people of the land against Grant's continuance in command. I could form no judgment during the con versation as to what effect my arguments had upon him beyond the fact that he was greatly distressed at this new complication. When I had .said everything that could be said from my standpoint, we lapsed into silence. Lincoln remained silent for what seemed a very long time. He then gathered himself up in his chair and said in a tone of earnestness that I shall never forget: U 7 cart t spare this man; he fights " That was all he said, but I knew that it was enough, and that Grant was safe in Lincoln's hands against his countless hosts of enemies. The only man in all the nation who had the power to save Grant was Lincoln, and he had decided to do it. He was not influenced by any personal partiality for Grant, for they had never met, but he believed just what he said "I can't spare this man; he fights." I knew enough of Lincoln to know that his decision was final, and I knew enough of him also to know that he reasoned better on the subject than I did, and that it would be unwise to attempt to unsettle his determina tion. I did not forget that Lincoln was the one man who never allowed himself to appear as wantonly defy ing public sentiment. It seemed to me impossible for him to save Grant without taking a crushing load of con demnation upon himself; but Lincoln was wiser than all those around him, and he not only saved Grant, but he saved him by such well-concerted effort that he soon won popular applause from those who were most violent in demanding Grant's dismissal. The method that Lincoln adopted to rescue Grant from the odium into which he had, to a very large degree, un justly fallen was one of the bravest and most sagacious acts of his administration. Halleck was commander of the military division consisting of Missouri, Kentucky, LINCOLN AND GRANT. J 97 Tennessee, and possibly other States, but he remained at his headquarters in St. Louis until after the battle of Shiloh. Lincoln's first move was to bring Halleck to the field, where he at once superseded Grant as com mander of the army. This relieved public apprehen sion and soon calmed the inflamed public sentiment that was clamoring for Grant's dismissal. Lincoln knew that it would require time for the violent prejudice against Grant to perish, and he calmly waited until it was safe for him to give some indication to the country of his abiding faith in Grant as a military commander. Hal leck reached the army at Pittsburg Landing on the nth of April, four days after the battle had been fought, and of course his presence on the field at once made him the commanding officer. On the 3 large, and, as a liberal reward for his capture had been offered by Governor Wise of Virginia, and a minute description of his person published throughout the country, the whole skilled and amateur detective force of the land was watching every promising point to effect his capture. The Northern cities, East and West, were on the watch to discover his hiding-place, but the forest-schooled and nature-taught detective of the South Mountain knew that some of its fastnesses must be his retreat. The broken ranges of the mountain on the southern border of Franklin embraced the line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, between the free and the slave States. It was the favorite retreat of the fugitive slave, and its nearness to Harper's Ferry, and its sacred temples of solitude where only the hunter or the chopper wandered, made it the most inviting refuge for the fleeing insurrec tionist. Cook was known as a man of desperate courage, 340 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. as a rare expert in the use of pistol and rifle, as a reckless desperado in the anti-slavery crusade; and his capture alive was not expected. He had braved assassination in Kansas, and all believed that he would resist to the death any attempt to capture him for Virginia vengeance on the gallows. He had been concealed in the mountain- recesses for some days with his companions, who subse quently escaped through Chambersburg to the North, when he decided to seek out some woodman's home and obtain provisions. They were afraid to shoot game, lest the reports of their guns might indicate their retreat and lead to their capture. Cook was of a nervous, restless, reckless disposition, and he started out alone, going he knew not whither, to obtain food. He reasoned plausi bly that he could not be captured by any one or two men, as he was well armed and thoroughly skilled in the use of his weapons. He took no thought of arrest, as, had a score of armed men confronted him, he would have sold his life as dearly as possible and died in the battle for his liberty. He understood that he might die any day