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 COPYRIGHT 1391. BY M. P. KICE 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1864
 
 a>tu&i? to Character 
 
 BY 
 
 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 
 n 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 Cljc 
 
 41605
 
 MORRISON,^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 iurrsibr rr 
 
 CAMUKIIX.E . MASSACHUSETTS 
 1'KINTEU IN TUB U.S.A.
 
 TO THE MEMORY OP 
 
 MY FATHER 
 
 JOHN ROTHSCHILD 
 
 ONE OF THE PLAIN PEOPLE 
 
 WHO BELIEVED IN LINCOLN 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 430119
 
 PUBLISHEKS' NOTE 
 
 THE steadily increasing demand for a popular-priced 
 edition of Alonzo Rothschild's LINCOLN, MASTER 
 OF MEN has led the publishers to issue it in this new 
 and condensed format. The elaborate, scholarly appar- 
 atus of bibliography, copious supplementary notes, and in- 
 dex which occupied a considerable amount of space in the 
 original issue has been omitted. In all other respects, how- 
 ever, the text of this edition is complete and unabridged.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 1 
 
 II. LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 34 
 
 III. GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 79 
 
 IV. THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE .... 121 
 V. AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 157 
 
 VI. THE CURBING OF STANTON 223 
 
 VII. How THE PATHFINDER LOST THE TRAIL . . 289 
 
 VIII. THE YOUNG NAPOLEON . 327
 
 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWpOT'i- 
 
 THE spirit of mastery moved Abraham IV'ricola t 
 an early age how early, history and tradition are' not' 
 agreed. Scantily supported stories of boyish control over 
 his schoolmates, supplemented by more fully authenti- 
 cated narratives of his youthful prowess, leave no doubt, 
 however, that his power came to him before the period 
 at which some of his biographers are pleased to take up 
 the detailed account of his life. Trivial as the records of 
 these callow triumphs may seem, they are essential to an 
 understanding of the successive steps by which this man 
 mounted from obscurity to the government of a great 
 people. 
 
 If, as has been asserted by an eminent educator, the 
 experiences and instructions of the first seven years of a 
 person's life do more to mold and determine his charac- 
 ter than all subsequent training, the history of Lincoln's 
 development, like that of most great men, lacks an im- 
 portant chapter ; for the scraps about this period of his 
 childhood that have been preserved yield but a meagre 
 story. A ne'er-do-well father, destined to drift from one 
 badly tilled patch of land to another, a gentle mother, 
 who is said to have known refinements foreign to the 
 cheerless Kentucky cabin, 1 a sparsely settled community 
 of " poor whites," two brief snatches of A B C schooling 
 under itinerant masters, stinted living, a few chores, still 
 fewer pastimes, and all is said. Not quite all, for tho
 
 a LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 playmates of that childhood have, in their old age, recalled 
 a few incidents that are not without interest. 
 
 One of these anecdotes belongs here. It reveals "a 
 mere spindle of a boy," as one old gentleman 2 describes 
 the little Abraham, giving a good account of himself in 
 possibly his first impact with opposing strength. The lads 
 of the neighborhood, so runs the story, were sent after 
 school hours to the mill with corn to be ground. While 
 awaiting their turn, they passed the time, as at the noon 
 
 : recesses, AV.itlr'.roiies and fights. In these Lincoln did 
 
 ; ntft partlcipaie. ' ... 
 
 . ' V Re '.was," says .Major Alexander Sympson, who tells 
 
 'the" tale, ft lhe shyest, most reticent, most uncouth and 
 awkward-appearing, homeliest and worse dressed of any in 
 the entire crowd." So superlatively wretched a butt could 
 not hope to look on long unmolested. He was attacked 
 one day, as he stood near a tree, by a larger boy with 
 others at his back. " But," said the major, " the very 
 acme of astonishment was experienced by the eagerly 
 expectant crowd. For Lincoln soundly thrashed the first, 
 second, and third boy, in succession ; and then, placed his 
 back against the tree, defied the whole crowd, and taunted 
 them with cowardice." We may fancy this juvenile Fitz- 
 James shouting : 
 
 " Come one, come all ! this tree shall fly 
 From its firm base as soon as I." 
 
 Yet who shall say whether in the other little boys' dis- 
 colored eyes 
 
 " Respect was mingled with surprise, 
 And the stern joy which warriors feel 
 In foemen worthy of their steel " ? 
 
 The veracious historian has nothing to offer under this 
 head ; but he assures us, which is perhaps more to the 
 point, that the hero of the scene " was disturbed no more, 
 then or thereafter." 3 
 
 Abraham was in his eighth year when the Lincoln 
 family migrated from its rude surroundings on Knob
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 3 
 
 Creek to a still ruder frontier settlement in southern 
 Indiana. 4 Here the boy grew to manhood under the crass 
 conditions at that time peculiar to the New West. Fron- 
 tier life with its toil, its hardships, and its ever recur- 
 ring physical problems furnished, no doubt, certain of the 
 elements which were some day to be combined in his 
 much-extolled strength of character. What is not so 
 easily accounted for, is the eagerness of easy-going Tom 
 Lincoln's son to lead his fellows, in school and out, on 
 that uninspiring dead level called Pigeon Creek. The 
 settlers were, in the main, coarse-grained and illiterate ; 
 for education was an exotic that, naturally enough, did 
 not thrive in the lower fringe of the Indiana wilderness. 
 "There were some schools so called," wrote Mr. Lincoln 
 many years later, " but no qualification was ever required 
 of a teacher beyond ' readin', writin', and cipherin' ' to the 
 Rule of Three. If a straggler, supposed to understand 
 Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was 
 looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing 
 to excite ambition for education." 5 Nothing, indeed, un- 
 less we accept Mr. Emerson's theory of life as a search 
 after power, an element with which the world is so satu- 
 rated to the remotest chink or crevice, that no honest seek- 
 ing for it goes unrewarded. How honestly Abraham 
 at this time pursued the search, and with what success, 
 may be learned from the early companions upon whom 
 his strenuous efforts to learn " by littles," as he himself 
 once quaintly expressed it, 8 left a lasting impression. 
 They supply glimpses of him snatching a few minutes for 
 reading while the plow-horses rested at the end of a row, 
 trying his hand at odd hours on the composition of 
 " pieces " like those in the newspapers, poring at night 
 over his books in the uncertain light of the logs, and cov- 
 ering the blade of the wooden fire-shovel, in lieu of a 
 slate, with examples, which were laboriously scraped off 
 by means of a drawing-knife after they had been trans- 
 ferred to his carefully economized exercise-book. 7
 
 4 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Such industry could not, even in a backwoods " chink or 
 crevice," fail of its reward. The twelve months of spo- 
 radic schooling 8 that stretched between Abraham's sev- 
 enth and seventeenth years yielded many small triumphs. 
 " He was always at the head of his class," writes Nathaniel 
 Grigsby, "and passed us rapidly in his studies." 1 As 
 spelling was the most popular branch, he made himself 
 so proficient in it as to become the acknowledged leader 
 of the school. In fact, the whole country is said to have 
 gone down before him in spelling-matches, the side upon 
 which he happened to stand holding a guaranty of victory. 
 Hence he was not infrequently, like the old medal winners 
 at the art exhibitions, ruled out of the contest. Becoming 
 by dint of practice, moreover, the best penman in the 
 place, he was often called upon to write the letters of his 
 untutored neighbors ; and his younger schoolfellows, in 
 their admiration of his penmanship, also paid tribute 
 to his skill by asking him to set them copies. 10 One man 
 recalled, many years later, this text, which, among others, 
 Lincoln had written for him : 
 
 " Good boys who to their hooks apply 
 Will all be great men by and by." 
 
 The writer of the couplet, it may be added, applied him- 
 self so eagerly to his own books, and to those that he 
 managed to borrow, as to increase betimes his modicum of 
 importance. 11 "He was the learned boy among us un- 
 learned folks," says a lady whose girlish ignorance he, on 
 more than one occasion, sought to enlighten. 12 Nor was 
 she the only schoolmate upon whom he impressed this supe- 
 riority. " Abe beat all his masters," says another, " and it 
 was no use for him to try to learn any more from them." 1S 
 While still another testifies : " When he appeared in com- 
 pany, the boys would gather and cluster around him to 
 hear him talk. . . . Mr. Lincoln was figurative in his 
 speeches, talks, and conversations. He argued much from 
 analogy, and explained things hard for us to understand, 
 by stories, maxims, tales, and figures. He would almost
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 5 
 
 always point his lesson or idea by some story that was 
 plain and near to us, that we might instantly see the 
 force and bearing of what he said." M Keference is here 
 made, no doubt, to some of the accomplishments that 
 Abraham owed to no school ; but which he employed, 
 none the less, in these youthful attempts at scholastic 
 leadership. 
 
 The taste for stump speeches that prevailed in the 
 Pigeon Creek region, as in other western communities, 
 offered an early incentive to Lincoln's ambition. As a boy, 
 he gathered his playmates about him and repeated with 
 droll mimicry what he could remember of some sermon that 
 he had recently heard ; or improvised his own discourse, if 
 some transgression on the part of one of his auditors hap., 
 pened to suggest a subject. The topics to which he devoted 
 his eloquence, as he grew older, were naturally based upon 
 the political controversies of the day. So clever did he be- 
 come at these " speeches " that he lost no opportunity for 
 winning applause with them when an appreciative audience 
 was at hand. Then, not even the ordinary considerations 
 of time and place restrained his enthusiasm. "When it 
 was announced that Abe had taken the stump in the har- 
 vest-field, there was an end of work," records Mr. Lamon. 
 " The hands flocked around him, and listened to his curi- 
 ous speeches with infinite delight. ' The sight of such a 
 thing amused us all,' says Mrs. Lincoln, though she admits 
 that her husband was compelled to break it up with the 
 strong hand ; and poor Abe was many times dragged from 
 the platform, and hustled off to his work in no gentle man- 
 ner." 15 But after working-hours, he met with no such 
 check in the nearby village store at Gentryville, where 
 he entertained the admiring loungers until midnight 
 with arguments, stories, jokes, and coarse rhymes. 18 The 
 qualities, moreover, that made him the oracle of the gro- 
 cery won for him undisputed preeminence at the prim- 
 itive social gatherings of the neighborhood. His arrival 
 was the signal for the festivities to begin, and his lead, as
 
 6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 the chronicles indicate, was maintained with a sure hand, 
 to the end. 
 
 It is not to be assumed that Abraham was generally 
 considered a prodigy by the people among whom he grew 
 to manhood, or that he himself was at all times conscious 
 of his steady trend toward leadership in these small affairs 
 of his daily life. The few incidents strung together here 
 have a significance to the student of history that they 
 could not have had for the rude settlers who saw them in 
 unrelated parts, and unilluinined by the search-light which 
 the halo of the great man's later career casts back over his 
 humble beginnings. Yet there can be no doubt that the 
 superiority of " the learned boy " was recognized by many 
 of his associates. His second-mother for why apply to 
 this sterling woman a title that would ill describe her ? 
 had a confidence in his powers which she influenced her 
 husband, not without difficulty, to share. 17 Thomas Lin- 
 coln, like some of his relatives and neighbors, was inclined 
 to regard as lazy this son who preferred a book to a spade. 
 And speaking of Abraham many years later, cousin Dennis 
 Hanks, one of the companions of his boyhood, said : 
 
 " Lincoln was lazy, a very lazy man. He was always 
 reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing poetry and 
 the like." 18 
 
 To which neighbor John Romine, whose recollections 
 had also somehow escaped becoming steeped in the in- 
 cense of hero-worship, adds : 
 
 " He worked for me, but was always reading and think- 
 ing. I used to get mad at him for it. I say he was awfully 
 lazy. He would laugh and talk crack his jokes and tell 
 stories all the time ; did n't love work half as much as his 
 pay. He said to me one day that his father taught him 
 to work, but he never taught him to love it." 19 
 
 None of these persons understood the boy, but it is not 
 at all clear that the boy understood himself. With Abra- 
 ham's desires to excel his schoolfellows were mingled vague 
 dreams of larger competitions, that carried him, in fancy,
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 7 
 
 far beyond the narrow horizon of his chinks and crevices, 
 into the broad world beyond. There, like his favorite hero, 
 Parson Weems's impossible Washington, he hoped to 
 achieve greatness. 20 Indeed, when Mrs. Josiah Crawford, 
 who took a motherly interest in the lad, reproved him for 
 teasing the girls in her kitchen, and asked him what he 
 supposed would become of him, he promptly answered, 
 " I '11 be President." This prediction, so common in the 
 mouths of American boys, whose eyes are fixed early upon 
 the first place in the nation, is said to have been repeated 
 by him, from time to time, whether seriously, some of his 
 biographers are inclined to doubt. 21 There can be no 
 question, however, as to the more important fact this 
 particular boy had taken his first halting steps up the steep 
 which leads to that eminence. 
 
 The mental superiority which gave Lincoln a certain 
 distinction in the eyes of some of the settlers among 
 whom he spent his youth would have been regarded, 
 even by them, with scant respect, had it not been ac- 
 companied by what appealed to the admiration of all 
 his neighbors alike physical preeminence. Strength of 
 body was rated high by these frontiersmen, whose very 
 existence depended upon the iron in their frames. Over- 
 coming, with rugged self-reliance, the obstacles which 
 uncompromising nature opposed to them on every side, 
 they had hewn their homes out of the wilderness by sheer 
 force of muscle. Somewhat of that same vigor was re- 
 quired, after the clearings had been made and the rude 
 shelters had been thrown up, to win day by day a sem- 
 blance of human comfort. What wonder that these men 
 were concerned with facts, not theories ; with the harden- 
 ing of the sinews, not the cultivation of the brain ! No 
 mere bookman, however witty or wise, could long have 
 held their esteem. Their standard of excellence, though 
 rough, had the merit of being simple so simple that the 
 very children might grasp its full meaning. One of them 
 certainly did. For Abraham's singular ambition to know
 
 8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 was not allowed to diminish his part in the more com- 
 inon ambition to do. On the contrary, the two aspirations 
 appear to have kept pace so evenly in him as to ree'n- 
 force each other. What of ascendancy his alert mind 
 alone failed to gain was easily established when the intel- 
 lect called into play his powerful physique. 
 
 The sturdy constitution that Lincoln inherited from five 
 generations of pioneers was hardened by the toil and 
 exposure to which, even more than most backwoods boys, 
 he was subjected from early childhood. 22 " Abraham, 
 though very young, was large of his age, and had an ax 
 put into his hands at once," wrote he, referring, in that 
 all too brief autobiography, to the time of the settlement 
 near Little Pigeon Creek, " and from that till within his 
 twenty-third year he was almost constantly handling that 
 most useful instrument less, of course, in plowing and 
 harvesting seasons." 23 The fifteen years of labor thus 
 summarily disposed of constituted, for the most part, the 
 physical discipline of Lincoln's life. How severe this was 
 may be inferred from the mere mention of what was re- 
 quired of him. As he became strong enough, he cleared 
 openings in the forest, cut timber, split rails, chopped 
 wood, guided the cumbrous shovel-plow, hoed corn, and 
 pulled fodder. When the grain was ripe, he harvested it 
 with a sickle, threshed it witli a flail, cleaned it with a 
 sheet, and took it to the mill, where it was laboriously 
 ground into unbolted flour with equally primitive con- 
 trivances. Together with these tasks of seed-time and 
 harvest, he fetched and carried, carpentered and tinkered, 
 in short, earned his supper of corn-dodgers and his 
 shake-down of leaves in the loft, many times over. Never- 
 theless, when the home work was done, Thomas Lincoln, 
 who, whatever may have been his faults, cannot justly 
 be accused of erring on the side of indulgence, hired him 
 out as a day laborer among the neighbors. 24 They, of 
 course, did not spare the boy any more than did his father. 
 No chore was deemed too mean, no job too great, for this
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 9 
 
 good-natured young fellow. So that, all in all, heavy 
 drafts must have been made upon him. 25 He met them 
 despite his dislike for manual labor on demand, checking 
 out freely of his strength, while unconsciously acquiring, 
 by way of exchange, more than the equivalent in virile 
 self-reliance ; and the perfect command over his resources, 
 in any emergency, that later became characteristic of him, 
 should in large measure be credited to this pioneer ac- 
 counting. In fact, of Lincoln may be said what Fuller 
 quaintly said of Drake, the " pains and patience in his 
 youth knit the joints of his soul." 
 
 For the more palpable returns in kind from his outlay 
 of brawn, Abraham did not have to wait long. As early 
 as his eleventh year began the remarkable development 
 in physique which culminated before he had reached his 
 seventeenth birthday. At that time, having attained his 
 full height, within a fraction of six feet and four 
 inches, he was, according to accepted descriptions of 
 him, lean, large-boned, and muscular, thin through the 
 chest, narrow across the slightly stooping shoulders, long 
 of limb, large of hand and foot, sure of reach, and powerful 
 of grip, the very type of the North Mississippi valley 
 pioneer at his best. 20 The strength of the young giant, as 
 well as his skill in applying it, easily won for him the 
 lead among the vigorous men of this class on Pigeon 
 Creek. They have handed down tales of his achievements 
 that call to mind the legends with which have been 
 adorned the histories of Samson and of Milo. Like these 
 heroes, Lincoln is said to have performed prodigies of 
 muscle; and still further like them, despite the skepti- 
 cism aroused, naturally enough, by extraordinary details, 
 he may be looked upon as having been endowed with the 
 attributes upon which the stories essentially rest. Whether 
 or not he performed this or that particular feat exactly 
 as it is described, he did, beyond question, impress him- 
 self upon the settlers as " the longest and strongest " of 
 them all.
 
 io LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Lincoln's employment throughout the neighborhood as 
 a hired man afforded him abundant opportunity for the 
 display of his powers. A certain good-humored sense of 
 duty, no less than a never flagging ambition to excel, 
 stimulated him to make " a clean sweep," as he once 
 phrased it, of whatever he did. These jobs, it should be 
 remembered, were not entirely to his taste, and he " was 
 no hand," says one old lady, " to pitch into his work like 
 killing snakes"; 27 yet, when he did take hold and his 
 services were always in request he was bound to out- 
 work his employers. One of them, who became his fast 
 friend, asserted : 
 
 " He could strike with a maul a heavier blow could 
 sink an ax deeper into wood than any man I ever saw." M 
 
 And cousin Dennis, a not too consistent Boswell, forgot, 
 in a moment of enthusiasm, his published opinion that 
 Abraham was "lazy, very lazy," long enough to exclaim: 
 
 " My, how he would chop ! His ax would flash and bite 
 into a sugar-tree or sycamore, and down it would come. 
 If you heard him fellin' trees in a clearin', you would say 
 there were three men at work by the way the xrees fell." n 
 
 A stripling who handled, in that fashion, the back- 
 woodsmen's favorite implement could not fail to command 
 their respect ; but it was when Lincoln threw the ax 
 aside and put forth his strength unhampered, that he com- 
 pelled the homage so grateful to his pride. " Some of his 
 feats " - Mr. Lamon is our authority " almost surpass 
 belief. . . . Richardson, a neighbor, declares that he could 
 carry a load to which the strength of ' three ordinary men ' 
 would scarcely be equal. He saw him quietly pick up and 
 walk away with * a chicken-house, made of poles pinned 
 together and covered, that weighed at least six hundred, 
 if not much more.' At another time the Richardsons were 
 building a corn-crib. Abe was there, and, seeing three or 
 four men preparing sticks ' upon which to carry some 
 huge posts, he relieved them of all further trouble by 
 shouldering the posts, single-handed, and walking away
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS n 
 
 with them to the place where they were wanted." m The 
 Richardson chicken-house and the posts of the corn-crib 
 should obviously go down in story, side by side with those 
 doors and posts of Gaza that were carried, with similar 
 ease, on the shoulders of the Hebrew Hercules. 
 
 More remarkable even than the feats that, on occa- 
 sion, distinguished Lincoln at work, were the exploits in 
 sport, to which the applause of the crowd quickened his 
 sinews. 31 Not content with a mastery easily maintained 
 over his comrades in the rough games and contests popu- 
 lar on the frontier, he gave exhibitions of strength that 
 established his reputation as an athlete without a peer. 
 This preeminence he held against all comers during his 
 youth on Pigeon Creek and his early manhood in New 
 Salem. 32 At the latter place he seems to have reached 
 the acme of his physical powers ; and some of his recent 
 biographers, the limit of their credulity. Messrs. Lamon 
 and Herndon, however, whose records of this period are 
 the most complete, sustain each other in the story that 
 Lincoln one day astonished the village by lifting a box of 
 stones which weighed about a thousand pounds. 33 This, 
 they explain, was done by means of a gearing of ropes 
 and straps, with which he was harnessed to the box a 
 method somewhat like that employed at the present time 
 by the " strong men " who, for the entertainment of dime- 
 museum spectators, raise even heavier weights. 
 
 Another of Lincoln's notable performances, for the 
 authenticity of which Mr. Herndon also vouches, grew 
 out of the admiration with which the young giant was 
 regarded by his companions. One of them, William G. 
 Greene by name, was once lauding him, so the story goes, 
 as the strongest man in Illinois, when a stranger, who 
 happened to be present, claimed that honor for another. 
 The dispute led to a wager in which Greene bet that his 
 champion could lift a cask holding forty gallons of whiskey, 
 high enough to take a drink out of the bung-hole. In the 
 test that ensued, Lincoln with " apparent ease " and " to
 
 12 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 the astonishment of the incredulous stranger," did as had 
 been stipulated. " He did not," the narrator is careful to 
 add, " stand erect and elevate the barrel, but squatted 
 down and lifted it to his knees, rolling it over until his 
 mouth came opposite the bung." 
 
 " The bet is mine," said Greene, as the cask was replaced 
 upon the floor ; " but that is the first dram of whiskey I 
 ever saw you swallow, Abe." 
 
 " And I have n't swallowed that, you see," replied Lin- 
 coln, as he spurted out the liquor. 34 
 
 In this final episode of the little story is to be found 
 a clue, if not to the source of his extraordinary vigor, at 
 least to its continued preservation, unimpaired by the 
 vices that have shorn so many Samsons of their strength. 35 
 
 Physique was not the only criterion of leadership 
 among the rough-and-ready settlers of the West. Neither 
 the strong man nor the tall man was necessarily " the best 
 man." That title was reserved for him who, when there 
 were no Indians to cope with, made good his claim to it 
 against his neighbors, in the friendly wrestling-matches 
 of common occurrence, as well as in the more serious, 
 though happily less frequent, fights by which the back- 
 woodsmen, remote from courts and constables, were wont 
 to settle their disputes. Under such conditions, the most 
 peaceable of men learn as the phrase goes to give 
 a good account of themselves. This was probably the 
 case with our five generations of Lincoln pathfinders ; for 
 the strain of Quaker blood, that flowed at some distant 
 point into their veins, had lost much, if not all, of its non- 
 resistant quality before reaching Abraham. 38 His father, 
 although a man of quiet disposition, had allowed no scru- 
 ples to get between him and the adversary who aroused 
 his slow anger. A sinewy, well-knit frame, handled with 
 courage and agility, had marked Thomas Lincoln, in his 
 prime, as a dangerous antagonist. " He thrashed," says 
 the chronicle, " the monstrous bully of Breckinridge 
 County, in three minutes, and came off without a scratch."
 
 Several other border Hectors, according to tradition, found 
 him to be invulnerable ; and one, with whom he had a 
 bitter quarrel, came out of a rough-and-tumble combat of 
 teeth, as well as of fists, without his nose. 37 Moreover, it 
 should be borne in mind that Abraham's uncle Mordecai, 
 " fond," as we are told, in his younger days, " of playing 
 a game of fisticuffs," had been an inveterate Indian 
 hunter ; ffl and that the father of Mordecai and Thomas, he 
 for whom Abraham was named, had, in the days of Daniel 
 Boone, been killed by the savages, while taking part in 
 the struggle for Kentucky. The scion of such stock could 
 not, under favorable circumstances, lack the qualities that, 
 in personal encounters, make a man formidable. In fact, 
 these traits, when combined with the intelligence and 
 strength that so early distinguished Abraham, rendered 
 him, as was to be expected, almost invincible. 
 
 Lincoln's advantage during this pioneer period is to be 
 ascribed largely, but not altogether, to preponderance of 
 size and muscle. Those abnormally long arms and legs, 
 impelled by sinews of iron, counted, it is true, for much. 
 On the other hand, there was little that suggested the 
 wrestler in his lank, loosely jointed form with its thin 
 neck, contracted chest, and insufficient weight. These 
 defects must therefore have been offset, as indeed they 
 were, by alertness, skill, and most important of all 
 those inherited attributes of mastery which were summed 
 up by the ancients in the single word, stomach. The 
 spirit with which, as a schoolboy, Abraham was observed, 
 in the opening scene, to defend himself against heavy 
 odds, carried him successfully through many subsequent 
 encounters. Whether these were in sport or in earnest, 
 they usually left him, as one old friend expressed it, 
 " cock of the walk." ^ Another, who presumably made 
 frequent trials in boyhood of Abraham's powers, said r 
 " I was ten years older, but I could n't rassle him down. 
 His legs was too long for me to throw him. He would 
 fling one foot upon my shoulder and make me swing
 
 i 4 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 corners swift." * Still others bore witness to his pugilis- 
 tic triumphs; and Mr. Lincoln himself found pleasure 
 in recalling his chaplet of wild olives many years later 
 even after the ballots of a nation had been woven into 
 his ripest laurels. " All I had to do," said he, " was to 
 extend one arm to a man's shoulder, and, with weight 
 of body and strength of arms, give him a trip that gener- 
 ally sent him sprawling on the ground, which would so 
 astonish him as to give him a quietus." 41 Such victo- 
 ries had carried his fame, by the time he had reached 
 his nineteenth year, throughout the Pigeon Creek clear- 
 ings and beyoud, so that none of the Hoosiers who knew 
 him or who knew of him were willing if the record 
 may be trusted to hazard at once their bones and their 
 reputations, in unequal combat against so redoubtable a 
 champion. 
 
 Debarred from the wrestling-ring as he had been ex- 
 cluded from the spelling-match, and for the same flatter- 
 ing reason, our Crichton of the backwoods wore his honors 
 as soberly as could be expected. He appears, notwithstand- 
 ing the coarse, unrestrained manners of the people about 
 him, to have misapplied his superiority in comparatively 
 few instances. These cases, such as they are, should, 
 nevertheless, not be overlooked, however much the men- 
 tion of them may offend the sensitive piety of the hero- 
 worshipers. They need a reminder, now and then, do 
 these worthy people, that their idol, when in the flesh, 
 stood, like other human creatures, on the earth. If their 
 image of him, therefore, is to be faithful, its head may be 
 reared to the clouds in all the glory of fine gold, so they 
 see to it that the feet are of clay. What of sludge lies 
 hidden at the bottom of the character usually rises, when 
 agitated by passion, to the surface. As this is observed 
 in the case of ripened manhood, how much more is it 
 to be looked for during those hobbledehoy days that, 
 lying between youth and maturity, partake at times of the 
 nature of both the mischievousness of the boy together
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 15 
 
 with the pride of the man. It was at such a period that 
 Abraham's resentment toward those against whom he had 
 grievances, real or fancied, sometimes found vent. His 
 weapons, in this respect at least, like those of the versatile 
 young Scot, might have been physical or intellectual, at 
 will ; for, among other accomplishments, he had attained 
 a certain facility at the scribbling, in prose and in doggerel 
 verse, of the coarsest of satires. These, thanks to their 
 wit no less than to their audacity, are said to have left 
 deeper and more enduring hurts than even his fists could 
 have inflicted. Hence the few persons who were so un- 
 fortunate as to incur the satirist's anger were impaled on 
 the nib of his goose-quill, amidst laughter which started 
 with the grocery store loungers and did not cease until it 
 had echoed and reechoed through the neighborhood for 
 many a day. That some of these lampoons were indelicate, 
 even indecent, need not be dwelt upon here. It is suffi- 
 cient to notice that they were well adapted to their pur- 
 pose, and that the author employed them as a means of 
 laying low those whom he might not otherwise have over- 
 come. 
 
 The victims of these attacks did not, for obvious rea- 
 sons, retaliate in kind. Nor might they hope, on any field, 
 to humiliate this masterful " fellow, who could both write 
 and fight and in both was equally skilful." One quarrel, 
 however, waxed so hot that, by common consent, nothing 
 would cool the fevered situation but bloodletting. And 
 this is how it happened. Abraham's only sister had died 
 shortly after her marriage to Aaron Grigsby. Thereupon 
 arose between the Grigsby s and the Lin coins a feeling of 
 ill-will, the cause of which is not clear, nor is it material 
 now. It was important enough then to result in the exclu- 
 sion of the tall young brother-in-law from the joint wed- 
 ding celebration of Aaron's two brothers a memorable 
 entertainment, full to overflowing with feasting, dancing, 
 and merry-making. Such a frolic was not to be had every 
 day, and Abraham's regret that he was not present to
 
 1 6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 lead the fun, as was his wont, must have been keen. 
 The slight rexed him even more than did the disap- 
 pointment, for the Grigsbys constituted "the leading 
 family " in the community. To punish them, he forthwith 
 wrote The First Chronicles of Reuben, a narration in 
 mock-scriptural phrase, of an indelicate prank that is said 
 to have been played upon the young wedded couples, at 
 his instigation. 42 The public ridicule which this brought 
 down upon the family failed to appease the satirist's 
 wounded self-love ; and he followed it, in rhyme, with an 
 onslaught even more stinging. The outraged honor of the 
 Grigsbys demanded satisfaction according to the Pigeon 
 Creek code ; so the eldest son, William, throwing discre- 
 tion to the winds, issued a challenge for a fight, which 
 their tormentor readily accepted. 
 
 When the combatants were about to enter the ring, 
 Abraham chivalrously announced that as his antagonist 
 was confessedly his inferior in every respect, he would 
 forego the pleasure of thrashing him, and would let his 
 step-brother, John, do battle in his stead. This offer, 
 having, together with other magnanimous declarations, 
 been applauded by the spectators, was accepted by 
 Grigsby. The fight then began ; but alas ! for Abraham's 
 good resolutions. They were not proof against his cham- 
 pion's defeat. By a singular coincidence, moreover, Lin- 
 coln's biographers, as well as he, deviate just a trifle, at 
 this point, from the straight course ; that is to say, all 
 of them save Mr. Lamon, who sticks to his text, and, in 
 the face of popular disapproval, describes the unworthy 
 scene which ensued. "John started out with fine pluck 
 and spirit," says he, "but in a little while Billy got in 
 some clever hits, and Abe began to exhibit symptoms of 
 great uneasiness. Another pass or two, and John flagged 
 quite decidedly, and it became evident that Abe was 
 anxiously casting about for some pretext to break the 
 ring. At length, when John was fairly down and Billy on 
 top, and all the spectators cheering, swearing, and pressing
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 17 
 
 up to the very edge of the ring, Abe cried out that Bill 
 Boland showed foul play, and, bursting out of the crowd, 
 seized Grigsby by the heels, and flung him off. Having 
 righted John and cleared the battle-ground of all oppo- 
 nents, he swung a whiskey bottle over his head, and swore 
 that he was ' the big buck of the lick.' It seems that 
 nobody of the Grigsby faction, not one in that large assem- 
 bly of bullies, cared to encounter the sweep of Abe's tre- 
 mendously long and muscular arms, and so he remained 
 master of ' the lick.' He was not content, however, with 
 a naked triumph, but vaunted himself in the most offen- 
 sive manner. He singled out the victorious but cheated 
 Billy and, making sundry hostile demonstrations, declared 
 that he could whip him then and there. Billy meekly said 
 he did not doubt that, but that if Abe would make things 
 even between them by fighting with pistols, he would not 
 be slow to grant him a meeting. But Abe replied that he 
 was not going to fool away his life on a single shot ; and 
 so Billy was fain to put up with the poor satisfaction he 
 had already received." 43 The question naturally suggested, 
 as to whether Abraham was justified in his behavior, 
 may be disregarded here. Not so, the account of the 
 incident itself, which, irrespective of ethics or good taste, 
 is essential to an understanding of what may be termed 
 the aggressive side of his character, during these formative 
 days. 
 
 Equally significant, though not so discreditable as the 
 Grigsby broil, was an encounter in which young Lincoln 
 figured not long after this. It brings us to his river life, 
 with the novel responsibilities and dangers that must have 
 entered how much or how little no one can say into 
 the making of the master. Like so many native Kentuck- 
 ians, he evinced, while still a boy, an aptitude for the 
 management of a boat among the uncertain currents of 
 the Ohio. This made him particularly useful to James 
 Taylor, the ferry-keeper at the mouth of Anderson's Creek, 
 to whom he was hired in his seventeenth year ; but, what
 
 18 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 was of greater importance, it secured to him, three years 
 later, his first voyage down the Mississippi. 44 A trading 
 expedition to the towns on the banks of the river as far 
 as New Orleans was projected, after the manner of the 
 times, by James Gentry, the storekeeper in Gentryville, 
 near by. His son, Allen, was placed in charge of a flat- 
 boat, with a cargo of produce, and Lincoln was hired to 
 accompany him as bow-hand. 45 
 
 The trip was, so far as is known, prosperous and un- 
 eventful, until the voyagers tied up, one night, at the 
 plantation of Madame Duchesne, a few miles below Baton 
 Rouge. A gang of her slaves, seven in number, thinking, 
 no doubt, that to rob and perhaps to murder the two boys 
 while they slept would be a simple affair, boarded the 
 boat. Their shuffling footsteps aroused Allen, who, to 
 frighten them off, shouted, " Bring the guns, Lincoln 1 
 Shoot them ! " The big bow-hand responded promptly, 
 but, for reasons that we need not stop to explain, he 
 brought no guns. He did bring what must have been 
 very like a grievous crab-tree cudgel, with which, after 
 the fashion of the giant in the allegory, he laid about 
 him so impartially that those of the negroes who were 
 not tumbled overboard took to their heels. As they fled, 
 he carried the war into Africa, pursuing them, with 
 Gentry, in the darkness for some distance. Then, bleed- 
 ing but triumphant, the boys hastened back, and to avoid 
 a return of the enemy in force, they speedily, as Mr. Lin- 
 coln himself once, in nautical phraseology, expressed it, 
 " cut cable, weighed anchor, and left." This was the first 
 occasion on which the negro question brought itself to his 
 attention forcibly. It may be said to have left its impres- 
 sion in more ways than one. For, many years afterward, 
 he showed his friends the scar on his forehead from a 
 wound received in the fracas ; and still later, when he 
 briefly put before a nation the important incidents of his 
 life, a place was found for that midnight victory over 
 brute strength and superior numbers. 48
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 19 
 
 During the ensuing few years, the young boatman 
 must have kept his laurels green. At least, he did not, 
 even in the first absorbing struggles of life on his own 
 account, suffer them to wither. His reputation as a 
 wrestler appears to have preceded him to Thomas Lincoln's 
 last home, in Coles County, Illinois, when Abraham, after 
 his second flat-boat voyage down the Mississippi in the 
 summer of 1831, came there on a brief visit. The arri- 
 val of so noted a wrestler called for action on the part of 
 Daniel Needham, the local champion. This worthy lost 
 no time in issuing a challenge, which the newcomer as 
 promptly accepted. In the public contest that ensued, the 
 boatman grassed his opponent twice with such ease as to 
 arouse the latter's anger and the delight of the spectators. 
 
 "Lincoln," he shouted, "you have thrown me twice, 
 but you can't whip me! " 
 
 " Needham," was the answer, " are you satisfied that I 
 can throw you? If you are not, and must be convinced 
 through a thrashing, I will do that too, for your sake." 
 
 Upon second thought, the defeated bully, who had 
 no doubt expected to overawe his antagonist with the 
 threat of a fight, concluded that he was " satisfied," and 
 his honors reverted to Lincoln. 47 
 
 Several weeks later, the young man, then in his twenty- 
 third year, entered upon his duties as clerk of Den- 
 ton Offutt's country store, which had just been opened 
 at New Salem, in western Illinois. The village was in- 
 fested by a lawless, rollicking set of rowdies from a 
 neighboring settlement, known as " the Clary's Grove 
 boys." Easy-going in everything save mischief, and 
 always ready on the shortest possible notice for sport or 
 riot, they dominated the place at an expenditure of energy 
 that would have worked wonders had it not been mis- 
 applied. As it was, they lived up to certain crude notions 
 of chivalry that led them, at times, into acts of generos- 
 ity toward the village folk ; but kindness to the stranger 
 within their gates had no place, be it understood, in their
 
 20 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 code. On the contrary, the desire to test a newcomer's 
 mettle appears to have prompted conduct the reverse of 
 kind. When their impertinent challenges to contests of 
 various sorts were not acceptable to a stranger, he was 
 asked to say what he would do in case another gentleman 
 should pull his nose or otherwise make free with him. 
 " If," says the sympathetic historian, " he did not seem 
 entirely decided in his views as to what should properly 
 be done in such a contingency, perhaps he would be 
 nailed in a hogshead and rolled down New Salem hill ; 
 perhaps his ideas would be brightened by a brief ducking 
 in the Sangamon ; or perhaps he would be scoffed, kicked, 
 and cuffed by a great number of persons in concert until 
 he reached the confines of the village, and then turned 
 adrift as being unfit company for the people of that settle- 
 ment. If, however, the stranger consented to engage in a 
 tussle with one of his persecutors, it was usually arranged 
 that there should be foul play, with nameless impositions 
 and insults, which would inevitably change the affair into 
 a fight." These gentle ruffians had either taken the mea- 
 sure of Offutt's tall clerk, or had accepted the standing 
 with which rumor invested him. At all events, they made 
 no attempt " to naturalize " him, as they termed it ; and 
 Lincoln might have enjoyed entire immunity had it not 
 been for the boastful tongue of his employer. 
 
 Denton Offutt, a good-hearted, talkative, reckless specu- 
 lator, of the Colonel Sellers type, regarded Lincoln as 
 the most promising of his many investments. His ad- 
 miration for the young fellow, whom he had previously 
 employed as a boatman, was, unlike most of his fads, 
 based upon experience. Indeed, he had sounded the 
 depths of Lincoln's talents, mental as well as physical, 
 with remarkable precision. From repeated predictions of 
 his protege's destined greatness, Offutt usually turned to 
 the more timely declaration that Abe could whip or throw 
 any man in Sangamon County. Such a boast could of 
 course not go long unchallenged in the hearing of " the
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 21 
 
 Clary's Grove boys." Presently Bill Clary himself laid 
 a wager of ten dollars with Offutt, matching against Lin- 
 coln the biggest bruiser of the gang, Jack Armstrong by 
 name, a sort of local Brom Bones, who is described as " a 
 powerful twister, square built and strong as an ox." The 
 proposed contest, in view, perhaps, of " the boys' " reputed 
 disregard of fair play, had no charms for the new clerk. 
 He would gladly have kept clear of it, but Offutt had 
 committed him so far that he could not refuse without in- 
 curring the charge of cowardice. Moreover, as the gang 
 had looted several stores of the village, they would in all 
 probability not have spared Offutt's for any length of 
 time after they had ceased to respect the clerk in charge. 
 Lincoln accordingly consented, stipulating, however, that 
 the match was to be a friendly one and fairly conducted. 
 All New Salem, with money, drinks, and portable 
 property of various kinds staked on the result, gathered at 
 the ring. The contestants were well matched. They strug- 
 gled and strained, for some time, with seemingly equal 
 strength and equal skill. They appear to have resembled 
 the mighty two who wrestled before Achilles, as 
 
 " with vigorous arms 
 
 They clasped each other, locked like rafters framed 
 By some wise builder for the lofty roof 
 Of a great mansion proof against the winds. 
 Then their backs creaked beneath the powerful strain 
 Of their strong hands ; the sweat ran down their limbs; 
 Large whelks upon their sides and shoulders rose, 
 Crimson with blood. Still eagerly they strove 
 For victory and the tripod. Yet in vain 
 Ulysses labored to supplant his foe, 
 And throw him to the ground, and equally 
 Did Ajax strive in vain, for with sheer strength 
 Ulysses foiled his efforts." 
 
 But here, we grieve to say, the parallel, such as it wag, 
 ceased. When the Homer of the prairies sings the story 
 of the later combat, he will not, if truth as well as beauty 
 has a claim upon him, picture his champions leaving the
 
 ii LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 field, as did the Greek heroes, with gallantly divided 
 honors. Such a conclusion, indeed, appeared fitting to 
 Lincoln ; for, when neither he nor the man from the 
 Grove seemed able to prevail he said : 
 
 ** Now, Jack, let 's quit. You can't throw me, and I 
 can't throw you." 
 
 Armstrong, rendered desperate by his failure and urged 
 on by the clamor of his friends, instead of answering, 
 hurled himself upon Lincoln to get a foul hold. The 
 latter, enraged at the trick, seized the fellow by the throat 
 and, putting forth all his strength, " shook him," as the 
 chronicler tells us, "like a rag." Some of "the boys" 
 hurried to their leader's assistance, while others rushed 
 to Offutt and demanded the stakes. Above the tumult 
 could be heard Lincoln's voice ordering Offutt not to pay, 
 and declaring his willingness to fight all Clary's Grove, 
 if necessary. He had, in fact, backed against the store to 
 meet the gang's attack. At that moment, it might have 
 gone hard with him against such odds, had not the leading 
 citizen of the place interfered. Then Armstrong, having 
 recovered breath, expressed his admiration of so much 
 pluck and muscle, in this outburst : 
 
 " Boys, Abe Lincoln is the best fellow that ever broke 
 into this settlement I He shall be one of us." 
 
 And one of them, in a sense at least, Lincoln became. 
 His quondam opponent, like most men of his class, knew 
 no middle ground between enmity and affection. Ever 
 afterward, Armstrong, together with all that he had, was 
 at Lincoln's command, and the rest of " the Clary's Grove 
 boys " passed with their chief under the yoke." 
 
 How Lincoln exercised his influence over these rou<rh 
 
 o 
 
 fellows is illustrated by an incident that occurred not long 
 after the fight. A stranger to the village was attacked 
 one day, in a spirit of frolic, by the gang, under Arm- 
 strong's leadership. Jack applied to him a string of epi- 
 thets, among which " coward " and " damned liar " were 
 the least objectionable. The victim of this onslaught,
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 23 
 
 finding himself at a disadvantage, backed up to a wood- 
 pile, seized a stick, and struck Armstrong a blow that 
 felled him. Regaining his feet, Jack rushed forward to 
 punish the stranger, when Lincoln, who happened upon 
 the scene, persuaded " the boys " to make him arbitrator 
 of the difficulty. 
 
 " Well, Jack," he asked, proceeding in Socratic fashion, 
 "what did you say to the man?" Armstrong repeated 
 his language. 
 
 "Well, Jack," was the next question, "if you were a 
 stranger in a strange place, as this man is, and you were 
 called a damned liar, and so forth, what would you do ? " 
 
 " Whip him, by God ! " was the ready answer. 
 
 "Then this man," said the arbitrator, "has done no 
 more to you than you would have done to him." 
 
 Even Armstrong felt the force of the golden rule when 
 so lucidly applied by the only man whose interference 
 he would not resent. 
 
 "Well, Abe," said he, taking the stranger by the 
 hand, " it 's all right." Then, in accordance with the 
 time-honored custom, for such occasions established, he 
 treated. 49 
 
 The pastimes of these wild young fellows, no less than 
 their quarrels, suffered a change under the pressure of 
 Lincoln's authority. He vetoed one of the gang's favor- 
 ite diversions, that of rolling persons who had incurred 
 their displeasure down a perilously steep hill in a hogs- 
 head. A form of amusement so rich in possibilities, Jack 
 and his playful savages were disinclined to relinquish. If 
 they were not to have their little fun, now and then, with 
 an unwilling victim, said they, what harm could there be 
 in rolling one that was willing ? Accordingly, an elderly 
 toper was hired by Armstrong to make the descent, for a 
 gallon of whiskey. Even this unprecedented concession 
 to decorum did not, strangely enough, satisfy the censor. 
 He insisted that the sport brutal under any conditions 
 must be stopped, and stopped it was. 50 On another
 
 24 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 occasion, when the spirit of deviltry animated an election 
 celebration, "the boys" enticed a fellow, endowed with 
 more pluck than sense, into a bet that he could ride 
 through their bonfire, on his pony. The animal trotted 
 nimbly enough up to the edge of the blaze, where he 
 balked and tossed his rider headforemost into the flames. 
 The affair had been observed by Lincoln, who, laughing 
 in spite of himself, ran to the fellow's assistance. " You 
 have carried this thing far enough," he said angrily to 
 Armstrong. The big rowdy, upon the arrival of his 
 "conscience," became so contrite that, not content with 
 leading the sufferer to a doctor to have the burns dressed, 
 he took him to his own cabin for the night, and sent him 
 home the next morning, after giving him a breakfast and 
 a sealskin cap. 61 
 
 The encounters of Offutt's brawny clerk with the exu- 
 berant young men of New Salem, in behalf of law and 
 order, were not always, even ostensibly, of a friendly 
 character. One day, while waiting upon some women in 
 the store, he was annoyed at the loud profanity of a fellow 
 who made a practice of lounging about the place. Lincoln, 
 leaning over the counter, asked him, as ladies were present, 
 not to use offensive language. The other retorted that he 
 would talk as he pleased, and intimated that the clerk was 
 not man enough to check him. His abuse continued until 
 the women had left the store. Then Lincoln, stepping 
 forward, said : 
 
 "Well, if you must be whipped, I suppose I may as 
 well whip you as any other man." 
 
 The offender, nothing loath, followed his critic out of 
 doors, where ensued a contest, brief but decisive. Throw- 
 ing the fellow to the ground, Lincoln held him down 
 with one hand, while with the other he rubbed a bunch 
 of the smart-weed, which grew within reach, into the up- 
 turned face and eyes. The man of oaths bellowed with 
 pain, while he of the protests, having administered plenary 
 discipline, hastened for water and tenderly bathed the
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 25 
 
 aching parts. These ministrations were accompanied, it 
 is surmised, by " quaint admonition," from which the suf- 
 ferer may be assumed to have profited. For he became, 
 as we are told, the life-long friend of the man who tutored 
 him thus violently in gentle manners. 52 
 
 During these early days of " wooling and pulling," 
 to use one of Lincoln's phrases, his conquests over the 
 hearts of his antagonists were, in most cases, as complete 
 as his triumphs over their bodies. To defeat a man in such 
 a manner as to compel his lasting friendship, no less than 
 his respect, was apparently easy for this manly young 
 fellow. A singularly fine character had already, undevel- 
 oped though it was, manifested itself, here and there, in 
 traits which shone through his commonplace life like veins 
 of gold in a lump of quartz. To inquire how these quali- 
 ties came to enter into the make-up of a lad reared in the 
 fringe of the western wilderness, is as foreign to the 
 purpose of this study as would be an effort to account, in 
 an essay on the currency, for the presence of the precious 
 metal in a dirty clod. The social no less than the physical 
 marvel might draw us fruitlessly far afield. Suffice it to 
 say that Lincoln did, even at this time, have moral as 
 well as muscular strength, and that the ignorant, rough, or 
 vicious men among whom he grew to manhood felt not 
 always consciously, perhaps the sway of both. These 
 people, admirers of brute force though they were, would 
 assuredly not have fallen with such complete self-surrender 
 under the dominion of this powerful hand, had it not been 
 for the corresponding superiority of the head and the 
 heart by which it was controlled. A combination so strik- 
 ing had naturally led Lincoln's schoolmates to lay their 
 boyish differences before him ; and, as he advanced in years, 
 it caused his associates to appoint him umpire of their 
 sports, arbitrator of their disputes, referee of their un- 
 avoidable fights, and authority in general. The decisions, 
 let us add, were not only remarkable for their fairness, but 
 for the promptness, as well, with which they were enforced
 
 26 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 by the judge. He did not hesitate, moreover, to act in this 
 capacity without waiting for an invitation from the per- 
 sons most concerned. Rushing between two fighting men, 
 he would fling them apart and insist upon settling their 
 quarrel for them amicably. Good feeling, indeed, pervaded 
 most, if not all, of young Lincoln's muscular activities. 
 Such advantages as he possessed over others were so 
 rarely abused, on the one hand, and were so commonly 
 employed with credit, on the other, that an account of his 
 prowess in the ring, which did not emphasize the facts, 
 would be misleading. 53 To understand the Lincoln of this 
 period, one must bear in mind that side by side with his 
 pugilistic victories were these less palpable, but possibly 
 more important, triumphs of character. " It is excellent 
 to have a giant's strength," and excellent to use it as this 
 giant did. 
 
 To the end of his life, Mr. Lincoln evinced an almost 
 childish pride in his superior physique. As he stood, 
 during the Civil War, watching, from the Potomac front 
 of the Treasury, a forest on the Virginia hills fall before 
 the blows of a regiment of Maine lumbermen, he ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " I don't believe that there is a man in that regiment 
 with longer arms than mine, or who can swing an ax bet- 
 ter than I can. By jings ! I should like to change works 
 with one of them." 54 
 
 Indeed, the strength that had contributed to his early 
 distinction among the settlers of the backwoods was dis- 
 played to the more refined associates of his later career 
 frequently enough, though not always opportunely. When 
 ever an ax happened to be within the President's reach, 
 his hand grasped it in some exhibition of dexterity or 
 endurance. Thus, after he had insisted on shaking hands, 
 one day, with a considerable number of the sick and 
 wounded soldiers in the City Point hospital, when those 
 who were with him expressed fears that he might be dis- 
 abled by the exertion, he is said to have answered, " The
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 27 
 
 hardships of my early life gave me strong muscles." Then, 
 stepping through the open doorway, he took up a large, 
 heavy ax that lay near a log, and, chopping vigorously, 
 sent the chips flying in all directions. Presently he 
 stopped and, with arm extended at full length, held out 
 the ax horizontally by the extreme end of the handle. 
 " Strong men, who looked on," so runs the tale, " men 
 accustomed to manual labor could not hold the same 
 ax in that position for a moment." 55 At another time, 
 some officers and newspaper correspondents were returning 
 with him from the Navy Yard, where they had gone to 
 view the testing of certain new artillery inventions. As 
 they sat on the steamer discussing what they had seen, 
 the President caught sight of some axes that hung outside 
 of the cabin. Walking over to where the implements were, 
 he said : 
 
 " You may talk about your Raphael repeaters and your 
 eleven-inch Dahlgrens, but I guess I understand that there 
 institution as well as anything else. There was a time 
 when I could hold out one of these things at arm's 
 length." 
 
 Whereupon, he took down one of the axes and held it 
 as has been described. Several of the party tried to imi- 
 tate him, but none succeeded. " When I was eighteen 
 years of age I could do this," said Mr. Lincoln, on a sim- 
 ilar occasion, to General Egbert L. Viele, " and I have 
 never seen the day since that I could not do it." This 
 was, in fact, one of his favorite feats. He seemed to enjoy 
 the discomfiture of those who made unsuccessful efforts 
 to equal it, no less than the admiration that it never failed 
 to excite in the beholders. 56 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's triumphs of physical strength led him 
 into the practice of almost unconsciously comparing him- 
 self, in this respect, with other men. The habit is well 
 illustrated in an incident related by Governor John 
 Wesley Hoyt, for many years secretary and manager of 
 the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. He escorted
 
 28 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Lincoln, in the autumn of 1859, through the fair of the 
 association, at which the Illinois visitor had made the ad- 
 dress. They spent some time in one of the tents, watch- 
 ing the performance of a "strong man," who tossed about 
 huge iron balls, catching and rolling them on his arms and 
 back with remarkable brawn and agility. The exhibition 
 appeared to interest the orator of the day so intensely 
 that, at its conclusion, the manager introduced the athlete 
 to him. Mr. Lincoln stood looking down upon the man, 
 who was very short, as if wondering that one so much 
 smaller than he could be so much stronger. Then he said 
 abruptly, in his quaint fashion, " Why, I could lick salt 
 off the top of your hat." " Nor was this the only occasion 
 on which he remarked smallness of stature. 58 His first 
 meeting with Stephen A. Douglas, in the Illinois legisla- 
 ture of 1834, 59 was memorable not, as might be expected, 
 for any impression which the " Little Giant's " genius 
 made upon him, but for his comment on the undersized 
 Vermonter as " the least man " that he had ever seen. 80 
 
 So, in Congress, during the winter of 1848, when an- 
 other small great man, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, 
 moved Mr. Lincoln to tears by " the very best speech of 
 an hour's length " that he had heard, he did not, in writ- 
 ing about it to his partner, Mr. Herndon, forget to describe 
 the speaker as "a little, slim, pale-faced, consumptive 
 man." 61 The diminutive orator and his tall admirer met 
 seventeen years later, at the Hampton Roads Conference, 
 under strangely changed conditions the one as an envoy 
 of the dying but still struggling Confederacy, the other 
 as the President of the Union. A momentous meeting, 
 this. Upon its issue depended peace or continued blood- 
 shed. Yet Mr. Lincoln was not so much engrossed in the 
 serious questions under consideration as to put aside en- 
 tirely his interest in Mr. Stephens's size. The little com- 
 missioner had protected his frail body against the mid- 
 winter cold with a profusion of overcoats and wraps, which, 
 after reaching the River Queen's warm cabin, he peeled
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 29 
 
 off, layer by layer. As the wearer finally emerged, the 
 President is said to have remarked in an aside to the 
 Secretary of State, who was with him, " Seward, that is 
 the largest shucking for so small a nubbin that I ever 
 saw." 82 This particular nubbin, meagre though it was, 
 the speaker held in high esteem ; still, here, as in the case 
 of Douglas, he appears to have had a complacent sense of 
 his own more ample proportions. 63 
 
 The sight of a tall man usually aroused in Mr. Lincoln 
 a desire to know whether he or the other had the more 
 inches. This hobby he sought to gratify, in season and 
 out, concern, as it might, a chance visitor from the 
 country, or a dignified Senator. Indeed, at what was, per- 
 haps, one of the most impressive moments of his life, when 
 face to face with some of the leading public men of the 
 day, the question, "Who is the taller?" seemed if one 
 may judge solely by what happened to be uppermost in 
 his mind. He had just responded in a few formal words 
 to the official notification of his first nomination for the 
 presidency, brought to his Springfield home by the com- 
 mittee of the Chicago Convention ; and he had started, 
 under the guidance of the chairman, the Hon. George 
 Ashmun, to make the rounds of the delegation, for per- 
 sonal introductions. The party included such men as 
 William M. Evarts, Carl Schurz, George S. Bout well, 
 John Albion Andrew, Gideon Welles, Caleb B. Smith, 
 William D. Kelley, Francis P. Blair, Sr., David K. Cart- 
 ter, and Norman B. Judd ; but his eye rested upon the 
 most commanding figure of all, that of Edwin Dennison 
 Morgan, then Governor of New York and chairman of 
 the National Republican Executive Committee. Before 
 him Mr. Lincoln stopped first and, with a cordial greet- 
 ing, said : 
 
 " Pray, Governor, how tall may you be ? " 
 
 " Nearly six feet three," answered the great man from 
 the Empire State. 
 
 An embarrassing silence that followed was relieved by
 
 30 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Judge Kelley, the delegate from Pennsylvania, who was 
 somewhat of a poplar, himself. " And pray, Mr. Lincoln," 
 said he, " how tall may you be ? " 
 
 "Six feet four," answered the candidate, taking the 
 benefit of a doubtful fraction. Whereupon the Judge, as 
 he relates, bowed and said : 
 
 " Pennsylvania bows humbly before New York, but 
 still more humbly before Illinois. Mr. Lincoln, is it not 
 curious that I, who for the last twelve years have yearned 
 for a President to whom I might look up, should have 
 found one here in a State where so many people believe 
 they grow nothing but * Little Giants ' ? " M 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was not usually content, as in this instance, 
 to take the word of tall men as to their height. So im- 
 portant a matter, it appears, could be determined to his 
 satisfaction by actual measurement only. This, Congress- 
 man John Sherman learned to his surprise, as he paid his 
 respects to the President-elect, on the evening after Mr. 
 Lincoln's arrival in Washington. " When introduced to 
 him," says Mr. Sherman, " he took my hands in both of 
 his, drew himself up to his full height, and looking at me 
 steadily, said, ' You are John Sherman ! Well, I am taller 
 than you. Let's measure.' Thereupon we stood Uick to 
 back, and some one present announced that he was two 
 inches taller than I. This was correct, for he was six feet 
 three and one half inches tall when he stood erect. This 
 singular introduction was not unusual with him, but if it 
 lacked dignity, it was an expression of friendliness and 
 so considered by him." 65 
 
 Dignity ! The pomp and circumstance of the White 
 House itself did not abate Mr. Lincoln's fondness for 
 measuring. How deeply rooted this trait was, may bo 
 gathered from the following typical scene, described by 
 one who happened to be present. On one of the President's 
 public audience days, a stalwart caller, evidently from the 
 rural West, approached Mr. Lincoln awkwardly and man- 
 aged to explain that, being on a visit to the Capital, he
 
 3* 
 
 desired before leaving to see the President, and to have 
 the honor of shaking hands with him. Mr. Lincoln, as he 
 smilingly complied, surveyed the big man from head to 
 foot and said, in his playful way : 
 
 " I rather think you have a little the advantage of me 
 in height. You are a taller man than I am." 
 
 " I guess not, Mr. President," replied the visitor ; " the 
 advantage cannot be on my side." 
 
 " Yes, it is," was the rejoinder. " I have a pretty good 
 eye for distances, and I think I can't be mistaken in the 
 fact of the advantage being slightly with you. I measure 
 six feet three and a half inches in my stockings, and you 
 go, I think, a little beyond that." 
 
 As the other still politely demurred, Mr. Lincoln said, 
 " It is very easily tested." Rising from his chair, he placed 
 a book edgewise against the wall, just higher than his head. 
 Then, turning to his visitor, he bade him, " Come under." 
 This the granger hesitated to do, his countenance the while 
 wearing a bewildered yet half-smiling expression that, we 
 are told, was comical to see. 
 
 " Come under, I say," repeated the President in a more 
 peremptory tone, and the visitor slowly complied. When 
 Mr. Lincoln, in his turn, stepped under the book, he was 
 found to have fallen a trifle short of the other's measure- 
 ment. 
 
 " There," said he, " it is as I told you. I knew I could n't 
 be mistaken. I rarely fail in taking a man's true altitude 
 by the eye." 
 
 " Yes, but Mr. President," said the man, to the merri- 
 ment of the company, " you have slippers on and I boots, 
 and that makes a difference." 
 
 " Not enough to amount to anything in this reckoning," 
 was the reply. " You ought at least to be satisfied, my 
 honest friend, with the proof given that you actually stand 
 higher to-day than your President." M 
 
 Even more averse to Mr. Lincoln's yard-stick than this 
 modest citizen was the senior Senator from Massachusetts.
 
 3 a LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 " Sumner," said the President, " declined to stand up with 
 me, back to back, to see which was the taller man, and 
 made a fine speech about this being the time for uniting 
 our fronts against the enemy and not our backs. But I 
 guess he was afraid to measure, though he is a good piece 
 of a man. I have never had much to do with Bishops 
 where I live ; but, do you know, Sumner is my idea of a 
 Bishop." 67 
 
 A palpable hit, this, when we recall the imposing pre- 
 sence and the massive frame of the cultured Bostonian, who, 
 after towering for years above his contemporaries, was evi- 
 dently not willing to surrender, in an idle moment, the 
 physical preeminence in which he, too, took not a little 
 pride. 88 Perhaps his eye had become as practiced "in 
 taking a man's true altitude," as the President's. If so, it 
 gave warning that when the loosely jointed figure before 
 him unfolded to its full height, 88 "Old Abe " would, in one 
 respect at least, prove to be Charles Sumner's superior. 
 
 The scholarly statesman from the East, no less than 
 the man of the people from the West, owed something of 
 that subtle, indefinable force which issued in mastery over 
 their fellows, to mere physique. However slight this debt 
 may have been, they did not fail to recognize it each in 
 his characteristic way. Sumuer, whether he gave to the 
 world an oration with carefully studied pose and gesture, 
 or privately employed his powers of persuasion in further- 
 ing one of the lofty aims of his career, was ever conscious 
 of the advantage that lay in his commanding figure, and 
 he improved it to the utmost. Lincoln, rarely, if ever, self- 
 conscious, made no such application of his strength and 
 stature ; but the exhibitions of them that he scattered 
 through his life abundantly manifest his half -serious, half- 
 joking sense of their importance. This appreciation of a 
 superiority, purely physical, by leaders so unlike in tem- 
 perament and training, is sufficient to warrant the attention 
 that has been given here to a seemingly unessential matter. 
 Moreover, it is no mere coincidence that the three most
 
 A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 33 
 
 forceful personalities that have directed the fortunes of the 
 American people from the President's chair were embodied 
 in frames of uncommon size and vigor. Their habits of 
 command, confirmed early in life by ability to enforce their 
 wishes, armed them with the irresistible powers of control 
 by means of which they triumphed in great crises of our 
 nation's history. The heaviest demands of this nature 
 were, beyond a question, laid upon Abraham Lincoln, and 
 he, consistently enough, was, of all the Presidents, the 
 tallest and sturdiest.
 
 CHAPTER H 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 
 
 LINCOLN'S quickly acquired ascendancy, such as it was, 
 over the people of New Salein, received formal confir- 
 mation almost as speedily. In less than ten months 
 from that lazy summer day on which, as he himself de- 
 scribed it, the young stranger had lodged in the place like 
 a piece of floating driftwood, he was singled out by his 
 neighbors for the choicest honor then within their gift 
 a military command. The Black Hawk War, narrowly 
 averted during the preceding year, had broken out in the 
 spring of 1832, spreading panic along the Illinois frontier. 
 Rock River valley in the northern part of the State, once 
 the hunting-ground of the united Sac and Fox Indians, 
 was overrun by a band of their warriors under the famous 
 old leader for whom history has named the struggle 
 that ensued. He had, the previous summer, in accordance 
 with existing treaties, ceded the land to the government, 
 and had removed with his people beyond the Mississippi. 
 But Black Hawk's inveterate hatred of the Americans, 
 engendered by wrongs not altogether imaginary, and kept 
 alive, since the war of 1812, by the Englishmen in Canada, 
 had aroused him to one final raid for the recovery of his 
 home. Having recrossed the river at the head of his so- 
 called British band, for most of the Sac and Fox nations 
 were in favor of peace, he held the lives and property 
 of the settlers in his hands. At this juncture, Governor 
 Reynolds called for volunteers to drive the Indians back 
 over the Mississippi. Among the first to respond was a 
 company from New Salem that included Abraham Lin- 
 coln and many of his Clary's Grove friends.
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 35 
 
 On their way to the rendezvous at Beardstown, the 
 volunteers halted to elect a captain. The office was 
 sought by two candidates, Abraham Lincoln and William 
 Kirkpatrick. The latter, as the owner of a sawmill and 
 as a person of standing in the community, considered the 
 honor to be his due, particularly as he who disputed it 
 with him was a newcomer and a mere hired man. Lincoln 
 had, in fact, upon his arrival in the neighborhood, done 
 an odd job or two in Kirkpatrick's mill. To the proprie- 
 tor's unfair treatment of him, on that occasion, may be 
 ascribed the workman's keen desire to defeat him in a 
 public contest. Upon hiring Lincoln, Kirkpatrick had 
 promised to buy for him a hook with which to move some 
 heavy logs ; but finding that by reason of the young man's 
 strength and skill the work was done as well with a 
 common hand-spike, he had agreed, at Lincoln's sugges- 
 tion, to give him the two dollars that the hook would have 
 cost. When pay-day arrived, Kirkpatrick had refused to 
 keep his promise. The trick rankled in Lincoln's mem- 
 ory. As soon as he heard of the mill-owner's ambition for 
 military rank he said to his friend Green : 
 
 " Bill, I believe I can now make Kirkpatrick pay that 
 two dollars he owes me on the cant-hook. I '11 run against 
 him for captain." 
 
 The election that followed was characteristic in its sim- 
 plicity. The candidates stood apart ; the voters, together. 
 At a signal, the latter stepped over to the man whom they 
 severally preferred. Three out of every four of them went 
 promptly to Lincoln. 1 Whereupon the minority, who 
 stood with his competitor, left their candidate one by one 
 to join the successful party. This continued until Kirk- 
 patrick stood almost alone. His punishment had been 
 severe. " Damn him," muttered Lincoln to his friend, 
 " I 've beat him. He used me badly in our settlement 
 for my toil." The more audible impromptu speech in 
 which the new Captain thanked his company was probably 
 expressed ip language less unparliamentary. It has not
 
 3 6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 been preserved, but a minute of the speaker's gratifica- 
 tion has. Recalling the event, in that frank little third- 
 person autobiography of 1860, Mr. Lincoln wrote : 
 
 " He says he has not since had any success in life which 
 gave him so much satisfaction." 
 
 And with reason, for this election meant far more to 
 him than the humbling of an influential man who had 
 wronged him. It was the first formal public recognition 
 of his ability to lead. 2 
 
 How creditably the young officer conducted himself 
 may be determined only after an inspection of the mate- 
 rial at his command. A motley company it was, every man 
 of it equipped after his own fashion, and intent upon 
 maintaining, in behavior as well as in appearance, the 
 frontiersman's cherished individuality. Having joined his 
 neighbors, on equal terms, for an expedition against the 
 Indians, he became restive under discipline whenever, in 
 his good judgment, it did not bear directly upon the 
 affair in hand. This prejudice against subordination he 
 had, it is true, overcome sufficiently to participate, on the 
 democratic plan described, in the choice of a captain ; 
 but with his vote probably went the private reservation to 
 obey that officer or not as occasion might suggest. Thus 
 far, the men of Lincoln's company differed from the rest 
 of Governor Reynolds's hastily gathered army in no im- 
 portant particular. Beyond this, however, lay a marked 
 variation in degree, if not in kind. The volunteers from 
 New Salem savored strongly of Clary's Grove. Un- 
 trained, disorderly, even mutinous, they distanced the 
 other companies in their violation of rules, and soon won 
 the distinction of being a "hard set of men." Their 
 Captain once recalled that his first order to one of them 
 was answered by, " Go to the devil, sir ! " The officer 
 hastened to the manual instead, so that no time might be 
 lost in making soldiers out of his unpromising recruits. 
 
 The task of compelling obedience from such men, 
 difficult under the best of conditions, must have taxed
 
 37 
 
 to their utmost the faculties of a captain no less deficient 
 than they in military training. How Lincoln pieced out 
 his ignorance and saved the official dignity from disaster 
 is illustrated by the droll anecdotes with which he was ac- 
 customed, some years later, in the post-office of the House, 
 to amuse his fellow Congressmen. One of these stories 
 dealt with his first attempt to drill the awkward squad. 3 
 They were marching with a front of about twenty men 
 across a field, when it became necessary to pass through a 
 narrow gateway. " I could not for the life of me," said he, 
 " remember the proper word of command for getting my 
 company endwise so that it could get through the gate. 
 So, as we came near the gate, I shouted, ' This company 
 is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again 
 on the other side of the gate! ' " 4 It was not so easy, be 
 it said, for Lincoln to gloss over all his shortcomings. He 
 failed, in one instance at least, to understand that he who 
 would command must first learn to obey. Hence, shortly 
 after his company had joined the main body of the army, 
 we find him in disgrace for disobedience of a general 
 order. This decree, issued while the horses were making 
 a precarious crossing over the Henderson River, prohib- 
 ited, for obvious reasons, the discharge of firearms within 
 fifty paces of the camp limits. Deliberately ignoring the 
 order, our Captain fired his pistol within ten steps of the 
 camp. He was promptly deprived of his sword, and was 
 placed under arrest for the day. 5 
 
 About a week later, Lincoln was again subjected to 
 punishment, but this time for the misdeeds of his men. 
 They had, upon their arrival near the seat of war, been 
 received into the United States service. The military 
 prestige of the nation appears, however, to have restrained 
 their unruly spirits no more than had that of the state. 
 When the army was about to march in search of the 
 Indians, one bright May morning, Captain Lincoln di- 
 rected the orderly sergeant to parade his company. They 
 failed to respond to the officer's calls, and the sounds that
 
 3 8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 issued from beneath some of the blankets gave intimation 
 of what soon proved to be the terrible truth. These 
 valiant men had, during the night, made a sortie, on their 
 own account, upon an enemy that, more powerful than 
 the Sacs or the Foxes, had laid them low. The warriors 
 from New Salem were dead drunk. Investigation re- 
 vealed that they had broken into the officers' stores, 
 and had stolen enough liquor to render marching, a few 
 hours later, an unreasonable proposition. Indeed, all the 
 efforts of their mortified commander, who of course had 
 been kept in ignorance of the spree, failed to maintain 
 them on their feet long enough to start with the other 
 troops. Some time after the army had marched, he man- 
 aged to set his besotted ranks in motion ; but as stragglers 
 dropped here and there along the road, to finish their 
 interrupted slumbers, the company did not overtake the 
 main body before nightfall. Then Captain Lincoln was 
 again placed under arrest, with orders to carry for two 
 days oh, cutting mockery ! a wooden sword. 8 The 
 punishment was in keeping with the opera bouffe element 
 that runs through the incident. Yet, there is no reason 
 for assuming that the young officer, keen of humor though 
 he was, found aught in the affair, at the time, but chagrin. 
 This failure to maintain control over his men, together 
 with his own violation of discipline, a few days before, 
 must have made clear to him that he had now to face 
 entirely new problems in leadership. 
 
 New problems may sometimes be solved in old ways. 
 So must have thought this captain of volunteers, for he 
 sought to establish his military authority not by apply- 
 ing the unfamiliar regulations in the articles of war, but 
 by employing the means that had already stood him in 
 such good stead. Courage, skill, and strength had secured 
 to him at home a certain ascendancy over these rough 
 fellows. Why not, he may have asked himself, hold that 
 ascendancy in camp by further exhibitions of these qual- 
 ities ? Opportunities were plentiful enough in the sports
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 39 
 
 with which the soldiers tried to relieve the hardships of 
 the campaign, and in which Lincoln appears, as was his 
 wont, to have excelled them all. This was especially so 
 in wrestling. With a handkerchief knotted around his 
 waist, he would jump into the ring, on notice however 
 short, to uphold the reputation of his company. The vol- 
 unteers from New Salem believed that no man in the 
 army could throw their Captain, a faith which he shared, 
 and in which he took not a little pride. Indeed, long after 
 his ambitions had undergone a change, he was fond of 
 recalling these triumphs. They had a prominent place 
 among the reminiscences with which he entertained his 
 congressional friends. Telling them once about a cham- 
 pion of the southern Illinois companies who challenged 
 him, Mr. Lincoln said : 
 
 " He was at least two inches taller than I was, and 
 somewhat heavier, but I reckoned that I was the most 
 wiry, and soon after I had tackled him I gave him a hug, 
 lifted him off the ground, and threw him flat on his back. 
 That settled his hash." 7 
 
 Lincoln continued to settle the hashes dished up for 
 him by his enthusiastic followers, until a certain Dow 
 Thompson, not otherwise known to fame, was pitted 
 against him. On the day appointed, the respective sup- 
 porters of the men, having wagered their money and val- 
 uables upon the result, formed a ring for the contest. 
 Lincoln's confidence in his ability to throw Thompson 
 underwent a change after the first few passes. Turning 
 to his friends, he said : 
 
 " This is the most powerful man I ever had hold of. 
 He will throw me and you will lose your all, unless I act 
 on the defensive." 
 
 The New Salem champion appeared, in fact, to be 
 outclassed. He managed to keep his feet for some time, 
 but he was at last fairly thrown. Two falls out of three 
 were to decide the match, so the wrestlers tried another 
 bout. The second differed somewhat from the first. Lin
 
 40 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 coin fell heavily, pulling Thompson to the ground with 
 him. As both went down, this looked like a " dog-fall," 
 and it was so declared by Lincoln's friends. The adher- 
 ents of Thompson, on the other hand, as warmly claimed it 
 to be a fair fall. A general fight seemed imminent, but 
 before the angry partisans could come to blows, Lincoln, 
 who had regained his feet, rushed between them, and said 
 to his supporters : 
 
 " Boys, give up your bets ; if he has not thrown me 
 fairly, he could." 
 
 This magnanimous course put an end to the quarrel, 
 while it left Lincoln's reputation as a wrestler not seri- 
 ously impaired. For his men, though they paid their 
 bets in obedience to his commands, refused to concede 
 that he had been defeated, or that any athlete in the army 
 was his match. 8 
 
 The pride of Lincoln's troopers in their Captain went 
 far toward reconciling them to his authority. He was, 
 in fact, the only officer whom they learned to obey. More- 
 over, "they were fighting men," as one historian says, 
 " and but for his personal authority would have kept the 
 camp in a perpetual uproar." Even Lincoln's control was, 
 before he got through with them, put to a severe strain, 
 the severest that can come to an officer, be he recruit or 
 veteran, open mutiny. This is how it happened. After 
 the disgraceful rout known as " Stillman's defeat," Gov- 
 ernor Reynolds and his army started in hot pursuit of 
 the Indians. The savages, as they fled, left ghastly traces 
 of their presence, here and there, in sacked homes and 
 murdered people ; but, applying their skill in woodcraft, 
 they confused their trail so well that their pursuers 
 sought them, for some time, in vain. The volunteers, 
 unaccustomed to the consequent privations, became exas- 
 perated against the enemy and unruly toward their officers. 
 Daring one of these fruitless marches, a weary and hun- 
 gry old Indian wandered into camp. He professed to be 
 a friend of the whites, and showed a safe-conduct signed
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 41 
 
 by General Cass. This declared him to have done good 
 service and to be faithful to the government. Disregard- 
 ing the pass, some of the Sangamon volunteers, actuated 
 by their recently inflamed hatred of the red man, and 
 recalling, no doubt, the frontiersman's maxim, that the 
 only good Indian is the dead Indian, rushed upon the re- 
 fugee, determined to kill him. At this juncture, Captain 
 Lincoln, stepping between them and their victim, knocked 
 up the leveled muskets. 
 
 " Men," said he, his voice ringing above their shouts, 
 " this must not be done. He must not be shot and killed 
 by us." 
 
 For a moment it seemed as if the speaker, as well as 
 the creature that crouched behind him, was in danger. 
 Then the courage and resolution in the young officer's 
 attitude gained the mastery. Beneath his fixed gaze the 
 mutinous group sullenly fell back with murmurs of dis- 
 appointment and vengeance. 
 
 " This is cowardly on your part, Lincoln ! " cried one 
 of them. 
 
 " If any man thinks I am a coward, let him test it," 
 was the reply. 
 
 " You are larger and heavier than we are," said another. 
 
 " This you can guard against. Choose your weapons," 
 rejoined Lincoln. 
 
 To this the mutineers made no answer. They had never 
 before seen him so aroused. There was nothing left for 
 them but submission. One by one they slunk away, and 
 left the Indian in peace. How imminent had been his 
 danger may be inferred from the fact that one of his race, 
 aged and blind, who threw himself upon the mercy of 
 another company, a few weeks later, was murdered by the 
 enraged soldiers. To oppose such men, be it said, in the 
 height of their frenzy, was beyond the ability of most 
 militia officers. Captain Lincoln, however, knew the crowd 
 with which he had to deal. It was only by sinking the 
 officer and asserting the man that he could have hoped for
 
 42 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 a real conquest. He might, it is true, have enforced obedi- 
 ence by recourse to military discipline ; but the influence 
 over this rough citizen-soldiery, which he so highly prized, 
 would probably have been lost to him forever. As it was, 
 neither his courage nor his authority was again questioned ; 
 for, as he himself afterwards declared, he had, at the risk 
 of his life, finally established both. 9 
 
 The force of character manifested in these incidents 
 is sufficient to account for the inexperienced militia cap- 
 tain's sway over men whom no one else could handle ; yet 
 the respect and even the affection with which, before the 
 close of the campaign, his conduct inspired them, con- 
 tributed somewhat, no doubt, toward this result. Tactfully 
 taking the middle ground between that of the commander 
 and the comrade, he did not let "the boys" forget that he 
 was their superior, although none of them entered more 
 keenly than he into their pleasures or their troubles. 
 Here was a captain of volunteers, indeed ! When the 
 duties of the day had been disposed of, he was always 
 ready to join the men in their pastimes ; when fatigues or 
 hunger discouraged them, for the marching was hard 
 and the commissary too often missing, he gathered them 
 at night about the camp-fire, to turn their faultfinding into 
 laughter over his inexhaustible flow of jests and stories ; 
 finally, when injustice threatened their welfare, he became 
 so watchful of their comfort, so tenacious of their rights, 
 that, in the language of one of the men, he "attached 
 officers and rank to him, as with hooks of steel." The 
 volunteers, be it known, had for some time suffered under 
 the discriminations in favor of the regular troops, tint 
 inevitably arise from the employment of the two brandies 
 in the same service. The militia had, indeed, been accepted 
 by the government; but it was a State body, under State 
 control, none the less, and it accordingly did not escape 
 the customary prejudice. Abuses continued, until Captain 
 Lincoln, one day, received an order that appeared to be 
 improper. He obeyed it, but, improving the opportunity,
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 43 
 
 went directly to the regular officer, who had issued it, and 
 protested against the injustice to which his men had been 
 subjected. Lincoln is said to have stated the case in good, 
 set terms, concluding with : 
 
 " Sir, you forget that we are not under the rules and 
 regulations of the War Department at Washington ; are 
 only volunteers under the orders and regulations of 
 Illinois. Keep in your own sphere and there will be no 
 difficulty, but resistance will hereafter be made to your 
 unjust orders. And, further, my men must be equal in all 
 particulars in rations, arms, camps, and so forth to 
 the regular army." 
 
 This demand was effectual. The wisdom, if not the jus- 
 tice, of acceding to it had been made clear to the regu- 
 lar officers ; and they discontinued, from that time, their 
 unfair treatment of the volunteers. As for the militiamen 
 themselves, they, naturally enough, regarded him who had 
 thus championed their cause, with devotion. 10 
 
 The victory over the epaulets at headquarters was not 
 less satisfactory than had been our Captain's little private 
 campaign for the mastery of his own men. Their surrender 
 to him, at discretion, was as we now view it of far 
 deeper significance than the subsequent capture of Black 
 Hawk and all his savages. The so-called war would, in 
 fact, like the other struggles of its class, be well-nigh 
 forgotten to-day, if it were not for the few participants 
 who became eminent. 11 And certainly, to none of these 
 was the brief experience so momentous as to the raw 
 youth whose task of leading seventy recruits was destined 
 to be followed, within a few decades, by the supreme com- 
 mand, at one time, of over a million soldiers. 
 
 Lincoln's apprenticeship to discipline had, it should be 
 added, in those early days, a two-fold character. When 
 the volunteers, after five weeks of service, demanded their 
 discharge, he was mustered out with his company. 12 As 
 the new levies had then not yet arrived at the seat of war, 
 Governor Reynolds appealed to the patriotism of the dis-
 
 44 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 banded troops for a regiment of volunteers that would, ii> 
 the interim, protect the frontier. Among those who reen- 
 listed was the ex-captain from the Sangamon. He served 
 then, and during a still later enlistment, as a private in 
 an Independent Spy Company that was called upon to 
 supply couriers, scouts, and skirmishers. Of his conduct 
 in the difficult, and presumably dangerous, duties that 
 were assigned to him, no record has been preserved, save in 
 the few random recollections of his fellow soldiers. One 
 of them recalls that whenever, on the march, scouts were 
 to be sent out to examine a covert, in which an ambush 
 might be concealed, Lincoln was the first man selected. 
 Moreover, many of those who rode forward with him are 
 said to have habitually found an excuse, as they neared 
 the place, for dismounting to adjust their girths or their 
 saddles, but "Lincoln's saddle," it is dryly added, "was 
 always in perfect order." 13 He had probably learned, bj 
 this unusual inversion of military rank, how to receive 
 orders as well as he had mastered the art of giving them. 
 At all events, he was a faithful soldier to the end. For, 
 when he was finally mustered out of service, a few weeks 
 before the close of the war, it was not, as had been the 
 case with so many of the volunteers, at his own wish, but 
 in the general disbandment necessitated by the lack of 
 provisions. Thus ingloriously terminated Abraham Lin- 
 coln's less than three months of soldiering, during whioh, 
 as it happened, he caught sight of no enemy and took 
 part in no battle. If this vexed the volunteer, he may 
 have reflected, as he made his way back to New Salem, 
 that it was, at least, as creditable to his courage to have 
 saved an Indian as to have killed one. He had, moreover, 
 engaged in sundry struggles with those who ranked above 
 and those who ranked below him ; he had tasted the 
 sweets of office, and had felt its responsibilities; he had, 
 i:i short, learned many new lessons in the rudiments of 
 leadership. The campaign, it is true, as he himself once 
 facetiously said, does not afford material for writing him
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 45 
 
 " into a military hero " ; yet the part that he had played 
 in it gave indications, at least, of the stuff out of which 
 heroes, military and otherwise, are sometimes developed. 
 
 The horizon of Lincoln's ambition had, even before 
 the Black Hawk War, distinctly widened. To extend 
 throughout the county the influence that he had attained 
 over the village became, within a few months after he had 
 taken his place behind Offutt's counter, one of his aspi- 
 rations. In order to gratify it by the readiest means, 
 he went, as the phrase goes, into politics. The road to pub- 
 lic preferment did not then, as now, in Illinois, follow 
 the devious windings of caucuses and conventions. 14 A 
 straight course lay before candidates for elective offices, 
 and as many as pleased entered the race. Each compet- 
 itor, having merely announced that he intended to run, 
 started off after his own fashion and made his way as best 
 he could towards the winning post. These heats were not 
 without rude jostlings even collisions, for the runners 
 were many and the posts few. But what would you have, 
 when 
 
 " The grave, the gay, the fopling, and the dunce, 
 Start up (God bless us !) statesmen all at once." 
 
 This array of all the talents, moreover, usually scrambled 
 for the same places seats in the legislature. Sublimely 
 ignorant of existing laws many of them were, to be sure, 
 but this ignorance, as it left the prospective law-maker 
 somewhat untrammeled in legislating according to the 
 wants of his constituency, was not invariably regarded as 
 a disability. Hence, the announcement one morning that 
 the young clerk at the grocery store had become a candi- 
 date for the legislature was not so absurd, in the spring 
 of 1832, as it might be to-day. Lincoln had, in fact, been 
 "encouraged by his great popularity among his immedi- 
 ate neighbors" so read the autobiographical notes to 
 offer himself as a representative of the people in the Gen- 
 eral Assembly. 
 
 The election was to take place late in the summer,
 
 46 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 but he had issued at once, in accordance with custom, 
 an " address " to the voters of Sangamon County. This 
 was his first formal application to the public for political 
 power. As such, the document, particularly its conclud- 
 ing paragraph, is of interest here. 
 
 " Every man," he wrote, " is said to have his peculiar 
 ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, 
 that I have no other so great as that of being truly es- 
 teemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy 
 of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying 
 this ambition is yet to be developed. I am young, and 
 unknown to many of you. I was born, and have ever 
 remained, in the most humble walks of life. I have no 
 wealthy or popular relations or friends to recommend me. 
 My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters 
 of the county ; and, if elected, they will have conferred a 
 favor upon me, for which I shall be unremitting in my 
 labors to compensate. But, if the good people, in their 
 wisdom, shall see fit to keep me in the background, I 
 have been too familiar with disappointments to be very 
 much chagrined." 1S 
 
 How sincere was the writer's desire to be " truly es- 
 teemed " had been manifested, a few weeks later, at the 
 outbreak of the war. Abandoning his canvass, before it 
 was well begun, he had in response to the first call, as we 
 have seen, marched off, with some of his neighbors, to the 
 defence of the State. 
 
 The volunteer, upon his discharge, returned to New 
 Salem with the politician's dearest attribute a record, 
 such as it was, of military service. That our ex-captain 
 did not, then or thereafter, so far as is known, parade his 
 sword for votes should be mentioned to his credit. This 
 forbearance was especially noteworthy in the case of 
 Lincoln's first canvass, which had been so interrupted by 
 that very service as to leave the candidate, after his return 
 from the front, but ten days for his contest. It was con- 
 ducted, nevertheless, manfully on its merits. Seizing the
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 47 
 
 few opportunities still open to him, he made little speeches 
 in which, besides approving of certain popular local ideas, 
 he declared himself to be "a Clay man," and in favor 
 of Henry Clay's so-called "American system." Such 
 national politics doomed his already heavily handicapped 
 canvass ; for the county, as well as the state and the coun- 
 try, was at that time overwhelmingly devoted to the policy 
 of President Jackson. The Democratic leader's partisans, 
 moreover, growing intolerant in their might, had adopted 
 his prescriptive methods toward political enemies, who 
 were to be " whipped out of office like dogs out of a meat 
 house." 16 Yet this penniless and obscure young man, 
 eager for office as he was, had the courage and self-reli- 
 ance let us say nothing of conscience to take his first 
 plunge into politics in accordance with his convictions and 
 against the tide on which the victorious spoilsmen were 
 carrying all before them. He went down, on election day, 
 with the other Clay men, suffering his first and only de- 
 feat by a direct vote of the people. A glance, however, 
 at the poll-book, reveals a crumb of comfort larger than 
 usually falls to the lot of unsuccessful candidates. Of the 
 thirteen men who ran for the legislature, four were elected, 
 and Lincoln, running 158 votes behind his lowest suc- 
 cessful competitor, stood eighth on the list. Somewhat 
 different was the order in Lincoln's home, the precinct 
 of New Salem. There, of the 290 voters who balloted for 
 representatives, 277 voted for him and but 13 against 
 him. 17 This almost unanimous support of his neighbors 
 has been explained by Judge Stephen T. Logan, one of 
 the rising young men of that day. 
 