or hour, but to be made a prisoner and be ren dered up to Virginia justice to die on the gibbet was the one doom that he meant to escape. He felt safe, there fore, in his venture out in the pathless mountains to claim the hospitality of some humble home in the wil derness. And his judgment would have been justified had he not walked into the hands of the only man in Franklin County who combined with the courage and the skill the purpose to capture him. Among the sturdy population of the mountaineers on the southern Pennsylvania border was a family of Logans. There were two brothers, both shrewd, quiet, resolute men, both strongly Southern in their sympathies, both natural detectives, and both trained in the summary rendition of fugitive slaves without process of law. It AN EPISODE OF JOHN BROWN'S RAID. 341 was common for slaves to escape from Maryland and Virginia into the South Mountain, whose broken spurs and extended wings of dense forest gave them reasonably safe retreat. Their escape would be followed by hand bills describing the fugitives and offering rewards for their capture and return. These offers of rewards always found their way into the hands of Daniel and Hugh Logan, and many fleeing sons of bondage were arrested by them and quietly returned to their masters. Hugh followed his natural bent and went South as soon as the war began. He at once enlisted in the Confederate ser vice, rose to the rank of captain, and was the guide in General Stuart's raid to Chambersburg in October, 1862. He then saved me from identification and capture, al though my arrest was specially ordered, with that of a dozen others, in retaliation of Pope's arrest of Virginia citizens; and I was glad at a later period of the war to save him from summary execution as a supposed bush whacker by General Kelley. Whatever may be said or thought of his convictions and actions, he sealed them with his life, as he fell mortally wounded in one of the last skirmishes of the war. His brother Daniel was less impulsive, and he did not believe that either slavery or freedom was worth dying for. He was then just in the early vigor of manhood and a man of rare qualities. He possessed the highest measure of courage, but never sought and seldom shared in a quarrel. He was a com plete picture of physical strength, compactly and sym metrically formed, and with a face whose clear-cut fea tures unmistakably indicated his positive qualities. He was a born detective. Silent, cunning, tireless, and reso lute, he ever exhausted strategy in his many campaigns against fugitives, and he seldom failed. Had he been city-born, with opportunities for culture in the pro fession, Logan would have made one of the best chiefs 342 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. of a detective bureau to be found in the country. But, mountain-born, unschooled save by himself, and trained only in the rude contests with fugitive slaves and an occasional criminal in the border wilderness, he finally wearied of his trade, and his arrest of Captain Cook was his last exploit in the detective line. He subsequently removed to Lancaster, where a very quiet, well-to-do, well behaved, and respected dealer in horses answers to the name of Daniel Logan. In a mountain-ravine near Mont Alto Furnace, Cleg- gett Fitzhugh, manager of the works, and a man of Southern birth and strong Southern sympathies, was overseeing a number of men at work, and Daniel Logan had happened to come that way and was engaged in casual conversation with him. The ravine is so hidden by the surrounding forest that one unacquainted with the locality would not know of its existence until he entered it. Captain Cook, in his wanderings in search of food, was surprised to find himself suddenly emerge from the mountain-thicket into an open space and within less than fifty yards of a number of workmen. He was clad and armed as a hunter, and he at once decided to evade suspicion by boldly meeting the men he could not hope to escape by flight. The moment he appeared the keen eye of Logan scanned him, and, without betraying his discovery in any way, he quietly said to Fitzlnigh, "That's Captain Cook; we must arrest him; the reward is one thousand dollars." Fitzhugh heartily sympathized with Logan alike in hatred of the John Brown raiders and in desire for the reward, and he knew enough about Logan to say nothing and obey. Cook advanced in a careless manner to Logan and Fitzhugh, and told them that he was hunting on the mountains and wanted to re plenish his stock of bread and bacon. Logan at once disarmed suspicion on the part of Cook by his well- AN EPISODE OF JOHN tiROWWS RAW. 343 affected hospitality, as he proposed to go at once with Cook to Logan's store which had no existence, by the way and supply the hunter's