 " The Democrats of New Salem," said he, " worked 
 for Lincoln out of their personal regard for him. That 
 was the general understanding of the matter here at the 
 time. In this he made no concession of principle what- 
 ever. He was as stiff as a man could be in his Whig 
 doctrines. They did this for him simply because he was 
 popular because he was Lincoln."
 
 48 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 The strength of this hold upon the people may be 
 appreciated to its fullest extent only when we remember 
 that in the national election, a few weeks later, these same 
 voters gave General Jackson a majority of 115 over Mr. 
 Clay. Under such conditions, Lincoln's defeat was not 
 without honor. Indeed, so extraordinary a local triumph 
 at once established his standing among the Warwicks 
 of the county, as a man to be reckoned with thencefor- 
 ward. 
 
 During the two years following, Lincoln strove to pre- 
 pare himself for the political career opened to him by 
 his brilliant, if unsuccessful, start. The canvass had 
 made clear to the candidate that he was at a disadvantage 
 in two particulars, at least. The people of the county at 
 large did not know him well enough, and what may 
 have been less evident to others, though it was even more 
 deeply impressed upon him he did not know enough to 
 cope, on an equal footing, with some of the leaders whom 
 he had encountered. The first of these deficiencies was 
 largely overcome, strange as it may seem, through the 
 kindness of a Democratic officer, the Surveyor of Sanga- 
 mon County. This follower of Jackson, John Calhoun by 
 name, so far forgot his "whole-hog" obligations as to 
 admire the new " Clay man." He even went farther in 
 his treason. Having persuaded Lincoln to study the rudi- 
 ments of surveying, 18 he appointed him his deputy, and 
 kept him so busy for speculation in land was at its 
 height that the young man had ample opportunity not 
 only to make many new acquaintances, but to win their 
 confidence as well. The second deficiency was not so 
 easily disposed of, though Lincoln's efforts to that end 
 were untiring. Whether, as happened during this period, 
 he picked up a living by doing odd jobs, keeping store, 
 carrying letters, or laying out town lots, he invariably 
 found time for the study of such newspapers, law books, 
 and odd volumes as came within his reach. 19 Conse- 
 quently when, during the summer of 1834, he again
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 49 
 
 presented himself as a candidate for the legislature, he 
 made, in this respect also, a better showing. Still, the 
 homely, ill-clad young fellow must, in appearance at least, 
 have fallen short of even Sangamon standards, simple as 
 they were. " He wore," said a friend who had accompa- 
 nied him in the preceding canvass, " a mixed jeans coat, 
 clawhammer style, short in the sleeves, and bobtail in 
 fact it was so short in the tail he could not sit on it ; 
 flax and tow-linen pantaloons, and a straw hat. I think 
 he wore a vest, but do not remember how it looked. He 
 wore pot-metal boots." 20 This wardrobe had evidently 
 not been greatly improved when Lincoln made his second 
 appeal for the suffrages of the people, inasmuch as a cer- 
 tain doctor, looking him over contemptuously while he 
 was on one of his electioneering tours, asked : 
 
 " Can't the party raise any better material than that? " 
 
 "Go to-morrow and hear all before you pronounce 
 judgment," said a common friend, who after the meeting 
 on the following day inquired: 
 
 " Doctor, what say you now ? " 
 
 " Why, sir," was the answer, " he is a perfect take-in. He 
 knew more than all of the other candidates put together." 21 
 
 On election day Lincoln was found to have been chosen 
 by a flattering plurality. He stood second on the list of 
 four Assemblymen, and but fourteen votes below the first 
 man. 22 This success was repeated in 1836, when he led 
 the poll ; in 1838, after he had become a lawyer, with his 
 home at Springfield; and in 1840, when he made what, 
 by his own choice, proved to be his last run for the office. 
 The five canvasses themselves did not differ essentially 
 from those conducted at the time by other young poli- 
 ticians of the neighborhood. In one respect, however, 
 Lincoln appears to have made his contests distinctive. 
 They afforded occasions, which he did not neglect, for the 
 exercise of his aggressive faculties. Indeed, careful scru- 
 tiny of the few incidents that have here and there been 
 chronicled reveals how the vein of mastery, which we
 
 5 o LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 have traced to this point, continued unbroken through 
 the entire decade. 
 
 Lincoln's first canvass in fact, his first appearance 
 on the stump was attended by a little scene that appro- 
 priately introduced the subduer of Clary's Grove to a 
 community fully as capable of appreciating grit and 
 muscle. A crowd of voters that had collected at Papps- 
 ville, getting full of whiskey and enthusiasm, began a 
 general fight. Among those who were roughly handled 
 was a follower of the New Salem candidate. Jumping 
 from the platform, Lincoln rushed through the melee, 
 seized his friend's assailant as if to make him "walk 
 Spanish," tossed him off ten feet or so, resumed his place 
 on the stand, and calmly began his little speech. This 
 prelude, it is safe to say, did not lessen the warmth of his 
 welcome from an audience akin to " the bare-footed boys," 
 " the huge-pawed boys," or " the butcher-knife boys," who, 
 in the elections of those days, so often held the balance 
 of power. 23 
 
 During the canvass of four years later, when Lincoln 
 spoke at Mechanicsburg, he "jumped in and saw fair 
 play " so a bystander relates for another friend who 
 was getting the worst of it in a similar fight. 24 By that 
 time, however, he had learned to use his tongue and his 
 pen no less effectually than his hands in repelling an 
 attack. Suiting the weapon to the occasion, he mani- 
 fested, in those primitive electioneering encounters for the 
 Assembly, something of the power and adroitness that 
 in mature years distinguished his more ambitious efforts. 
 None of the candidate's later triumphs excelled, in this 
 respect, his victory, during the contest, over George For- 
 quer, a politician of prominence and uncommon ability. 
 A lawyer by profession, his words, as a speaker and as a 
 writer, were weighted with the prestige which naturally 
 attaches to one who had been member of the Assembly, 
 Secretary of State, Attorney-General, and State Senator. 
 He had recently deserted the Whig Party to join the
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 51 
 
 Jackson Democrats, a defection which the administration 
 had rewarded with the lucrative place of Register of the 
 Land Office at Springfield. This worthy might have sat 
 for Hosea Biglow's portrait of Gineral C. : 
 
 " a dreffle smart man : 
 
 He 's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf ; 
 But consistency still wuz a part of his plan, 
 
 He 's ben true to one party, an' thet is himself." 
 
 Forquer's pretentious new house, from which projected 
 a lightning-rod, the only one in the county, had been 
 pointed out to Lincoln as he rode into town, one evening, 
 with a few of his friends. They were unable to answer 
 the young man's eager questions about the " new-fangled " 
 rod. It was there to keep off the lightning. More than 
 that none of them could say. 25 On the following day, in 
 the debate which took place at the court-house, between 
 the candidates for office, Lincoln made a good impression. 
 In fact, his success was so marked that, as the audience 
 was dispersing, the Democrats deemed it necessary to put 
 forward one of their strong men to reply. This task was 
 committed to Forquer, who, as he was not a candidate, had 
 taken no part in the discussion. He responded to the call, 
 nevertheless, with the vigor and skill of a practiced de- 
 bater. Not content with what could be said in answer to 
 Lincoln's arguments, the speaker sought to overwhelm 
 the young man beneath a flood of personal abuse and ridi- 
 cule. The onslaught was so severe that the candidate's 
 friends trembled for their favorite. What could he say in 
 rejoinder ? Lincoln, evidently laboring under great excite- 
 ment, stood a few paces distant, intently eyeing the speaker. 
 At the conclusion of the attack, he remounted the stand 
 to reply. 
 
 "I have heard him often since," writes his friend 
 Joshua F. Speed, who was present, "in the courts and 
 before the people, but never saw him appear and acquit 
 himself so well as upon that occasion. His reply to For- 
 quer was characterized by great dignity and force."
 
 52 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 This praise was merited, if we may judge from the con- 
 clusion, which alone has been preserved. 
 
 "Mr. Forquer," said Lincoln, "commenced his speech 
 by announcing that the young man would have to be taken 
 down. It is for you, fellow citizens, not for me to say 
 whether I am up or down. The gentleman has seen fit to 
 allude to my being a young man ; but he forgets that I 
 am older in years than in the tricks and trades of politi- 
 cians. I desire to live, and I desire place and distinction ; 
 but I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, live 
 to see the day that I would change my politics for an 
 office worth three thousand dollars a year, and then feel 
 compelled to erect a lightning-rod to protect a guilty con- 
 science from an offended God." 2e 
 
 Our Register and his rod had indeed drawn the light- 
 ning. The hit was a palpable one. It left the young 
 candidate master of the field, from which his antagonist 
 retired with a hurt that never entirely healed. When 
 Forquer thereafter spoke in public meetings, his oppo- 
 nents usually found occasion to remind his audiences that 
 he was the turncoat whom Abe Lincoln had accused of 
 erecting a lightning-rod " to protect a guilty conscience 
 from an offended God." 27 
 
 The controversy with Forquer was typical of a can- 
 vass noted for its bitterness. Personal conflicts, not only 
 between excited partisans, but even between the candidates 
 themselves, disgraced the contest. In such a struggle, 
 Lincoln, of course, could not hope to escape slander any 
 more than he had avoided abuse. Vague charges against 
 him and one of his colleagues were circulated by Colonel 
 Robert Allen, a Democratic politician, who, for lack of 
 argument, resorted to this shift for prejudicing the Whig 
 cause. Lincoln's method of meeting the attack was in 
 striking contrast with the violence to which similar acts, 
 in the rough-and-tumble canvass of that year, gave rise. 
 He sent Allen this letter, which is worthy of a place here, 
 in full:
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 53 
 
 NEW SALEM, June 21, 1836. 
 
 DEAR COLONEL, I am told that during my absence 
 last week you passed through the place and stated publicly 
 that you were in possession of a fact or facts which, if 
 known to the public, would entirely destroy the prospects 
 of N. W. Edwards and myself at the ensuing election ; 
 but that through favor to us you would forbear to divulge 
 them. No one has needed favors more than I, and, gen- 
 erally, few have been less unwilling to accept them ; but 
 in this case favor to me would be injustice to the public, 
 and therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. 
 That I once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon 
 County is sufficiently evident ; and if I have done any- 
 thing, either by design or misadventure, which if known 
 would subject me to a forfeiture of that confidence, he 
 that knows of that thing and conceals it is a traitor to his 
 country's interest. 
 
 I find myself wholly unable to form any conjecture 
 of what fact or facts, real or supposed, you spoke ; but 
 my opinion of your veracity will not permit me for a 
 moment to doubt that you at least believed what you said. 
 I am flattered with the personal regard you manifested 
 for me ; but I do hope that, on mature reflection, you will 
 view the public interest as a paramount consideration, and 
 therefore determine to let the worst come. 
 
 I assure you that the candid statement of facts on your 
 part, however low it may sink me, shall never break the 
 ties of personal friendship between us. 
 
 I wish an answer to this, and you are at liberty to pub- 
 lish both if you choose. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 A. LINCOLN. 
 
 A remarkable production this, from a half -fledged back- 
 woods politician, in the heat of an election contest ! The 
 refined irony of Lincoln's thrust for a notorious per- 
 verter of facts was the Colonel left this old campaigner
 
 54 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 as helplessly impaled upon its point as was the other 
 veteran upon the barb of his own lightning-rod. Allen 
 need we say ? did not avail himself of the permission to 
 publish the letter or an answer thereto. He was silenced. 
 His son, finding the letter, long after the incident had been 
 forgotten, gave to the public this further evidence of how 
 " the young man," who was " to be taken down," exchanged 
 roles, on occasion, with the gentlemen in charge of the 
 performance. 28 
 
 The canvass of 1836, stirring as it was, did not put the 
 candidates so much on their mettle as did that of 1840 
 the annus mirabilis of American politics. The enthu- 
 siasm of " the hard-cider campaign," with its acres of 
 mass-meetings, its processions, frolics, songs, free drinks, 
 log-cabins, and coon-skins, pervaded, as elsewhere, the local 
 elections in Illinois. State, questions were lost sight of in 
 national issues, such as they were, and Lincoln, besides 
 his candidature for the Assembly, had a place on the Whig 
 electoral ticket. Entering into the contest with his accus- 
 tomed zeal, he was much in evidence throughout Illinois 
 that year ; yet what he said in debate and on the stump 
 is, as was the case in previous struggles, largely a matter 
 of conjecture. 29 On the other hand, some of the things 
 that he did impressed themselves, firmly enough, in the 
 people's memory. 
 
 The voters of 1840 flocked into political meetings not 
 to learn and to reflect, but to shout, to scuffle, to laugh, 
 and to sing. How cleverly Lincoln adapted himself to such 
 an audience and, at the same time, crushed an opponent, 
 with a turn of the wrist, as one might say, has been re- 
 lated by some of his associates. He was frequently opposed 
 on the stump so runs the story by Colonel Dick Tay- 
 lor, a demagogue with a weakness for sarcasm and fine 
 clothes. Severely Democratic in theory, however, the Colo- 
 nel took care to keep as much of his finery as possible out 
 of sight, while he had his flings at the aristocratic preten- 
 sions of the Whigs, or warned " the hard-handed yeomanry "
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 55 
 
 against " rag-barons " and " manufacturing-lords." Such 
 taunts made up the stock of his inflated oratory, as usual, 
 one day, when Lincoln, "to take the wind out of his sails," 
 as he expressed it, slipped to the speaker's side and catch- 
 ing his vest by the lower edge, gave it a sharp pull. " It 
 opened wide," says one of the narrators, " and out fell 
 upon the platform, in full view of the astonished audience, 
 a mass of ruffled shirt, gold watch, chains, seals, and glitter- 
 ing jewels." According to another veracious historian, the 
 vest, when so rudely shaken, merely " opened and revealed 
 to his astonished hearers " the Colonel's concealed gran- 
 deur. At all events, Lincoln, guiltless of linen and soft 
 raiment, made the most of the situation. Pointing to the 
 mortified orator, he exclaimed : 
 
 " Behold the hard-fisted Democrat ! Look, gentlemen, 
 at this specimen of the bone and sinew. And here, gen- 
 tlemen," laying his large, coarse hand on his heart, 
 and bowing, " here, at your service, here is your aris- 
 x>crat ! Here is one of your silk-stocking gentry. Here 
 is your rag-baron with his lily-white hands. Yes, I sup- 
 pose I, according to my friend Taylor, am a bloated aris- 
 tocrat." 
 
 After speaking of the demagogue's customary vaporings, 
 he went on : 
 
 " While Colonel Taylor was making these charges 
 against the Whigs over the country, riding in fine car- 
 riages, wearing ruffled shirts, kid gloves, massive gold 
 watch-chains with large gold seals and flourishing a heavy 
 gold-headed cane, I was a poor boy, hired on a flat-boat 
 at eight dollars a month, and had only one pair of breeches 
 to my back, and they were buckskin. Now, if you know the 
 nature of buckskin, when wet and dried by the sun, it will 
 shrink ; and my breeches kept shrinking until they left 
 several inches of my legs bare, between the tops of my 
 socks and the lower part of my breeches ; and whilst I was 
 growing taller they were becoming shorter, and so much 
 tighter that they left a blue streak around my legs that
 
 56 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 can be seen to this day. If you call this aristocracy, I 
 plead guilty to the charge." 
 
 Lincoln's humor and the discomfiture of his opponent 
 were irresistible. Amidst Gargantuan peals of laughter, 
 in which one of the audience " nearly broke his heart with 
 mirth," was this elegant Democrat pilloried, in Sangamon 
 County, for the rest of his career. As to " the youug man," 
 he had simply " taken down " one more lofty antagonist. 30 
 
 There were times, during this extraordinary canvass, 
 when raillery, as well as argument, failed to move a crowd ; 
 when, in fact, physical courage alone sufficed to control 
 the turbulent spirits. It was on such an occasion, one 
 evening, that Lincoln's friend, Edward Dickinson Baker., 
 who already gave promise of the brilliant career that lay 
 before him, addressed a hostile audience, in the Springfield 
 court-room. The place happened to be directly below the 
 law office of Stuart & Lincoln, in which the junior member 
 of the firm lay listening, through a trap-door that opened 
 above the platform. The speaker, as he warmed to his 
 subject, denounced, with the impetuous eloquence that 
 afterward made him famous, the dishonesty of Democratic 
 officials. "Wherever there is a land-office, there you will 
 find a Democratic newspaper defending its corruptions! " 
 he thundered. 
 
 " Pull him down ! " shouted John B. Weber, whose 
 brother was the editor of the local administration sheet. 
 
 There was a noisy rush toward the platform, and, for 
 the moment, it seemed as if Baker, who stood pale yet 
 firm, would be punished for his temerity. Then, to the 
 astonishment of the advancing crowd, a lank form dangled 
 through the scuttle, and Lincoln dropped upon the plat- 
 form between them and the object of their anger. After 
 gesticulating in vain for silence, he seized the stone water- 
 jug and shouted : 
 
 " I '11 break it over the head of the first man who lays 
 a hand on Baker ! " 
 
 As the assailants hesitated, he continued :
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 57 
 
 " Hold on, gentlemen, let us not disgrace the age and 
 country in which we live. This is a land where freedom 
 of speech is guaranteed. Mr. Baker has a right to speak 
 and ought to be permitted to do so. I am here to protect 
 him, and no man shall take him from this stand, if I can 
 prevent it." 
 
 The crowd receded, quiet was restored, and Baker 
 finished his speech without further interruption. 31 
 
 It was under somewhat similar circumstances, and dur- 
 ing this same contest, that the muscular candidate in- 
 terposed his commanding presence between some enraged 
 Democratic partisans and another Whig orator. The 
 speaker, in that instance, was General Usher F. Linder. 
 He delivered before a large audience, in the Springfield 
 State House, a spirited address, which was interrupted by 
 threats and insults. Thereupon, Lincoln and Baker, who 
 were present, mounted the platform and stationed them- 
 selves one on each side of him. As soon as the speaker 
 had concluded, they passed their arms through his, and 
 Lincoln said : 
 
 " Linder, Baker and I are apprehensive that you may 
 be attacked by some of those ruffians who insulted you 
 from the galleries, and we have come up to escort you to 
 your hotel. We both think we can do a little fighting, so 
 we want you to walk between us until we get you to your 
 hotel. Your quarrel is our quarrel and that of the great 
 Whig Party of this nation ; and your speech, upon this 
 occasion, is the greatest one that has been made by any 
 of us, for which we wish to honor, love, and defend you." 
 
 The three men walked unmolested through the crowd 
 that, following them to the hotel, gave the orator, before 
 it dispersed, three hearty cheers. 32 
 
 The violence that marked " the hard-cider campaign " 
 consistently extended to the very polls. On election day, 
 word was brought to Lincoln that a certain railroad con- 
 tractor, named Radford, had, in the interests of the Demo- 
 crats, taken possession with his workmen of a polling-place
 
 5 8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 and was hindering the Whigs from voting. Lincoln, seiz- 
 ing an ax-handle, made for the scene of action, on a run. 
 
 " Radford," he said, as he opened a way to the ballot- 
 box, " you '11 spoil and blow, if you live much longer." ^ 
 
 The contractor, who knew the character of the man 
 with whom he was dealing, did not stay to argue the 
 question. He at once withdrew, somewhat it must be 
 admitted to the disappointment of the candidate, who 
 confided to his friend Speed that he wanted Radford to 
 show fight, as he " intended just to knock him down and 
 leave him kicking." Lincoln's "stern advice," as one 
 writer terms it, was sufficient, however, to rout the heelers, 
 and to secure the Whigs, that day, at least, against any 
 further encroachments upon their rights. 34 
 
 The spirit with which our campaigner plunged into 
 conflict in behalf of his party, his friends, er himself, lost 
 none of its vigor when the scene of his activities was 
 transferred from the stump to the legislature. There, 
 though one of the youngest and probably one of the least 
 experienced of the members, he took his position, after 
 the initiation of his first term, as if it were a matter of 
 course, on the battle line. In the stirring session of 1836- 
 37, county was arrayed against county, town against town. 
 Their several representatives struggled for a prize, dear 
 to every ambitious community the State capitol. The 
 seat of government was to be removed from Vandalia, but 
 whither? Among the most strenuous claimants was San- 
 gamon County, which had entrusted the task of securing 
 this honor for Springfield to its Representatives and Sen- 
 ators. They constituted a notable group, sons of Anak, 
 all, to whom was applicable, in more respects than one, 
 their sobriquet, the "Long Nine"; 35 and the longest of 
 them was the member from New Salem. His colleagues, 
 recognizing at the very outset his talent for leadership, 
 assigned to him the management of their fight ; for fight 
 indeed it was. The opponents of Springfield were numerous 
 and stubborn. Twice they prevailed so far as to lay the
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 59 
 
 bill in its behalf on the table ; but Lincoln contested every 
 inch of the ground. " In those darkest hours," says one 
 of his associates, " when our Bill to all appearances was 
 beyond resuscitation, and all our opponents were jubilant 
 over our defeat, and when friends could see no hope, Mr. 
 Lincoln never for one moment despaired ; but, collecting 
 his colleagues to his room for consultation, his practical 
 common-sense, his thorough knowledge of human nature, 
 then made him an overmatch for his compeers and for any 
 man that I have ever known." M 
 
 Holding his delegation well in hand, and casting its 
 influence, on most questions, as a unit, Lincoln availed 
 himself of the then current craze for " internal improve- 
 ments " so as steadily to increase the Springfield following. 
 To what extent he indulged in the reprehensible practice 
 of trading votes, and whether or not he merited " the repu- 
 tation of being the best log-roller in the legislature," may 
 not be considered here. Suffice it to say that he did roll 
 up the pledges for his bill, at every move, and that, shortly 
 before adjournment, he carried the day for Springfield. 
 This success, though much of it was due to Lincoln's skil- 
 ful political manipulation, is to be ascribed, in part as well, 
 to what may be best described as his personal magnetism. 
 " He made Webb and me vote for the removal," says Je>sse 
 K. Dubois, one of the Whig Assemblymen, " though we 
 belonged to the southern end of the State. We defended 
 our vote before our constituents by saying that necessity 
 would ultimately force the seat of government to a cen- 
 tral position. But, in reality, we gave the vote to Lincoln 
 because we liked him, because we wanted to oblige our 
 friend, and because we recognized him as our leader." 
 His party in the Lower House, remarkable as it must have 
 seemed, had in fact, before the close of the session, begun 
 to look for guidance to this new man. In that uneven 
 contest of Sangamon against the field were manifested 
 not a few of the qualities whkh parliamentary minorities 
 look for in their captains.
 
 60 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Having demonstrated his ability to conduct an aggres- 
 sive campaign, it remained for the Sangamon Chief, as 
 Lincoln was now sometimes called, to prove his mettle 
 on the defensive. An opportunity soon presented itself, 
 inasmuch as somewhat of the animosity engendered 
 by the struggle for the capitol outlived the legislature 
 that dealt with the question. In the extra session, called 
 during the following summer, the opponents of Spring- 
 field made a vigorous attempt to repeal the law which 
 had established that town as the seat of government. The 
 movement was led by General William L. D. Ewing, ex- 
 United States Senator, who in a stinging address accused 
 the " Long Nine " of having won their victory by " chi- 
 canery and trickery." Sparing neither invective nor sar- 
 casm, he arraigned the members from Sangamon with a 
 severity that called for immediate reply. Who would take 
 up the gage flung down by this formidable antagonist 
 a man of culture, standing, and distinguished personal 
 courage ? Lincoln promptly did so. In a spirited speech, 
 he defended the " Long Nine," and made countercharges 
 of corruption against Ewing and his associates. So keen 
 was this denunciation that the House believed the speaker, 
 as one of the auditors reports, to be " digging his own 
 grave." " This was the time," says that same friend, 
 " that I began to conceive a very high opinion of the 
 talents and personal courage of Abraham Lincoln." And 
 with reason, for General Ewing, masterful and hot-tem- 
 pered, would surely close such a controversy with a chal- 
 lenge. " Gentlemen," he said, turning to the Sangamon 
 section, "have you no other champion than this coarse 
 and vulgar fellow to bring into the lists against me ? Do 
 you suppose that I will condescend to break a lance with 
 your low and obscure colleague ? " What justification 
 Ewing had, on that occasion, for so harsh a reference to 
 his opponent's breeding cannot be determined, as there is 
 no report of what Lincoln said, extant. The speech must 
 have been effectual, however. " Our friend carries the
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 61 
 
 true Kentucky rifle," was the comment of a Springfield 
 editor, on Lincoln, at about that time, " and when he fires, 
 he seldom fails of sending the shot home." OT The weapon 
 used on Ewing was doubtless double-barreled ; for the 
 scheme to have the Capital Law repealed fell to the ground, 
 and the assailant of the " Long Nine " was so hard hit 
 that the interference of friends alone prevented a duel. 38 
 Small wonder that the General did not approve of " this 
 coarse and vulgar fellow," or that the Sangamon delega- 
 tion was content to leave its standard in the hands of such 
 a champion. 
 
 The force and fearlessness that had marked the reply 
 to Ewing were not soon forgotten. Whenever thereafter, 
 in the legislature or outside of it, the " Long Nine " were 
 assailed, and their enemies were numerous enough, 
 Lincoln was put forward to defend them. Once they were 
 intemperately attacked by Jesse B. Thomas, a lawyer of 
 ability and one of the most distinguished Democratic 
 politicians in the State. While he spoke, Lincoln, who 
 happened to be absent from the meeting, was sent for. 
 Hastening to the court-house, in which the incident took 
 place, the Sangamon chief mounted the platform after 
 the speaker and made a reply, the language of which 
 none of his auditors remembered, but the manner and 
 effect of which were never effaced from their memories. 
 Denunciation of Thomas, ridicule of his foibles, even 
 mimicry of certain physical peculiarities followed one 
 another, in rapid succession, amidst uproarious laughter 
 and applause. So sharp was the onslaught that its object 
 is said to have wept with vexation as he hurried from the 
 scene. His emotion tempered the triumph of his adver- 
 sary, who hunted him up, and, with characteristic good 
 nature, apologized for the severity of the reply. This 
 speech, like the invective against Ewing, has unfortu- 
 nately not been preserved. The impression it made, how- 
 ever, in the political circles of Springfield may be inferred 
 from the fact that it became a byword under the title
 
 62 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 of " the skinning of Thomas." From that time forward, 
 moreover, but few Democratic orators, if we may judge 
 from the records, cared to concern themselves with the 
 iniquities of the " Long Nine." M 
 
 The judgment of Sangamon in the selection of its 
 chief was vindicated, not alone by his successful battles 
 in its behalf, but also by the action of his party. The 
 Whigs, in the Assembly of 1837, as has been said, had 
 begun to regard Lincoln as their head. In 1838, when the 
 Lower House was organizing, they awarded him that dis- 
 tinction, beyond a doubt, by making him their candidate 
 for the speakership. This was no small honor for a man 
 of twenty -nine, particularly when that man was the " low 
 and obscure " Lincoln ; while his opponent, the Democratic 
 nominee, happened to be no less a notability than that 
 Ewing who had applied these epithets to him, a few months 
 before. As the Whigs were in the minority, they of course 
 did not elect their candidate. He maintained his place, 
 nevertheless, at their head, and again received their votes 
 for the office, in the legislature of 1840. Then, as in the 
 former election, he was pitted against Ewing, and, because 
 of the weakness of his party, with the same result. But 
 the vital fact for us, the point which stands out above the 
 flat details of these speakership contests, is the elevation 
 of Offutt's gawky clerk, in an almost incredibly short 
 period, to parliamentary leadership. 
 
 The steps by which Lincoln mounted to the mastery of 
 his party in the legislature are not clearly defined. Nor 
 is it easy to place one's hand upon the quality or quali- 
 ties, in his make-up, which contributed most to that result. 
 Courage, force, devotion, tact, and ready wit underlie 
 the few narratives here set down ; but as the incidents 
 were selected with a view to illustration, rather than ta 
 historical completeness, they leave unnoticed other traits 
 that deserve mention, even though they have not been 
 severally crystallized in the heart of a good story. The 
 political honesty that led Lincoln to cast his lot with a
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 63 
 
 party in apparently hopeless minority ; the loyalty that 
 held him true to the interests of that party, when others 
 turned their coats ; the intellectual thoroughness and 
 candor which rendered him formidable in debate, as well 
 as influential in council ; the extreme of self-reliance that 
 rarely required assistance or advice, yet could receive 
 without impatience what it did not want; the homely, 
 unaffected good humor that expressed itself at every turn 
 m a funny story or a sympathetic word, and won for him 
 the title of " uncommon good fellow," even from men 
 with whom he would neither smoke nor drink, these 
 also are some of the plus factors, as one might say, which 
 in this his first political epoch already entered into the 
 making of the master's character. He cannot, it is true, 
 be said to have evinced, all in all, remarkable generalship, 
 either on the stump or in the House. Indeed, if Lincoln's 
 public career had closed with his last term in the Assem- 
 bly, even local history might have found scant inspira- 
 tion in those few electioneering episodes, or in the wild- 
 cat legislation to which he contributed no unimportant 
 part. As it is, however, the decade forms an essential 
 link in the chain of our investigation. It may be termed 
 the transition period from physical to intellectual power. 
 Both held sway by turns, yet so conjointly that we can 
 almost discern how the aggressive quality of the one was 
 merged into that of the other. In this readjustment of 
 his forces Lincoln, still held his own. Novel conditions 
 speedily became familiar environment, and new men, 
 great as well as small, took therein their proper places. 
 As for the tall member from Sangamon, when he found 
 his place, it was need we add ? at the head. 
 
 Nor did Lincoln fail to maimtain this ascendancy in 
 several severe quarrels that took place outside of the 
 legislature. Two, of a quasi-political nature, in which he 
 became involved subsequent to his controversy with 
 Ewing, afford further glimpses of his character, on its 
 forceful side. The first of these encounters occurred dur-
 
 64 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 ing the summer of 1837, shortly after he had become a 
 lawyer and had taken up his residence in Springfield, as 
 the partner of a Black Hawk War comrade, Major John 
 T. Stuart. The firm had been retained by a widow to 
 prosecute a claim against a certain General James Adams, 
 whom she accused of acquiring title to a ten-acre lot by 
 the forgery of her deceased husband's signature. While 
 the case was pending, the defendant, a chronic aspirant 
 for public office, became a candidate for the place of 
 probate justice. A few days before the election, he was 
 unsparingly attacked for his conduct, in an anonymous 
 handbill, which closed with the sentence : 
 
 " I shall not subscribe my name, but hereby authorize 
 the editor of the Journal to give it up to any one who 
 may call for it." 
 
 Copies of the document having been scattered broad- 
 cast about the streets, they gave rise to a controversy, 
 which was heightened rather than allayed by the election 
 of Adams. He denied the charges in a long letter to the 
 Sangamon Journal. The issue of the paper in which his 
 communication appeared also contained a reprint of the 
 original handbill, with an announcement by the editor 
 that "A. Lincoln, Esq.," was its author. The quarrel 
 raged for several weeks in the columns of the Journal 
 and of the Springfield Republican. Step by step, Lincoln 
 followed Adams up, exposing the seamy side of his career, 
 and capping the climax with a copy of an indictment for 
 forgery, found against him in Oswego County, New York, 
 nineteen years before. An unscrupulous adventurer, this ; 
 yet the young barrister does not seem to have hesitated. 
 In fact, the worse " the General's " character proved to 
 be, as his past life was unfolded, the more fearless became 
 his adversary's denunciations. Replying to Adams's flings 
 at lawyers, Lincoln wrote : 
 
 " He attempted to impose himself upon the community 
 as a lawyer, and he actually carried the attempt so far as 
 to induce a man who was under the charge of murder to
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 65 
 
 entrust the defence of his life to his hands, and finally 
 took his money and got him hanged. Is this the man that 
 is to raise a breeze in his favor by abusing lawyers ? . . . 
 If he is not a lawyer, he is a liar ; for he proclaimed 
 himself a lawyer, and got a man hanged by depending 
 on him. . . . Farewell, General, I will see you again at 
 court, if not before when and where we will settle the 
 question whether you or the widow shall have the land." ** 
 
 The widow did get the land, Adams was completely 
 discredited, and one more scalp hung from the belt of the 
 Sangamon Chief. 
 
 The second quarrel, like the first, mingled public with 
 private motives, and grew, in similar fashion, out of an 
 anonymous composition from Lincoln's pen. In the one 
 case, as in the other, moreover, he manifested the fear- 
 less and masterful spirit with which we have by this time 
 become familiar. But further than that the resemblance 
 did not go ; for Lincoln's exposure of a scamp like Adams 
 had little in common with his unwarrantable attack upon 
 James Shields. Shields was a brave, quick-tempered 
 young Irishman, with a full share of his countrymen's 
 taste for love and politics. An ardent Democrat of course, 
 he had been elected to the Illinois Assembly even before 
 observing the trivial formality of naturalization, and, a 
 few years later, his services to the party had been re- 
 warded with the place of State Auditor. The office gave 
 him a certain prominence, which he is said to have made 
 the most of in Springfield society. In truth, this gallant 
 bachelor from County Tyrone was a very "lion among 
 ladies." It is not surprising, therefore, that his social 
 vanities, no less than his political flourishes, offered a 
 tempting mark to the assaults of the Whigs. Their ani- 
 mus against the Auditor was intensified, during the sum- 
 mer of 1842, when the insolvent condition of the State 
 treasury and the depreciation in the value of State Bank 
 notes caused the Governor and his financial officers to 
 issue a proclamation forbidding the payment of taxes
 
 66 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 in the almost worthless bank paper. As this was, practi- 
 cally, the only money in the hands of the people, they 
 assailed the Democratic State government, from every 
 quarter, with an outburst of indignation, which the 
 Whigs regardless of their own part in the extravagant 
 improvement legislation that had given rise to the trouble 
 lost no opportunity of stimulating. The newspapers 
 and leaders of the minority party were severe in their 
 censure of the State authorities, among whom, by the way, 
 the Auditor had rendered himself especially obnoxious. 
 Upon him, in the midst of the denunciations, fell the 
 heaviest charge of all ; for it was directed by that same 
 Kentucky marksman who seldom failed, as one of his 
 admirers told us, " of sending the shot home." 
 
 The caustic humor that, from The First Chronicles 
 of Reuben to " the skinning of Thomas," had now and 
 then been so effectively employed by Lincoln in mastering 
 an opponent, here again came into play. He contributed 
 to the Sangamo Journal of September 2, edited at the 
 time by his friend Simeon Francis, a singular composi- 
 tion. It purported to be A Letter from the Lost Town- 
 ships, written by a Democratic widow who signed herself 
 " Rebecca." u In robust country dialect, she denounced 
 " these officers of State " as a hypocritical set, that ought 
 to be supplanted in the places they disgraced by men who 
 would " do more work for less pay, and take fewer airs 
 while they are doing it." The " airs " of the Auditor had 
 particularly aroused Rebecca's ire; for upon that func- 
 tionary burst almost the whole torrent of her coarse 
 ridicule. 
 
 " I seed him," she reports a neighbor as saying, " when 
 I was down in Springfield last winter. They had a sort 
 of a gatherin' there one night among the grandees, they 
 called a fair. All the gals about town was there, and all 
 the handsome widows and married women, finickin' about 
 trying to look like gals. ... I looked in at the window, 
 and there was this same fellow Shields floatin' about
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 67 
 
 on the air, without heft or earthly substances, just like a 
 lock of cat fur where cats had been fighting. He was pay- 
 ing his money to this one, and that one, and t'other one, 
 and sufferin' great loss because it was n't silver instead of 
 State paper ; and the sweet distress he seemed to be in 
 his very features, in the ecstatic agony of his soul, spoke 
 audibly and distinctly : ' Dear girls, it is distressing, 
 but I cannot marry you all. Too well I know how much 
 you suffer ; but do, do remember, it is not my fault that 
 I am so handsome and so interesting.' As this last was 
 expressed by a most exquisite contortion of his face, he 
 seized hold of one of their hands, and squeezed, and held 
 on to it about a quarter of an hour. ' Oh, my good fel- 
 low ! ' says I to myself, ' if that was one of our Democratic 
 gals in the Lost Townships, the way you 'd get a brass pin 
 let into you would be about up to the head.' " 
 
 So much for ridicule ; as to abuse, there was nothing in 
 the letter more severe than this comment on a circular, 
 issued by the Auditor : 
 
 " I say it 's a lie, and not a well told one at that. It 
 grins out like a copper dollar. Shields is a fool as well as 
 a liar. With him truth is out of the question ; and as for 
 getting a good, bright, passable lie out of him, you might 
 as well try to strike fire from a cake of tallow." 
 
 Fighting words these, as the writer must have known, 
 especially when applied to a man of Shields's calibre. 
 
 Touched to the quick by the satire, and enraged by 
 the attack upon his honor, the hot-blooded young Auditor 
 did not conduct himself with that coolness which is alone 
 effectual against such assaults. On the contrary, amidst 
 the merriment of the town, he gave way to his fury after 
 a fashion that must have gratified his assailant. More 
 than that, it started the mischievous pens of two Whig- 
 gish and, we may add, waggish young ladies, Mary Todd 
 and her friend Julia M. Jayne. Their interest in politics 
 is accounted for by the fact that within the next few 
 months they became respectively Mrs. Abraham Lincoln
 
 68 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 and Mrs. Lyman Trumbull. Moreover, what is more to 
 the point, the former of these ladies was, at the time, con- 
 ducting a clandestine renewal of her interrupted court- 
 ship with the author of A Letter from the Lost Townships, 
 under the roof of Editor Francis. His hospitality opened 
 to her the columns of the Journal, as well as his house, 
 when she and her confidante, taking up the theme where 
 Lincoln had left it, concocted a second letter. In this 
 sequel, Shields's threats of vengeance appear to have 
 frightened Rebecca into a proposal of marriage, by way 
 of compromise. She prefers "matrimonial bliss" to "a 
 lickin' " ; but, if the Auditor persist in his demands for 
 "personal satisfaction," she, on her side, as the challenged 
 party, will insist on the choice of weapons. "Which bein' 
 the case," she concludes, " I '11 tell you in confidence that 
 I never fights with anything but broomsticks, or hot water, 
 or a shovelful of coals, or some such thing ; the former of 
 which, being somewhat like a shillalah, may not be very 
 objectional to him. I will give him choice, however, in 
 one thing, and that is, whether, when we fight, I shall 
 wear breeches or he petticoats ; for, I presume that change 
 is sufficient to place us on an equality." But the affair 
 terminated that is to say according to the fair satirists 
 without bloodshed; for they closed their literary labors 
 with some doggerel verses, celebrating the nuptials of the 
 bachelor and the widow. 
 
 Not so peacefully disposed was the object of these 
 attacks. In his veins, be it remembered, still flowed the 
 ichor of Donnybrook. He was an expert swordsman, 
 moreover, and in his youth had been an instructor in 
 fencing. Smarting more than ever under a sense of injury, 
 he sent his friend General John D. Whiteside, of Black 
 Hawk War fame, to the editor, with a demand for the 
 name of the author. If this was not complied with, Fran- 
 cis was himself to be held responsible. In his dilemma, 
 the editor consulted Lincoln, who, about to leave town 
 on the fall circuit, directed Francis to give his name, but
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 69 
 
 to make no mention of the ladies. That the creator of 
 " Rebecca " understood what the situation involved is 
 evinced by the fact that he had sought out a certain 
 dragoon major, who, broadsword in hand, drilled him in 
 
 " fencing, and the use of arms, 
 The art of urging and avoiding harms, 
 The noble science and the mastering skill 
 Of making just approaches how to kill." 
 
 As for Shields, following Lincoln to Tremont, he lost 
 as little time as might be in sending Whiteside to him 
 with a letter which, considering the state of society in the 
 Springfield of that day and the writer's provocation, we 
 are hardly inclined to ridicule. The missive, truth to say, 
 Conformed to Sir Lucius O'Trigger's rule, that when a 
 man frames a challenge, he must " do the thing decently 
 and like a Christian." It protested, temperately enough, 
 against the " slander, vituperation, and personal abuse " 
 in the Lost Townships articles, and concluded with : 
 
 " I will not take the trouble of inquiring into the reason 
 of all this, but I will take the liberty of requiring a full, 
 positive, and absolute retraction of all offensive allusions 
 used by you in these communications, in relation to my 
 private character and standing as a man, as an apology 
 for the insults conveyed in them. This may prevent con- 
 sequences which no one will regret more than myself." 
 
 Lincoln's reply was singularly lacking in regard to the 
 homely candor that is the particular charm of his corre- 
 spondence. He wrote : 
 
 " You say you have been informed, through the medium 
 of the editor of the Journal, that I am the author of 
 certain articles in that paper which you deem personally 
 abusive of you ; and, without stopping to inquire whether 
 I really am the author, or to point out what is offensive 
 in them, you demand an unqualified retraction of all that 
 is offensive, and then proceed to hint at consequences. 
 Now, sir, there is in this so much assumption of facts, 
 and so much of menace as to consequences, that I cannot
 
 7 o LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 submit to answer that note any further than I have, and 
 to add, that the consequences to which I suppose you 
 allude would be matter of as great regret to me as it 
 possibly could to you." 
 
 Shields rejoined, disavowing any intention of menacing 
 Lincoln, asking whether he had written the articles in 
 question, and repeating his request, if so, for a retraction 
 of the offensive allusions. This letter Lincoln refused to 
 answer unless Shields's first communication were with- 
 drawn ; but the demand met with no response. 
 
 By this time, the critical phase of the quarrel had 
 been reached. The principals, as well as their representa- 
 tives, treated one another with the top-lofty dignity which 
 usage immemorial has, for such occasion, established. 
 Lincoln, nevertheless, would gladly have withdrawn from 
 the squabble, if this had been possible without discredit. 
 To one of his friends, Dr. E. H. Merryman, who, with 
 another, hastened to Tremont, in order to stand by him 
 during the affair, he expressed himself as wholly opposed 
 to dueling, and as willing to do anything to avoid a fight, 
 that might not degrade him in the estimation of himself 
 or of his friends. 42 Accordingly, in some instructions 
 which he drew up for the doctor's guidance, he pledged 
 himself, provided all letters were withdrawn and repara- 
 tion were properly requested, to give this answer : 
 
 " I did write the * Lost Townships ' letter which ap- 
 peared in the Journal of the 2d instant, but had no par- 
 ticipation in any form in any other article alluding to 
 you. I wrote that wholly for political effect. I had no 
 intention of injuring your personal or private character 
 or standing as a man or a gentleman ; and I did not then 
 think, and do not now think, that that article could pro- 
 duce, or has produced, that effect against you; and had I 
 anticipated such an effect, I would hare forborne to write 
 it. And I will add that your conduct toward me, so far as 
 I know, had always been gentlemanly, and that I had no 
 personal pique against you, and no cause for any."
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 71 
 
 The memorandum then prescribed the conditions under 
 which, if the explanation were not accepted, the writer, 
 as the challenged party, would fight. The meeting was to 
 take place near Alton, on the Missouri side of the river, 
 within the following two or three days. 
 
 " Weapons : Cavalry broadswords of the largest size, 
 precisely equal in all respects and such as now used by 
 the cavalry company at Jacksonville. 
 