wants. Cook was so com pletely thrown off guard by the kind professions of Lo gan and Fitzhugh that he fell in between them without noticing how he was being flanked. His gun rested carelessly on his shoulder, and the hand that could grasp his pistol and fire with unerring aim in the twinkling of an eye was loosely swinging by his side. None but a Daniel Logan could have thus deceived John K. Cook, who had studied men of every grade in many perils; but there was not the trace of excitement or the faintest be trayal of his desperate purpose on the face of Logan. Thus completely disarmed by strategy, the little blue- eyed blonde, the most sympathetic and the fiercest of all John Brown's lieutenants, was instantly made powerless, as two rugged mountaineers, at a signal from Logan, grasped his arms and held him as in a vice. Cook was bewildered for a moment, and when the truth flashed upon him he struggled desperately; but it was one small, starved man against two strong mountaineers, and he soon discovered that resistance was vain. u Why do you arrest me?" was his inquiry, when he perceived that violence was useless. "Because you are Captain Cook," was the cool reply of Logan. Cook neither affirmed nor denied the impeachment, and the speedy search of his person settled the question, as his captain's commission in John Brown's army was found in an inner pocket. Cook was taken to Fitz hugh' s house and stripped of his weapons, consisting of gun, revolver, and knife. He was allowed to eat a hasty meal, and was then placed, unbound, in an open buggy with Logan, to be taken to Chambersburg. He was informed that if he attempted to escape he would be 344 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. shot; and it did not need an extended acquaintance with his captor to assure him that what he threatened he would certainly perform. He then gave up all hope of escape by either fight or flight. As they were journey ing along the eighteen miles Cook found that his captor was less bloodthirsty than mercenary; and the following conversation, subsequently repeated to me by both par ties, passed substantially between them: ' ' You will get a reward of one thousand dollars for me, you say?" queried Cook. "Yes, a thousand dollars," answered the sententious Logan. "They will hang me in Virginia, won't they?" was Cook's next inquiry. ' ' Yes, they will hang you, ' ' was the chilling answer. "Do you want to have me hung?" was Cook's first venture upon the humane side of his captor. ' ' No, ' ' was the prompt but unimpassioned answer of Logan. "Then you want only the reward?" was Cook's half- hopeful appeal to Logan. " Yes; that's all," was Logan's reply. Cook's naturally bright face beamed at once with hope as he enthusiastically entered into various plans for the payment of the sum that would ransom his life. He told Logan how a thousand dollars, or five times that sum, would not be a matter of a moment's consideration to his brother-in-law, Governor Willard of Indiana, or his other brother-in-law, a man of large fortune residing in Brooklyn ; but Logan distrusted this story of high digni taries and large fortunes, and no practical way seemed open to make Cook's credit good enough to assure his discharge. Finally, he inquired of Logan whether there was no one in Chambersburg who would be likely to take an interest in him, and who could act as his counsel and AN EPISODE OF JOHN BROWN'S RAID. 345 assure Logan of the payment of the reward. Logan named me as a Republican Senator just elected, who might agree to act as his counsel. He proposed to take Cook to my office without revealing his identity to any others, and if I assured him of the payment of the re ward he would walk away and leave Cook with me. With this truce between captor and captive they arrived in Chambersburg a little before sunset, put up at a hotel, and Logan sent for me. I had walked out to the south ern suburbs of the town that evening after tea to look at some lots, and on my way back had stopped with a circle of men gathered about a small outskirt store. We had just closed one of the most desperate local contests of the State, and only those who know the sunny side of village politics can appreciate how an evening hour or more could thus be pleasantly spent. It was an out-of- the-way place, and among the last that would be thought of in deciding to look for me. Meantime, Logan had me searched for in every place where I was accustomed to stroll in the evening, until, as it grew late, his evident concern attracted attention, and he feared the discovery or suspicion of the identity of his prisoner. When dark ness began to gather and all efforts to find me had been unsuccessful, he sent for an officer and started with his prisoner for the office of Justice Reisher, to deliver Cook to the custody of the law. The office of the justice was on the main street, about midway between the hotel and the suburban store where I had tarried, and as I walked leisurely homeward I noticed a crowd about the door of the little temple of justice. As I came up to the door Logan first noticed me from the inside, and hurried out to meet me, exclaiming in a whisper, with a betrayal of excitement that I had never before seen in him, "My God, Colonel McClure! where have you been? I have been hunting you for more than an hour. That's Cap- 346 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR. TIMES. tain Cook, and I had agreed to bring him to you. Can't you get him yet?" I was greatly surprised, of course, and equally per plexed at the grave results likely to follow. I quietly pressed my way into the office until the justice noticed me, and he at once addressed Cook, saying, "Here's your counsel now." Cook beckoned me to his side in the corner, and said, in a tone of visible despair, ' ' I had expected to meet you at your office and escape this misfortune. ' ' He added, " I am Cook: there's no use in denying it. What's to be done?" I turned to the justice, and said, "There is no dispute as to the identity of the prisoner: a hearing is needless. Let him be committed to await the demand for his ren dition." The justice would have been quite content had Cook been able to bounce through a window and escape, but that was not possible, and Cook was committed to prison. I/ogan repented of his work when he saw that he had sur rendered a life for a price, and his last direction to me as we passed out of the office was, " Get Cook away, reward or no reward. ' ' Cook was conducted to the old jail, accompanied by the officer and myself; and I shall never forget the trem ulous voice in which the sheriff inquired of me what pre cautions he should take to secure the prisoner. I was in the doubly unpleasant position of being counsel for a prisoner whose life depended upon his escape from prison, and also counsel for the sheriff, who was more than ready to obey any instructions I might give him to facilitate Cook's escape without legal responsibility for the act. The sheriff was one of a class of simple countrymen who are as rugged in their political convictions and prejudices as in their physical organization, He ill concealed his AN EPISODE OF JOHN BROWN'S RA,D. 347 willingness to let Cook get away if it could be done with out official responsibility for the escape; and this he was more than willing to leave me to decide. I told him to take Cook and myself to a cell, leave us together, and admit no others. When the lawless little captive had got comfortably seated in his cell, I had my first oppor tunity to note his appearance and qualities. His long, silken, blonde hair curled carelessly about his neck; his deep-blue eyes were gentle in expression as a woman's; and his slightly bronzed complexion did not conceal the soft, effeminate skin that would have well befitted the gentler sex. He was small in stature, barely five feet five, and his active life on the Western theatre of war had left him without superfluous flesh. He was nervous and impatient; he spoke in quick, impulsive sentences, but with little directness, save in repeating that he must escape from prison. I reminded him that he could not walk out of jail, and that his escape that night, under any circumstances, would be specially dangerous to him self and dangerous to the sheriff. My presence with him in the jail until a late hour and my professional relations as counsel of the sheriff forbade any needless haste. We carefully considered every possible method of getting a requisition for him from Richmond; and, assuming that Cook's arrest was telegraphed to Richmond that evening, a requisition by mail or special messenger could not pos sibly reach Chambersburg the next day or night. It was decided, therefore, that he should not attempt to escape that night, but that the next night he should have the necessary instructions and facilities to regain his liberty. How or by whom he was to be aided need not be told. The two men who took upon themselves the work of ascertaining just where and by what means Cook could best break out of the old jail were never known or sus- 348 LINCOLN AND MEN OF U'AR-TIMF.S. pected as actively aiding the prisoner. One is now dead and the other is largely interested in Southern enter prises. They did their part well, and, had Cook re mained in Chambersburg over the next day, he would have been following the North Star before the midnight hour. I had spent half an hour with Cook when he first en tered the prison, and then left him for an hour to confer with my law-partner about the possibility of a legal con test to delay or defeat