 " Position : A plank ten feet long, and from nine to 
 twelve inches broad, to be firmly fixed on edge, on the 
 ground, as the line between us, which neither is to pass 
 his foot over upon forfeit of his life. Next, a line drawn 
 on the ground on either side of said plank and parallel 
 with it, each at the distance of the whole length of the 
 sword and three feet additional from the plank ; and 
 the passing of Yj own such line by either party during 
 the fight shall be deemed a surrender of the contest." 
 
 This formidable document was read by Dr. Merryman 
 to Shields's friend General Whiteside, but without the 
 desired result ; for, a few days thereafter, two parties, con- 
 sisting of the principals, their seconds, surgeons, and other 
 attendants, met on an island Bloody Island,* 3 if you 
 please in the Mississippi, below Alton. Upon reaching 
 the ground, Shields found Lincoln already there, ax in 
 hand and coat thrown off, clearing away the underbrush, 
 for that fateful parallelogram. Before the duel could take 
 place, however, Colonel John J. Hardin and Dr. R. W. 
 English, common friends of the combatants, arrived upon 
 the scene, and patched up a peace by persuading Shields 
 to withdraw his letters and to accept the explanation that 
 Lincoln had offered. 
 
 The duelists left the field in amiable spirits toward 
 each other, as may be gathered from the reminiscences 
 of an old resident of Alton, who, with others, stood at 
 the ferry anxiously awaiting the issue. " It was not very 
 long," said he, " until the boat was seen returning to Alton. 
 As it drew near, I saw what was presumably a mortally
 
 72 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 wounded man lying on the bow of the boat. His shirt 
 appeared to be bathed in blood. I distinguished Jacob 
 Smith, a constable, fanning the supposed victim, vigor- 
 ously. The people, on the bank, held their breath in sus- 
 pense, and guesses were freely made as to which of the two 
 men had been so terribly wounded. But suspense was 
 soon turned to chagrin and relief when it transpired that 
 the supposed candidate for another world was nothing 
 more nor less than a log covered with a red shirt. This 
 ruse had been resorted to in order to fool the people on the 
 levee ; and it worked to perfection. Lincoln and Shields 
 came off the boat together, chatting in a nonchalant and 
 pleasant manner." 44 Your votaries of " the code " might 
 frown upon that playful device of the bleeding log. It set 
 at naught the niceties of decorum, which are their meat 
 and drink ; yet how characteristic it was of at least one 
 of those smiling gentlemen ! 
 
 All the hot blood engendered by this affair did not, as 
 might be supposed, cool off so readily. Two weeks later, 
 we find Lincoln writing to his friend Speed : 
 
 " You have heard of my duel with Shields, and I have 
 now to inform you that the dueling business still rages in 
 this city. Day before yesterday, Shields challenged But- 
 ler, 45 who accepted, and proposed fighting next morning, 
 at sunrise, in Bob Allen's meadow, one hundred yards' 
 distance, with rifles. To this Whiteside, Shields's second, 
 said 'no' because of the law. Thus ended duel No. 2. 
 Yesterday, Whiteside chose to consider himself insulted 
 by Dr. Merryman, so sent him a kind of quasi-challenge, 
 inviting him to meet him at the Planter's House, in St. 
 Louis, on the next Friday, to settle their difficulty. Merry- 
 man made me his friend, and sent Whiteside a note, in- 
 quiring to know if he meant his note as a challenge, and 
 if so, that he would, according to the law in such case 
 made and provided, prescribe the terms of the meeting." ** 
 
 Duel No. 3, suffice it to say, for we have had enough 
 of " the dueling business," was, like No. 1 and No. 2,
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 73 
 
 fought with the tongues and the pens of the combatants 
 to a bloodless finish. 
 
 Having made his single appearance as a principal, 
 and then as a second, on the so-called " field of honor," 
 Lincoln quickly recovered his moral equilibrium. He ap- 
 pears to have become ashamed of his share in the quarrel, 
 and to have refrained, for the most part, from discussing 
 it with his friends. Several of them, in fact, record their 
 failures to draw him into conversation on the subject. 
 His partner, Mr. Herndon, reports this one voluntary 
 reference to the duel : 
 
 " I did not intend to hurt Shields unless I did so clearly 
 in self-defence. If it had been necessary, I could have 
 split him from the crown of his head to the end of his 
 backbone." 47 
 
 Lincoln's confidence in his power to vanquish Shields, 
 no less than his freedom from animosity towards him, 
 was further manifested shortly after the meeting, in a 
 few words dropped to Usher F. Linder. As they stood 
 together, near the Danville court-house, Lincoln picked 
 up a lath and went through the broadsword manual. His 
 friend, improving the occasion, asked why broadswords 
 had been chosen for the proposed duel. The man with 
 the lath answered : 
 
 " To tell you the truth, Linder, I did n't want to kill 
 Shields and felt sure I could disarm him, having, had 
 about a month to learn the broadsword exercise ; and 
 furthermore, I did n't want the damned fellow to kill me, 
 which I rather think he would have done if we had se- 
 lected pistols." ** 
 
 The ghost of the duel still hovered over the scene. In 
 the spring of the following year, Lincoln closed a letter 
 on politics to Hardin with : 
 
 " I wish you would measure one of the largest of those 
 swords we took to Alton, and write me the length of it, 
 from tip of the point to tip of the hilt, in feet and inches. 
 I have a dispute about the length." 49
 
 74 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Thereafter, Lincoln's friends respected his desire that 
 the affair should not be spoken of, and it seemed to have 
 been forgotten. 
 
 Greatly to Mr. Herndon's surprise, while on his 
 visit in the Eastern States during the spring of 1858, to 
 promote his partner's senatorial ambitions, he was fre- 
 quently asked for an account of the so-called duel. Upon 
 his return, the fact was reported to Lincoln, who sadly 
 remarked : 
 
 " If all the good things I have ever done are remem- 
 bered as long and well as my scrape with Shields, it is 
 plain I shall not soon be forgotten." ^ 
 
 The " scrape " was not so well remembered by the 
 speaker's enemies as might have been expected. Two 
 years later, the muckrake of a bitter opposition failed 
 if we may judge from the now available campaign litera- 
 ture of 1860 to turn up the incident. So the " Party of 
 Moral Ideas " was spared the mortification of defending 
 its candidate's atrocities as a duelist. 51 During the Civil 
 War, the story, having again made its rounds, returned 
 to plague its hero, for the last time. A few weeks before 
 his death, the President, together with Mrs. Lincoln, 
 entertained a distinguished officer of the army. During 
 the conversation, the visitor said : 
 
 " Is it true, Mr. President, as I have heard, that you 
 once went out to fight a duel for the sake of the lady by 
 your side ? " 
 
 " I do not deny it," answered Mr. Lincoln, with a 
 flushed face, "but if you desire my friendship, you will 
 never mention the circumstance again." 52 
 
 This admission, which indeed was but the grudging 
 half-truth of a man who wished to dispose of a distaste- 
 ful topic, seems to warrant the oft-repeated claim that Miss 
 Todd was responsible for all the obnoxious articles, and 
 that her lover, to shield her, chivalrously avowed himself 
 to b their author. Here is a pleasing fiction plentifully 
 vouched for, which we should like to accept. 53 The
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 75 
 
 facts, however, weeds of fact will persist in springing 
 up among the flowers of romance, leave no ground for 
 doubt as to the authorship of the first and most offensive 
 of the letters ; while those same dull realities make short 
 work of the gallantry which, when pressed, merely con- 
 sisted in acknowledging that authorship. 
 
 Still less defensible are the efforts usually made to 
 gloss over Lincoln's conduct, at Shields's expense. The 
 special pleading takes a wide range as wide as the 
 Mississippi itself, at the mile crossing, where, according 
 to one story, the challenged party had, with grotesque 
 humor, stipulated that the duelists should stand on oppo- 
 site banks and fight with broadswords. 54 Somewhat on 
 this order is the effort of Dr. Irelan not by any means 
 a through-thick-and-thin eulogist to treat the affair as 
 one of Lincoln's jokes. Says he : 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln was absolutely opposed to dueling, and 
 very well knew from the first that there would be no duel 
 in this case. And here is where the ridiculousness of the 
 whole thing appears. The gory Shields and his friends 
 overlooked this entirely. The cavalry broadswords were 
 procured, and these were of from thirty-six to forty inch 
 blades ; then, under Mr. Lincoln's requirement, the com- 
 batants were not only to stand the length of the two 
 swords apart, but also six feet further, thus actually 
 placing them at least twelve feet apart. With this arrange- 
 ment, the most they could have done would have been to 
 touch the points of their swords, if Shields could have 
 measured half of that distance with his arm and sword. 
 Lincoln had made these impossible provisions in full view 
 of this funny side of the case. Even if the distance be- 
 tween the men had not been so preposterously great, the 
 poor Irishman would have had no chance without crossing 
 the board, which would have forfeited his life, while the 
 long body and arm of Lincoln might have rendered his 
 own position disagreeable. Mr. Lincoln's conduct in this 
 matter was deliberate and premeditated, and this it was
 
 76 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 that took from him the odium of stooping to the savage 
 and unchristian 'code.' With him, Mr. Shields's case 
 began in fun, and ended in fun." w 
 
 A glance at the conditions, however, reveals that the 
 distance of twelve feet mentioned by the Doctor was not 
 to intervene between the combatants, but was, in fact, the 
 length of the ten by twelve foot oblong within which the 
 duelists, separated by the plank " on edge " only, were to 
 fight. Dr. Irelan's misinterpretation of the terms is shared 
 by the historians of Illinois, in whose opinion, also, the 
 position " prescribed for the combatants on the field looks 
 a good deal like the cropping out of one of Lincoln's 
 irrepressible jokes ; as if both were placed out of harm's 
 way, and that they might beat the air with their trenchant 
 blades forever and not come within damaging reach of 
 each other." 5<J 
 
 The fancy for separating the duelists by a river, or even 
 by a dozen feet, does not, of course, extend to all the 
 writers who laugh at poor Shields and his wrongs. The 
 quarrel, in the eyes of one biographer, was " serio-comic " ; 
 another terms it " a silly fracas " ; while a third dismisses 
 it as " certainly a boyish affair " ; still another thinks that 
 " nothing but a tragedy could have prevented its being 
 a farce " ; a recent author would have us believe that 
 the challenged party tried to avert a duel " by proposing 
 the most absurd conditions " ; and Lincoln's loyal secre- 
 taries, in view of the so-called " ludicrousness " of the 
 incident, devote most of their chapter on the subject to 
 the belittling of Shields, without, however, increasing the 
 stature of their hero. 57 The amusing aspects of the story, 
 on which these writers lay so much stress, appear, for the 
 most part, to have escaped Lincoln's own usually keen 
 sense of humor. He had realized, early in the progress of 
 the broil, that he was on the wrong side of it. This alone 
 must have been sufficient to sober him. At all events, as 
 we have seen, he treated the affair seriously enough, and 
 had the grace to be ashamed of his part in it ever after-
 
 LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 77 
 
 ward. No amount of laughter at Shields, whatever occa- 
 sion that volatile gentleman may have afforded, relieves 
 Lincoln of the onus which attaches to his attack upon the 
 Auditor and to his acceptance of the challenge. 
 
 The difficulty with Shields constituted Lincoln's last 
 personal quarrel. He had run the gamut from that first 
 schoolboy fight with his fists to the preliminaries, at least, 
 of what might have been a serious duel ; and with it end 
 our chronicles of his early encounters. Culled from the 
 first thirty-three years of his life, they have been strung 
 together, be it remembered, on the single thread of his 
 masterful nature. Although the nobler, gentler traits 
 have been thus practically disregarded, it would be man- 
 ifest error to forget that they, too, entered into the fash- 
 ioning of that strangely woven character, and that they 
 became stronger and deeper as the man developed. In- 
 deed, from this time forth, a mellower tone pervades his 
 behavior. 58 How much of the change was due to the hu- 
 miliation of the Shields squabble, to Lincoln's marriage 
 with Miss Todd, which followed it by but a few weeks, to 
 the requirements of a higher standing in his profession 
 and in political circles, cannot, of course, be determined. 
 We do know, however, that he never again became 
 involved in a private quarrel. Holding his own yes, 
 more than holding his own throughout the warmest con- 
 troversies and fiercest struggles in his country's history, 
 he is destined, as we shall learn, still to be master among 
 men, to control them as firmly as in the frontier days of 
 Faustrecht, and withal, so gently, that they do not know 
 themselves to be controlled. Here is no simple achieve- 
 ment, yet it took the President but a moment once, and 
 that when the turmoil was at its height, to explain the 
 marvel, in part at least, by a simple formula. It was ad- 
 dressed to a young officer, who had been court-martialed 
 for quarreling with one of his fellows : 
 
 " The advice of a father to his son, ' Beware of en- 
 trance to a quarrel, but, being in, bear 't that the opposed
 
 7 8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 may beware of thee,' is good, but not the best. Quarrel 
 not at all. No man, resolved to make the most of himself, 
 can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he 
 afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating 
 of his temper and the loss of self-control. Yield larger 
 things to which you can show no more than equal right ; 
 and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give 
 your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting 
 for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the 
 bite." w 
 
 A far cry this, from the Lost Townships diatribe and 
 the rendezvous with broadswords on Bloody Island ; yet 
 the philosopher of 1862 may not, for all that, be thought 
 less spirited than the Hotspur of 1842. What of true 
 metal rang in the deeds of earlier times was not wanting 
 in later days, though its form, as we shall see, was changed 
 changed, now and then, almost beyond recognition ; 
 for it became tempered and purified, in the fierce heat of 
 a fire that all but consumed a nation.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 
 
 THE early encounters and controversies of Lincoln were 
 insignificant when compared to the rivalry that existed, 
 for almost twenty-five years, between him and Stephen 
 A. Douglas. First as enthusiastic adherents of opposing 
 parties, and later as acknowledged leaders of those par- 
 ties, they so conducted themselves that the orbits of their 
 political ambitions crossed and recrossed each other. The 
 star of Douglas was generally in the ascendant. He be- 
 came, successively, State's Attorney, member of the Illinois 
 legislature, Register of the Land Office at Springfield, 
 Secretary of State for Illinois, Judge of the Supreme 
 Court of that State, member of Congress, and United 
 States Senator. His rival's planet, on the other hand, 
 showed, during that same period, the comparatively mea- 
 gre glory of four terms in the State legislature and one 
 in the Lower House of Congress. Yet the inferior light, 
 swinging in season and out, across the pathway of the 
 other, became steadily brighter in the reflected rays of 
 the larger luminary, until suddenly they presented a sin- 
 gular phenomenon. The lesser became the greater, for 
 while the one had grown, the other had diminished ; and 
 the rising orb, throwing off at last the borrowed beams, 
 shone by its own intense power so intense, indeed, that 
 as its splendor spread, the waning star went out in total 
 eclipse. 
 
 The political careers of these two men started at 
 about the same time and place. When Lincoln entered 
 upon his first term in the Illinois Assembly at Vandalia, 
 he met in the lobby a shrewd little Vermonter, four years
 
 8o LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 his junior, who, notwithstanding extreme youth and brief- 
 ness of residence in the West, was conducting among the 
 members of the legislature what proved to be a successful 
 canvass for the office of State's Attorney for the first 
 judicial district. The newcomer was Stephen A. Douglas. 
 Identifying himself with the dominant party, he became 
 as pronounced in his Democracy as Lincoln was in his 
 Whigism. On opposite sides of the next Assembly, 
 both of them were elected to the legislature of 1836, 
 they clashed, from time to time, in tactics and debate. 
 The antagonism thus started in Vandalia was transferred 
 the following year to Springfield, where, within a few 
 months of each other, the young men took up their resi- 
 dence. Here differences in character and temperament, 
 rather than in party affiliations, acted as a bar to the 
 friendship, or even to the esteem, that is not uncommon 
 between contending politicians. If Douglas took one side 
 of a question, Lincoln might safely be looked for on the 
 other; and their rivalry soon became a recognized factor 
 in the spirited local contests of the day. 
 
 The first of these encounters concerning which any 
 details have been preserved took place during " the hard- 
 cider campaign." At the very beginning of that memo- 
 rable contest, one night in December, 1839, a group of 
 disputatious young politicians sat around the stove in 
 Joshua F. Speed's store. The argument, which is said to 
 have been mainly between Lincoln and Douglas, was at its 
 warmest when the latter sprang to his feet and said : 
 
 " Gentlemen, this is no place to talk politics. We will 
 discuss the questions publicly with you." 
 
 This informal challenge was followed within a few days 
 by a resolution, which Lincoln offered in a meeting of the 
 Whigs, inviting their opponents to a debate. The Demo- 
 crats, accepting, appointed Stephen A. Douglas, John 
 Calhoun, Josiah Lamborn, and Jesse B. Thomas to meet 
 Stephen T. Logan, Edward D. Baker, Orville H. Brown- 
 ing, and Abraham Lincoln. These champions, for eight
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 81 
 
 evenings, in the order named, defended and attacked by 
 turns President Van Buren's independent treasury pro- 
 ject, with an occasional tilt over the other economic ques- 
 tions on which their respective parties differed. " The 
 great debate," as it was called, drew large audiences at 
 the outset ; but by the time Lincoln's evening, the last in 
 the series, arrived, the attendance had considerably dimin- 
 ished. This had a chilling effect upon the speaker, yet he 
 warmed up sufficiently to make what was considered the 
 best address of all so good, in fact, that it was published 
 as a campaign document, not only in friend Francis's 
 newspaper, but also in pamphlet form. 1 A glance through 
 the speech reveals how keenly, at that time already, the 
 " Sangamon Chief " was on the trail of his pet antagonist. 
 The other Democratic speakers, it is true, were mentioned 
 here and there, in refutation ; but to Douglas fell the 
 severest, and by far the largest share of Lincoln's atten- 
 tion. Here is a sample paragraph : 
 
 " I return to another of Mr. Douglas's excuses for the 
 expenditures of 1838, at the same time announcing the 
 pleasing intelligence that this is the last one. He says 
 that ten millions of that year's expenditure was a contin- 
 gent appropriation, to prosecute an anticipated war with 
 Great Britain on the Maine boundary question. Few 
 words will settle this. First, that the ten millions appro- 
 priated was not made till 1839, and consequently could 
 not have been expended in 1838 ; second, although it was 
 appropriated, it has never been expended at all. Those 
 who heard Mr. Douglas recollect that he indulged himself 
 in a contemptuous expression of pity for me. * Now he 'fc 
 got me,' thought I. But when he went on to say that five 
 millions of the expenditure of 1838 were payments ot 
 the French indemnities, which I knew to be untrue ; that" 
 five millions had been for the Post-office, which I knew 
 to be untrue ; that ten millions had been for the Maine 
 boundary war, which I not only knew to be untrue, but 
 supremely ridiculous also ; and when I saw that he wa3
 
 82 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 stupid enough to hope that I would permit such ground- 
 less and audacious assertions to go unexposed, I readily 
 consented that, on the score both of veracity and sagacity, 
 the audience should judge whether he or I were the more 
 deserving of the world's contempt." 2 
 
 This utterance was significant. Like the leading motive 
 in the overture to a music-drama, it struck, at the very 
 beginning of the Lincoln-Douglas struggle, a note that 
 was destined to run through many similar scenes, in which 
 these two were to be the principal actors. 
 
 During the canvass that followed the debate, Lincoln 
 and Douglas stumped the State in the interests of their 
 respective candidates, with equal enthusiasm. 3 Collisions 
 between them were frequent, for the bearer of the Whig 
 standard lost no opportunity of speaking from the same 
 platform with the Democratic orator. In one of these 
 debates, Lincoln charged Van Buren with having voted 
 at the New York State Constitutional Convention of 
 1821, for negro suffrage with a property qualification. 
 This Douglas denied. Whereupon, Lincoln, to prove his 
 assertion, read, from Holland's Life of Van Buren, the 
 Wizard of Kinderhook's own statement that he had so 
 voted. Thus neatly cornered, "Douglas got mad," as the 
 story goes, and jumped up to dispose of both the charge 
 and the evidence, in characteristic fashion. Snatching 
 the volume from the reader's hand, he exclaimed, " Damn 
 such a book!" and hurled it among the audience. 4 In 
 another of their encounters, Douglas had no occasion for 
 so desperate a defence. On the contrary, he forced the 
 fighting too ably for his antagonist. " Lincoln," says a 
 friend of those days, " did not come up to the require- 
 ments of the occasion. He was conscious of his failure, 
 and I never saw any man so much distressed. He begged 
 to be permitted to try it again, and was reluctantly in- 
 dulged ; and in the next effort he transcended our highest 
 expectations. I never heard, and never expect to hear, 
 such a triumphant vindication as he then gave of Whig
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 83 
 
 measures or policy." 5 But the victory of the canvass, so 
 far as it concerned our two young campaigners, rested 
 with Douglas. His opponent, it is true, was elected to the 
 Assembly ; yet the five electoral votes of Illinois, the real 
 prize of the contest, remained in the Democratic column. 
 
 The next important conflict between the rivals was 
 in a widely different field as different, indeed, as hearts 
 are from ballots. Yet love and politics witness the 
 Shields affair were not so far apart as they might have 
 been, in the Springfield of 1840. At that time, Miss 
 Mary Todd, pretty, talented, and vivacious, had recently 
 come from her Kentucky home to live with her sister, 
 Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards. The hospitalities of the house 
 were naturally extended by Mr. Edwards, one of the 
 " Long Nine," to the leader of his delegation, so that 
 Lincoln was a frequent visitor. He paid court to the fas- 
 cinating little woman from his native State, and speedily 
 became her accepted suitor. Lincoln's success, no less 
 than the lady's charms, fanned the spirit of contention 
 that already existed between him and Douglas. The little 
 Vermonter, dashing and comely, followed his ungainly an- 
 tagonist into the lists to dispute with him, as vigorously 
 as in their political contests, the possession of this precious 
 trophy. How the fight was conducted cannot unfortu- 
 nately for the romance of it be told with the exactness 
 of detail that usually makes such episodes entertaining. 
 Says one old resident of Springfield : 
 
 " As a society man, Douglas was infinitely more accom- 
 plished, more attractive, and influential than Lincoln ; 
 and that he should supplant the latter in the affections of 
 the proud and aristocratic Miss Todd is not to be mar- 
 veled at. He was unremitting in his attentions to the 
 lady, promenaded the streets arm-in-arm with her fre- 
 quently passing Lincoln and, in every way, made plain 
 his intention to become the latter's rival." 
 
 This was merely so some said a flirtation on the 
 part of Miss Todd to tease her lover. Others went so far
 
 84 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 as to say that Douglas made a proposal of marriage and 
 was refused, " on account of his bad morals." Accord- 
 ing to still another account, she grew to prefer him, and 
 would have accepted his offer if she had not given her 
 promise to Lincoln. " The unfortunate attitude she felc 
 bound to maintain between these two young men," relates 
 the writer of this version, " ended in a spell of sickness. 
 Douglas, still hopeful, was warm in the race ; but the 
 lady's physician, her brother-in-law, Dr. William Wallace, 
 to whom she confided the real cause of her illness, saw 
 Douglas and induced him to end his pursuit, which he did 
 with great reluctance." So much for the doubtful inci- 
 dents of the contest ; but what of the result ? Douglas 
 withdrew, and Lincoln, after an otherwise not untroubled 
 courtship, led Miss Todd to the altar. 6 
 
 The private passage of arms between our politicians 
 did not, of course, lessen their public antagonism. Yet, 
 during the decade following the marriage, they had, it 
 appears, no noteworthy encounters. This may have been 
 due, in part at least, to the fact that Lincoln, diligently 
 practicing his profession, found less time than previously 
 for politics. He did, it is true, participate in conventions 
 and campaigns even emerging into public life, in 1847, 
 for one term in Congress ; but there is no evidence that 
 these activities brought him into personal conflict with 
 his brilliant adversary. Moreover, the uninterrupted rise 
 of Douglas, during this same period, from the Illinois 
 Supreme Court Bench to Congress, and thence to the 
 United States Senate, carried him somewhat out of Lin- 
 coln's range. As the latter took his seat in the Lower 
 House, the former entered upon his career in the Upper. 
 The one, at the expiration of his term, returned to Spring- 
 field and the small-fry litigation of the Eighth Circuit, 
 without having achieved distinction ; the other soon be- 
 came a figure of national importance. 
 
 Each success of the man whom he regarded as his 
 particular rival added a pang to the ex-member's dis-
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 85 
 
 appointment. The trophy of Miltiades would not let The- 
 mistocles sleep ; and Lincoln, though he had come to look 
 upon political affairs with comparative indifference, could 
 not take his eyes off Douglas. So it happened that dur- 
 ing the presidential canvass of 1852, when the Senator 
 opened his stumping tour of the States, at Richmond, in a 
 speech that was extensively republished, Lincoln obtained 
 permission from the Scott Club of Springfield to deliver 
 an answer, under its auspices. 7 The effort was not credit- 
 able. Depressed by the hopelessness of the Whig cause 
 in Illinois, and carried away by his jealousy of Douglas, 
 he descended to a tone unworthy of himself or of the 
 occasion. Referring to the Richmond address, he said : 
 
 " This speech has been published with high commen- 
 dations in at least one of the Democratic papers in this 
 State, and I suppose it has been and will be in most of 
 the others. When I first saw it and read it, I was re- 
 minded of old times, when Judge Douglas was not so 
 much greater man than all the rest of us, as he is now, 
 of the Harrison campaign twelve years ago, when I used 
 to hear and try to answer many of his speeches ; and 
 believing that the Richmond speech, though marked with 
 the same species of ' shirks and quirks ' as the old ones, 
 was not marked with any greater ability, I was seized 
 with a strange inclination to attempt an answer to it; 
 and this inclination it was that prompted me to seek the 
 privilege of addressing you on this occasion." 8 
 
 Like the speaker's one failure during that very Harri- 
 son campaign, this defeat as his friends regarded it 
 in the Pierce-Scott contest was destined to be followed 
 by brilliant victories. But not at once, for Douglas was 
 still rising toward the zenith of his power, and Lincoln's 
 hour had not yet struck. 
 
 The " Little Giant," as the admirers of the Senator 
 from Illinois fondly called him, had been a candidate, at 
 Baltimore, for the Democratic nomination to the presi- 
 dency, which had fallen, by way of compromise, to Frank-
 
 86 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 lin Pierce. That gentleman owed his selection largely to 
 the bitterness of the struggle between the " Old Fogies," 
 under such favorites as Cass, Marcy, and Buchanan, on 
 the one hand, and "Young America," championed by 
 Douglas, on the other. The youthful leader, though he 
 had not himself attained the prize, had been strong 
 enough to keep his powerful competitors from getting 
 it. Here was glory enough for a first attempt, and 
 Douglas emerged from the Convention still on the high- 
 road to the White House. That road had, for many years, 
 wound through the Southern States. It was dotted with 
 the headstones of presidential aspirants, who had fallen 
 beneath the slaveholder's whip; but surely this adroit 
 politician, stepping off so firmly, would not fall. He ad- 
 vanced steadily enough while the growing differences 
 between North and South could be turned into the prim- 
 rote paths of compromise. Not only had the measures that 
 secured the so-called Compromise of 1850 his support, but 
 he had, at the same time, solemnly reaffirmed the great 
 Missouri Compromise itself. "It had its origin," said he, 
 **in the hearts of all patriotic men, who desired to pre- 
 serve and perpetuate the blessings of our glorious Union 
 an origin akin to that of the Constitution of the United 
 States, conceived in the same spirit of fraternal affection, 
 and calculated to remove forever the danger which seemed 
 to threaten, at some distant day, to sever the social bond 
 of union. All the evidences of public opinion, at that day, 
 seemed to indicate that this Compromise had been canon- 
 ized in the hearts of the American people, as a sacred thing 
 which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to 
 disturb." 9 Yet, within somewhat over four years, the 
 speaker himself, of all men in the world, was guilty of 
 that sacrilege. 10 At the command of the South, his own 
 hand violated the hallowed instrument. The Compromise 
 had served its turn at least for the Slave States. Having 
 enjoyed the benefits allotted to them by the compact, they 
 viewed with alarm the prospect that the Free States were
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 87 
 
 about to come into their share of it. This was to be pre- 
 vented at all hazards. The lash cracked above the head 
 of Douglas. He promptly responded, in his Kansas- 
 Nebraska Bill, with the fateful amendment which declared 
 the slavery restrictions of the Compromise "inoperative 
 and void." 
 
 The storm of indignation, aroused in the North by the 
 passage of the bill, swept its author home in the autumn 
 of 1854 to defend himself before his constituents. 11 The 
 people of Chicago, whom he first tried to address, gath- 
 ered in an angry multitude and refused to hear him ; a 
 but elsewhere throughout the State, in the so-called Anti- 
 Nebraska as well as in the Nebraska districts, his popu- 
 larity secured to him large and respectful audiences. 
 This tour was ostensibly in the interests of the party's 
 State and Congressional tickets. In reality, however, it 
 involved a strenuous bid for the endorsement of Douglas 
 himself. His colleague, General Shields, who had sup- 
 ported him in the Senate, was to stand for reelection 
 before the next legislature. Hence the votes about to be 
 cast, particularly those for members of that body, would 
 afford the best immediate test as to whether or not he of 
 the " ruthless hand " was sustained by the people. 
 
 With all his wonted skill and energy, Douglas threw 
 himself into the struggle. Improving the opportunity 
 offered by the large gathering of voters and politicians, at 
 the State Agricultural Fair, iu Springfield, he presented 
 himself at the capitol, on the opening day, and made a 
 speech. Like most of his utterances, it was specious but 
 attractive. To answer it effectually would require ability of 
 no mean order, and, as if by common consent of the several 
 Anti-Nebraska elements, the task was assigned to his old 
 antagonist, Abraham Lincoln. This selection appears, in 
 fact, to have been made before Douglas had spoken. " I 
 will mention," said the Senator in his opening remarks to 
 the audience which crowded the hall of the State House, 
 " that it is understood by some gentlemen that Mr. Lin/
 
 88 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 coin, of this city, is expected to answer me. If this is the 
 understanding, I wish that Mr. Lincoln would step for- 
 ward and let us arrange some plan upon which to carry 
 out this discussion." 1S Mr. Lincoln, as he happened to 
 be absent at the moment, did not step forward then ; but, 
 on the following day, in the same place and before an 
 equally large assemblage, he took a step forward that must 
 have galled the great man's kibe. Aroused by the moral, 
 no less than by the political obliquity of Douglas's course, 
 Lincoln arose above the petty personalities which had dis- 
 figured his Scott Club address, and delivered a speech that 
 evoked the praise of even the Senator's supporters. Doug- 
 las himself, as his frequent interruptions of the speaker 
 indicated, was greatly disconcerted by the unexpected 
 sweep and strength of the reply. Moreover, in his excite- 
 ment and anger, the two hours before supper-time left 
 to him for rejoinder were occupied to so little purpose 
 that he closed with a promise to resume in the evening. 
 Evening came and so did the audience, but not the " Little 
 Giant." Whether he had tumbled into one of the seven- 
 league boots that was putting a comfortable distance be- 
 tween him and the big giant, contemporary history saith 
 not. It does relate that when he failed to return, his dis- 
 appointed auditors drew the inevitable conclusion and 
 so may we." 
 
 That the Senator should retrieve, unopposed, in other 
 parts of the State, the ground he had lost in Springfield, 
 was of course not on the program of the Anti-Nebraska 
 leaders. They urged Lincoln to follow Douglas until, 
 as one of them expressed it, he " ran him into a hole or 
 made him halloo, ' Enough ! ' ' Their champion was eager 
 enough for pursuit, but to the " Little Giant," the pros- 
 pect of continuing the combat had " no relish of salvation 
 in 't." Douglas was cordial to his opponent when they 
 met, a few days later, in Bloomington ; but as soon as 
 further debates were suggested, he became greatly irri- 
 tated. " It looks to me," said he to Jesse W. Fell, who
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 89 
 
 had made the proposition, " like dogging a man all over 
 the State. If Mr. Lincoln wants to make a speech, he 
 had better get a crowd of his own ; for I most respectfully 
 decline to hold a discussion with him." 15 To persist in 
 this refusal, among a people whose rude sense of chivalry 
 still delighted in the test of man to man, would have cost 
 Douglas much of his hard-earned prestige. So we find 
 him, twelve days after the Springfield debate, again shar- 
 ing the platform with Lincoln this time, in Peoria. 
 Here, as at the Capital, the Whig's ambition to address 
 large audiences we say nothing of his confidence in his 
 powers led him to be content with one speech, while 
 the Democrat had two, the opening and the close. Con- 
 cerning this arrangement Lincoln quaintly said in his 
 introduction : 
 
 " I doubt not but you have been a little surprised to 
 learn that I have consented to give one of his high reputa- 
 tion and known ability this advantage of me. Indeed, my 
 consenting to it, though reluctant, was not wholly unself- 
 ish, for I suspected, if it were understood that the Judge 
 was entirely done, you Democrats would leave and not 
 hear me ; but by giving him the close, I felt confident 
 you would stay for the fun of hearing him skin me." 16 
 
 But it proved, as they say in the East, to be "the other 
 way round." Douglas got the flaying, and no one realized 
 this more keenly than he himself. Going to his antago- 
 nist, after the meeting, so one story runs, he said : 
 
 "Lincoln, you understand this question of prohibiting 
 slavery in the Territories better than all the opposition in 
 the Senate of the United States. I cannot make anything 
 by debating it with you. You, Lincoln, have here and at 
 Springfield given me more trouble than all the opposition 
 in the Senate combined." " 
 
 Then, throwing himself upon the other's magnanimity, 
 he begged him to discontinue the pursuit. According to 
 another tale, Douglas made a feigned illness the ground 
 for his request. 18 At all events, the Senator's discomfiture,
 
 90 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 whether mental or physical, disarmed Lincoln. He granted 
 the truce proposed by Douglas both to abandon the field 
 and to return to their respective homes. Accordingly, 
 when, on the following day, they arrived at Lacon, where 
 the next debate was to take place, Douglas excused him- 
 self from speaking, on the ground of hoarseness, and Lin- 
 coln declined to take advantage of his "indisposition." 
 Thereupon, they separated, Lincoln going directly home, 
 as had been agreed ; but Douglas stopped at Princeton, 
 where a chance meeting with Owen Lovejoy betrayed him 
 into a violation of the compact. 19 This breach of faith 
 should be borne in mind by him who would comprehend 
 the characters of these adversaries; yet the little great 
 man in retreat and crying, " Hold, enough ! " while the big 
 one stays his hand, is a still more significant spectacle. 
 
 The election that ensued was virtually a defeat for 
 Douglas. 20 He beheld the majority by which he had twice 
 been sent to the United States Senate crumble away ; and 
 when, during the following winter, the new legislature 
 met in joint session to elect General Shields's successor, 
 the choice lay in the hands of the Anti-Nebraska members. 
 Their favorite, consistently enough, was Lincoln. 21 The 
 champion who had so neatly unhorsed the Nebraska man, 
 himself, on the local field, should have been granted his 
 desire so thought most of them to continue the fight, 
 in the national arena. Five of their number, however, as 
 pronounced in their Democracy as in their opposition to 
 Douglas, could not bring themselves to vote for a Whig. 
 They supported Lyman Trumbull, while the Douglas Dem- 
 ocrats voted first for Shields and then for Governor Joel 
 A. Matteson. 22 After a number of ballots with varying 
 but indecisive results, when Matteson's election became 
 imminent, Lincoln directed his followers to unite upon 
 Trumbull, who thus won the day. The new Senator, 
 though in times gone by a political opponent of the Whig 
 leader, now agreed with him in uncompromising antago- 
 nism toward Douglas and his Kansas-Nebraska legislation.
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 91 
 
 That was enough for Lincoln. If he himself might not 
 follow Douglas into the Senate, the keen edge of his dis- 
 appointment was tempered by the consolation of sending, 
 in his stead, a David who was even less welcome than he 
 to the diminutive Goliath. 23 Indeed, no sooner had the 
 brilliant Trumbull taken his seat than he opened the at- 
 tack that gave Douglas so much trouble ; and throughout 
 the stormy sessions which followed, the senior Senator 
 from Illinois was sure to find his colleague in the van of 
 his enemies a constant reminder of that other inveterate 
 opponent at home. 
 
 Busy as Lincoln was at the bar during the next few 
 years, no move of the Democratic leader escaped his 
 attention. When Douglas, still bidding for the presiden- 
 tial nomination that had twice slipped through his fin- 
 gers, cast a defence of the Dred Scott decision into the 
 southern scale beside the repeal of the Compromise, 
 the speech did not long remain unanswered by his vigilant 
 critic. Both addresses were made in Springfield, during 
 June, 1857. At the time, the Senator's term had almost 
 two years still to run, yet Lincoln's fancy appears to have 
 carried him for a moment away from the important issues 
 under discussion 24 to the day when Douglas could again 
 be brought to book. Said he : 
 
 " Three years and a half ago, Judge Douglas brought 
 forward his famous Nebraska Bill. The country was at 
 once in a blaze. He scorned all opposition, and carried it 
 through Congress. Since then he has seen himself super- 
 seded in a presidential nomination by one indorsing the 
 general doctrine of his measure, but at the same time stand- 
 ing clear of the odium of its untimely agitation and its gross 
 breach of national faith ; and he has seen that successful 
 rival constitutionally elected, not by the strength of friends, 
 but by the division of adversaries, being in a popular 
 minority of nearly four hundred thousand votes. 25 He has 
 seen his chief aids in his own State, Shields and Richard- 
 sou, politically speaking, successively tried, convicted, and
 
 92 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 executed for an offence not their own, but his. 28 And now 
 he sees his own case standing next on the docket for 
 trial." 27 
 
 The speaker might have added that when the trial took 
 place, he hoped to conduct the prosecution. 
 
 Douglas gauged the full measure of his peril. He 
 needed no Lincoln to point out that the Democracy of 
 Illinois would not follow even his lead into the slave- 
 holders' camp. And, if he should fail to carry his own 
 State, what support could he expect from his party 
 throughout the nation ? At the same time, that party, or 
 rather the dominating faction thereof, was committing it- 
 self more unreservedly, at every step, to the slavery cause. 
 In this dilemma, Douglas seized the horn that presented 
 itself first. He determined to preserve, above all things, 
 his leadership at home, and, thus strengthened, to maintain 
 it thereafter, as best he might, abroad. To accomplish the 
 one purpose, without entirely losing sight of the other, 
 he devised a straddle " the great principle," as he called 
 it, " of popular sovereignty." According to this doctrine, 
 the people of a State or a Territory were free to have 
 slavery or not as they might choose. Of course such a 
 choice, so far as it would operate to exclude slavery from 
 the Territories, was virtually barred by the Dred Scott 
 decision, of which Douglas had warmly approved ; but the 
 inconsistency of his attitude gave him no concern, as long 
 as it left him, like Hosea Biglow's " satty's factory " can- 
 didate, " frontin' South by North." That is to say, fairly 
 on the track to the Senate, in 1858, and not turned too 
 far away from the road that might lead to the White 
 House, in 1860. When, in the winter of 185758, however, 
 President Buchanan and other Democratic leaders sought 
 to obtain the admission of Kansas into the Union, with a 
 pro-slavery constitution that had not been properly sub- 
 mitted to the people of the Territory, Douglas found him- 
 self at the parting of the ways. Support of the scheme 
 involved the surrender of " popular sovereignty," and his
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 93 
 
 political ruin in Illinois, as well as in the other Northern 
 States ; opposition to it threatened similar disaster for 
 his hopes in the South. With prompt decision, he took 
 his stand against the President. Whereupon ensued the 
 bitter struggle over Kansas that for a brief hour revealed 
 Douglas at his best. To tell how brilliantly he fought in 
 the Senate, for " the great principle," how manfully he 
 bore himself under the heavy hand of the administration, 
 how courageously he braved the abuse of old friends, 
 and with what dignity he received the praise of lifelong 
 enemies, would take us off the line of our narrative. Yet 
 all this came near to having an important bearing on the 
 fortunes of that particular enemy with whom we are most 
 concerned. 
 
 Lincoln, as election time drew near, saw with chagrin 
 not only that Douglas had recovered his popularity among 
 northern Democrats, but that some of the most influential 
 of the Republicans, also, began to regard him with favor. 
 Such leaders of the new party as Greeley, Bowles, Wilson, 
 Colfax, Banks, Burlingame, and Blair, dazzled by the 
 hope of gaining so powerful an ally, counseled the Illinois 
 Republicans to unite with the Douglas Democrats in 
 returning him to the Senate. 28 This alliance would have 
 committed the anti-slavery cause, in an important State, 
 to the keeping of a politician who, to use his own phrase, 
 cared not whether slavery was " voted down or voted up," 
 and whose entire career, notwithstanding his course in 
 the Kansas affair, should have rendered him an object of 
 distrust to the Republican Party. 20 Its aid of Douglas, 
 moreover, at the time, would have involved the gross 
 betrayal of its own local leader ; for Lincoln's sacrifices 
 to say nothing of his ability and his services entitled 
 his candidacy to the undivided support of his party. That 
 this support should, even for a moment, be disputed with 
 him by one against whom he and most of his followers had, 
 all their lives, been arrayed, is its own commentary on the 
 adroitness of Douglas. 30 So real seemed the danger that
 
 94 
 
 Lincoln became greatly troubled. He was particularly dis- 
 turbed over the course pursued by the editor of the New 
 York Tribune. " I think Greeley," said he to his partner, 
 Mr. Herndon, "is not doing me right. His conduct, I 
 believe, savors a little of injustice. I am a true Republi- 
 can and have been tried already in the hottest part of the 
 anti-slavery fight, and yet I find him taking up Douglas, 
 a veritable dodger, once a tool of the South, now its 
 enemy, and pushing him to the front. He forgets that 
 when he does that he pulls me down at the same time. 
 I fear Greeley's attitude will damage me with Sumner, 
 Seward, Wilson, Phillips, and other friends in the East." 31 
 Thereupon the faithful Herndon hastily journeyed toward 
 the seaboard to reclaim the wise men of the East from 
 following a misleading star. His mission was not entirely 
 successful, for he found some of them wandering in a haze 
 of expediency which all his earnest pleas in behalf of prin- 
 ciple failed to dispel. Meanwhile, however, the atmosphere 
 was clearing at home. Illinois Republicans could not bring 
 themselves to " place any reliance," as Seward expressed 
 it, "on a man so slippery as Douglas," and when their 
 State Convention met at Springfield, on the 16th of June, 
 1858, they formally declared for the man on whom they 
 could rely. Amidst great enthusiasm, and without a dis- 
 senting voice, was passed the resolution : 
 
 " That Hon. Abraham Lincoln is our first and only 
 choice for United States Senator to fill the vacancy about 
 to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas's term of 
 office." 32 
 
 As Douglas had, with equal unanimity, been endorsed, 
 though not actually nominated, eight weeks before, by the 
 Democratic Convention, the two men now, for the first 
 time in the course of their long rivalry, faced each other 
 to do battle for the same high office. 
 
 With characteristic eagerness, Lincoln lost no time 
 in beginning the contest. The evening of the day on 
 which his nomination had been made, he addressed the
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 95 
 
 Convention in the speech which has since become famous 
 because of its radical development of the text, " A house 
 divided against itself cannot stand." But what at this 
 moment interests us more than the issues under discussion 
 is the fact that the speaker devoted most of his attention 
 to his opponent, in person. Douglas subservient to the 
 slave-owners, or Douglas in revolt against them, was pic- 
 tured alike unworthy of northern confidence. Moreover, 
 his recently acquired popularity among the Republicans, 
 though it had signally failed to influence the Convention, 
 appears still to have worried Lincoln. " There are those," 
 said he, after speaking of the party's ambition to over- 
 throw the southern regime, " who denounce us openly to 
 their own friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator 
 Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which 
 to effect that object. They wish us to infer all from the 
 fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head 
 of the dynasty, and that he has regularly voted with us 
 on a single point upon which he and we have never dif- 
 fered. They remind us that he is a great man, and that 
 the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. 
 But 'a living dog is better than a dead lion.' Judge 
 Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, is at least a 
 caged and toothless one." ** 
 
 A lion, indeed, but not of the sort described by Lincoln, 
 did the people, three weeks later, make of the Democratic 
 leader. Returning home to Chicago, with the glory of 
 his gallant fight against the administration still fresh 
 about him, he opened his canvass there on the evening 
 of July 9, at a magnificent public reception. The speech 
 made by the Senator on that occasion, from a balcony of 
 the Tremont House, was a vigorous reply to Lincoln, of 
 whom, in the flush of his pride, he spoke patronizingly 
 as " a kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman." 34 The 
 speaker might have added " alert " to this catalogue of 
 good qualities, for Lincoln was present at the meeting, and 
 when Douglas had concluded, he announced, in answer
 
 96 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 to calls for a speech, that he would reply from the same 
 place, on the following evening. At the time appointed 
 the audience for the most part returned, but Douglas, 
 not deigning to do so, went to a theatre instead. When 
 he spoke in Bloomington, on the 16th of July, Lincoln 
 was again a watchful auditor, and the Senator's speech 
 in Springfield, the next day, was followed, within a few 
 hours, by his opponent's rejoinder to the Bloomington 
 address. 35 This continued, meeting after meeting. Yet, 
 however closely Lincoln pressed Douglas, it soon be- 
 came evident that the " Little Giant," with his plausible 
 oratory and cleverly managed campaign machinery, had 
 made the better start. Then Lincoln, recalling his old 
 tactics at close quarters, challenged Douglas to a series 
 of debates. In response, the latter, having accepted the 
 proposition, stipulated that there were to be seven meet- 
 ings, at places and on dates specified by him. 38 The terms, 
 as further laid down by Douglas, gave him the advantage 
 of opening and closing the series, of speaking eleven times 
 to his antagonist's ten, and of having four openings and 
 closes to Lincoln's three. That "amiable gentleman," 
 however, was not entirely a stranger, as we have seen, to 
 the idea of giving the great man odds, so he promptly 
 accepted the conditions. 37 
 
 What manner of man Stephen A. Douglas had become 
 since those primitive Vandalia days, when he started with 
 Lincoln in the race for political fame and fortune, is wor- 
 thy of notice at this, a critical point in their course. The 
 slight, boyish figure which, in 1834, had struck the big- 
 boned young member from Sangamon as that of "the 
 least man " in his experience, though no taller by 1858, 
 had materially developed otherwise. A sturdy, thick-set 
 frame, with broad shoulders and deep chest, gave evi- 
 dence of physical vigor as clearly as the massive head, 
 high forehead, flashing blue eyes, and firm, expressive 
 month indicated intellectual strength. Whatever the 
 shrewd, bold mind might plan, the body, with its ex-
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 97 
 
 traordinary energy and powers of endurance, could evi- 
 dently be relied on to carry out. Thus doubly fortified 
 by nature, Douglas was an opponent to compel respect. 
 Moreover, the remarkable public career which had borne 
 him, while still young, from unfriended obscurity to the 
 leadership of a great party, may be said to have schooled 
 him in all the arts and accomplishments that make such 
 a man formidable. With an exhaustive knowledge of our 
 political history, and a grasp no less comprehensive of 
 the problems that arise in party management, was com- 
 bined an insight, well-nigh precise, into the shifting cur- 
 rents of popular favor. This store of wisdom was paral- 
 leled by the skill with which it was applied. No obstacle 
 was long suffered to obstruct Douglas's progress. Ques- 
 tions of principle, of measures, and of men were all 
 weighed alike in the balance of an ambition as inordinate 
 as it was selfish. Yet, so artfully did he manage, that 
 people, mistaking the self-seeking politician for the patri- 
 otic statesman, crowned him with successive honors. 
 
 A member of the Illinois legislature at the age of 23, 
 State Supreme Court Judge at 28, Congressman at 30, 
 United States Senator at 34, and a powerfully supported 
 candidate for presidential nomination at the uncommonly 
 youthful age of 39, Douglas was generally acknowledged, 
 even some years before the period at which we have arrived, 
 to be the ablest, as well as the most cherished, of the 
 Democratic leaders. Indeed, a considerable element in the 
 party looked for guidance to him, and to him alone. 
 Through fair weather and foul it had clung to the man 
 with a devotion that has not been surpassed in the history 
 of the organization. For Douglas knew, as possibly but 
 one other American ever did, how to captivate at once the 
 heads and the hearts of the young men. They admired his 
 sagacity, dash, fearlessness, and indomitable will ; they 
 loved him for the ardent, sunny temperament that mani- 
 fested itself with equal readiness in a warm greeting or a 
 personal service, in the reckless expenditure of his means,
 
 98 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 or in the good-fellowship of a convivial circle ; but above 
 all they exulted, as did many of their elders, over the 
 power of his eloquence. Douglas was an orator by nature. 
 He owed little or nothing of his triumphs in the Senate and 
 on the stump to scholarship. Discarding humor, flights 
 of fancy, and rhetorical ornament generally, he carried 
 *iis hearers whithersoever he would on the flood of his 
 earnest logic. A flexible voice, suited to his terse, vigorous 
 English, and a manner which seemed to stamp every word 
 as the utterance of an oracle, imparted to what he said all 
 the force of which the statement was capable. Even the 
 most audacious sophisms or perversions of fact for 
 Douglas never hesitated at either owed a certain plau- 
 sibility to this impressive delivery. It was in running 
 discussion, however, rather than in the making of a formal 
 speech in spontaneous declamation, passionate invec- 
 tive, and impromptu reply, that he particularly excelled. 
 Quick to seize upon the weakness in an opponent's argu- 
 ment, adroit at making the most of the strength in his 
 own, expert in all the wiles and stratagems of controversy, 
 unscrupulous about employing them to confound an 
 adversary or mislead his hearers, he was conceded to be 
 the best off-hand debater in the Senate during one of its 
 brilliant epochs. The Upper House at the time held not 
 a few orators who wrote their drafts on the bank of elo- 
 quence for larger amounts than Douglas could ; but the 
 flushest of them lacked so much ready change as he had 
 always about him. His encounters with Sumner, Seward, 
 Chase, Everett, Crittenden, Trumbull, Fessenden, Hale, 
 Wilson, as well as other parliamentarians of their class, 
 whether he met them singly or sustained an assault in 
 force, had gained for him an almost unbroken record of 
 forensic victories. These achievements had fixed the 
 attention of the nation upon him as upon no other poli- 
 tician of the day. Small wonder that a man of his caliber 
 grew arrogant. Recognizing no will but his own, he came 
 to look upon opposition of any kind with ill-controlled
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 99 
 
 passion. If to all this, finally, is added that twelve years 
 in the Senate had led him to regard his seat as peculiarly 
 his own, we may form some conception of what Lincoln 
 undertook when, in the summer of 1858, he challenged 
 Douglas to debate for the place. 
 
 No one realized to what heights Douglas had climbed 
 more clearly than he who had pursued him so persistently. 
 Lincoln's admission, not long before, of how wide a gap 
 lay between them, makes a pathetic contrast to his dis- 
 paragements of former days. " Twenty-two years ago,'' 
 said he, " Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted. 
 We were both young then he a trifle younger than I. 
 Even then we were both ambitious I, perhaps quite 
 as much as he. With me, the race of ambition has been 
 a failure a flat failure ; with him, it has been one of 
 splendid success. His name fills the nation, and is not 
 unknown even in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for 
 the high eminence he has reached. So reached that the 
 oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the 
 elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence than wear 
 the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow." 38 
 In an entirely different vein, though not less forcibly, Lin- 
 coln pointed out, at the beginning of the canvass, some 
 of Douglas's further advantages over him. Said he : 
 
 " Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the 
 anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his 
 party for years past, have been looking upon him as cer- 
 tainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United 
 States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, 
 post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet appoint- 
 ments, chargeships, and foreign missions, bursting and 
 sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid 
 hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been 
 gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, 
 in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, 
 bring themselves to give up the charming hope ; but 
 with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him,
 
 ioo LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions 
 beyond what even in the days of his highest prosperity 
 they could have brought about in his favor. On the con- 
 trary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In 
 my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any 
 cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages 
 all, taken together, that the Republicans labor under. 
 We have to fight this battle upon principle, and upon 
 principle alone." * 
 
 Whether much principle, by the way, could be intro- 
 duced into a conflict with Douglas, the speaker, after 
 twenty odd years of campaigning against him, was still 
 in grave doubt. Having sounded the depths and shallows 
 of his character, Lincoln had learned that when Douglas 
 swore upon his honor his political honor, at least he 
 was, as Master Touchstone might have said, not forsworn. 
 Lincoln also knew how subtly this moral laxuess wound, 
 like a black thread, through the man's comings and 
 goings ; and how, in the stress of debate, sophistry, trick- 
 ery, even falsehood were employed to establish his own 
 position, or hopelessly to befog that of his opponent. It 
 was in reference to this line of conduct that Lincoln once 
 said : 
 
 "Judge Douglas is playing cuttlefish, a small species 
 of fish that has no mode of defending itself, when pur- 
 sued, except by throwing out a black fluid, which makes 
 the water so dark the enemy cannot see it, and thus it 
 escapes." 
 
 Speaking, on another occasion, of the Judge's more 
 dangerous qualities, he said : 
 
 " It is impossible to get the advantage of him. Even 
 if he is worsted, he so bears himself that the people are 
 bewildered and uncertain as to who has the better of it." 40 
 The impossible, then, is what Lincoln was about to under- 
 take. 
 
 As for Douglas, his ostentatious air of confidence in him- 
 self and his patronizing bearing toward Lincoln, on the
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 101 
 
 stump, hardly manifested his real attitude. Upon receiv- 
 ing, at the Capital, a despatch, announcing that his old 
 opponent had been chosen to run against him for the 
 Senate, he had said to the group of Republican repre- 
 sentatives gathered about him to hear it read : 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, you have nominated a very able and 
 a very honest man." 41 
 
 A more emphatic, if not so dignified; form of the com- 
 ment was that in which it had been expressed, privately, 
 on several occasions : ." ' ;, : !*',' ''; ', ' '. 
 
 " Of all the damned Whig rasdais' about -Springfield, 
 Abe Lincoln is the ablest and most honest." 
 
 Discussing the nominee with John W. Forney, Douglas 
 had observed : 
 
 " I shall have my hands full. He is the strong man of 
 his party full of wit, facts, dates and the best stump- 
 speaker, with his droll ways and dry jokes, in the West. 
 He is as honest as he is shrewd ; and if I beat him, my 
 victory will be hardly won." 43 
 
 In view of these opinions and of the previous encoun- 
 ters upon which they were based, it is not surprising that 
 Douglas was loath now, even more than four years before, 
 to meet Lincoln in debate. When the challenge was 
 received, the Democratic leader said to certain of his 
 political friends : 
 
 " I do not feel, between you and me, that I want to go 
 into this debate. The whole country knows me and has 
 me measured. Lincoln, as regards myself, is compara- 
 tively unknown, 44 and if he gets the best of this debate, 
 and I want to say he is the ablest man the Republi- 
 cans have got, I shall lose everything and Lincoln will 
 gain everything. Should I win, I shall gain but little. I 
 do not want to go into a debate with Abe." 45 
 
 Moreover, after agreeing to the proposed meetings 
 for there was no escape from them in 1858, any more 
 than there had been in 1854 he declared to some of his 
 supporters who spoke slightingly of his antagonist :
 
 102 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 " Gentlemen, you do not know Mr. Lincoln. I have 
 known him long and well, and I know that I shall have 
 anything but an easy task. I assure you I would rather 
 meet any other man in the country, in this joint-debate, 
 than Abraham Lincoln." 48 
 
 Whatever disquietude Douglas manifested, in these 
 few instances, was not shared by his followers. Looking 
 .forward to -the. contest with assurance of success, they set 
 no' bounds, as" was' their wont, to partisan enthusiasm. 
 Amidst their noisy demonstrations were heard boasts that 
 Douglas would'" use up and utterly demolish" Lincoln, 
 that the country would shortly be treated to the specta- 
 cle of "the Little Giant chawing up Old Abe," and 
 the like. 47 These things naturally cast a damper over 
 Lincoln's friends. Somewhat disheartened, at the outset, 
 by the prestige of Douglas's brilliant career, as well as 
 by his unquestioned ability, they came to regard the ap- 
 proaching trial of strength with forebodings that were 
 poorly concealed from their champion himself. He was, 
 in fact, keenly alive to this lack of confidence. It showed 
 itself in the comments of the Republican press, no less 
 than in the talk of his supporters. One of them, Judge 
 H. W. Beckwith of Danville, happened to greet him, on 
 the street in Springfield, shortly before the first meeting. 
 Inquiry as to the state of things in Vermilion County 
 evoked the statement by the Judge that the leader's 
 friends there awaited the coming debate with deep con- 
 cern. This appeared to move Lincoln. The pained expres- 
 sion that passed over his face, however, quickly gave 
 place to one of resolution. Then, in his half-serious, half- 
 jocular way, he said, as he seated himself upon the steps 
 of the Chenery House, before which they stood : 
 
 " Sit down. I have a moment to spare and will tell 
 you a story. You have seen two men about to fight ? " 
 
 " Yes, many times." 
 
 " Well, one of them brags about what he means to do. 
 He jumps high in the air, cracking his heels together,
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 103 
 
 smites his fists, and wastes his breath trying to scare some- 
 body. You see the other fellow, he says not a word " 
 here the speaker became very earnest and repeated, " you 
 see the other man says not a word. His arms are at his 
 side, his fists are closely doubled up, his head is drawn to 
 the shoulder, and his teeth are set firm together. He is 
 saving his wind for the fight, and as sure as it comes off 
 he will win it, or die a-trying." tf 
 
 There spoke the victor of Clary's Grove. He had 
 learned that the principles of mastery do not vary, whether 
 they are applied to a backwoods scuffle or a great political 
 controversy. 
 
 The Lincoln-Douglas debates, as they are called, were 
 the most remarkable exhibitions of their kind in the his- 
 tory of the country. Never before nor since have two of 
 its citizens engaged in a series of public discussions which 
 involved questions of equal importance. Personal and 
 purely local differences were overshadowed, from the very 
 beginning, by what the disputants had to say on issues so 
 momentous that they were destined, within a few years, to 
 plunge the country into civil war. Lincoln, accordingly, 
 did not greatly exaggerate when he spoke, at Quincy, of 
 the seven meetings as " the successive acts of a drama to 
 be enacted not merely in the face of audiences like this, 
 but in the face of the nation and, to some extent, in the 
 face of the world." 49 To reconstruct these stirring scenes, 
 in pen pictures, almost half a century after the curtain 
 was rung down, is as much beyond our power as to do 
 justice by the actors, in any summary of their speeches. 
 Only a careful reading of the 263 pages in which the 
 debates have been preserved will convey an adequate idea 
 of how brilliantly, from the intellectual point of view, both 
 conducted themselves. Now Douglas appears to prevail, 
 now Lincoln. One page persuades us that slavery iu 
 constitutional, and that each commonwealth should be 
 allowed to have " the institution," or not, as it elects. 
 We turn the leaf, and lo ! we are convinced that slavery
 
 104 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 is wrong, and ought, at least, to be restricted. The ques- 
 tions at issue in the debates, however, their morals 
 and their politics, lie beyond the scope of our present 
 inquiry. Look we then to the debaters themselves. 
 
 The jaunty manner in which Douglas had talked 
 down to Lincoln, at the commencement of the canvass, 
 in Chicago, had not left him when he opened the joint- 
 meetings, in Ottawa. At some of the intervening Demo- 
 cratic rallies, he had, it is true, so far forgotten himself 
 as to indulge in violent utterances against his opponent ; 
 but when they stood face to face again, he patted him on 
 the back, as before. 50 And the caress was not the less 
 gentle because it came between blows aimed at Lincoln's 
 political record. Said Douglas : 
 
 " In the remarks I have made on this platform, and 
 the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing per- 
 sonally disrespectful or unkind to that gentleman. I 
 have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were 
 many points of sympathy between us when we first got 
 acquainted. We were both comparatively boys, and both 
 struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school- 
 teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing 
 grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was more suc- 
 cessful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence 
 more fortunate in this world's goods. Lincoln is one of 
 those peculiar men who perform with admirable skill 
 everything which they undertake. I made as good a 
 school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker I 
 made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boss 
 said I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries than 
 with anything else ; but I believe that Lincoln was always 
 more successful in business than I, for his business enabled 
 him to get into the legislature. I met him there, however, 
 and had sympathy with him, because of the uphill strug- 
 gle we both had in life. He was then just as good at 
 telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of the 
 boys wrestling, or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits,
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE io 
 
 or tossing a copper ; could ruin more liquor than all the 
 boys of the town together, and the dignity and impartiality 
 with which he presided at a horse-race or fist-fight excited 
 the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was 
 present and participated. I sympathized with him because 
 he was struggling with difficulties, and so was I/ Mr. Lin- 
 coln served with me in the legislature in 1836, when we 
 both retired, and he subsided, or became submerged, and he 
 was lost sight of as a public man for some years. In 1846, 
 when Wilmot introduced his celebrated proviso and the 
 Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again 
 turned up as a member of Congress from the Sangamon 
 district. I was then in the Senate of the United States, 
 and was glad to welcome my old friend and companion." 51 
 
 But the " old friend and companion," when he arose to 
 reply, was in no mood for compliments. A bit of sarcasm 
 was his only reference to the other's patronage. 
 
 "As the judge had complimented me," said he, "with 
 these pleasant titles (I must confess to my weakness), I 
 was a little ' taken,' for it came from a great man. I was 
 not very much accustomed to flattery, and it came the 
 sweeter to me. I was rather like the Hoosier with the 
 gingerbread, when he said he reckoned he loved it better 
 than any other man, and got less of it. As the Judge had 
 so flattered me, I could not make up my mind that he 
 meant to deal unfairly with me." 52 
 
 It was a matter of fact, however, that Douglas had 
 throughout, with the artfulness in which he knew no peer, 
 so misrepresented Lincoln's career and misstated his 
 principles as to place him almost entirely on the defen- 
 sive. Purely defensive tactics, whether in physical or 
 intellectual contests, rarely succeed. Hence the advan- 
 tage, as the first debate closed, appeared to rest with the 
 "Little Giant." Lincoln's speech, it is true, had been 
 received with enthusiasm, and, as he left the platform, his 
 excited supporters, lifting him upon their shoulders, had 
 carried him, with songs and huzzas, to the place where he
 
 106 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 was to spend the night. Still, this happened in a Repub- 
 lican district, and his well-wishers elsewhere, as they read 
 the report of the discussion in cold type, might with 
 reason have renewed their fears for the result. 
 
 There was a change in the situation when next the 
 champions met at Freeport. Here Lincoln assumed the 
 offensive, and thenceforth, to the end of the series, he fre- 
 quently forced the fighting. Coolly parrying his antag- 
 onist's most dangerous blows, he countered with a force 
 under which the redoubtable Douglas sometimes reeled. 
 That gentleman's air of superiority soon disappeared. The 
 pace became too hot for any such pretence. All his re- 
 markable dialectic powers were called into play to com- 
 bat a logic keener than his own and a straightforward 
 persistence of purpose that no artifice could turn aside. 
 When his sophisms were confuted and his untruths 
 exposed, he had a way of introducing them over and over 
 again in bewildering guises. Not Proteus himself took 
 so many shapes before he gave up the truth. Nor was the 
 little old man of the sea enmeshed, at last, in his fetters, 
 more securely than was the " Little Giant " in the chain 
 of reasoning that Lincoln so deftly wound around him. 
 Twist and turn how he would, Douglas could not extri- 
 cate himself. Losing his temper as he lost ground, he fell 
 upon his adversary with personalities which the latter was 
 not slow to return in kind. Then Douglas protested. 
 
 " Does Mr. Lincoln," said he at Galesburg, " wish to 
 push these things to the point of personal difficulties 
 here ? I commenced this contest by treating him courte- 
 ously and kindly ; I always spoke of him in words of 
 respect, and in return he has sought, and is now seeking, 
 to divert public attention from the enormity of his revo- 
 lutionary principles by impeaching men's sincerity and 
 integrity, and inviting personal quarrels." 53 
 
 To which Lincoln replied : 
 
 " I do not understand but what he impeaches my honor, 
 my veracity, and my candor ; and because he does this,
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 107 
 
 I do not understand that I am bound, if I see a truthful 
 ground for it, to keep my hands off of him. As soon as I 
 learned that Judge Douglas was disposed to treat me in 
 this way, I signified in one of my speeches that I should 
 be driven to draw upon whatever of humble resources I 
 might have to adopt a new course with him. I was not 
 entirely sure that I should be able to hold my own with 
 him, but I at least had the purpose made to do as well as 
 I could upon him ; and now I say that I will not be the 
 first to cry, * Hold ! ' I think it originated with the Judge, 
 and when he quits, I probably will. But I shall not ask 
 any favors at all. He asks me, or he asks the audience, if 
 I wish to push this matter to the point of personal diffi- 
 culty. I tell him, No. He did not make a mistake in one 
 of his early speeches, when he called me an ' amiable ' 
 man, though perhaps he did when he called me an * intel- 
 ligent' man. It really hurts me very much to suppose 
 that I have wronged anybody on earth. I again tell him, 
 No. I very much prefer, when this canvass shall be over, 
 however it may result, that we at least part without any 
 bitter recollections of personal difficulties. The Judge, 
 in his concluding speech at Galesburg, says that I was 
 pushing this matter to a personal difficulty to avoid the 
 responsibility for the enormity of my principles. I say to 
 the Judge and this audience now, that I will again state 
 our principles as well as I hastily can in all their enor- 
 mity, and if the Judge hereafter chooses to confine himself 
 to a war upon these principles, he will probably not find 
 me departing from the same course." 54 
 
 This fairly indicates Lincoln's attitude. Thrice armed 
 in the justice of his position, he held it with equal vigor, 
 against argument or abuse, changing weapons as his ad- 
 versary changed his, and evincing no animosity, even 
 while he dealt the most telling strokes. His customary 
 humor was, however, to a large extent, noticeable for its 
 absence. When urged by his friends to introduce some 
 of his witty illustrations and amusing anecdotes, so that
 
 io8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 audiences might applaud him as often as they did Doug, 
 las, he refused, saying : 
 
 " The occasion is too serious. The issues are too grave. 
 I do not seek applause, or to amuse the people, but to 
 convince them." 55 
 
 Moreover, beyond the cloud of local voters that envel- 
 oped the rude platforms in the Illinois clearings, he saw 
 what these friends and what Douglas himself too often 
 lost sight of, the listening nation. To this larger forum 
 Lincoln addressed himself. He was eager enough for the 
 exalted office at stake ; but what appealed as much, if not 
 more, to his ambition, was the hope of overcoming his 
 ancient rival, in the eyes of the whole country. 
 
 One incident of the debates is, in this connection, of 
 particular interest. At the first meeting, Douglas chal- 
 lenged Lincoln to answer a series of seven interrogatories, 
 based on the slavery problem. They were shrewdly cal- 
 culated to entrap him into inconsistencies, or to elicit 
 expressions of radical doctrine for which the people at 
 large were hardly prepared. Lincoln did not formally 
 reply at once, but during the interval between that and 
 the following debate, he got ready a set of answers, re- 
 markable for their blending of adroitness and candor. At 
 the same time, as "questions" is a game that two can 
 play, he framed four interrogatories, designed, in their 
 turn, to embarrass Douglas. This was especially so of the 
 one which read : 
 
 " Can the people of a United States Territory, in any 
 lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United 
 States, exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the forma- 
 tion of a State constitution ? " M 
 
 The question would bring the author of " popular sov- 
 ereignty " face to face with the irreconcilable contradiction 
 between his theory that the people of a Territory had the 
 right to exclude slavery, or not, as they wished, and his 
 defence of the Dred Scott decision, according to which 
 they had no such right. Was it wise, however, to give
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 109 
 
 Douglas this opportunity for patching up the defect in 
 his armor ? " No," said the Republican leaders, to whom 
 Lincoln submitted the questions, on the eve of the Free- 
 port meeting, unanimously, "No." Douglas, they said 
 in effect, would not of his own accord, for fear of further 
 offending the South, touch upon the subject any more 
 than he found necessary. Consequently, his support of the 
 decision might be attacked to advantage. On the other 
 hand, argued they, if forced to give a categorical answer, 
 he will say, "Yes," adhere to "popular sovereignty," de- 
 clare that the decision is an abstract proposition depend- 
 ent for its force upon local legislation, and thus gain a 
 number of still doubtful votes. 57 
 
 " If he does that," said Lincoln, " he can never be 
 President." 
 
 "But," replied one of his friends, "he may be Sen- 
 ator." 
 
 " Perhaps," rejoined Lincoln ; " but I am after larger 
 game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this." M 
 
 His anxious supporters labored with him to the last 
 moment before the debate opened, in the hope of persuad- 
 ing him to abandon that question. They protested, not 
 unreasonably, against jeopardizing the present canvass 
 for one that was two years distant ; but their candidate, 
 with the self-reliance that customarily followed his care- 
 ful study of a subject, persisted in his purpose. 59 When 
 the question was put, Douglas answered as had been pre- 
 dicted ; and how accurately the effects of that answer w had 
 been forecast by the questioner, we shall presently see. 
 
 Important as the debates were, they constituted but 
 a small part of this memorable canvass. To consider all 
 the elements that entered into the contest, and to credit 
 each with its precise bearing upon the result, would be 
 difficult, if not impossible. A number of speakers as- 
 pirants for State offices and politicians generally sup- 
 ported one or the other, as the case might be, of the 
 senatorial candidates. The advantage, in this respect,
 
 no LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 owing to the eloquent aid of Trumbull, probably lay 
 with Lincoln. It is agreed, on the other hand, that cir- 
 cumstances favored Douglas, and that nothing did this to 
 so great an extent as the hostility of President Buchanan. 
 The administration party's effort to compass the Senator's 
 defeat, its nomination of a third State ticket to divide the 
 Democratic vote, its virulent attacks upon him in the 
 press, and its abuse of Federal patronage to punish his 
 supporters, served merely to close up the ranks of those 
 supporters, as they glorified the almost heroic courage 
 with which he fought Republicans in front, and Buchanan 
 Democrats in the rear. Moreover, the animosity of the 
 President and his pro-slavery adherents against Douglas 
 kept alive the sympathy of prominent Republicans, as 
 well as other anti-administration leaders, throughout the 
 country. They loved the " Little Giant" somewhat as 
 did those who cherished a nobler Democrat, of a later day 
 for the enemies he had made, and their influence 
 brought him many times as many votes as Buchanan took. 
 Indeed, a single favorable letter, penned at a critical point 
 in the struggle, by Senator Crittenden of Kentucky, 
 turned the wavering scale in enough districts to ensure 
 the election of Douglas. 61 
 
 But what Douglas himself accomplished and how close 
 his competitor kept to him, through it all, are the strik- 
 ing features of the contest. From the midsummer evening 
 on which it was opened by the Democratic candidate, in 
 Chicago, to the night before election, when he tried, dur- 
 ing a chill November storm, to deliver his closing speech, 
 in that same city, Douglas made a fight as spirited as it 
 was able. Traversing the length and breadth of the State, 
 he spoke at all hours and places, regardless of weather 
 or personal fatigue. In the one hundred working days 
 between July 9 and November 2, he made, according to 
 his own statement, one hundred and thirty speeches. 62 
 This vigorous campaign frequently necessitated travel- 
 ing by night and speaking for the most part, in the
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE in 
 
 open air several times on the same day ; but the attend- 
 ant hardships were alleviated, as much as could be, at 
 every turn. Luxuriously fitted special cars, filled usu- 
 ally with a retinue of friends, carried him to many of his 
 appointments, as one contemporary says, " like a conquer- 
 ing hero." M His approach was announced to the waiting 
 crowds by salutes fired from cannon mounted on a plat- 
 form car, and by the music of a brass band. Processions, 
 banners, triumphal arches, decorations, receptions, ser- 
 enades, fireworks, and the boisterous enthusiasm of the 
 people manufactured, when it failed to be spontaneous 
 stimulated Douglas, as would indeed have been the 
 case with a man of weaker fiber, to strenuous exertion. 
 Drawing upon all his resources, material no less than 
 physical and intellectual, he cashed the obligations under 
 which so many rested, for political favors, into a large 
 campaign fund that was disbursed with a lavish hand. 
 His own contributions, leaving him deeply in debt, drained 
 his estate to the extent, it is said, of eighty thousand dol- 
 lars. 64 This sum and Lincoln's subscription of five hun- 
 dred dollars, or thereabouts, to the Republican fund, form 
 a contrast, typical of differences between the candidates 
 and their methods, that ran through the entire canvass. 65 
 
 Neither enthusiasm nor the customary electioneering 
 devices were lacking among Lincoln's followers, but their 
 leader disliked " fizzlegigs and fireworks," to use his own 
 phrase, as much as his competitor desired them. While 
 the latter omitted no flourish that might gain a vote, the 
 former relied, as much as his managers would let him, 
 upon the stump ; while the one was customarily driven 
 through a town in the most elegant carriage to be ob- 
 tained, the other was drawn about not infrequently on a 
 farm-wagon ; and, what was of the greatest importance, 
 while Douglas enjoyed the best railroad facilities that 
 money or influence could secure, Lincoln had to cover the 
 same ground as he did, with scant favor. " At all points 
 on the road where meetings between the two great poll-
 
 ii2 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 ticians were held," relates Colonel Lamon, "either a 
 special train or a special car was furnished to Judge Doug- 
 las ; but Mr. Lincoln, when he failed to get transportation 
 on the regular trains, in time to meet his appointments, 
 was reduced to the necessity of going as freight. There 
 being orders from headquarters to permit no passenger 
 to travel on freight trains, Mr. Lincoln's persuasive 
 powers were often brought into requisition. The favor was 
 granted or refused according to the politics of the con- 
 ductor. On one occasion, in going to meet an appoint- 
 ment in the southern part of the State that section of 
 Illinois called Egypt Mr. Lincoln and I, with other 
 friends, were traveling in the ' caboose ' of a freight train, 
 when we were switched off the main track to allow a 
 special train to pass in which Mr. Lincoln's more aristo- 
 cratic rival was being conveyed. The passing train was 
 decorated with banners and flags, and carried a band 
 of music which was playing ' Hail to the Chief.' As 
 the train whistled past, Mr. Lincoln broke out in a fit 
 of laughter and said, 'Boys, the gentleman in that car 
 evidently smelt no royalty in our carriage.' " m 
 
 Another incident in point is recalled by Major Whit- 
 ney. " Lincoln and I," says he, " were at the Centralia 
 agricultural fair, the day after the debate at Jonesboro. 
 Night came on and we were tired, having been on the fair 
 grounds all day. We were to go north on the Illinois 
 Central Railroad. The train was due at midnight, and 
 the depot was full of people. I managed to get a chair 
 for Lincoln in the office of the Superintendent of the 
 railroad, but small politicians would intrude so that he 
 could scarcely get a moment's sleep. The train came and 
 was filled instantly. I got a seat near the door for Lincoln 
 and myself. He was worn out and had to meet Douglas 
 the next day at Charleston. An empty car, called a saloon 
 car, was hitched on to the rear of the train and locked up. 
 I asked the conductor, who knew Lincoln and myself 
 well, we were both attorneys of the road, if Lincoln
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 113 
 
 could not ride in that car ; that he was exhausted and 
 needed rest ; but the conductor refused. I afterwards got 
 him in by a stratagem. At the same time, George B. 
 McClellan in person [then Vice-President of the road] 
 was taking Douglas around in a special car and special 
 train ; and that was the unjust treatment Lincoln got 
 from the Illinois Central Railroad." 67 
 
 Nevertheless, as the struggle drew to a close, the favored 
 candidate, vigorous as he was, almost succumbed to the 
 strain, and his voice became so hoarse that it was painful 
 to hear him. On the other hand, Lincoln, who, without 
 making so many speeches, had probably endured all that 
 Douglas had and more, appeared to be in prime condition. 
 His voice was as clear, his eye as bright, and his step as 
 firm as if he were about to begin, not to end, one of the 
 severest of political conflicts. 
 
 The election, which took place on November 2, re- 
 sulted in a virtual victory, but at the same time, an actual 
 defeat, for Lincoln. His party, making heavy gains over 
 its returns in 1856 when Buchanan carried Illinois, polled 
 the largest popular vote and elected its State ticket. The 
 Douglas men, however, profiting by inequalities in the ap- 
 portionment of legislative districts, as well as by the fact 
 that eight out of thirteen State Senators who held over 
 were Democrats, had a majority, on joint ballot, in the 
 legislature. When that body met in January, 1859, it 
 accordingly reflected Douglas. 
 
 Lincoln took his defeat as resignedly as could be ex- 
 pected. He was, as we have seen, not unprepared for such 
 a result ; yet this second check to his ambitions must have 
 borne hard upon a man who once said that he " would 
 rather have a full term in the Senate than in the Presi- 
 dency." m The courageous, hopeful letters written by him, 
 at about this time, do not it is safe to say reveal all 
 his emotions. He felt, as he quaintly told a sympathetic 
 friend, " like the boy that stumped his toe. It hurt 
 too bad to laugh and he was too big to cry." M The toe
 
 ii4 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 had, on this occasion, not been seriously injured, however, 
 for the big boy was still in the running with the little one. 
 Their names were thenceforward linked together in the 
 public mind. Those who had watched the contest atten- 
 tively agreed, for the most part, that Lincoln's failure had 
 been as brilliant as Douglas's success. While the Senator 
 had merely maintained the great prestige already estab- 
 lished by him, throughout the land, his comparatively un- 
 known opponent had leaped at one bound, as it were, into 
 a national reputation. Some observers, in fact, undazzled 
 by the Bengal lights of victory, recognized even then, 
 what later judgment has confirmed, that the foremost 
 campaigner of the Democracy had met his master. 
 
 After the conflict, Lincoln turned his attention again 
 to his somewhat neglected private affairs. Urgent though 
 these were, they did not it is interesting to note take 
 his thoughts from the doctrines that he had combated, or 
 from the man who had sought to uphold them. Douglas 
 and " Douglasism," to use Lincoln's own word, were still 
 at every turn the joint objects of his attacks. For, strange 
 to relate, he deemed it necessary to oppose the Democratic 
 leader anew, within, as well as outside of, the Republican 
 ranks. Some members of the party, notwithstanding what 
 the recent discussions had disclosed, persisted in the hope 
 that the organization might yet march to power under the 
 Standard of the victorious Senator. Even a few of Lin- 
 coln's friends, for a brief period after his defeat, enter- 
 tained this idea ; but their leader needless to say lost 
 no opportunity to counteract it. " Let the Republican 
 Party of Illinois dally with Judge Douglas," said he, 
 speaking at Chicago, in the spring of 1859. " Let them 
 fall in behind him and make him their candidate, and 
 they do not absorb him he absorbs them. They would 
 come out at the end all Douglas men, all claimed by him 
 as having endorsed every one of his doctrines upon the 
 great subject with which the whole nation is engaged at 
 this hour." 70 As late as the midsummer of that year,
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 115 
 
 we find the speaker expressing uneasiness at seeing his 
 " friends, leaning toward * popular sovereignty ' " and 
 toward its author, " the most dangerous enemy of Lib- 
 erty because the most insidious one." 71 These warnings 
 were reenforced by the conduct of the Senator himself. 
 That wily politician, as soon as he had secured his reelec- 
 tion, turned toward the South to regain the pro-slavery 
 support which he had alienated at Freeport. His public 
 utterances, about this time, particularly the speeches made 
 on a southern tour that closely followed the debates, reveal 
 how disastrous, if not fatal, his leadership might have been 
 to the high aims of the Republican Party. But this peril 
 passed over, with the approach of the fall elections, when 
 party lines were again so sharply drawn that Lincoln and 
 Douglas found themselves, as usual, in opposing camps. 
 
 At the request of the Ohio Democrats, Douglas visited 
 that State, in September, 1859, to help them elect their 
 local ticket. Similar invitations, addressed to Lincoln from 
 various quarters in the North, had been declined ; but, 
 when the Buckeye Republicans asked him to come and 
 answer the speeches of this man who was regarded as his 
 particular antagonist, he complied. Following Douglas, by 
 a few days, at Columbus and at Cincinnati, respectively, 
 he made two effective speeches. They dealt not solely 
 with what had been said at those places, but indeed, with 
 most, if not all, of the important arguments made by the 
 Democratic leader in his addresses and his contributions 
 to the press since the debates. For now, more than ever, 
 Lincoln tenaciously stuck to Douglas. No public word or 
 act of the Senator escaped the notice of his indefatigable 
 rival. After the Ohio election, which resulted in favor of 
 the Republicans, Lincoln journeyed to Kansas. There as 
 elsewhere, to judge from the reports of his speeches, 
 or rather from the fragments of several that have been 
 preserved, "popular sovereignty," together with the ex- 
 pounder of the doctrine, was still uppermost in his mind. 
 And a few weeks thereafter, when he delivered at Cooper
 
 n6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Institute, in New York, the most elaborate address of his 
 life, that same subject furnished a theme, and one of Doug- 
 las's speeches, a text. The oration at the metropolis was, 
 in fact, a grand summing up of the controversy opened by 
 Lincoln, as we have seen, somewhat over twenty months 
 before, in the little western Capital. By a sort of political 
 miracle, the arena in which the contestants then faced 
 each other had, with unexampled rapidity, grown until it 
 became coextensive with the entire country. A nation had 
 been watching the men and weighing the merits of their 
 quarrel. The time for a final decision between them was 
 almost at hand. 
 
 When the Republican National Convention met at 
 Chicago, in May, 1860, it passed over Seward, Chase, and 
 other recognized leaders, who sought the presidency, to 
 nominate Lincoln. This choice, though the causes and 
 considerations which led to it were manifold, had its basis 
 primarily on the record made by him in the fight against 
 Douglas. For, sharp as had been that conflict between 
 the two men, a still sharper one, to all appearances, im- 
 pended between their political supporters. The Repub- 
 licans and the northern Democrats, entering upon the 
 most momentous presidential campaign of our history, had 
 embodied in their respective platforms the principles at 
 issue throughout the debates. Consequently, when they 
 came to select candidates who were to stand upon these 
 platforms, they naturally regarded the debaters them- 
 selves as, in one important sense at least, their logical 
 standard-bearers. So Lincoln was named at Chicago, and 
 five weeks later, the Democratic National Convention at 
 Baltimore nominated Douglas. 
 
 But the second nomination was relatively a very differ- 
 ent affair from the first. Lincoln received the unanimous 
 vote of his party ; Douglas was chosen by a mere rump. 
 The Democracy had split across its middle, leaving the 
 Senator from Illinois at the head of the northern half, 
 and face to face with the fate foreseen by his competitor
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 117 
 
 at Freeport. In the debate at that place, Douglas, as will 
 be remembered, had been entrapped into an out-and-out 
 declaration of his attitude toward slavery in the Territo- 
 ries. " It matters not," he had said, answering Lincoln's 
 question, " what way the Supreme Court may hereafter 
 decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or 
 may not go into a Territory under the Constitution, the 
 people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude 
 it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist 
 a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local 
 police regulations. Those police regulations can only be 
 established by the local legislature ; and if the people are 
 opposed to slavery, they will elect representatives to that 
 body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually pre- 
 vent the introduction of it into their midst." 72 This rare 
 sophism, * as thin," to use a Lincolnian illustration, " as 
 the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow 
 of a pigeon that had been starved to death," had never- 
 theless served Douglas's purpose with the Democrats of 
 Illinois. But how had it affected his popularity with the 
 party at large, and, above all, would it, as Lincoln had 
 predicted, cost him the presidency ? 
 
 The applause of the Senator's constituents over the 
 subterfuge of " unfriendly legislation " had not subsided 
 before a storrn of protest arose in the South. Denuncia- 
 tions of Douglas and his " Freeport heresy," so-called, 
 filled the pro-slavery press ; adherents of Buchanan, point- 
 ing to the obnoxious avowal as conclusive evidence of 
 apostasy, assailed him in rapidly increasing numbers, and, 
 if possible, more bitterly than ever ; while those of the 
 southern leaders who might have overlooked his quarrel 
 with the administration also raised their voices in con- 
 demnation of what they regarded as a betrayal of their 
 dearest interests. In vain had Douglas hurried South, 
 after the debate, with speeches that commended slavery. 
 Fruitless were the addresses and pamphlets in which he 
 had sought to defend his position. To no purpose had it
 
 n8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 been pointed out that he was pursuing the only course by 
 which the Democratic Party could hope for success in the 
 Free States. " His explanations explanatory of explana- 
 tions explained," as Lincoln felicitously described them, 
 appeared indeed to be " interminable " ; yet all without 
 avail. By that answer at Freeport, a formal declara- 
 tion at last of theories previously hinted at, Douglas 
 had destroyed what remained of his southern prestige. 
 The slaveholders could have forgiven much in a man who 
 throughout his entire career, more efficiently than any 
 other northern politician, had fetched and carried for 
 them ; but this shifty doctrine, proclaiming " the institu- 
 tion " at the mercy of local laws, put forth as it was, on 
 the eve of their last desperate civil campaign, had marked 
 him for sacrifice. Hence the southern delegates to the 
 Democratic National Convention were resolved cost 
 what it might upon the overthrow of their once service- 
 able champion. His northern supporters, on the other 
 hand, were as determined to make him their candidate. 
 After a number of stormy sessions, in which the two fac- 
 tions drew farther and farther apart, the members from 
 the " cotton States," together with their sympathizers 
 from other sections, seceded to organize the pro-slavery 
 convention that nominated John C. Breckinridge ; and 
 what was left of the National Convention chose Douglas 
 to lead its forlorn hope. 
 