the requisition in case it should be necessary. I returned to the jail about ten o'clock, and had my last interview with Cook. As he never dreamed of a requisition reaching him before the second day, and as he was entirely confident of his escape the following night, he threw off the cloud of despair that shadowed him in the early part of the evening, and startled me with the eloquence and elegance of his conversation. His familiar discussion of poetry, painting, and every thing pertaining to the beautiful would have made any one forget that he was in a chilly prison-cell, and im- gine that he was in the library of some romantic lover of literature and the fine arts. I became strangely in terested in the culture that was blended with the mad desperation of the Virginia insurgent. He was evidently a man of much more than common intellectual qualities and thoroughly poetic in taste and temperament, with a jarring mixture of wild, romantic love of the heroic. He told me of his hairbreadth escapes in Kansas, of the price set upon his head; and his whole soul seemed to be absorbed in avenging the Kansas slavery crusades by revolutionary emancipation in the Slave States. When I asked him whether he would not abandon his lawless and hopeless scheme when he escaped, his large, soft eyes flashed with the fire of defiance as he answered, with an emphasis that unstrung every nerve in his body: " No! AN EPISODE OF JOHN BROWN'S RAID. 349 the battle must be fought to the bitter end; and we must triumph, or God is not just." It was vain to argue with him the utter madness of attempting such a revolution, and its absolute lawless ness: he rejected all law and logic and believed in his cause. And more: he fully, fanatically, believed in its justice: he believed in it as a duty as the rule of patriot ism that had the sanction of a higher law than that of man. In short, John B. Cook was a wild fanatic on the slavery question, and he regarded any and every means to precipitate emancipation as justified by the end. He did not want to kill or to desolate homes with worse than death by the brutal fury of slave insurrection; but if such appalling evils attended the struggle for the sudden and absolute overthrow of slavery, he was ready to accept the responsibility and believe that he was simply performing his duty. I do not thus present Cook in apology for his crime; I present him as he was a sincere fanatic, with mingled humanity and atrocity strangely unbalancing each other, and his mad purposes intensified by the bar barities which crimsoned the early history of Kansas. After half an hour thus spent almost wholly as a lis tener to the always brilliant and often erratic conversa tion of the prisoner, I rose to leave him. He bade me good-night with hope beaming in every feature of his attractive face. I engaged to call again the next after noon, and left him to meet nevermore. He could have made his escape in thirty minutes that night, but it would have compromised both the sheriff and myself, and the second opportunity for his flight was lost. I reached my home before eleven o'clock, and was sur prised to find Mrs. McClure and her devoted companion, Miss Virginia Reilly, awaiting me in the library, dressed to face the storm that had begun to rage without. They stated that they were about to proceed to the jail, ask to 350 LINCOLN AND, MEN OF WAR-TIMES. see Cook which they knew would not be refused them by the sheriff dress him in the extra female apparel they had in a bundle, and one of them walk out with him while the other remained in the cell. It was en tirely practicable, and it required more than mere prot estation on my part to prevent it. Even when assured that Cook would certainly escape the following night without embarrassment to the sheriff or any one else, the woman's intuition rejected the reason it could not answer, and only when it was peremptorily forbidden as foolish and needless did they reluctantly consent to abandon the last chance Cook could then have to escape. They were both strongly anti-slavery by conviction, and their lives were lustrous in the offices of kindness. Miss Reilly, better known in Philadelphia as the late Accomplished wife of Rev. Thomas X. Orr, was the daughter of a Democratic member of Congress, and wag positive in her party faith in all save slavery; and both women were of heroic mould. They many times reproached them selves for not acting upon their woman's intuition with out waiting to reason with man on the subject. Had they done so, Cook would have been out of prison, fleetly mounted, and the morning sun would have greeted him in the northern mountains. Their mission \led because forbidden when the escape of the prisoner by other means seemed as certain as anything could be in th$ future, and the