 So the " Little Giant " and the big one entered upon 
 what proved to be their last contest. Douglas was heavily 
 handicapped. His support in the South, as if it had not 
 been sufficiently reduced by the disruption of the Demo- 
 cratic Party and the candidacy of Breckinridge, was still 
 further impaired by the nomination, on a fourth ticket, 
 of John Bell of Tennessee. Yet Douglas was game. Dis- 
 regarding the wisdom and good taste that have, with rare 
 exceptions, restrained presidential candidates from advo- 
 cating their own election, he threw himself into the fight 
 with all the energy which had characterized his previous
 
 GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 119 
 
 campaigns. In an extensive tour through the country, he 
 made many speeches, striking now at this competitor, now 
 at that. His old opponent, however, for the first time in 
 the history of their rivalry, was mute. Lincoln's cause 
 was advocated by capable men enough, yet it must have 
 irked him to remain at home inactive while Douglas, 
 traveling from city to city, continued to state his side of 
 their debate. The Democratic leader, in truth, presented 
 no new arguments, and his old ones the Republican had, 
 over and over again, refuted. Popular Sovereignty and the 
 Freeport Doctrine twin nostrums of an unscrupulous 
 political quack had, thanks to Lincoln, been exposed in 
 all their futility. The time for shifts and delusions had 
 passed. Symptoms of trouble multiplied on every hand. 
 Columbia was sick sick unto death. A black fever was 
 upon her. Heroic treatment alone might save her. In 
 this extremity, which of the two men for the choice 
 really lay between them would the nation trust ? The 
 decision rested with the Northern States. Small wonder 
 that, with a single exception, they turned from the char- 
 latan and placed themselves in the hands of the master 
 who had discredited him. Lincoln was elected. He led 
 Douglas, at the polls, by about five hundred thousand 
 votes ; and in the Electoral College, his ballots were 180 to 
 Douglas's 12. 73 What the result might have been had the 
 candidate of the northern Democrats received the nom- 
 ination of a united party, with but Lincoln and himself 
 in the field, is, of course, purely a matter for speculation. 
 The votes that were cast for Breckinridge and Bell, to- 
 gether with his own, would have given Douglas a majority 
 on popular ballot ; yet even so, his total from the electors 
 would have been only 123, and whether or not he could 
 have improved upon that figure, in a single-handed can- 
 vass against Lincoln, is beyond reasonable conjecture. In 
 any event, defeated, North and South, he had ceased to 
 be a vital factor in political calculations. All eyes were 
 turned upon his successful rival ; for the long race be-
 
 iio LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 tween Lincoln and Douglas was finished, and Lincoln 
 had won. 
 
 When the President-elect, on inauguration day, stepped 
 out upon the platform that had been erected in front of 
 the eastern portico of the capitol, he found the senior Sen- 
 ator from Illinois among the distinguished men who sat 
 awaiting him. Mr. Lincoln, as if to add to the novelty of 
 his situation, was dressed in fine clothes, of which, for the 
 moment, he appeared to be all too conscious. In one hand 
 he held a new silk hat ; in the other, a gold-headed cane. 
 What to do with them perplexed him. After some hesi- 
 tation, he put the cane into a corner ; but he could find 
 no place for the hat, which he evidently was unwilling 
 to lay on the rough board floor. As he stood there in 
 embarrassment, with the waiting multitude looking up 
 curiously at him, his old rival came to his rescue. Tak- 
 ing the precious hat from its owner's hand, Douglas held 
 it, while Lincoln took the oath of office and delivered 
 his inaugural address. 74 The incident, simple in itself, 
 forms a dramatic climax to the lifelong competition 
 between them. As Lincoln stands forth crowned with 
 the highest honors to which their conflicting ambitions 
 had aspired, Douglas, in the background, humbly holds 
 the victor's hat.
 
 CHAPTEE IV 
 THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 
 
 ON the first roll-call at the Republican National Conven- 
 tion of 1860, no less than a dozen men received votes for 
 the presidential nomination. 1 Among the distinguished 
 party leaders and " favorite sons " thus honored, by far 
 the most prominent, at the time, was William Henry 
 Seward of New York. So greatly did he tower above all 
 other aspirants that the keenest observers on the ground 
 regarded his selection as a foregone conclusion. To him, 
 perhaps, more than to any other member of the young 
 organization was due the cohesion of its inharmonious 
 elements ; 2 to him those elements owed the most effectual 
 expression of their common principles ; and to him many 
 of their representatives, as they gathered in convention 
 at the opening of the great campaign, naturally looked for 
 leadership. 
 
 Seward's brilliant career, extending over thirty years 
 of political life, no less than his services to the new party, 
 had fairly earned for him this distinction. Two terms 
 in the upper chamber of the New York legislature, an 
 equal period as Governor of that most difficult of com- 
 monwealths, and two terms all but completed in the 
 United States Senate, had afforded him abundant oppor- 
 tunities for displaying executive and legislative talents of 
 a high order. As a politician, he had won his spurs lead- 
 ing a minority in the New York Senate, during the days 
 of the Anti-Masonic uprising; and when the Anti-Masons 
 became Whigs, a few years thereafter, his capabilities 
 for generalship had forthwith been recognized by the new 
 associates, in a nomination to the governorship of his
 
 122 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 State. Though defeated in the canvass which followed, 
 he had, in the next election, as a candidate for the same 
 office, won a splendid victory over the so-called Albany 
 Regency a powerful Democratic clique that had long 
 controlled political affairs. This success had a signifi- 
 cance more than local. It had carried Seward, before his 
 thirty-ninth birthday, into the front rank of party lead- 
 ers an eminence that he was destined to maintain for 
 many years. Entering the United States Senate amidst 
 the stirring debates on the Compromise of 1850, he had 
 taken advanced ground against the extension of slavery ; 
 and, in the fierce parliamentary conflicts to ensue, he had 
 borne more than his share of southern abuse. With the 
 disfavor of the South, however, had kept pace the ap- 
 proval of the North, where a following, influential, large, 
 and steadily increasing, had looked to him, as to an oracle, 
 for political guidance. When this section had merged its 
 fortunes with those of the other anti-slavery factions to 
 form the Republican Party, our Whig Senator from New 
 York had been regarded generally throughout the country 
 as the foremost champion of the new cause. 
 
 The day on which the Convention met at Chicago, Seward 
 entered upon his sixtieth year. He was in his intellectual 
 prime, however, and no other aspirant to the presidency 
 appeared to be so amply qualified for the office. A college- 
 bred man, his education had taken the direction of gen- 
 eral culture rather than of profound learning. With habits 
 of thought essentially philosophical was combined a grasp 
 of practical matters that his long experience of public men 
 and events could alone have developed. Seldom brilliant, 
 but usually bright, he understood in a remarkable degree 
 how to make the most of his acquirements, and, for that 
 matter, of other people's as well. When his prolific mind 
 failed to supply a needed thought or expedient, he adopted 
 that of another so skilfully as to make it seem his own. 
 No labor was too exacting for his industry ; no obstacle 
 could baffle his perseverance. A man " of cheerful yester-
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 123 
 
 days and confident to-morrows " in him, more than 
 in any other statesman of his times, the ardent hopeful- 
 ness of youth blended with the wisdom of mature years. 
 An untiring student, moreover, of history and litera- 
 ture, a lawyer of uncommon ability, and a thinker who 
 lacked neither vigor nor imagination, he expressed him- 
 self, whether by tongue or pen, with equal felicity and 
 force. As an orator, Seward ranked below the great 
 triad Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. He had neither 
 their genius nor their commanding presence. In his 
 slight stature, harsh voice, awkward gesture, and didactic 
 manner were lacking the personal charm that contributed 
 not a little to their triumphs ; yet his thoughtful, unim- 
 passioned speeches carried conviction as often, perhaps, 
 as did their best efforts. Rising above the personalities 
 which jangled the debates of the day, he maintained a 
 dignity and amiability of temper that no provocation 
 could disturb. To supporters, as well as to opponents, 
 he seemed to say : 
 
 "Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes 
 Error a fault, and truth discourtesy." 
 
 In his personal intercourse with people Seward's courtly 
 manners, his tact, and his social graces were not unim- 
 portant factors in the multiplication of his political 
 friends. For, whatever else he may have been, he was 
 still the politician. A party man, he believed that he 
 could best attain his ends within one of the two great or- 
 ganizations that usually divide the country ; but, when vital 
 principles were at stake, he did not hesitate to express, 
 in lofty periods, his own views, however much they might 
 differ from those of his associates. In the actual prac- 
 tice, nevertheless, of political strategy, he was not above 
 compromises or expedients which gave rise to charges of 
 insincerity and time-serving. Though an admirer of John 
 Quincy Adams to the point of veneration, he maintained 
 for many years a close political association with Thurlow 
 Weed. This was one of the enigmas in the man's com-
 
 124 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 plex character. That Seward's acts, now and then, fell 
 considerably below his ideals, even staunch admirers could 
 not deny ; but they pointed out the limitations under 
 which, as a party leader, he had to labor, and they held 
 that these shortcomings were more than offset by repeated 
 manifestations of patriotic statesmanship. 
 
 This outline may afford some conception of the man who, 
 having left his seat in the Senate for his home at Auburn, 
 sat among his friends while the Republican Convention 
 was voting, and awaited with smiling confidence the news 
 of his nomination. That news, as we know, never came. 
 Instead of it, the wires brought the announcement of 
 his defeat and of Abraham Lincoln's selection, on the 
 third ballot. To explain this destruction of Seward's 
 hopes, contemporary historians have assigned widely dif- 
 ferent causes. His radical utterances on the slavery 
 question, particularly the speeches in which he fore- 
 shadowed the " irrepressible conflict " and declared that 
 there was " a higher law than the Constitution " ; his early 
 indulgence toward the Catholics when they had asked 
 to have the New York school fund divided, together with 
 his uncompromising opposition to the so-called American 
 principles of the old Know-Nothings ; their consequent 
 hostility to him, in considerable numbers, especially 
 throughout the pivotal States of Pennsylvania and Indi- 
 ana ; his uniform support of liberal public expenditures 
 which had led to extravagance even corruption on the 
 part of political associates less scrupulous than himself; 
 the ill-repute of these friends, who, under the boss-rule of 
 Thurlow Weed, Seward's inseparable partner, had organ- 
 ized at Albany the most vicious lobby of the day ; the 
 antagonism of Horace Greeley, for many years devoted to 
 Seward's political fortunes, but latterly embittered against 
 him by feelings of wounded vanity, each of these things 
 has been credited with the overthrow of the New York 
 Senator in the Convention. It would be nearer the truth 
 to say that all contributed their share toward the creation
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 125 
 
 of the opposition which, having faced Seward's plurality 
 with but little cooperation at the outset, finally combined 
 the required majority vote in support of his strongest 
 competitor. 
 
 What causes and considerations of a positive character 
 led to Lincoln's selection need not be considered here. He 
 owed the nomination, in the opinion of the Seward men, 
 to his weakness rather than to his strength. Their first 
 outbursts of indignation characterized the affair as a tri- 
 umph of unobjectionable mediocrity over greatness which 
 had, of necessity, during a long series of public services, 
 raised up many enemies to itself. They recalled that other 
 National Conventions had sacrificed their most eminent 
 leaders as Webster had remarked, twelve years before, 
 on a similar occasion to the " sagacious, wise, far-seeing 
 doctrine of availability " ; but they could not, for all that, 
 bring themselves at once to regard the overthrow of their 
 idol with anything approaching to acquiescence. 3 A spirit 
 of bitter protest pervaded the visits, letters, and newspa- 
 per comments which poured in upon Seward, from every 
 direction. Their tenor may be inferred from what the Re- 
 publican Central Committee of his own State addressed 
 to him the day after the nomination had been made. 
 
 " The result of the Chicago Convention," wrote the Com- 
 mittee, " has been more than a surprise to the Republi- 
 cans of New York. That you who have been the earliest 
 defender of Republican principles the acknowledged 
 head and leader of the party, who have given direction to 
 its movements and form and substance to its acts that 
 you should have been put aside upon the narrow ground 
 of expediency, we can hardly realize or believe. What- 
 ever the decision of this, or a hundred other conventions, 
 we recognize in you the real leader of the Republican 
 Party ; and the citizens of every State and of all creeds 
 and parties, and the history of our country will confirm 
 this judgment." 4 
 
 To this Seward replied :
 
 126 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 " I find in the resolutions of the Convention a platform 
 as satisfactory to me as if it had been framed with my 
 own hands ; and in the candidates adopted by it, emi- 
 nent and able Republicans with whom I have cordially 
 cooperated in maintaining the principles embodied in 
 that excellent creed. I cheerfully give them a sincere and 
 earnest support." 5 
 
 Similar sentiments were repeatedly expressed to his 
 disconsolate friends, upon whom he urged the duty of fore- 
 going their personal desires for the sake of the great cause. 
 He, himself, magnanimously setting the example, engaged 
 in the canvass with an energy and an eloquence that con- 
 tributed not a little to its successful issue. Here was a 
 general who did not sulk in his tent, while the war was 
 on, even though the commander had deprived him of what 
 so many told him and of what he himself believed to be his 
 due. Seward bore himself, during those trying times, with 
 rare dignity. Nevertheless, beneath his calm demeanor 
 were hidden feelings of keen disappointment and humili- 
 ation how keen, only those nearest to him could guess. 
 When, in a letter to his wife, he described himself as " a 
 leader deposed by my own party in the hour of organiza- 
 tion for decisive battle," he compressed into a single 
 phrase his sense of the injustice done him. 6 It is not sur- 
 prising, therefore, that after the battle had been fought 
 and the victory won, he should have looked upon Abraham 
 Lincoln as wearing honors that belonged, of right, to 
 William H. Seward. 
 
 A similar notion was entertained by the President-elect, 
 himself. He had, for some time before the Convention, 
 shared the prevailing opinion that the Senator from New 
 York stood in the front rank of preferment. When, 
 shortly after the debates of 1858, Jesse W. Fell, a politi- 
 cian of local prominence, had urged Lincoln to seek the 
 nomination, he had replied : 
 
 "Oh, Fell, what's the use of talking of me for the 
 presidency, whilst we have such men as Seward, Chase,
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 127 
 
 and others, who are so much better known to the people, 
 and whose names are so intimately associated with the 
 principles of the Republican Party ? Everybody knows 
 them ; nobody, scarcely, outside of Illinois, knows me. 
 Besides, is it not, as a matter of justice, due to such men, 
 who have carried the movement forward to its present 
 status, in spite of fearful opposition, personal abuse, and 
 hard names ? I really think so." 7 
 
 Not so, however, thought Fell and some of the speaker's 
 other friends ; for they persisted in their purpose until 
 they succeeded in getting his consent to the steps that led 
 to his nomination. 
 
 Even after the Chicago Convention had made Lincoln 
 the Republican standard-bearer, he continued to speak of 
 Seward as " the generally recognized leader " of the party. 
 In truth, not many years had elapsed since the successful 
 candidate had described himself to be " something of a 
 Seward Whig " ; 8 and, on the very day of his nomination, 9 
 he determined, if elected, to give his powerful competitor 
 the first portfolio in his cabinet. 10 Carrying out this reso- 
 lution a month after the election, Lincoln sent Seward, 
 with the formal tender of the office, a confidential letter, 
 as sincere as it was deferential. Some assurance of the 
 writer's good faith seemed to be in order, because of the 
 newspaper rumors that the appointment was to be prof- 
 fered as a compliment, with the expectation that it would 
 be declined. 
 
 " I now offer you the place," wrote the President-elect, 
 " in the hope that you will accept it, and with the belief 
 that your position in the public eye, your integrity, ability, 
 learning, and great experience, all combine to render it 
 an appointment preeminently fit to be made." " 
 
 Seward accepted, though not without misgivings. His 
 partner, Weed, after two days of consultation with Mr. 
 Lincoln at Springfield, had returned home with most 
 unsatisfactory conclusions as to the probable composition 
 of the cabinet. It was to include, he inferred, Messrs.
 
 128 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Seward, Bates, Smith, 12 Chase, Cameron, Blair, and 
 Welles. The first three had been Whigs, and the last 
 four might be classified as former Democrats. 
 
 " I inquired," reports Weed, " whether, in the shape 
 which the question was taking, it was just or wise to con- 
 cede so many seats in the cabinet to the Democratic ele- 
 ment in the Republican Party. He replied that as a Whig 
 he thought he could afford to be liberal to a section of the 
 Republican Party, without whose votes he could not have 
 been elected. I admitted the justice and wisdom of this, 
 adding that in arranging and adjusting questions of 
 place and patronage in our State we had acted in that 
 spirit, but that I doubted both the justice and the wis- 
 dom, in inaugurating his administration, of giving to a 
 minority of the Republican Party a majority in his cabi- 
 net. I added that the National Convention indicated 
 unmistakably the sentiment of its constituency by nomi- 
 nating for President a candidate with Whig antecedents, 
 while its nominee for Vice-President had been for many 
 years a Democratic representative in Congress. ' But,' 
 said Mr. Lincoln, ' why do you assume that we are giving 
 that section of our party a majority in the cabinet ? ' I 
 replied that if Messrs. Chase, Cameron, Welles, and 
 Blair should be designated, the cabinet would stand four 
 to three. * You seem to forget that / expect to be there ; 
 and counting me as one, you see how nicely the cabinet 
 would be balanced and ballasted.' " 13 
 
 This view of the matter failed to reassure Seward's 
 friends. They were not disposed to accept the President- 
 elect as a very heavy make-weight. What power, moreover, 
 to keep his craft trimmed in the maelstrom of Washing- 
 ton politics, at that particularly threatening period, could 
 they expect from an untried man who, to use the language 
 of one of his biographers, " had just been so freakishly 
 picked out of a frontier town to take charge of the des- 
 tinies of the United States " ? " His seeming inefficiency 
 to meet the approaching crisis should have led him, they
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 129 
 
 thought, to make up his cabinet under the advice of the 
 New York statesman, 
 
 " That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view 
 The past, the present, and the future knew." 
 
 Aided by harmonious assistants, Seward might then be 
 relied on, said his admirers, to save the administration, 
 and perhaps the country, from disaster. As the virtual, 
 if not the nominal head of the new government, why 
 should not the Secretary of State, like the British Prime 
 Minister, be allowed to choose his own colleagues and to 
 assign them their respective places? It was even urged 
 upon Mr. Lincoln that he ought to visit Auburn and con- 
 sult the great man's wishes ; but, strange to relate, the 
 President-elect did not do so. 
 
 These efforts to secure what was termed a Seward 
 cabinet were redoubled after the prospective Secretary 
 of State had accepted the portfolio. His political associ- 
 ates earnestly opposed the appointment of Messrs. Blair 
 and Welles, not only because they had been Democrats, 
 but also on account of their personal antagonism to him. 
 Even more objectionable to the Seward faction, however, 
 than these two men, was Mr. Chase. His incompatibility 
 with the Whig leader was so pronounced that one or the 
 other, it was intimated to the President-elect, should be 
 omitted from the cabinet. And all this time Seward's 
 campaign against Chase, it should be said, was not more 
 aggressive than that of Chase against Seward. Mr. Lin- 
 coln listened to what was said on both sides, but he made 
 none of the desired changes. Indeed, it is a highly sig- 
 nificant fact that, despite this and other equally bitter 
 partisan struggles over the cabinet, to say nothing of cer- 
 tain contemplated changes, the list when he arrived in 
 Washington was essentially what he had planned on the 
 night of his election. 15 Still the Seward men persevered. 
 A large delegation of them waited upon the President- 
 elect, two days before the inauguration, to urge the ex- 
 clusion of Chase. His faults and Seward's virtues having
 
 130 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 been dwelt upon at length, they announced as an ultima- 
 tum, what had previously been implied, that their leader 
 would not sit in council with him. Whether or not Mr. 
 Lincoln was prepared for this may be inferred from his 
 answer, shortly before, to a friend who inquired about a 
 rumored change in the list. 
 
 " Judd," said he, " when that slate breaks again, it will 
 break at the top." 16 
 
 Nevertheless, the attitude of the delegation appeared 
 greatly to distress him. He expressed his esteem for both 
 men, and said that the country wanted the hearty coopera- 
 tion of all good citizens, without regard to sections. Here 
 there was an ominous pause. Then, taking a paper out of 
 a table-drawer, he continued : 
 
 " I had written out my choice and selection of members 
 for the cabinet after most careful and deliberate consid- 
 eration, and now you are here to tell me I must break the 
 slate and begin the thing all over again." 
 
 He had hoped, he said, to have Mr. Seward as his Sec- 
 retary of State and Mr. Chase as his Secretary of the 
 Treasury ; but he could not reasonably expect to have 
 things just as he liked them, so he had prepared an alter- 
 native list to meet their objections. 
 
 "This being the case, gentlemen," he added, "how 
 would it do for us to agree upon a change like this ? To 
 appoint Mr. Chase Secretary of the Treasury, and offer 
 the State Department to Mr. William L. D'ayton, of New 
 Jersey ? " 
 
 The delegation, according to Lamon, who tells the 
 story, 17 were "shocked, disappointed, outraged." Their 
 indignation, it is needless to say, was not allayed by Mr. 
 Lincoln's phlegmatic reminder that Mr. Dayton was an 
 old Whig like Mr. Seward himself, from " next door to 
 New York," nor by his suggestion that the latter might 
 be Minister to England. Exit delegation ; enter Seward, 
 on the same day, with their last shot. In a brief and 
 coldly formal note he asked " leave to withdraw " the ac-
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 131 
 
 ceptance of his appointment. 18 Here was a crisis on the 
 very threshold of the new administration ! The withdrawal 
 of this potent leader would not alone alienate many whose 
 support, in the perilous condition of affairs, the President- 
 elect had counted on ; but it would also necessitate an 
 entire reconstruction of his proposed cabinet. Yet Lin- 
 coln stood firm. Pondering over his answer for two days, 
 he handed it to his private secretary, on the morning of 
 inauguration day, with the characteristic remark, " I can't 
 afford to let Seward take the first trick." Nor did he. 
 The note was as short, almost to the word, as the one that 
 had called it forth. 19 Without touching upon the questions 
 at issue, the message merely expressed a strong desire that 
 Seward should not persist in his purpose. " It is the sub- 
 ject," wrote Mr. Lincoln, " of the most painful solicitude 
 with me ; and I feel constrained to beg that you will 
 countermand the withdrawal. The public interest, I think, 
 demands that you should ; and my personal feelings are 
 deeply enlisted in the same direction. Please consider and 
 answer by 9 o'clock A. M. to-morrow." 
 
 On the following morning, the New York statesman, 
 having had an interview with the President, duly returned 
 to his allegiance. A few hours later, when the cabinet 
 appointments were submitted to the Senate, Messrs. Chase, 
 Blair, and Welles were still on the list ; and, lo ! Governor 
 Seward's name, like Abou Ben Adhem's, led all the rest. 
 
 The tact and strength of will manifested by Lincoln in 
 this first difference with Seward should have made some 
 impression, one would suppose, on that astute leader and 
 his no less sagacious advisers. They still, however, en- 
 tirely misconceived the new President's character. The 
 homely simplicity with which he had borne himself when 
 visited at " his secluded abode," as one of them expressed 
 it, " in the heart of Illinois," the candor with which he 
 acknowledged his deficiencies, and the meekness with 
 which he listened to innumerable counselors, bidden or 
 otherwise, left most of the politicians firm in the opinion
 
 i 3 2 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 that the conduct of the coming administration would be 
 in the hands of his strongest Secretary. Seward's one 
 formidable rival for this supremacy some of them had, 
 it was true, failed to exclude from the cabinet ; but this 
 was attributed to the influence which Chase had brought 
 to bear, rather than to any masterful trait in Lincoln, 
 himself. 
 
 The widespread notion of the President's weakness was 
 shared by Seward, who, at the same time, concurred 
 need we add ? in the general estimate of his own supe- 
 riority. From the day on which he first consented to be- 
 come head of the State Department, he carried himself as 
 if responsibility for the entire government were to rest on 
 his shoulders. Having been the guiding spirit, unofficially, 
 eleven years before, through General Taylor's brief presi- 
 dency, how much more might he now expect to dominate an 
 equally untried Executive who had called him to the most 
 prominent place in his cabinet! They were to take office, 
 moreover, under conditions that tended greatly to mag- 
 nify Mr. Seward's importance. During the winter which 
 elapsed between the time of Mr. Lincoln's election and his 
 inauguration, the Southern States, one after another, made 
 good their threats of secession ; officers of the army and 
 navy, resigning from the service in large numbers, turned 
 their swords against the government ; treason paralyzed 
 every department at Washington ; enemies of the Union 
 even in Mr. Buchanan's very cabinet labored to destroy 
 national authority ; and the aged President, himself, looked 
 on helplessly, for a time at least, as civil government 
 buildings, forts, arsenals, lighthouses, ships, marine hos- 
 pitals, and navy-yard, together with valuable munitions, 
 were seized by the rapidly organizing Confederacy. While 
 the country, demoralized North and South, thus drifted 
 through those four long months into civil war, the man 
 who had just been chosen to control its fortunes remained, 
 owing to a singular defect in our system, powerless to 
 avert the disaster. In this extremity Mr. Lincoln naturally
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 133 
 
 turned to Mr. Seward. From his seat in the Upper House 
 the Senator became, in certain respects, the eyes and ears, 
 as well as the tongue, of the coming administration. His 
 utterances were eagerly scanned by the people for indica- 
 tions of its policy, while the President-elect was no less 
 keen for the confidential letters in which his prospective 
 Secretary kept him informed as to the temper of parties 
 and persons at the Capital. When loyal members of 
 Buchanan's cabinet wished to give warning of the con- 
 spiracy in the President's council, they communicated with 
 Mr. Seward ; when the General commanding the army 
 needed advice, he too conferred with him ; when Mr. 
 Lincoln desired to lay his views before the committee 
 appointed by the Senate to devise a preventive for the 
 impending quarrel, his suggestions were placed in the 
 hands of the member from New York ; and when con- 
 servative men, on both sides, sought a peaceful solution of 
 the difficulty, they appealed to that same gentleman. In 
 short, during this period, Mr. Seward was considered by 
 many to be the man of the hour, and it is not too much to 
 say that he occupied a position unique in the experience 
 of American statesmen. 
 
 For a parallel we must turn to that stormy period 
 in English politics when William Pitt the Elder, on the 
 eve of entering office as Secretary of State, with the lead 
 in the House of Commons, the supreme direction of the 
 French war, and the control of foreign affairs, declared : 
 
 " I know that I can save the country, and I know no 
 other man can." 
 
 So in Mr. Seward's private letters to his wife, from 
 Washington, during the winter of 1860-61, may be caught 
 glimpses, here and there, of how entirely he believed him- 
 self to be the Providence of the incoming administration. 21 
 The day on which he accepted the first tender of the secre- 
 taryship, he wrote to Mrs. Seward : 
 
 " I have advised Mr. L. that I will not decline. It is 
 inevitable. I will try to save freedom and my country."
 
 i 3 4 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 A few days later he wrote : 
 
 "I have assumed a sort of dictatorship for defence; 
 and am laboring night and day, with the cities and States. 
 My hope, rather my confidence, is unabated." 
 
 In another letter we find : 
 
 " I am trying to get home ; but as yet I see no chance. 
 It seems to me that if I am absent only three days, this 
 administration, the Congress, and the District would fall 
 into consternation and despair. I am the only hopeful, 
 calm, conciliatory person here." 
 
 Still another reads : 
 
 " Mad men North and mad men South are working 
 together to produce a dissolution of the Union by civil 
 war. The present administration and the incoming one 
 unite in devolving on me the responsibility of averting 
 those disasters. . . . Once for all, I must gain time for 
 the new administration to organize and for the frenzy of 
 passion to subside. I am doing this without making any 
 compromise whatever, by forbearance, conciliation, mag- 
 nanimity." 
 
 And shortly after the inauguration, he wrote to her : 
 
 " The President is determined that he will have a com- 
 pound cabinet ; and that it shall be peaceful, and even 
 permanent. I was at one time on the point of refusing 
 nay, I did refuse, for a time, to hazard myself in the ex- 
 periment. But a distracted country appeared before me ; 
 and I withdrew from that position. I believe I can endure 
 as much as any one ; and may be that I can endure enough 
 to make the experiment successful. At all events I did 
 not dare to go home, or to England, and leave the country 
 to chance." 
 
 These assertions seem painfully presumptuous, to-day. 
 Early in March, 1861, not many persons had the letters 
 been made public would have so regarded them. 
 
 All circumstances seemed to confirm Seward's high 
 estimate of his value. On the day of Mr. Lincoln's arri- 
 val in Washington, the President-elect submitted to his
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 135 
 
 prospective Secretary of State a copy of his inaugural ad- 
 dress, as it had been privately printed before he left home. 
 If Mr. Seward believed this honor to be exclusive, he was 
 mistaken, for the document had been placed before several 
 other public men. 22 None of them had ventured, however, 
 upon anything like the thorough revision to which he sub- 
 jected it. When the address was returned, on the follow- 
 ing evening, it was accompanied by many suggestions, 
 ranging in importance from the rejection or insertion of 
 entire paragraphs to the change of a word. 23 The critic, 
 defending the conservative tendency of his corrections, 
 wrote : 
 
 " Only the soothing words which I have spoken have 
 saved us and carried us along thus far. Every loyal man 
 and, indeed, every disloyal man, in the South, will tell 
 you this." 
 
 By way of apology for the liberties he had taken, the 
 writer explained : 
 
 " I, my dear sir, have devoted myself singly to the 
 study of the case here, with advantages of access and 
 free communication with all parties of all sections. I have 
 a common responsibility and interest with you, and I 
 shall adhere to you faithfully in every case. You must, 
 therefore, allow me to speak frankly and candidly." u 
 
 This " common responsibility " the President-elect, un- 
 conscious of personal pride in the matter, seemingly 
 recognized. He adopted, with nice discrimination, wholly 
 or in part, such of the amendments as improved the 
 address ; and the deference with which he did so, together 
 with his unassuming manner throughout the affair, could 
 not have raised him in the eyes of his ambitious Secretary 
 of State. Perhaps that gentleman recalled how under sim- 
 ilar circumstances the great Webster had revised the inau- 
 gural address of the brave but inexperienced Harrison. 
 If so, the parallel must have augured well for the later 
 minister's influence over the incoming administration. 25 
 
 As the role of " guide, philosopher, and friend " to this
 
 136 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 seemingly simple provincial statesman devolved on Mr. 
 Seward before the inauguration, how much more depend- 
 ent upon him might he not expect Mr. Lincoln to become 
 after they had entered office ! A minority President, to 
 use an epithet common at the time, was about to govern 
 a dismembered nation, with the aid of a party hardly less 
 divided. His cabinet lacked unity of purpose or principle, 
 and its strongest members agreed in nothing so much as 
 in mistrusting his leadership. He, himself, felt keenly 
 the want of preparation for a task such as had never 
 before confronted an American Executive. Not one revo- 
 lution, but two, piled up perplexities around him; for 
 the sweeping changes among office-holders, required by 
 the situation, troubled him, at first, almost as greatly as 
 did the action of the seceding States. In the confusion, 
 Mr. Lincoln, of necessity, entrusted much to his confi- 
 dential advisers, and especially to his Secretary of State. 
 That functionary bade fair, then, more than ever, to 
 become the power behind the Throne, greater than the 
 Throne itself. For his talents, brilliant as they were on 
 public occasions, shone with their greatest splendor when 
 he employed them to enforce his views, in private confer- 
 ence. At cabinet meetings, or at informal interviews with 
 the President, these powers were, from the very begin- 
 ning, exerted with frequent, though not uniform, success. 
 During those first few weeks Mr. Lincoln seemed, so 
 far as the public could see, to yield himself up as did 
 one President before him and one after to the charm of 
 Mr. Seward's persuasiveness. The influence of the State 
 Department was believed to be paramount, and the jour- 
 nalist who, before the inauguration, had spoken of the 
 coming regime as " the New Yorker with his Illinois at- 
 tachment," thus coarsely expressed the popular opinion. 28 
 " It is certain," wrote another keen observer, " that his 
 ego et rex meus style of speaking about himself and 
 Mr. Lincoln created a general belief at Washington that 
 he would be the Wolsey of the new administration, with
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 137 
 
 ' law in his voice and honor in his hand ' ; while others 
 would be subordinate and the President himself little 
 more than a figurehead." 2T 
 
 People of all classes soon formed the habit of applying 
 to Mr. Seward the titles foreign to our polity though 
 they are of Premier and Prime Minister. Under these 
 designations the working head of the British government 
 forms the cabinet, advises the selection and resignation 
 of his colleagues, dictates policies, passes upon important 
 matters in all departments, stands between the throne and 
 the cabinet, dispenses enormous patronage, acts at times 
 as a leader of his party in Parliament, and answers for 
 his conduct, in the main, not to the sovereign, but to the 
 representatives of the people. The first of these func- 
 tions Seward had, somehow, as we have seen, failed to per- 
 form ; but he plunged into the others, as nearly as might 
 be, with a spirit befitting the Pitt of the first Republican 
 administration. 
 
 The Secretary of State, patterning in a way after Jef- 
 ferson and Jackson, succeeded, for several weeks at the 
 outset, in preventing regular cabinet meetings. Greatly 
 to the annoyance of his colleagues, he held that only such 
 members as were particularly concerned in whatever 
 might be under consideration should be invited to consult 
 with him and the President. Accordingly, as occasion 
 required, some or all of them were convened in council, 
 on special notice from himself. This procedure, though 
 short-lived, served to confirm for the time his pretensions 
 to unlimited jurisdiction. He busied himself in matters 
 that properly pertained to his cabinet associates; nor 
 did he hesitate, upon the demands of a sharp-set political 
 following, to claim the right of controlling appointments 
 in departments other than his own. " The consequences 
 were," records the then Secretary of the Navy, " that con- 
 fusion and derangement prevailed to some extent at the 
 commencement by reason of the mental activity, assump- 
 tions, and meddlesome intrusions of the Secretary of State
 
 138 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 in the duties and affairs of others, which were, if not dis- 
 organizing, certainly not good administration. Confidence 
 and mutual frankness on public affairs and matters per- 
 taining to the government, particularly on what related 
 to present and threatened disturbances, existed among all 
 the members, with the exception of Mr. Seward, who 
 had, or affected, a certain mysterious knowledge which 
 he was not prepared to impart. This was accepted as a 
 probable necessity by his associates, for he had been in a 
 position to ascertain facts which it was intimated he could 
 not perhaps well disclose. It early became apparent, 
 however, that the Secretary of State had ideas and notions 
 of his own position and that of his colleagues, as well as 
 of the character and attitude of the President, that others 
 could not admit or recognize." 28 This sketch of the situ- 
 ation, though it may have been slightly colored by the 
 recollection of Mr. Welles's own particular grievances, 
 is in effect, correct. On the other hand, justice to Mr. 
 Seward requires us to say that his motives were patri- 
 otic, and that some at least of his so-called " meddlesome 
 intrusions " had the President's sanction. 
 
 Secretary Seward's activities outside of his department 
 naturally led to misunderstandings. These embarrassed 
 the administration, at times, not a little ; but the Presi- 
 dent patiently smoothed them over, and continued to de- 
 fer in many, if not in all things, to Mr. Seward's wisdom. 
 That gentleman's evident purpose, however, to run the 
 government had not escaped Mr. Lincoln's notice. While 
 apparently ignoring his aspirations, the President, like 
 the practiced wrestler of his youthful days, found time to 
 take the measure of the man who, according to common 
 report, was to occupy in fact, if not in form, the place to 
 which he, himself, had been elected. When Mrs. Lincoln, 
 ever vigilant for her husband's fame, repeated to him 
 the boast of the Secretary's friends that Mr. Seward was 
 the power behind the throne and could rule the Presi- 
 dent, he answered :
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 139 
 
 " I may not rule, myself, but certainly Seward shall 
 not. The only ruler I have is my conscience following 
 God in it and these men will have to learn that yet." M 
 A lesson was near at hand. 
 
 The first vital question to occupy the attention of the 
 new government had, in fact, developed a wide difference 
 of opinion between Mr. Lincoln and his Secretary of 
 State. It concerned the stone pentagon at the entrance 
 to Charleston harbor, in which Major Anderson and his 
 command were practically besieged by the South Carolina 
 troops. The batteries surrounding Fort Sumter had grown 
 so formidable, and the post was, in many essentials, so 
 weak, that it had become daily less tenable. Yet the Pre- 
 sident was hardly prepared to receive, on the morning 
 following his inauguration, Major Anderson's report 30 
 that the garrison, unless succored, would in a few weeks 
 be reduced to starvation, and that relief, with a view to 
 holding the place, could not be effected by "a force of 
 less than twenty thousand good and well-disciplined men." 
 This estimate was accompanied by those of the nine other 
 officers in Fort Sumter, who, while differing as to figures, 
 agreed that a considerable land and naval expedition 
 would be required. 31 No such adequate force was ready 
 or could be made ready in time. Accordingly, Lieuten- 
 ant-General Scott, the commander-in-chief, who had at 
 once been consulted by Mr. Lincoln, reported on the night 
 of that same day : 
 
 "Evacuation seems almost inevitable, and in this view 
 our distinguished Chief Engineer (Brigadier Totten) con- 
 curs." 32 
 
 But the President did not concur. He had promised 
 the nation, a few hours previously, in his inaugural ad- 
 dress, that the power confided to him would " be used to 
 hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belong- 
 ing to the government." How could he, then, before the 
 words had well reached the people, abandon, without a 
 struggle, an important stronghold! The situation pre-
 
 1 40 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 sented a problem as perplexing in its political as in its mil- 
 itary aspects. So he turned to his cabinet for counsel. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's civil advisers were, at first, almost a 
 unit in adopting the conclusions of the experts at army 
 headquarters. There was an exception, however, in the 
 person of Postmaster-General Blair, a Democrat of the 
 Jacksonian school, who was as earnest in advocating firm 
 measures toward South Carolina as had been his father, 
 twenty-eight years before, in upholding the strong hand 
 with which President Jackson had put down sedition in 
 that same State. Following this example, Montgomery 
 Blair, previous to his entry into the cabinet, as well as 
 on every available occasion thereafter, had urged upon 
 the President the necessity of holding Fort Sumter at any 
 cost. He alone among his associates appears to have 
 fully recognized the inconsistency of reversing, at the 
 very earliest test, the policy which Mr. Lincoln had so 
 positively affirmed upon taking office. 33 The President, 
 himself, was keenly alive to his predicament. "When 
 Anderson goes out of Fort Sumter," said he, " I shall 
 have to go out of the White House." 34 He believed, in- 
 deed, as he explained to Congress, some months later, 
 " that to so abandon that position, under the circum- 
 stances, would be utterly ruinous ; that the necessity 
 under which it was to be done would not be fully under- 
 stood ; that by many it would be construed as a part of a 
 voluntary policy ; that at home it would discourage the 
 friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go 
 far to insure to the latter a recognition abroad ; that, in 
 fact, it would be our national destruction consummated. 
 This could not be allowed." K Yet his views were sup- 
 ported, apparently, by only the youngest and least distin- 
 guished member of the cabinet. None of the eminent 
 soldiers or statesmen to whom Mr. Lincoln first looked 
 for advice were in accord with the President's attitude ; 
 and the least acquiescent, perhaps, of them all was his 
 Secretary of State.
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 141 
 
 Mr. Seward had throughout the preceding winter in- 
 dulged the hope of averting civil war and of reconciling 
 existing differences, without ultimately sacrificing the 
 Union. How this was to be accomplished is not clear to 
 us ; nor could it, in the nature of things, have been clear 
 to that statesman himself. His policy, as vaguely stated, 
 weeks before, in the Senate, was "to meet prejudice with 
 conciliation, exaction with concession which surrenders 
 no principle, and violence with the right hand of peace." M 
 Such tactics would, he believed, keep the wavering Border 
 States loyal to the Union, stem the current of revolution 
 in the cotton belt, and eventually bring the seceders back 
 to their allegiance, by way of a conveution in which their 
 demands might, somehow or other, be satisfied. That 
 these ends were to be attained, and through his instru- 
 mentality, was Se ward's fixed idea. For weeks after the 
 signs of the times must have discouraged a less buoyant 
 leader, he persisted in his course. As late as March 8, 
 1861, he is reported to have said, 37 in effect : 
 
 " I have built up the Republican Party, I have brought 
 it to triumph, but its advent to power is accompanied by 
 great difficulties and perils. I must save the party, and 
 save the government in its hands. To do this, war must 
 be averted, the negro question must be dropped, the irre- 
 pressible conflict ignored, and a Union party to embrace 
 the Border Slave States inaugurated. I have already 
 whipped Mason and Hunter in their own State. I must 
 crush out Davis, Toombs, and their colleagues in sedition 
 in their respective States. Saving the Border States to 
 the Union by moderation and justice, the people of the 
 cotton States, unwillingly led into secession, will rebel 
 against their leaders, and reconstruction will follow." w 
 
 Mr. Seward's plans and expectations, it should be 
 added, would, in his opinion, come to naught, if force were 
 employed against the secessionists. 38 He had, accordingly, 
 urged Mr. Lincoln to omit from the inaugural address 
 that promise " to hold, occupy, and possess the property
 
 142 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 and places belonging to the government " ; but with- 
 out avail. The conflict in policy, thus revealed before the 
 men had even entered office, reached deeper than at first 
 appears. Not only did Mr. Lincoln deem it the Presi- 
 dent's duty to hold the possessions of the nation, but his 
 rugged logic also recognized, as a necessary corollary, that 
 he was under like obligations to reclaim any property of 
 which it had been deprived. He had so expressed him- 
 self in the original draft of the address. Upon a friend's 
 advice, however, the clause declaring a purpose to recap- 
 ture what was seized had been omitted not on account 
 of any change in his intention, but because the announce- 
 ment, at the time, might have needlessly irritated the 
 South. 4 * And this he desired to avoid no less earnestly 
 than Mr. Seward. Indeed, the President and his Secre- 
 tary of State had the same goal in mind, though they 
 disagreed materially as we have seen over the path 
 by which it should be reached. 
 
 With the weight of opinion among his advisers squarely 
 against holding Sumter, Mr. Lincoln might have been 
 justified in adopting their views. Such a step, it is true, 
 would have been repugnant to his sense of duty. On the 
 other hand, a relief expedition, in the face of all this oppo- 
 sition, military as well as political, was equally out of 
 the question. Perplexed beyond measure, the President 
 put off his decision and sought more light. The technical 
 objections of the military men he was, of course, unpre- 
 pared to meet. So the reports were referred back to Gen- 
 eral Scott, for further consideration ; while army and navy 
 officers, with special knowledge on the subject, were sum- 
 moned before the cabinet, in frequent consultation. What 
 followed makes one of the most entertaining chapters in 
 the genesis of the war. Nevertheless except so far as 
 concerns the relations between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. 
 Seward a few lines must suffice for it here. The com- 
 mander-in-chief, reaffirming his conviction that the fort 
 could be neither provisioned nor recnforced, submitted an
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 143 
 
 order of evacuation for the President's signature. 41 Instead 
 of signing this, Mr. Lincoln requested his cabinet officers, 
 respectively, to furnish him with written opinions as to 
 whether, under the circumstances, an attempt to provision 
 Fort Suinter was wise. In their answers, Mr. Blair, as 
 before, said emphatically yes ; Mr. Chase said yes, 
 with reservations ; Messrs. Smith, Bates, Welles, Cam- 
 eron, and Seward said no. The most urgent counsel 
 for retreat still came from the Department of State. Mr. 
 Seward argued, with his customary elaboration, that a 
 relief expedition, whether successful or otherwise, would 
 precipitate civil war; and, as this contention had the 
 support of his four last-mentioned associates, he confi- 
 dently expected the President to follow his lead. 42 
 
 So sanguine was Mr. Seward of imposing his ultra- 
 conciliatory policy upon the administration that he had, 
 from the start, conducted himself as if the abandonment 
 of Sumter were assured. This was notably the case in his 
 dealings with the commissioners sent to Washington by 
 the Provisional Government of the Confederacy. 43 Pre- 
 senting themselves, on the advent of the Lincoln regime, 
 they had sought to open diplomatic relations with it 
 through the State Department. The head of that office, 
 whom they then, in common with so many people, North 
 and South, took to be the head of the administration as 
 well, was they were aware committed to peace and 
 concession. The commissioners' hopes, therefore, no less 
 than their pretensions as ambassadors from what was 
 ostensibly a foreign country, led them to Mr. Seward's 
 door. He declined to receive them, and asked the Presi- 
 dent for instructions. Profiting by Mr. Buchanan's error, 
 under somewhat similar conditions, Mr. Lincoln directed 
 his Secretary neither to recognize the envoys officially, nor 
 to hold any communication with them whatever. Where- 
 upon several eminent intermediaries were impressed into 
 service. Perhaps the most active among these was Justice 
 Campbell of the United States Supreme Court.* 4 Although
 
 144 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 a Southerner, who was shortly to join the secessionists, his 
 exalted rank and apparent loyalty to the Union secured 
 him Mr. Seward's respectful attention. Their interviews 
 were chiefly about Fort Suinter, which, the Secretary gavt 
 the Judge to understand, would be evacuated within a 
 few days. This welcome news Campbell lost no time in 
 carrying to the commissioners and in writing to Jefferson 
 Davis. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Lincoln continued to study the situa- 
 tion, in his own way. Consulting with military and naval 
 men whenever he could snatch a few moments from other 
 cares, trying, by the reenforcement of Fort Pickens in 
 Florida, to take the sting out of possible failure in South 
 Carolina, studying Anderson's resources, 45 sending trusty 
 observers to Charleston and Sumter, drawing information 
 from executive departments, weighing chances in the Bor- 
 der States, gauging southern passions, testing northern 
 sentiment, all this got him ready, by the close of March, 
 for the decision that could no longer be deferred. On the 
 29th of the month he again, at a cabinet meeting, took 
 the written opinions of his ministers. Out of the six who 
 were present, three Blair, Chase, and Welles now 
 agreed with the President's homely dictum that they 
 should " send bread to Anderson." Bates, who had pre- 
 viously been against provisioning the fort, was non-com- 
 mittal. Smith favored evacuation, on purely military 
 grounds. Se ward, standing alone, still advised "against 
 the expedition in every view." * When the cabinet ad- 
 journed, Mr. Lincoln, who had practically reached a con- 
 clusion before it assembled, directed Secretaries Cameron 
 and Welles to enter upon relief preparations. 47 The order 
 for the expedition to sail was withheld several days, 
 however, and while the issue seemed to hang in the bal- 
 ance, Mr. Seward continued his opposition. Even after 
 the final command was given, he found it "difficult to 
 believe" that the President's policy, and not his, had 
 prevailed. 4 *
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 145 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's decision left the Secretary of State in an 
 embarrassing position. The North, for the moment, looked 
 askance upon the all-powerful statesman whose plans, 
 predictions, and promises were thus, despite his most 
 strenuous efforts, discredited. The South, taking its cue 
 from Justice Campbell and the Confederate commission- 
 ers, accused him of duplicity. A similar charge spread 
 against the Lincoln government itself, which, the seces- 
 sionist leaders insisted, was wholly under Mr. Seward's 
 control. That such was not the case, the shrewdest of 
 them, had, for some time, more than conjectured; and 
 that the Secretary of State acted in good faith, when he 
 said he would have his way with Sumter, is established be- 
 yond reasonable doubt. 49 But the very facts which acquit 
 the minister of double-dealing convict him, as clearly, of 
 grave indiscretion. He had taken upon himself to speak 
 conclusively in an important matter, while it was under 
 the consideration of his chief, who alone had authority to 
 pronounce the decisive word. 50 Such presumption would, 
 of course, have been out of the question, for a politician of 
 Seward's experience, had he not, even after four weeks 
 of close intercourse with Lincoln, committed the unpar- 
 donable blunder in statecraft. That is to say, he still 
 entirely miscalculated the caliber of the man he sought 
 to rule. 
 
 In the whirl of events, the Secretary's dazzled vision 
 mistook the President's lack of knowledge for incapacity ; 
 his indecision, for executive incompetence ; his modesty ; 
 for weakness. The ship of state seemed to be drifting 
 on to the rocks, and a stronger hand so thought Mr. 
 Seward was needed, forthwith, at the helm. He had, 
 as we have seen, embarked in the administration with the 
 expectation of directing its course. The notion had appar- 
 ently been confirmed, not only by public opinion, but also 
 by the deference with which the President treated him. 
 Nevertheless, as the Sumter incident advanced, the Sec- 
 retary realized that his power was far from complete.
 
 146 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 How to make himself supreme, once for all, and, at the 
 same time, rescue the country from civil war, had occu- 
 pied a few of the feverish hours which preceded that final 
 decision to relieve the fort. Something had to be done, 
 and quickly, too. Perhaps the readiest expedient might 
 have been that by which Cardinal Gaetano supplanted his 
 Pope, the pious and unworldly Celestine. Messer Gaetano, 
 so the story runs, contrived, soon after the Pontiff's con- 
 secration, to fill the sacred chamber, at night, with voices 
 that called, as if from Heaven, u Resign, Celestine ! lie- 
 sign ! " Whereupon the simple monk, already distracted 
 by ecclesiastical intrigues for which he was so ill-adapted, 
 took the wily Cardinal's advice to abdicate, and turned 
 " toward his secluded abode," in the heart of the moun- 
 tains ; while Gaetano succeeded him, as Boniface VIII. 
 
 This trick answered well enough for mediaeval politics, 
 but our Secretary of State had to dip deep down into his 
 mind for a more modern device. So he summoned Mr. 
 Lincoln to surrender the management of public affairs, in 
 a memorandum entitled " Some Thoughts for the Presi- 
 dent's Consideration, April 1, 1861." The document, after 
 declaring that the administration, at the end of its first 
 month, was " without a policy, domestic or foreign," 
 presented " Thoughts " that might serve for both. As 
 "the policy at home," it set forth that the horde of appli- 
 cants for local offices should be disposed of, without de- 
 lay ; that the issue before the country should be changed 
 from a question of slavery to one of union ; and that 
 Sumter should be evacuated, but all other Federal points 
 in the South defended. The " Thoughts " headed " For 
 Foreign Nations " were vigorous, indeed. Explanations 
 were to be required from Spain, France, Great Britain, 
 and Russia, which all seemed to contemplate interference 
 in American affairs. If the two first-named governments, 
 more aggressive than the others, did not return satisfac- 
 tory answers, Congress was to be convened, and war was 
 to be declared against them. 51 A spirit of antagonism
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 147 
 
 against European intervention was, at the same time, to 
 be aroused in Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the 
 continent, generally. " But whatever policy we adopt," 
 read the concluding " Thoughts," " there must be an ener- 
 getic prosecution of it. For this purpose, it must be 
 somebody's business to pursue and direct it, incessantly. 
 Either the President must do it himself, and be all the 
 while active in it, or devolve it on some member of his 
 cabinet. Once adopted, debates on it must end, and all 
 agree and abide. It is not in my especial province ; but 
 I neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility." 52 
 
 Never before had an American cabinet minister penned 
 a document so extraordinary. Its unwisdom wild as 
 some of the suggestions were did not exceed its effront- 
 ery. 53 The plan to unite the discordant sections of the 
 United States by leaving their differences unsettled, and 
 plunging the whole continent into a series of foreign wars 
 on sentimental grounds, reads like the desperate contriv- 
 ance of a panic-stricken mind. 54 The implication that Mr. 
 Lincoln was unequal to his duties and should turn over 
 the most important of them to a sort of dictator, could 
 have been addressed by Mr. Seward only to a President 
 whom he believed to be totally lacking in strength of 
 character. His error was corrected without further delay. 
 Before the last fish was hooked or the last cuckoo hunted, 
 on that All Fools' Day, he had Mr. Lincoln's written 
 reply. The President, with his customary disregard of 
 self, ignored the insult, and with tact, not less delicate, 
 refrained from comment on the fantastic scheme for 
 European wars. His Secretary was informed that he 
 would find the domestic policy of the administration out- 
 lined in the inaugural address, 55 and its foreign policy 
 in the despatches sent abroad by the State Department. 
 As to the exercise of absolute authority, suggested in 
 Mr. Seward's closing propositions, Mr. Lincoln said : 
 
 " I remark that if this must be done, I must do it. 
 When a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend
 
 148 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 there is no danger of its being changed without good 
 reason, or continuing to be a subject of unnecessary 
 debate ; still, upon points arising in its progress I wish, 
 and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of all the 
 cabinet." 56 
 
 Having quietly settled the question of supremacy, Mr. 
 Lincoln put the " Thoughts " away among his personal 
 papers, where they remained until his private secretaries, 
 years after both statesmen had passed from the scene, 
 published them to an astonished world. Excepting Mr. 
 Nicolay, nobody else apparently knew of their existence, for 
 the one to whom they were addressed never, it is believed, 
 spoke of them, not even to the Secretary of State himself. 
 If that gentleman, when he received his answer, had any 
 lingering doubts as to the President's superiority over 
 him, they must have been dismissed when he realized 
 how entirely Mr. Lincoln disdained to take advantage of 
 a weapon which, in the grasp of most politicians, would, 
 under the circumstances, have been used to destroy the 
 maker. If ever public man held a formidable rival in 
 the hollow of his hand, here was an instance of it. Yet 
 Gulliver, setting down unharmed the Liliputian who had 
 tormented him, behaved not more gently than did the 
 President toward this presumptuous minister. 57 
 
 Thus ended Seward's dream, of domination. All his 
 romantic notions of saving the country aus eigner Macht, 
 so freely expressed in those confidential letters to his wife, 
 had to be revised, and we find him presently writing to 
 her : 
 
 " Executive skill and vigor are rare qualities. The 
 President is the best of us." M 
 
 In the public eye, however, the Secretary of State still 
 held sway. His defeat on the Sumter question was soon 
 lost sight of among the stirring scenes which crowded 
 thick and fast upon that incident. There ensued, more- 
 over, no apparent change in his control of the foreign 
 department ; he was, as before, entrusted occasionally with
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 149 
 
 duties that should properly have fallen to one or an- 
 other of his colleagues ; and his cordial, almost constant, 
 association with the President created the impression that 
 his influence had increased rather than diminished. 59 
 Even public men high in office continued to believe for a 
 time that Mr. Seward practically ran the administration, 
 an idea which some of them, in fact, never quite aban- 
 doned. 
 
 As late as 1873, this view was advanced on a notable 
 occasion by the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, our Min- 
 ister at the Court of St. James during the Civil War. 
 He favored the New York legislature, shortly after the 
 great statesman's death, with a memorial address, which 
 attracted widespread attention, not so much for its appro- 
 priate eulogy of Mr. Seward as for its disparagement of 
 Mr. Lincoln. The President, according to this orator, was 
 so inferior to the Secretary of State " in native intellec- 
 tual power, in extent of acquirement, in breadth of philo- 
 sophical experience, and in the force of moral discipline," 
 that he allowed his minister to direct the affairs of the 
 nation in the Executive's name. Lincoln, asserted Mr. 
 Adams, had consequently reaped honors which he owed 
 for the most part to Seward's labors, and which it was 
 the duty of history to reapportion. 60 Here was manifest 
 error ; but panegyric, especially when pronounced upon 
 a recently departed leader by a loving follower, has its 
 privilege. Hence the address, notwithstanding its semi- 
 official character and the eminence of its author, might 
 have been lightly passed over by the historian of to-day 
 if it had not, at the time it was delivered, evoked an 
 important reply. This was published by ex-Secretary 
 Welles, upon the request of Montgomery Blair, the only 
 other surviving member of the Lincoln cabinet. 81 They 
 agreed that the eulogist had entirely misapprehended 
 the relations between the two men, and that, whatever 
 might be said of Mr. Seward's ability, the President, not 
 he, had been master of the situation. "Indeed," wrote
 
 150 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Mr. Welles, "the whole language, tone, tenor, sentiment, 
 and intent of the address are to elevate Mr. Seward 
 and depreciate Mr. Lincoln ; to award to the Secretary 
 honors that clearly belong to the President; to make it 
 appear that the subordinate controlled and directed the 
 principal ; that the Secretary of State was de facto Presi- 
 dent, and the President himself a mere locum tenens, 
 incompetent for the place from the want of * experience ' 
 and 'previous preparation.' Mr. Seward had influence in 
 the administration, but not control. His mental activity, 
 the ' marvelous fertility of his pen,' his proneness to exer- 
 cise authority and to make himself conspicuous on every 
 important subject and occasion, imposed on admiring and 
 willing friends, who, like Mr. Adams, persuaded them- 
 selves that one so active and prominent must be the 
 moving and directing spirit of the administration. . . . 
 To those who knew Abraham Lincoln, or who were at all 
 intimate with his administration, the representation that 
 he was subordinate to any member of his cabinet, or that 
 he was deficient in executive or administrative ability, is 
 absurd." 
 
 Upon this testimony and more like it, throughout 
 Mr. Welles' s monograph, we infer that the Secretary of 
 State appearances to the contrary notwithstanding 
 must have stepped back to the place so firmly yet cour- 
 teously pointed out by the President, in the little private 
 interlude which closed their first four weeks of office. 
 From that time to the end, Seward knew Lincoln to be 
 his master. With a grace peculiarly his own, the Secre- 
 tary adapted himself to this unexpected development. 
 His every action seemed to say, as did the fair penitent 
 of the house of Capulet, 
 
 " Pardon, I beseech you ! 
 Henceforward I am ever ruled by you." 
 
 When his inclinations or purposes conflicted with those 
 of his chief, he gave way nay, more, he put forth all 
 his powers to carry out Mr. Lincoln's wishes. "There is
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 151 
 
 but one vote in the cabinet," the minister once declared, 
 " and that is cast by the President." m How complete was 
 the submission of the speaker, himself, may be gathered 
 from a few well-known incidents. 
 
 Seward's senatorial career, particularly his experience 
 on the Foreign Relations Committee, fitted him, in Mr. 
 Lincoln's eyes, for the management of the State Depart- 
 ment. In planning his administration, the President-elect 
 had said : 
 
 "One part of the business, Governor Seward, I think 
 I shall leave almost entirely in your hands ; that is, the 
 dealing with those foreign nations and their govern- 
 ments." M 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln required important questions 
 to be laid before him, and, when occasion demanded, he 
 did not hesitate to take the guiding hand himself. This 
 was the case a few weeks after the episode of the 
 "Thoughts," when the British government recognized, 
 with unseemly haste, the belligerency of the Confeder- 
 ate States. England's unfriendly attitude irritated Mr. 
 Seward out of his habitual diplomatic composure to such 
 a degree that the letter of instruction, which he wrote for 
 Mr. Adams, our Minister in London, was more forcible 
 than wise. Had the despatch, as it stood, been sent abroad 
 and read, in accordance with custom, to her Britannic 
 Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, serious 
 difficulties with England might have ensued. This would 
 hardly have suited the President's maxim, "One war at 
 a time " ; so, retaining the document, he subjected it to 
 a critical revision. Striking out some of the most offen- 
 sive expressions and modifying others, he transformed an 
 international fire-brand into a harmless diplomatic note. 
 When the paper was returned to the author, its erasures 
 and interlineations must have recalled his labors of three 
 months before, upon the inaugural address. If so, the 
 difference in the circumstances, probably, did not escape 
 him. Mr. Seward's changes had, properly enough, been
 
 152 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 suggested in a separate letter ; the President's were made, 
 without ceremony, on the draft itself. Mr. Lincoln's cor- 
 rections, moreover, although they materially altered the 
 letter, in its general tone and purpose, were, unlike Mr. 
 Seward's, with a few slight deviations, literally ob 
 served. For the Secretary of State took his lesson in 
 diplomacy as meekly as he had, a few weeks before, 
 received one in politics. 65 
 
 Seward's blunders in the Adams despatch were grave. 
 Together with his Quixotic scheme for continental wars, 
 they naturally impaired the President's confidence in his 
 judgment on foreign affairs. As international problems 
 of importance arose, Mr. Lincoln fell into the practice 
 of consulting not only his Secretary of State, but other 
 advisers, in the cabinet and out of it, as well. Chief 
 among these was Charles Simmer. His position as chair- 
 man of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, his 
 familiarity with diplomatic questions, his acquaintance 
 with European statesmen, and his ripe scholarship ren- 
 dered his opinions of particular value to the President. 
 Mr. Lincoln even went so far as to call the Senator and 
 the Secretary into council together. When, as happened 
 in several instances, Sumner's views were opposed to 
 Seward's, the President decided between them. And his 
 decision was not always in the minister's favor. Mr. 
 Seward's humiliation at this compulsory division of his 
 functions with another was hardly alleviated by the fact 
 that that other represented a wing of their party intensely 
 inimical to him. Once, upon being answered by Mr. 
 Lincoln with an opinion from Sumner, he hotly exclaimed 
 that there were "too many Secretaries of State in 
 Washington." w But such outbreaks were rare ; and champ 
 as he might, when the team was doubled, Seward stayed 
 in the traces. 97 
 
 What was true as to foreign matters was equally the 
 case in domestic affairs. Here also Mr. Lincoln, whenever 
 lie saw fit to do so, exercised over Mr. Seward supreme
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 153 
 
 authority. This is strikingly shown in one of the famous 
 episodes of the war. Early in 1865, the President of the 
 Confederacy was influenced by Francis Preston Blair, 
 Senior, to appoint a peace commission for informal con- 
 ference with the Federal government. President Lincoln, 
 !iaving directed Secretary Seward to meet the southern 
 representatives, Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell, 88 
 at Fortress Monroe, handed him written instructions which 
 read : 
 
 "You will make known to them that three things 
 are indispensable to wit : first, The restoration of the 
 national authority throughout all the States ; second, 
 No receding by the Executive of the United States on 
 the slavery question from the position assumed thereon 
 in the late annual message to Congress, and in preceding 
 documents ; third, No cessation of hostilities short of an 
 end of the war, and the disbanding of all forces hostile 
 to the government. 
 
 " You will inform them that all propositions of theirs, 
 not inconsistent with the above, will be considered and 
 passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality. You will 
 hear all they may choose to say and report it to me. You 
 will not assume to definitely consummate anything." 69 
 
 With these the orders of a master to his servant 
 Mr. Seward set out. Not many hours later, a despatch 
 from General Grant, 70 who had received the southern 
 nommissioners within his lines at City Point, led the 
 President to think that he, himself, might accomplish 
 more than his Secretary of State. The fact that the mis- 
 sion had been formally confided to Mr. Seward, and with 
 minute instructions, did not deter Mr. Lincoln from tak- 
 ing it out of his hands. Hastening after the Secretary, 
 he joined him previous to the conference, and, without 
 so much as by your leave, took the northern side of the 
 discussion under his own direction. 
 
 Truly, Seward's over-zealous eulogist blundered in mag- 
 nifying the subaltern at the captain's expense. Yet, not
 
 i 5 4 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 a few of Lincoln's biographers have erred as badly, in 
 the opposite direction. Perhaps they thought to increase 
 the President's inches by belittling the cabinet officer who 
 stood so near him or, did their eyes, full of Lincoln's 
 dominating figure, fail to take in Seward's actual stature ? 
 Be that as it may, they render the greater man's fame 
 no service by underrating the powers of the subordinate, 
 whom as we have seen he bent completely to his will. 
 Indeed, justice to Lincoln, no less than to Seward, re- 
 quires that the Secretary receive full credit. The records 
 of the State Department, during that most critical epoch 
 in the nation's foreign affairs, bear abundant testimony to 
 Mr. Seward's brilliant labors. Granting his occasional 
 mistakes of method or policy, in coping with the trained 
 diplomatists of Europe, our Secretary's severest critics 
 among his own countrymen should at least acknowledge, 
 as did Earl Russell, his foremost British opponent, that 
 he evinced singular and varied ability. Only talents of a 
 superior order could, in fact, have conducted the State 
 Department through the dark hours of the Civil War. 
 With a distracted country behind him, and the two most 
 powerful governments of Christendom threatening from 
 both sides, in ill-concealed hostility, Mr. Seward achieved 
 results that fixed his place high, if not highest, on the 
 roll of American foreign ministers. 
 
 No one, it is safe to say, appreciated the Secretary at 
 his true value so accurately as the President. In his 
 admiration of Mr. Seward, he overlooked the mistakes, 
 supplemented the important labors, on occasion, with 
 necessary touches of his own shrewd common sense, and 
 kept the brilliant talents employed for the best interests 
 of the country. Mr. Lincoln, it is true, privately contem- 
 plated, in at least two recorded instances, the removal of 
 Seward ; 71 but he gave his Secretary, none the less, unwa- 
 vering public support. Of this aid Mr. Seward, now and 
 then, stood greatly in need. When military reverses or 
 administrative troubles came, he was, for a time, because
 
 POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 155 
 
 of his reputed power in the government, held responsible 
 by the people ; while Radical leaders, taking advantage of 
 every opening, tried in season and out to influence the 
 President against him. 72 As these unrelated attempts all 
 failed, Seward's enemies resorted to organized attacks. 
 Early in September, 1862, a committee of prominent New 
 Yorkers, led by the venerable son of Alexander Hamilton, 
 called upon Mr. Lincoln ostensibly to urge " a change of 
 policy." They represented, according to their own state- 
 ment, not only the views of the dissatisfied Republican 
 element in the Empire State, but of five New England 
 Governors as well. The animus of their criticisms soon 
 became apparent to the President, who, in the midst of 
 the heated discussion that ensued, angrily exclaimed : 
 
 " You, gentlemen, to hang Mr. Seward would destroy 
 the government." 73 
 
 Exit the wise men of Gotham sadder, though not 
 wiser, than when they came. For despite Lincoln's atti- 
 tude toward them, the factional opposition against his 
 Secretary of State lost none of its momentum. On the 
 contrary, it made such headway by the middle of Decem- 
 ber that a caucus of Republican Senators voted to demand 
 Seward's dismissal; but even these formidable enemies 
 failed to break down the President's protection. With 
 what courage and adroitness he defended Seward, and 
 how thoroughly he put the attacking party to rout, will be 
 told, with all its dramatic details, in the story of that 
 other cabinet officer who shared the defeat. It is enough 
 to say here that our powerful minister gladly found safety 
 behind the man whom, not many months before, he had 
 thought to thrust into the background. After the repulse 
 of the senatorial cabal, moreover, Lincoln made short 
 work of those who came to undermine the Secretary of 
 State. He shielded Seward against all such assaults, and 
 kept him secure in his high office to the end. 
 
 Small wonder that the respect, which the Secretary 
 had early learned to show his chief, became mingled with
 
 156 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 a warmth of personal devotion that has not, in similar 
 relations of our history, been surpassed. Renouncing his 
 own aspirations, Mr. Seward dedicated himself, without 
 reserve, to the President's political fortunes, as well as to 
 the success of his administration, so far as it might be 
 achieved by the State Department. 74 The minister's con- 
 duct, as the bond between the two men strengthened, said 
 or seemed to say with old Adam : 
 
 " Master, go on, and I will follow thee, 
 To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty." 
 
 To the last gasp, indeed. For when Lincoln was mur- 
 dered, the assassins, as if their foul work might otherwise 
 have been incomplete, struck another blow that was to 
 send Seward after him. It failed to cut off the springs of 
 life, and he was left behind to carry in a sense alone, 
 the burden these two had so affectionately borne together. 
 A few years Seward tarried. Then, full of days and hon- 
 ors, he too was laid at rest. On his tomb, in Fort Hill 
 cemetery, at Auburn, those who loved him inscribed no 
 word of all his triumphs. Looking back through the try- 
 ing scenes of the war and seeming to see him again at the 
 President's side, they recalled an epitaph that Seward, 
 himself, had, in his prime, selected. 75 So they carved on 
 the stone : 
 
 " He was faithful." 
 
 Had the master whom the departed statesman served 
 stood by, he might well have pronounced, as of old, the 
 familiar formula : 
 
 "Approved. A. Lincoln."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 
 
 THE man who divided with Lincoln and Seward the 
 highest honors in the Republican National Convention 
 of 1860 was Salmon Portland Chase. He received on 
 two of the three ballots for the presidential nomination 
 the third largest number of votes. The figures, them- 
 selves, in comparison with those of the two foremost 
 candidates, were small ; for not even all the delegates 
 from Ohio, his own State, gave Mr. Chase their support. 
 Nevertheless, if the suffrages of the Convention had been 
 based to the exclusion of other considerations upon 
 national prominence, reputed ability, and party services, 
 he would have stood second to Seward, alone. Like that 
 eminent leader, Chase had twice been Governor of a great 
 commonwealth, and had twice been elected to the United 
 States Senate. In these high places his acts, no less than 
 his principles, had embodied the finest aspirations of the 
 Convention. Many of its members, indeed, who withheld 
 from him their votes paid tribute privately to the merits 
 of his illustrious career. 
 
 Chase belonged to that class of strenuous nation build- 
 ers who, for lack of a better title, have been termed 
 Western Yankees. After graduation from Dartmouth 
 College, in his native State, he had resorted to the twin 
 stepping-stones on which so many Americans have at- 
 tained eminence school- teach ing and law. Admitted to 
 the bar in his twenty-second year, he had taken up his 
 residence in Cincinnati, with the business, literary, and 
 social life of which he soon became actively identified. 1 
 Professional success, together with an honorable position
 
 158 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 in the community, were within the newcomer's reach, when 
 he had seemingly brushed them aside by lending his tal- 
 ents to the small knot of despised Abolitionists who 
 braved, in the early thirties, the pro-slavery prejudices 
 of southern Ohio. Cincinnati's interests were so closely 
 interwoven with those of the black belt beyond the river 
 that her citizens, especially, held the reformers in detesta- 
 tion. As was to be expected, the young lawyer's course 
 in allying himself with the so-called disturbers of the 
 public peace had estranged influential friends and clients, 
 who saw, or thought they saw, in this association his 
 inevitable ruin. 2 At some risk to himself, he had, in the 
 summer of 1836, confronted a mob on its way to attack 
 James G. Birney ; and, a few months thereafter, when 
 that friend of the negroes was indicted for harboring a 
 female slave, Chase had appeared in his defence. The 
 fugitive, herself, despite the plea of the same foolhardy 
 advocate, was returned to bondage, but her race had gained 
 a champion. So frequently thereafter had Chase acted as 
 counsel for fugitive slaves and those who befriended them 
 that he had been derisively nicknamed " attorney-general 
 for runaway negroes." The duties of this fanciful office, 
 unprofitable as they were unpopular, he had cheerfully 
 accepted ; yet adverse decision upon decision had taught 
 him that the anti-slavery cause was to be won, not at the 
 bar, but in the forum. 
 
 To the field of politics, therefore, Chase had carried his 
 ideals, only to find that there, as in law, they were heavy 
 handicaps. Neither of the two great parties, Whigs nor 
 Democrats, he had tried them both, was prepared, at 
 the time, for anti-slavery principles. So, foregoing the 
 preferment that his talents might have won for him in 
 such powerful organizations, Chase had affiliated himself, 
 usually as a master mind, with the unsubstantial factions 
 Liberty-men, Independent Democrats, Free-soilers, and 
 what not which struggled one after another to give the 
 cause a political standing. When at last one of these
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 159 
 
 bodies chanced to gain a foothold, there came to pass 
 something like the miracle promised in the Scriptures, 
 he who had lost his life for his conscience's sake had 
 found it. A dead-lock in joint session of the Ohio legis- 
 lature, during the winter of 1848-49, had left the balance 
 of power in the hands of two Independent Free-soilers ; 
 and so skilfully had they exercised it as to compel the 
 election of Mr. Chase to the United States Senate. There, 
 political accident as he was, without experience in pub- 
 lic office, and without recognition by either of the two 
 parties which divided legislative business, he had before 
 the expiration of his term taken rank as a leader among 
 such anti-slavery giants as Hale, Sumner, Seward, Wade, 
 Hamlin, and Fessenden. When these men and others, 
 equally eminent, established the Republican Party, Chase's 
 enthusiasm for its principles, no less than his talent for 
 political organization, had again carried him to his accus- 
 tomed place in the front rank. Scarcely had he com- 
 pleted his senatorial labors, when he had led the Ohio 
 branch of the new party to a victory that placed him in 
 the Governor's chair. Through two administrations for 
 he was, as we have said, reflected to the office Chase 
 had not only strengthened Republicanism in the State, 
 but had abundantly contributed, as well, to its upbuilding 
 in the Nation. His prestige seemed complete when, upon 
 stepping out of the governorship, he had, by a large and 
 spontaneous vote, been again elected to the United States 
 Senate. Still flushed with this triumph, Mr. Chase had, 
 a few months thereafter, sought yet higher honors at the 
 Chicago Convention, only to go down, in his first signal 
 defeat, before Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The man from Illinois felt kindly toward the Ohio 
 leader. Mr. Chase was one of the few distinguished 
 statesmen who had sympathized with Mr. Lincoln in his 
 memorable canvass for the Senate against Stephen A. 
 Douglas. On that occasion, the Governor had, like Gid- 
 diiigs, Corwin, Colfax, and Cassius M. Clay, come from
 
 160 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 beyond the limits of the State to aid the Republican can- 
 didate. 3 In Lincoln's mind, moreover, Chase was coupled 
 with Seward as one of the two great captains who, having 1 
 guided the anti-slavery hosts through the wilderness, were 
 entitled to lead them into the promised land. 4 When the 
 National Convention decided otherwise, it was a change 
 of votes among Chase's adherents that had turned the 
 scale in the Illinoisan's favor ; 5 and when the latter was 
 elected to the presidency, none of his rivals for the 
 nomination had given him more loyal support than had 
 the Senator-elect from Ohio. Add to these circumstances 
 that the Westerner, Chase, though an Independent, was 
 credited to the Democratic element in the new party, as 
 Seward, an eastern man, represented the Whigs, and we 
 comprehend why Mr. Lincoln, beginning the construction 
 of his carefully balanced cabinet with the New Yorker, 
 should assign the second place in it to the famous Ohioan. 
 No sooner had Seward accepted his appointment than 
 Chase was summoned by telegraph to Springfield. Learn- 
 ing of his arrival, the President-elect, with the disregard 
 of formality habitual to him, called on the visitor, at his 
 hotel. " I have done with you," said Mr. Lincoln, " what 
 I would not perhaps have ventured to do with any other 
 man in the country sent for you to ask you whether you 
 will accept the appointment of Secretary of the Trea- 
 sury, without, however, being exactly prepared to offer it 
 to you." 8 The other replied that he desired no cabinet 
 office, and that, if he did, he could not easily reconcile 
 himself to a subordinate one. Whereupon Mr. Lincoln 
 explained that he had tendered the portfolio of State to 
 Mr. Seward, as the generally recognized leader of the 
 Republican Party, with the intention, if he declined, of 
 offering it to Mr. Chase ; but that, as it had been accepted, 
 the next important post in the cabinet was probably at 
 the visitor's command. " I replied," wrote Mr. Chase in 
 his account of the interview, " that I did not wish, and 
 was not prepared to say that I would accept that place if
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 161 
 
 offered." He graciously added, however, that the appoint- 
 ment of Mr. Seward to the Department of State would 
 remove his objections to a subordinate office, if he should 
 conclude to accept one, under any conditions. " Every- 
 thing was left open," to quote Mr. Chase, when the two 
 men parted ; but it was understood, throughout the coun- 
 try, that he would probably be Secretary of the Treasury. 
 This prospect, as we have seen, was distasteful in the 
 extreme to Seward's friends. They strove to shut Chase 
 out of the cabinet how earnestly and how fruitlessly 
 has already been narrated. Nor were they the only oppo- 
 nents of the appointment. Yet Mr. Lincoln's esteem for 
 the man, as well as his confidence in the political wisdom 
 of the selection, suffered no diminution during the two 
 months of partisan bickerings that intervened between 
 their conference and the inauguration of the new admin- 
 istration. One of its earliest acts was to lay before the 
 Senate the President's proposed cabinet with the Trea- 
 sury assigned to Mr. Chase. 
 
 That gentleman's attitude, however, was now found to 
 have undergone somewhat of a change. The good temper 
 with which he had laid aside his pretensions to the highest 
 cabinet prize, in Seward's favor, must have been sorely 
 tried by the efforts of that leader's friends to exclude him 
 altogether. They had not succeeded in this, it is true, yet 
 Seward's ascendancy over the incoming administration 
 was generally conceded, and it boded no good to Chase's 
 personal ambitions. Under these conditions, a place in the 
 untried Lincoln's parti-colored cabinet face to face as 
 it was with a crisis, serious beyond measure looked less 
 inviting than ever to a Senator with his full term before 
 him. In the Upper House, Chase could, unhampered, 
 advance his principles and his political fortunes together. 
 His private estate, too, which was not in a flourishing con- 
 dition, might properly be improved, while he held a legis- 
 lative office ; but as Secretary of the Treasury, all roads 
 to profit professional or otherwise would be closed to
 
 162 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 him. Moreover, and this was of much importance to a 
 person of Mr. Chase's temperament, his pride had been 
 piqued at the way in which the offer of the appointment 
 originally came to him. " Had it been made earlier," he 
 said, "and with the same promptitude and definiteness 
 as that to Mr. Seward, I should have been inclined to 
 make some sacrifices." 7 By the time the formal nomina- 
 tion reached the Senate, therefore, Chase had practically 
 decided not to accept a cabinet office. He had, in fact, 
 already taken his seat in the upper chamber; but hap- 
 pened, at the moment, to be absent. Learning upon his 
 return that his name had been presented for the Treasury 
 portfolio and unanimously confirmed, he hastened before 
 the President to decline. What took place at that inter- 
 view is not precisely known. Chase came, as Seward had 
 a few hours before, with a refusal, on the very eve of sail- 
 ing, to embark in Lincoln's shaky craft. Like Seward, 
 Chase was somehow influenced by that raw captain, with 
 his gently masterful ways, to reconsider, and like him, 
 still, he stepped on board the following day, signed for 
 the voyage. 
 
 As the ship which carried the fate of a nation cast 
 loose from her moorings and stood out for the open sea, 
 already churning in the teeth of the gathering storm, a 
 stranger, glancing over her group of officers to discern by 
 appearance, if he might, which one of them had been 
 entrusted with so perilous a command, must have quickly 
 passed over the uncouth-looking Lincoln to single out, 
 from among those about him, the imposing figure of 
 Salmon P. Chase. He looked the part. His tall, well- 
 proportioned frame supported a massive head. Every line 
 of the expressive face, from dome-like forehead to firm, 
 smooth-shaven chin, described a curve of virile beauty. 
 Nature has been so lavish to but few of our public leaders, 
 and by none of them have personal advantages been borne 
 with greater dignity. This stately presence was reenforced, 
 moreover, by a mind as vigorous as it was cultivated. A
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 163 
 
 lover of literature, with three modern languages at com- 
 mand, a good classical scholar, as college men go, > 
 a well-trained lawyer of judicial temperament, a close 
 reasoner, a master of exposition, a fluent writer, an earnest 
 worker, Chase was equipped for any task that his restless 
 ambition might impose. As an author of political procla- 
 mations and party platforms, he had no peer. To his 
 talents in this direction the resolutions and address of the 
 Liberty Party, at the Ohio State Convention in 1841 ; 
 the platform adopted by the same organization in the 
 National Convention of 1843 ; the Address to the Peo- 
 ple, published by the Southern and Western Liberty 
 Convention of 1845; the resolutions and address adopted 
 by the People's State Convention of Ohio in 1848 ; the 
 National Free-soil platform of that year ; the platform of 
 the Free Democracy adopted at Pittsburg in 1852 ; and 
 the Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress 
 to the People of the United States 8 in 1854, bear abun- 
 dant testimony. Equal distinction as an orator cannot be 
 ascribed to Mr. Chase. A slight impediment in speech 
 rendered him, like the great Hebrew emancipator, " of 
 a slow tongue." He lacked, moreover, the wit, play of 
 fancy, sympathetic fervor, and charm of persuasion so es- 
 sential, ordinarily, to political eloquence. " Light without 
 heat " was how a statesman who became one of his senato- 
 rial colleagues characterised Chase's utterances, and the 
 speaker might have added, in this connection at least, 
 that ancient definition of equity upon which the phrase 
 was modeled " mind without passion." The mental pro- 
 cesses of the man, on the stump no less than in the Senate, 
 were as dignified as his carriage. Disdaining, for the most 
 part, the familiar devices of rhetoric and elocution, by 
 which anti-slavery orators, during the generation before 
 the war, usually appealed to popular emotions, he addressed 
 himself to the calm judgment of his audiences, with a 
 freedom from personal animus, a fidelity to clearly stated 
 facts, and a force of logic, as refreshing in those heated
 
 1 64 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 days as they were convincing. When it is recalled, too, 
 that he spoke with the earnestness of profound conviction 
 and, perforce, with a deliberation which imparted to his 
 words values almost oracular, we can comprehend why 
 his speeches, despite their shortcomings, strengthened 
 rather than impaired his hold on so high a place in party 
 leadership. Not less important, withal, than Mr. Chase's 
 intellectual attainments was a rich endowment of " that 
 other wisdom," to use his own words, " whose name is 
 courage." During the twenty years of vehement politics 
 which intervened between the first convention of the Lib- 
 erty-men and the triumph of the Republican Party, he 
 had been faithful to principles, under conditions that put 
 his pluck severely to the test. For, having determined a 
 certain course to be the right one, he had pursued it with 
 an energy well-nigh tireless, and a singleness of purpose 
 which would brook no compromise. Deeply religious by 
 temperament and "training, he recognized in his creed 
 an ever-present obligation to employ great powers right- 
 eously. Indeed, his private as well as his public life was 
 governed by so pure a spirit of integrity, on so lofty a 
 plane of duty, that men, not unmindful at the same time 
 of his noble bearing, likened him to a Roman statesman, 
 in the golden days of the ancient Republic. 
 
 The reverse of the medal was not so pleasing. Mr. 
 Chase had the defects that too often accompany high 
 qualities. Those very virtues, which so distinguished him, 
 cast long shadows over his nature. Conscientious to an 
 extreme, he looked upon the business of life in a mood 
 that rendered his manner austere at times, even stern. 
 His chiseled features usually wore an expression, at least 
 in public, of rigid reserve. The heavy, firmly pressed lips 
 rarely relaxed, and the light of humor as seldom shone in 
 the cold blue-gray eyes. When, at infrequent intervals, he 
 did unbend, his efforts to be gay were not signally success- 
 ful ; and for that reason, perhaps, as much as any other, 
 frivolity in public men met with his disapproval. A de-
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 165 
 
 scendant of Puritans and Scotch Covenanters, Chase took 
 himself, no less than his work, very seriously indeed. The 
 mass of diaries and letters that he so carefully wrote, and, 
 for the most part, as carefully preserved, reveal, in minute 
 detail, with how stately a tread he must have walked 
 among less decorous mortals. If he threw off his official 
 robes now and then, to exclaim in the manner of Thur- 
 low, " Lie there, Lord Chancellor ! " we find no record of 
 the fact. Given from early manhood, moreover, to habits 
 of introspection, Chase became, in time, so self-centered 
 and so egotistic as to lose that sense of proportion which 
 saves men from overrating the importance of small things. 
 Sensitive to an uncommon degree, and punctilious as to 
 the forms of either social or official intercourse, he was 
 swift to resent any lapse in the respect which he consid- 
 ered to be his due. For this martinet, though generally 
 esteemed, had failed to attain popularity. Not only the 
 people at large, but political associates as well, were, in 
 the main, repelled by his unsympathetic personality. In 
 fact, with possibly one or two exceptions, there sprang 
 up between the great man and other leading Republicans 
 no warm friendships. Such relations rest, by reason of 
 their very nature, upon footings of equality, which Chase's 
 assumption of his own superiority, together with his ever- 
 pressing ambition to stand a little higher than those around 
 him, put out of the question. He was genial enough, it is 
 true, at his own fireside, toward the family that almost 
 worshiped him, as well as toward the friends and politi- 
 cians who were willing to do him homage. Especially 
 was this so in the case of certain brilliant young men, 
 whose devotion he repaid with affectionate patronage ; yet 
 hardly less cordial, it must be admitted, was the attitude 
 of their " chief " if we may use the title in which Chase 
 delighted toward the unscrupulous self-seekers, syco- 
 phants, and scamps, who easily played upon his vanity. 
 An almost childish susceptibility to flattery so warped his 
 judgment of character that he could with difficulty be
 
 1 66 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 brought to see faults in any of the persons who admired 
 or supported him. And what, after all, if some of his 
 followers were unworthy? "'The immortal gods,'" he 
 seemed to say, '"accept the meanest altars' ; why not I?" 
 Incense, whether burned by good men or bad, was equally 
 grateful to his nostrils, even while it enveloped him in an 
 atmosphere of adulation, through which the wisest path 
 was not always discernible. Betrayed repeatedly into error 
 by the imperious temper thus developed, Chase, as a rule, 
 knew no will among his associates but his own. Indeed, 
 the lesson of occasional subordination, important as it is 
 to those who would command, he had entirely failed to 
 learn. So imbued was he with a sense of his superiority, 
 and so accustomed to its unquestioned recognition, that 
 when, in his fiftyfourth year, he reluctantly became Mr. 
 Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, he might most fitly 
 have been described, as to certain minor aspects of his 
 character, at least, by the homely word spoiled. 
 