ill-fated Cook lost his third chance for lij/.erty. Both his fair would-be rescuers sleep the dream] ^ cc sleep of the dead, and the winds of the same autun ng their requiem and strewed their fresh graves w Nature's withered emblems of death. About noon on the following day the " riff rushed into my office, wild with excitement a"U.l his eyes dimmed by tears, and exclaimed, "Cook's t? .en away!" A thunderbolt from a cloudless sky couj ( not have AN EPISODE OF JOHN BROWN'S RAID. 351 startled me more, but the painful distress of the sheriff left no doubt in my mind that he had stated the truth. He soon calmed down sufficiently to tell me how a req uisition for Cook had been lying in Carlisle, only thirty miles distant by railroad, where it had been brought some days before when Hazlitt had been arrested and was believed to be Cook. The error had been corrected when the identity of Hazlitt had been discovered, and another requisition forwarded, on which he had been returned to Virginia; but the Cook requisition remained with the sheriff of Cumberland. When Cook's arrest was announced the requisition was brought on to Cham- bersburg in the morning train, and the officer, fearing delay by the sheriff sending for his counsel, called on the president udge, who happened to be in the town, and demanded his approval of the regularity of his papers and his cc umand for the prompt rendition of the pris oner. T: e judge repaired to the prison with the officer, and perfc med his plain duty under the law by declaring the office entitled to the custody of Cook. The noon train borj the strangely ill-fated prisoner on his way to Virginia and to death. No man in like peril ever seemed t have had so many entirely practicable oppor tunities .. ,r escape; but all failed, even with the exercise of what would be judged as the soundest discretion for his safet; . His n ,urn to the Charlestown jail, his memorable trial, V ' inevitable conviction, his only cowardly act of subn j to recapture when he had broken out of his cell a hours before his execution, and his final exe cution _h his captive comrades, are familiar to all. His tri? attracted more attention than that of any of the otht ., because of the prominent men enlisted in his cause ai ' of the special interest felt in him by the com munity i and about Harper's Ferry. He had taught 352 LINCOLN AND MEN OF WAR-TIMES. school there some years before, had married there, and his return as one of John Brown's raiders to kindle tne flame of slave insurrection intensified the bitterness of the people against him. From the 28th day of October, 1859, when he was lodged in the Charlestown jail, until the last act of the tragedy, when he was executed, Cook attracted the larger share of public interest in Harper's Ferry, much as Brown outstripped him in national or worldwide fame. Governor Willard, the Democratic executive of Indiana, appeared in person on the scene, and made exhaustive efforts to save his wayward but be loved brother-in-law. Daniel W. Voorhees, now United States Senator from Indiana, was then United States Dis trict Attorney of his State, and his devotion to his party chief made him excel every previous or later effort of his life in pleading the utterly hopeless cause of the brilliant little Virginia insurgent It was a grand legal and for ensic battle, but there was not an atom of law to aid the defense, and public sentiment was vehement for the atonement. Viewed in the clearer light and calmer judgment of the experience of more than thirty years, it would have been wiser and better had Virginia treated John Brown and his corporal's guard of madmen as hopeless lunatics by imprisonment for life, as was strongly advised by con fidential counsels from some prominent men of the land whose judgment was entitled to respect; but Governor Wise, always a lover of the theatrical, made a dress- parade burlesque of justice, and on the i6th day of De cember, 1859, amidst the pomp and show of the concen trated power of the Mother of Presidents, John E. Cook paid the penalty of his crime on the gallows. No demand was ever made for the rendition of Cook's companions who had escaped from Harper's Ferry into the South Mountain with him. Some of them lived in Northern AN EPISODE OF JOHN BROWN'S RAID. 353 Pennsylvania without concealment, but no one thought of arresting them. A few months thereafter the long- threatening clouds of fraternal war broke in fury upon the country; the song of John Brown inspired great armies as they swept through the terrible flame of battle from the Father of Waters to the Southern Sea, and the inspiration that made lawless madmen of Brown and Cook at Harper's Ferry crowned the Republic with uni versal freedom at Appomattox. OUR UNREWARDED HEROES. OUR UNREWARDED HEROES. A