 Unfortunately for hunself, as well as for the administra- 
 tion of which he formed a part, Mr. Chase's proneness to 
 assert himself was, as in Seward's case, heightened by the 
 conditions under which he entered upon his duties. Suc- 
 ceeding to the depleted treasury and the heavily increased 
 national debt that constituted together an important con- 
 tribution of the Buchanan regime to the Confederate 
 cause, he found the credit of the government seriously 
 impaired. Before measures for its restoration could be 
 taken, the outbreak of the Civil War cut the country in 
 two, swept the South with its wealth of staples out of the 
 Union, paralyzed trade for a time, bankrupted many of 
 the northern merchants, whose accounts were repudiated 
 by their customers in the seceded States, and brought Mr. 
 Chase unprepared as he was by adequate training or 
 experience face to face with a problem as perplexing as 
 any that has ever tried the sagacity of a finance minister. 
 Sir Robert Peel's famous description of Baring, " seated 
 on an empty chest, by the pool of bottomless deficiency,
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 167 
 
 fishing for a budget," fitted the American Secretary to a 
 nicety. How, under existing circumstances, he could raise 
 funds for what proved to be the most costly military 
 struggle in history, was the question. The average re- 
 quirements throughout the war of over $ 2,000,000 a day 
 could not be supplied, to any extent, by foreign loans. 
 European bankers some of them in sympathy with the 
 Confederacy, others in doubt as to Union success closed 
 their coffers, at least during a considerable part of the 
 conflict, against northern securities. Nothing, in conse- 
 quence, was left to Mr. Chase, for a time, but the crippled 
 resources of the loyal States. As even these means were 
 in the hands of a people unaccustomed to direct taxation 
 and prejudiced against public debt, some conception may 
 be formed as to the magnitude of his task. That this 
 was well performed must be conceded, notwithstanding 
 adverse, and in the main valid criticism by experts on 
 the economic soundness of certain measures. These mea- 
 sures served with others, be it remembered, to supply 
 the government's seemingly unlimited wants to outdo, 
 in fact, the marvels of Fortunatus and his inexhaustible 
 purse. For, from the money-bag in the chapbook ro- 
 mance, coin could presumably be taken out only through 
 the opening by which it had passed in ; but " the spigot 
 in Uncle Abe's barrel," as Mr. Chase dolefully expressed 
 it, was " twice as big as the bung-hole." 
 
 The rich stream, nevertheless, did not run dry, neither 
 did it submerge the nation in that flood of financial dis- 
 aster, which was feared by many Americans, and periodi- 
 cally predicted by the most influential organs of British 
 public opinion. As it happened, these discouragements 
 merely rendered more brilliant the eventual triumphs of 
 the Treasury triumphs due, in no small degree, be it 
 said, to the patriotism of the northern people, the victo- 
 ries of Union armies, and the cooperation of a loyal Con- 
 gress ; yet credited, naturally enough, to the department 
 of finance, and, above all, to the statesman at its head.
 
 1 68 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Never before had even he drunk so deeply of the spark- 
 ling cup. Men compared him with Turgot and Necker, 
 with Hamilton and Gallatin. Indeed, some of his admir- 
 ers, abroad as well as at home, indulged in extravagancies 
 of praise that might have enlarged the self-esteem of a 
 statesman less egotistic than Salmon P. Chase. 
 
 If anything was lacking to confirm the Secretary's be- 
 lief in his own importance, it was supplied by the Presi- 
 dent himself. Mr. Lincoln had neither capacity nor taste 
 for financiering. The science of dollars and cents is not 
 likely to interest a man who defines wealth, as he did, to 
 be " simply a superfluity of what we don't need." His 
 business undertakings, in early life, had been signally 
 unsuccessful, to such a degree, in fact, that upon the 
 occasion of his first election to the Illinois legislature, he 
 had to borrow the money for a presentable suit of clothes, 
 and his fare to the Capital. Twenty-six years later, a busy 
 and what should, at the same time, have been a lucrative 
 practice had not netted enough cash to defray the ex- 
 penses of his inauguration journey. 9 So, by a significant 
 coincidence, he had been under the necessity of traveling 
 to Washington as he had to Vandalia, on a friendly loan. 
 Lincoln's deficiency in what his friend and former part- 
 ner, William H. Herndon, termed " money sense " was 
 frankly summed up by the President himself one clay, 
 during a period of financial stress, when Chase desired to 
 introduce to him a delegation of bankers, who were assem- 
 bled to discuss an important phase of the money question. 
 
 " Money ! " exclaimed Mr. Lincoln, " I don't know 
 anything about money ! I never had enough of my own 
 to fret me, and I have no opinion about it any way." 10 
 
 To another committee of financiers, that waited on him 
 to find fault with the legal-tender law, he said : 
 
 " Go to Secretary Chase ; he is managing the finances." 
 
 In fact, the administration of the Treasury had, wisely, 
 from the beginning, been entrusted entirely to the head 
 of the department, who, as long as he supplied the re-
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 169 
 
 quired funds, was left, for ways and means, to his own 
 fertile devices. Nor were those ways, in every respect, 
 according to usage. The very first treasury bill, drawn 
 by Mr. Chase and enacted by Congress, at its special 
 session in July, 1861, empowered him solely to effect 
 certain loans, though such authority had invariably been 
 conferred theretofore upon the President and the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury, jointly. This innovation, involving 
 an extraordinary transfer of executive functions, charac- 
 terized all similar enactments during Chase's incumbency; 
 yet Mr. Lincoln, with that freedom from self-assertion 
 which is already so familiar to us, raised no objection. 
 Contenting himself with some such comment as, "You 
 understand these things I do not," he adopted his 
 purse-bearer's monetary recommendations, for the most 
 part, as they were laid before him, without question. He 
 even permitted Mr. Chase, it is said, to write some of the 
 financial paragraphs in his messages. Be that as it may, 
 whatever legislation the Secretary deemed essential was 
 vigorously urged by the President, not only in his formal 
 communications to Congress, but in his frequent confer- 
 ences as well with the influential members of both Houses. 
 This cooperation, together with a suggestion, now and 
 then, modestly offered, made up the sum of the Execu- 
 tive's customary attention to the operations of the Trea- 
 sury, which, despite its importance, was thus the only one 
 of the great departments of the government not kept 
 under his constant supervision. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's practice of non-interference in financial 
 affairs was not without its exception. But his single de- 
 viation from the rule and only one authentic instance 
 has come under the writer's notice serves in more than 
 a rhetorical sense to prove that rule. For it reveals how 
 ignorant the President was concerning treasury matters, 
 while it confirms our impression of the latitude habitu- 
 ally enjoyed by his able Secretary. On the other hand, 
 the incident evinces how ready was the President, when
 
 i yo LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 aroused, to exercise his authority, even in so unfamiliar a 
 field, with firmness. He was chatting one day in his office 
 with his old friend, Marshal Lamon, when the conversa- 
 tion turned on the greenbacks, then for some time in 
 circulation. Mr. Lincoln's visitor asked him whether he 
 knew how the currency was made. 
 
 " Yes," answered the President, " I think it is about 
 as the lawyers would say in the following manner, to 
 wit : the engraver strikes off the sheets, passes them over 
 to the Register of the currency, who places his earmarks 
 upon them, signs them, hands them over to Father Spinner, 
 who then places his wonderful signature at the bottom, 
 and turns them over to Mr. Chase, who, as Secretary of 
 the United States Treasury, issues them to the public as 
 money, and may the good Lord help any fellow that 
 does n't take all he can honestly get of them ! " Pulling 
 a five-dollar greenback from his pocket, he said, with a 
 twinkle in his eye, " Look at Spinner's signature ! Was 
 there ever anything like it on earth? Yet it is unmis- 
 takable. No one will ever be able to counterfeit it." 
 
 " But," said the Marshal, " you certainly don't suppose 
 that Spinner actually wrote his name on that bill, do 
 you ? " 
 
 41 Certainly I do ; why not ? " was the reply. 
 
 Mr. Lamon asked, " How much of this currency have 
 we afloat?" 
 
 Mr. Lincoln stated the amount. 
 
 ''How many times," continued his friend, "do you 
 think a man can write a signature like Spinner's in the 
 course of twenty-four hours ? " 
 
 The smile left the President's countenance. He put 
 the greenback into his pocket and walked the floor. After 
 a while he stopped, took a long breath, and said : " This 
 thing frightens me ! " Summoning a messenger, he sent 
 for the Secretary of the Treasury. Upon Mr. Chase's 
 arrival, Mr. Lincoln explained the occasion of his alarm, 
 and asked for a detailed description of how the money
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 171 
 
 was handled in the process of manufacture. When the 
 Secretary had complied with this request, the President 
 expressed his opinion that there were not sufficient checks 
 against robbery; but Mr. Chase insisted that the system 
 had all the safeguards which he could devise. "In the 
 nature of things," said he, " somebody must be trusted in 
 this emergency. You have entrusted me, and Mr. Spinner 
 is entrusted with untold millions, and we have to trust our 
 subordinates." Words waxed warm between the two, 
 when Mr. Lincoln said, with some feeling : 
 
 " Don't think that I am doubting or could doubt your 
 integrity, or that of Mr. Spinner ; nor am I finding fault 
 with either of you. But it strikes me that this thing is all 
 wrong, and dangerous. I and the country know you and 
 Mr. Spinner, but we don't know your subordinates, who are 
 great factors in making this money ; and have the power 
 to bankrupt the government in an hour. Yet there seems 
 to be no protection against a duplicate issue of every bill 
 struck, and I can see no way of detecting duplicity until 
 we come to redeem the currency ; and even then, the 
 duplicate cannot be told from the original." u 
 
 The President prevailed. As a result of the discussion, 
 Mr. Chase made elaborate efforts to secure an improved 
 system of checks against fraud or error. Calling upon 
 the Chief of the Currency Bureau for the outline of a 
 feasible plan, he submitted it, after revision by himself, 
 to a special commission, consisting of the Acting Assist- 
 ant Secretary, the Register, and the First Comptroller. 
 Their report was, upon its receipt, referred back to them 
 for further consideration ; and Senator Sprague, because 
 of his expert knowledge, was added to their number. 
 The enlarged commission, however, merely confirmed the 
 findings of its predecessor. Whereupon all the documents 
 were placed, for final review, in the hands of the Assist- 
 ant Secretary of the Treasury, who had recently returned 
 from a study of the safeguards employed in the Bank of 
 England and in the Bank of France. Upon his observa-
 
 172 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 tions abroad and the suggestions of the commission were 
 based a new body of rules for the Currency Bureau. 12 
 
 Ample as was the scope of Mr. Chase's authority in 
 financial matters, it failed to fill the measure of his ad- 
 ministrative ambitions. He must have been dazzled with 
 the power conferred upon him, in his own proper sphere ; 
 for he believed himself, again like Seward, capable of 
 dominating other departments, as well. Particularly may 
 this be said of the War Office, over which, throughout 
 his cabinet career, he strove to exert a certain influence. 
 " I have been studying the art of war," he once said. " I 
 can find nothing in it but a calculation of chances and a 
 quick eye for topography. Were I not so near-sighted, I 
 would be tempted to resign my place as Secretary for a 
 command in the field." 13 So persistently, indeed, was the 
 martial purpose pursued, that no treasury duties, however 
 exacting, were allowed to stand in its way. Nor did the 
 hand on the purse relax, while the other hand reached 
 for the sword. With both in his grasp, Chase would truly 
 have been prepared 
 
 " to advise how War may, best npheld, 
 Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, 
 In all her equipage." 
 
 He might even have gathered strength enough for what 
 he aspired to be the essential genius of the conflict. His 
 hopes in this direction Mr. Lincoln, still further, unavoid- 
 ably fed. The President not only found it expedient, at 
 times, to consult with the ever-ready Secretary of the 
 Treasury on questions purely military ; but he employed 
 him also, as occasion required, on business which belonged 
 within the province of the W r ar Department. Other mem- 
 bers of the cabinet, it is true, were called, now and then, 
 to the relief of their colleague in that overburdened office ; 
 yet none of them, we may safely say, were so busy over 
 its affairs as Mr. Chase. To him, and not to Secretary 
 Cameron, was committed the task of framing certain offi- 
 cial orders for the enlistment of troops ; to his direction
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 173 
 
 military matters in the western Border States were, during 
 the earlier stages of the war, largely entrusted ; and to 
 his recommendations might have been traced important 
 changes in the fortunes of more than one general officer. 
 The confidential relations that he managed to establish 
 with some of the commanders, no less than his familiarity 
 with their operations in the field, led both the President 
 and the Secretary of War to ask his aid, as a go-between, 
 several times when misunderstandings or delicate personal 
 questions arose. When it was deemed necessary, more- 
 over, for a council of war to interrogate General McClel- 
 lan about his plans, Mr. Chase performed the ungrateful 
 office ; when General McDowell, to his disappointment, 
 was ordered back from Fredericksburg, during the Penin-, 
 sular campaign, Chase was despatched to the front, with 
 explanations ; when Lincoln and Stanton made what our 
 warlike Secretary of the Treasury termed their " brilliant 
 week's campaign " against Norfolk, he accompanied them; 
 and when the President held his momentous midnight 
 conference, after Rosecrans's disaster at Chickamauga, he 
 was one of the three cabinet ministers present. Mr. Lin- 
 coln, on several occasions, even went so far as to direct 
 generals-in-chief to discuss their projects with Mr. Chase ; 
 and still that gentleman was far from satisfied. 
 
 Considerable as was the Secretary's part in these and 
 similar transactions, they bore together but a small ratio 
 to all the affairs of the War Department on which he 
 volunteered assistance or advice. To decline the former 
 and disregard the latter came as natural to the President, 
 at some times, as to avail himself of them at others. 
 Confident of his own strength, he held Chase, as we have 
 seen, by a free rein ; but whenever they got too far from 
 their course, the lines stiffened, and one masterful twist 
 of the wrist brought the honorable Secretary back to his 
 work. Like Seward, Chase was made to feel the power 
 which lurked in that slack hand ; unlike him, he never 
 became reconciled to its sway. From the very outset, the
 
 174 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 man in the Treasury chafed under whatever limitations 
 were placed upon his authority, but without avail. How 
 helplessly he kicked against the pricks, his own letters 
 and diaries reveal, at every turn. A few extracts from 
 among many instances may not be out of place here. 
 
 The administration, to begin with, had hardly gotten 
 under way before Mr. Chase's impatience at what he 
 called " the Micawber policy of waiting for something to 
 turn up " found vent in a letter to the President. 
 
 " Let me beg you to remember," it read, in a style 
 strangely suggestive of Seward's " Thoughts," " that the 
 disunionists have anticipated us in everything, and that 
 as yet we have accomplished nothing but the destruction 
 of our own property. Let me beg you to remember, also, 
 that it has been a darling object with the disunionists to 
 secure the passage of a secession ordinance by Maryland. 
 The passage of that ordinance will be the signal for the 
 entry of disunion forces into Maryland. It will give a 
 color of law and regularity to rebellion, and thereby triple 
 its strength. The custom-house in Baltimore will be seized, 
 and Fort McHenry attacked perhaps taken. What 
 next? Do not, I pray you, let this new success of treason 
 be inaugurated, in the presence of American troops. Save 
 us from this new humiliation. A word to the brave old 
 commanding general will do the work of prevention. 
 You, alone, can give the word." " 
 
 The " word " was not given ; nor is it known what 
 reply, if any, Mr. Lincoln made to this querulous mes- 
 sage. Its tone was ominous, as well as discordant, for 
 many other strictures, equally severe or severer, followed 
 from the same pen. To a private correspondent, some 
 months thereafter, Chase made this comment : 
 
 " It has been an error, I think, to push forward our 
 whole army when two thirds of it, skilfully handled, 
 would have effected the objects gained by the whole. 
 But the great defect in the operations of the war has 
 been a lack of vigor and celerity in movement. To make
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 175 
 
 up for this, we accumulate immense forces at particular 
 points, and wait until the enemy retreats, and then occupy 
 his deserted quarters ! " 15 
 
 To another he wrote, still later, in a similar strain : 
 
 " We have not accomplished what we ought to have 
 accomplished. We have put small forces where large 
 forces were needed, and have failed to improve advan- 
 tages the advantages we obtained. We have preferred 
 generals who do little with much, to generals who do 
 much with little. We blame and praise with equal want 
 of reason and judgment." 16 
 
 In his diary he noted, at about the same time : 
 
 "Ten days of battle and then such changes changes 
 in which it is difficult to see the public good. How singu- 
 larly all our worst defeats have followed administrative 
 cr , no, blunders ! " 17 
 
 Those changes were evidently not made upon Mr. 
 Chase's recommendations. Indeed, the President's re- 
 peated disregard of his finance minister's military opinions 
 evoked that officer's bitter faultfinding. He ascribed dis- 
 asters to the neglect of his advice ; and successes, he as 
 truculently traced to its influence. 
 
 What vexed Chase, withal, more than Mr. Lincoln's 
 failures to heed his counsels, was the fact that suitable 
 opportunities for giving them were so infrequent. Com- 
 plaints on this score abounded in his letters, especially in 
 those addressed to his friends at home. To one of them he 
 wrote : 
 
 " Since the incoming of General Halleck I have known 
 but little more of the progress of the war than any 
 outsider, I mean so far as influencing it goes. My 
 recommendations, before he came in, were generally 
 disregarded, and since have been seldom ventured. In 
 two or three conversations I did insist on the removal of 
 McClellan, and the substitution of an abler and more 
 vigorous and energetic leader ; on the clearing out of the 
 Mississippi, and the expulsion of the rebels from East
 
 176 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Tennessee, all of which might have been done. But, 
 though heard I was not heeded." 18 
 
 To another : 
 
 " I am not responsible for the management of the war, 
 and have no voice in it, except that I am not forbidden 
 to make suggestions, and do so now and then, when I 
 cannot help it." 19 
 
 And to still another : 
 
 " Though charged with the responsibility of providing 
 means for the vast expenditures of the war, I have little 
 more voice in its conduct than a stranger to the adminis- 
 tration perhaps not so considerable a voice as some 
 who are, in law at least, strangers to it. I should be very 
 well satisfied with this state of things, if I saw the war 
 prosecuted with vigor and success. I am only dissatisfied 
 with it because I cannot help thinking that if my judg- 
 ment had more weight, it would be so prosecuted." 20 
 
 To Governor Brough, after the terrible slaughter of the 
 Wilderness and Spottsylvania Court House, Mr. Chase 
 thus unburdened himself : 
 
 " My anxiety is very great ; but departmental adminis- 
 tration allows me no voice in military matters not even 
 in those which most nearly concern the Treasury and I 
 can therefore only wait and pray and hope." 21 
 
 There were cabinet meetings, it is true, but Mr. Chase's 
 conception of how they should be conducted differed 
 widely from that of the President. This disagreement the 
 Secretary emphasized, in several spirited letters. One to 
 Senator John Sherman read : 
 
 "Since General Halleck has been here the conduct 
 of the war has been abandoned to him by the President 
 almost absolutely. We who are called members of the 
 cabinet, but are in reality only separate heads of depart- 
 ments, meeting now and then for talk on whatever hap- 
 pens to come uppermost, not for grave consultation on 
 matters concerning the salvation of the country we have 
 as little to do with it as if we were heads of factories
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 177 
 
 supplying shoes or cloth. No regular and systematic 
 reports of what is done are made, I believe, even to the 
 President certainly not to the so-called cabinet. Of 
 course we may hope for the best that privilege remains. 
 As outsiders, too, I suppose we may criticise, but I prefer 
 to forego that privilege. It is painful, however, to hear 
 complaints of remissness, delays, discords, dangers, and 
 to feel that there must be ground for such complaints, 
 and to know that one has no power to remedy the evils 
 and yet is thought to have." 22 
 
 To Horace Greeley our disgruntled minister wrote : 
 
 " It seems to me that in this government the President 
 and his cabinet ought to be well advised of all matters 
 vital to the military and civil administration ; but each 
 one of us, to use a presidential expression, turns his own 
 machine, with almost no comparison of views or consulta- 
 tion of any kind. It seems to me all wrong and I have 
 tried very hard to have it otherwise unavailingly." 23 
 
 Commenting on foreign intervention in Santo Domingo 
 and Mexico, he wrote to the Rev. Dr. Leavitt, one of the 
 editors of the New York Independent: 
 
 " Had there been here an administration in the true 
 sense of the word a President conferring with his cab- 
 inet and taking their united judgments, and with their aid 
 enforcing activity, economy, and energy, in all depart- 
 ments of public service we could have spoken boldly 
 and defied the world. But our condition here has always 
 been very different. I preside over the funnel ; everybody 
 else, and especially the Secretaries of War and the Navy, 
 over the spigots and keep them well open, too. Mr. 
 Seward conducts the foreign relations with very little let 
 or help from anybody. There is no unity and no system, 
 except so far as it is departmental." 24 
 
 That the people around the spigots paid so little at- 
 tention to the important functionary at the funnel was 
 especially irritating to the Secretary of the Treasury. He 
 scolded, in turn, the successive heads of the War Depart-
 
 1 78 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 ment, on the score of extravagance ; yet it should be 
 observed that his customary attitude toward them was 
 friendly. For here, as elsewhere, the prime offender, in 
 his eyes, was Mr. Lincoln. To Secretary Cameron, Chase 
 complained : 
 
 " The want of success of our armies, and the difficulties 
 of our financial operations, have not been in consequence 
 of a want or excess of men, but for want of systematic 
 administration. If the lack of economy, and the absence 
 of accountability, are allowed to prevail in the future as 
 in the past, bankruptcy, and the success of the rebellion, 
 will be necessary consequences." K 
 
 After the War Department had, for a considerable time, 
 been under Mr. Stanton's direction, Mr. Chase wrote to 
 a friend, in Ohio : 
 
 " Nothing except the waste of life is more painful in 
 this war than the absolutely reckless waste of means. A 
 very large part of the frauds which disgrace us may be 
 traced to the want of systematic supervision ; and yet 
 what encouragement is there to endeavors toward economy? 
 Such endeavors league against him who makes them all 
 the venality and corruption which is interested in extrav- 
 agance. Most, if not all, the bitter attacks made upon me 
 have originated in the spite of the people whose interests 
 were thought to be affected by my efforts to keep things in 
 the right direction and under economical management." M 
 
 To another friend he thus lamented : 
 
 " There has been enormous waste and profusion, grow- 
 ing out of high pay and excessive indulgence. All these 
 causes tend to demoralization, and we are demoralized. I 
 cannot go into particulars, but the instances abound. It 
 is some consolation to me that my voice and, so far as 
 opportunity has allowed, my example has been steadily 
 opposed to all this. I have urged my ideas on the Presi- 
 dent and my associates, till I begin to feel that they are 
 irksome to the first, and to one or two, at least, of the 
 second." 27
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 179 
 
 In a letter to General Hooker, the same busy corre- 
 spondent thus frees his mind : 
 
 " There has been a deal of talk about recalling you, and 
 placing you in command of the Army of the Potomac, 
 which one of the chaplains, in a recently published let- 
 ter, calls, not altogether without reason, ' This poor, old, 
 strategy-possessed army.' I wish it might be done. But, 
 of course, my wishes go for little in such matters. What 
 right, indeed, has a Secretary of the Treasury, whose busi- 
 ness it is to provide money for the people to spend, to 
 have any wishes at all about the results of the expendi- 
 ture? Is not that exclusively the concern of the President 
 and of Congress ? I suppose I ought to shut my eyes and 
 suppress my feelings, but really it is a little hard, when 
 one thinks one sees how much might be economized of 
 action, power, and resources, not to say something of what 
 he thinks and feels." w 
 
 Hooker was but one of several officers to whom Secre- 
 tary Chase disparaged the administration of which he, him- 
 self, formed a confidential part. Heedless of the impropri- 
 ety, at times even the disloyalty of his course, he warmly 
 condoled with the generals who brought him their griev- 
 ances, real or fancied, against the President. Fruitless 
 opposition to Mr. Lincoln's policy, in one instance, more- 
 over, led Chase to the extreme of urging upon two of 
 his military correspondents out-and-out insubordination. 
 This misstep had its origin, to state it briefly, in the 
 vexed question of emancipation. Mr. Chase persistently 
 advised that commanders should be permitted to free and 
 enlist the slaves within their lines ; Mr. Lincoln decided 
 otherwise. When the President, in the spring of 1862, 
 annulled General Hunter's proclamation, it was in spite of 
 Chase's earnest appeal to the contrary. So curtly was the 
 Secretary brushed aside that he gave vent to his disap- 
 pointment in even harsher terms than ordinarily. " I have 
 never," he wrote to Greeley, " been so sorely tried, in all 
 *hat I have seen in the shape of irregularities, assumptions
 
 180 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 beyond the law, extravagances, deference to generals and 
 reactionists which I cannot approve . . . as by the nulli- 
 fying of Hunter's proclamation." M But it was not in 
 Chase's nature to accept a defeat ; so we find him, a few 
 weeks later, still trying to displace the President's policy 
 by his own. In the course of a long letter to General 
 Butler, at New Orleans, he wrote : 
 
 " I shall express only my own opinions ; opinions, how- 
 ever, to which I am just as sure the masses will and the 
 politicians must come, as I am sure that both politicians 
 and masses have come to opinions expressed by me when 
 they found few concurrents. ... If some prudential con- 
 sideration did not forbid, I should at once, if I were in your 
 place, notify the slaveholders of Louisiana that hence- 
 forth they must be content to pay their laborers wages. 
 ... It is quite true that such an order could not be 
 enforced by military power beyond military lines ; but it 
 would enforce itself by degrees a good way beyond them, 
 and would make the extension of military lines compara- 
 tively quite easy. It may be said that such an order would 
 be annulled. I think not. It is plain enough to see that 
 the annulling of Hunter's order was a mistake. It will 
 not be repeated." 80 
 
 On the following day, Chase wrote, in the same tenor, 
 to General Pope, commanding the Army of Virginia. 
 This letter closed with : 
 
 " If I were in the field, I would let every man understand 
 that no man loyal to the Union can be a slave. We must 
 come to this. The public sentiment of the world, common- 
 sense, and common justice, demand it. The sooner we 
 respect the demand, the better for us and for our cause." 81 
 
 With the unruly spirit that inspired these futile out- 
 breaks now and then mingled something very like despair. 
 For instance, shortly after Mr. Lincoln had reinstated 
 General McClellan, in the teeth of vehement protests 
 from Chase and others, this comment was confided to the 
 diary :
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 181 
 
 " Expenses are enormous, increasing instead of dimin- 
 ishing ; and the ill-successes in the field have so affected 
 government stocks that it is impossible to obtain money 
 except on temporary deposit. ... It is a bad state of 
 things ; but neither the President, his counselors, nor his 
 commanding general seem to care. They rush on from 
 expense to expense, and from defeat to defeat, heedless 
 of the abyss of bankruptcy and ruin which yawns before 
 us so easily shunned yet seemingly so sure to engulf 
 us. May God open the eyes of those who control us, be- 
 fore it is too late I" 32 
 
 And a letter addressed, some months later, to Wayne 
 MoVeagh contained this outburst : 
 
 " Oh, for a vigorous, earnest, thorough prosecution of 
 this war ! for a speedy and complete suppression of this 
 rebellion ! How often does the question come to me with 
 terrific force ! How much longer can the strain, which 
 delay and extravagance make, be endured before the 
 links of credit snap? " ^ 
 
 The precious links did not snap. On the contrary, as 
 the war advanced, they became with an occasional 
 period of weakness more firmly riveted together. But 
 this fact apparently made no impression on the conduct 
 of the minister who had them in his keeping ; as he con- 
 tinued, to the end, his practice of petulant and, for the 
 most part, bootless criticism. In season and out, in letters 
 and private journals, in formal council and chance con- 
 versation, whether he addressed himself to members of 
 the government circle or to rank outsiders, Chase was the 
 severe at times almost hostile censor of the Presi- 
 dent and his administration. 
 
 In fairness to the Secretary of the Treasury, it must be 
 conceded that his charges of extravagance were, especially 
 during certain periods of unpreparedness at the outbreak 
 of hostilities, warranted by the facts. It is true, moreover, 
 that the operations of his department were, at times, em- 
 barrassed by lack of success in the field. And due weight
 
 1 82 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 should be given to the necessity under which he labored, 
 or believed himself to labor, for combining military with 
 financial authority, as other statesmen in the world's his- 
 tory had done before him. His chagrin at finding his 
 martial activities repressed was therefore not surprising, 
 particularly when we recall the temperament of the man, 
 and the expectations which must have been fostered by 
 what he was occasionally called upon to do in the War 
 Department, no less than by the extraordinary powers 
 conferred upon him in his own office. Yet these things 
 do not justify, or even fully explain, the animus against 
 the President, so apparent throughout Chase's cabinet 
 career. For the seed of that antagonism we must look 
 below the surface into the very core of the matter. 
 
 Chase never entirely forgave Lincoln the latter's vic- 
 tory at the Chicago Convention. That a man so markedly 
 his inferior in education and public achievements should 
 have been preferred to him was as grievous to the Ohio 
 statesman's self-love as it was irritating to his sense of 
 equity. That this man, moreover, when he came to the 
 presidency, should persist in actually running the admin- 
 istration, while his brilliant Secretary of the Treasuiy 
 so willing at every turn to relieve him of the burden 
 remained a mere head of department, hardly allayed the 
 minister's resentment. The prejudice engendered in the 
 defeated candidate took deeper root in the disappointed 
 cabinet minister. Mr. Chase's failures, withal, to sway the 
 President in military affairs numerous and, at times, 
 humiliating though they were did not, by any means, 
 make up the sum of his rebuffs. On such important 
 subjects as privateering, early emancipation, concessions 
 to the Border States, and martial law in places outside 
 the field of hostilities, our Secretary, do what he would, 
 could not save his cherished opinions from being swept 
 aside. Here again, the character, or fancied character, 
 of the chief who overruled him made his cup of subordi- 
 nation doubly bitter. The masterful Chase had met his
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 183 
 
 master, yet he could not bring himself to the point of 
 admitting it. Indeed, we find ourselves wondering, as he 
 returns again and again to the charge, at his inability to 
 realize how completely he was outclassed ; but the riddle 
 is read when it is remembered that his judgment of char- 
 acter was notably defective. This constituted what may 
 be called the blind side of his make-up. He was, in fact, 
 so near-sighted that the play of men's features, with their 
 tell-tale disclosures, was lost upon him ; and so self-cen- 
 tered, that what he seemed to see in other people was, too 
 often, the mere reflection of his own prepossessions or pre- 
 judices. Thus misguided, to say nothing of the concur- 
 rent circumstances, Chase must inevitably have under- 
 rated Lincoln. The President so thought his Secretary 
 of the Treasury had been elevated by a freak of fortune 
 to a place which he was incapable of filling ; and, by a 
 similar chance, the minister, himself, had become enlisted 
 under a chief who at every point in his bearing seemed 
 to fall far below that courtly functionary's standards of 
 statesmanship. Perhaps Mr. Chase, learned though he 
 was, forgot that truly great rulers make their own stand- 
 ards. At all events, there was little, if anything, in 
 Lincoln's simple demeanor, lack of culture, disregard of 
 formality, and low-leveled humor to warn his Secretary 
 of the transcendent genius for leadership that, almost 
 unwittingly to itself, was working out a great destiny. 
 Hence Mr. Chase presents the phenomenon of encounter- 
 ing at every turn a force stronger than his own, and 
 failing entirely to recognize its existence. He had been a 
 member of Mr. Lincoln's official family more than a year 
 and a half, when he tactlessly asked a general officer, 
 who had a grievance against the administration, what he 
 thought of the President. The officer answered: 
 
 " A man irresolute, but of honest intentions ; born a 
 poor white in a slave State, and, of course, among aris- 
 tocrats ; kind in spirit and not envious, but anxious for 
 approval, especially of those to whom he has been accus-
 
 1 84 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 tomed to look up hence solicitous of support of the 
 slaveholders in the Border States, and unwilling to 
 offend them ; without the large mind necessary to grasp 
 great questions, uncertain of himself, and in many things 
 ready to lean too much on others." 34 
 
 The sketch must have been in harmony with our Sec- 
 retary's own views, for he transferred it carefully to his 
 diary, with the endorsement that its author was " well read 
 and extremely intelligent." In truth, Mr. Chase was not 
 by any means the only eminent man at the Capital who 
 mistook Lincoln's measure. Disparagement of the Presi- 
 dent was, at first, the rule rather than the exception. But 
 as he coped with the problems of the war, one after 
 another, sagacious men caught glimpses of the power that 
 was bound up in his quaint, almost grotesque personality, 
 and revised their estimates to somewhat like proper pro- 
 portions. Not so, however, with Chase. He never even 
 approached to justice in a conception of Lincoln, or, if 
 he did, there is no evidence of it among his voluminous 
 diaries and letters. When he committed to one of his 
 journals, after their official connection had ceased, the 
 admission, " I feel that I do not know him," Chase made 
 his truest comment on Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The President and his Secretary of the Treasury were, 
 as far as their personal relations went, at no time heartily 
 in sympathy with each other. As a matter of fact, one 
 rarely finds two public men working together so earnestly 
 for the triumph of the same principles who are, at once, so 
 essentially dissimilar in social attributes as they happened 
 to be. Lincoln's ways unconventional in the extreme 
 grated upon the sensibilities of the dignified Chase. To 
 the Secretary's fondness for forms, pride of intellect, 
 distaste for humor, and serious, almost ascetic devotion 
 to his tasks, must be ascribed, in a degree at least, the 
 absence of cordiality between him and a President who 
 made no secret of his ignorance, troubled himself not a 
 whit about precedents, and was reminded, on all conceiv-
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 185 
 
 able occasions, of stories hardly constructed according to 
 classic models. Not the least of Lincoln's offences against 
 the Chesterfield of his cabinet was the ill-concealed 
 amusement with which he regarded that gentleman's dis- 
 pleasure at his levity. The President's bump of reverence 
 appears to have been so exceedingly flat that the frowns 
 of an important personage, however great, failed to abash 
 him. Mr. Chase once told, with evident disgust, how an 
 old-time crony of Lincoln in the Thirtieth Congress was 
 permitted to interrupt a meeting of the cabinet. That 
 body was in session one day, when the doorkeeper an- 
 nounced that Orlando Kellogg was without and wished 
 to tell the President the story of the stuttering justice. 
 Mr. Lincoln ordered the visitor to be ushered in imme- 
 diately. Greeting Kellogg at the threshold with a warm 
 grasp of the hand, the President said, as he turned to his 
 cabinet : 
 
 " Gentlemen, this is my old friend, Orlando Kellogg, 
 and he wants to tell us the story of the stuttering justice. 
 Let us lay all business aside, for it is a good story." 
 
 So statesmen, as well as affairs of state, waited while 
 the humorous Kellogg spun his yarn and Lincoln had 
 his laugh. 35 Another cabinet meeting, perhaps the most 
 momentous in the history of the administration, was dis- 
 figured, according to Mr. Chase's diary, by similar merri- 
 ment. The President had called his advisers together in 
 order to lay before them his draft of the first Emancipa- 
 tion Proclamation. But before proceeding to this weighty 
 matter, he mentioned that Artemus Ward had sent him 
 his new book, and that he desired to read to them a chap- 
 ter which he had found to be especially funny. Where- 
 upon Mr. Lincoln regaled his assembled ministers with the 
 High-Handed Outrage at Utica. It was read with effect, 
 for Mr. Chase reports that his colleagues, as well as the 
 President, "seemed to enjoy it very much." Our diarist 
 excepts the saturnine Stanton, but says nothing about his 
 own disrelish of the performance. From another source,
 
 1 86 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 however, we learn of disapproval so plainly stamped upon 
 Chase's countenance that Lincoln, eyeing the solemn- 
 faced Secretary of the Treasury as he read, laughed more 
 heartily than ever. In fact, the gentleman's distress 
 became in itself an object of boisterous hilarity, "and 
 Lincoln," we are told, " seldom lost an opportunity to 
 entertain himself and others in this direction." x Mr. 
 Chase naturally felt aggrieved on such occasions. They 
 hardly served to place him at his ease with the President, 
 or to render more agreeable to either an intercourse that, 
 at its best, never reached far beyond the limits of official 
 requirements. 
 
 In strong contrast to the distant relations between 
 Lincoln and Chase was the cordial good-fellowship which 
 the President evinced toward Seward. The Secretary of 
 State appears to have been especially congenial to his 
 chief. For Mr. Lincoln, of all men, could appreciate a 
 cabinet minister who, whatever may have been his fail- 
 ings, submitted loyally, in the main, to superior authority, 
 fomented no quarrels, and adapted a cheery, resourceful 
 disposition, with rare felicity, to the President's moods. 
 Seward's influence with Lincoln was notably greater than 
 that of Chase greater, in fact, than that of any of his 
 colleagues ; but not nearly so great, be it said, as was at 
 the time generally believed. Great or small, however, the 
 prestige thus enjoyed by the Secretary of State became 
 particularly galling to the man in the Treasury. From 
 their earliest days in the Senate, these two leaders, not- 
 withstanding their common dislike of slavery and their 
 previous cooperation on fugitive slave cases, had been, in 
 a sense, opposed to each other. They had joined hands, 
 it is true, in the parliamentary struggle against southern 
 domination ; but the Democratic tendencies of the one, 
 and the Whig partisanship of the other, had stood in the 
 way of a friendship that, even under more favorable con- 
 ditions, would have been practically impossible to men of 
 such conflicting personalities. They had been associated
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 187 
 
 together in the Upper House for several months, when 
 Chase wrote : 
 
 " I don't know what Seward will do. I have never been 
 able to establish much sympathy between us. He is too 
 much of a politician for me." 37 
 
 And within a few weeks, following, the Senator from 
 Ohio complained to his New York colleague of the abuse, 
 " without any stint," to which he had been subjected by 
 the latter's friends. Antagonisms aroused at about that 
 period were not allayed, even after Chase and Seward 
 had sunk their political differences, for a time, in the for- 
 mation of the new Republican Party. They became, as 
 we have seen, rivals for the presidential nomination of 
 1860 ; and when that prize, as well as the election, went 
 to Lincoln, they were again pitted against each other in 
 a race for the ascendancy over a seemingly weak Execu- 
 tive. How he pressed them both into his cabinet, despite 
 powerful opposition to such an association, has also been 
 told. We need only add, for a clear comprehension of 
 what ensued, that there, Chase, the champion of the radi- 
 cal anti-slavery men on the one extreme, and Seward, the 
 representative of the conservative element in the party on 
 the other, were at variance more than ever. 
 
 In their official intercourse, it is true, these two min- 
 isters maintained a proper decorum. They even cooper- 
 ated, now and then, amicably together ; but in private, 
 the Secretary of the Treasury pursued his more favored 
 colleague with criticisms, no less censorious than those he 
 so freely visited on the President. To such a degree did 
 Chase carry this faultfinding, that he could not even with- 
 hold a comparatively mild expression of it from Seward's 
 partner and intimate friend, Thurlow Weed. "I told 
 him," records Mr. Chase in his diary for September 15, 
 1862, " I did not doubt Mr. Seward's fidelity to his ideas 
 of progress, amelioration, and freedom ; but that I thought 
 he adhered too tenaciously to men who proved themselves 
 unworthy and dangerous, such as McClellan ; that he
 
 1 88 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 resisted too persistently decided measures ; that his influ- 
 ence encouraged the irresolution and inaction of the Presi- 
 dent in respect to men and measures, although personally 
 he was as decided as anybody in favor of vigorous prose- 
 cution of the war, and as active as anybody in concert- 
 ing plans of action against the rebels." ffl These charges, 
 with others equally telling, constituted the basis of a 
 widespread hostility to the Secretary of State ; for Chase's 
 blows against that officer, from within the cabinet, had 
 evoked more than an echo outside. Indeed, almost every 
 important occurrence appears to have multiplied Seward's 
 enemies. Assuming him to be the controlling factor of 
 the administration, people held him responsible how 
 mistakenly has been shown elsewhere for whatever dis- 
 pleased them in its policy. The government's unpopular 
 measures, no less than its errors and mishaps, its disasters 
 in the field and reverses at the polls, were laid chiefly at 
 his door. So strong, in fact, ran the current of condem- 
 nation, through the summer and autumn of 1862, that 
 it bade fair to sweep him out of the cabinet. Toward 
 this end the anti-slavery or Chase wing of the Republican 
 Party, encouraged, if not actually inspired, by the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury, especially labored. These Radicals 
 were ii'ritated out of all patience by the slow-paced con- 
 servatism which held the preservation of the Union above 
 the abolition of slavery ; yet they might have taken pains 
 to look higher than the State Department for the source 
 of their disappointment, had not Mr. Seward so unre- 
 servedly identified himself with the President's policy 
 that it was generally ascribed to him. Some of the Secre- 
 tary's utterances, moreover, gave grave offence to the anti- 
 slavery leaders. They determined that nothing short of 
 his removal from the cabinet would salve their wounded 
 dignity, and, at the same time, save their cause, by afford- 
 ing Chase the opportunity of succeeding to the influence 
 over Lincoln which Seward was supposed to be exerting. 
 Accordingly, one evening shortly after the third ses-
 
 sion of the Thirty-seventh Congress had begun, a secret 
 caucus of Republican Senators, convened for the purpose, 
 adopted by a small majority a resolution demanding that 
 the President dismiss Mr. Sewavd. Upon second thought, 
 with a view, perhaps, of securing a larger vote, or of 
 rendering less offensive this unprecedented intrusion on 
 Executive authority, a substitute requesting the recon- 
 struction of the cabinet was proposed, and almost unani- 
 mously carried. In fact, what had been a considerable 
 minority dwindled to one dissenting voice that of Pres- 
 ton King, Senator from New York. He hurried from the 
 meeting to inform Seward, who as promptly, with char- 
 acteristic tact, sent the President his resignation. 
 
 " What does this mean ? " asked Mr. Lincoln in pained 
 surprise, as he read the note ; and Senator King, enter- 
 ing at the moment, answered the question. It must have 
 seemed to the sorely tried President as if his supporters 
 vied with his opponents to complicate his difficulties. He 
 called upon Seward later in the evening to talk the matter 
 over, and in the course of the discussion the Secretary 
 remarked how relieved he would feel to be freed from 
 official cares. "Ah yes, Governor," was the rejoinder, 
 " that will do very well for you ; but I am like the starling 
 in Sterne's story, * I can't get out.' " M And he deter- 
 mined that Seward should not "get out" either. On the 
 following morning a formidable committee of nine Sen- 
 ators Collamer, Sumner, Fessenden, Wade, Trumbull, 
 Grimes, Harris, Howard, and Pomeroy waited upon the 
 President with the resolutions of the caucus. In the con- 
 ference that ensued, the Secretary of State was denounced 
 by most of the delegation as the evil genius of the gov- 
 ernment, and Mr. Lincoln was urged to have done with 
 him. " While they seemed to believe in my honesty," said 
 the President, describing the interview to the cabinet 
 after his homely fashion, "they also appeared to think 
 that when I had in me any good purpose or intention 
 Seward contrived to suck it out of me unperceived." 40
 
 1 90 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Having given the Senators no encouragement beyond 
 an invitation to return in the evening, Mr. Lincoln sum- 
 moned his advisers, narrated what had happened, and 
 made a similar appointment svith them. The situation 
 was critical. To antagonize the senatorial leaders of his 
 party in the darkest days of the war by refusing to make 
 the change they desired, might deprive the President of 
 cooperation that was vital to the success of his admin- 
 istration. To comply with their request, on the other 
 hand, would cost him not only the services of a valued 
 minister, but the support of that minister's followers as 
 well. In either event, to use a Liucolnian phrase, " the 
 thing would all have slumped over one way." The dis- 
 missal of Seward, under the circumstances, would involve, 
 moreover, a shameful surrender to Chase, and what was 
 of greater importance than all else, a surrender of Ex- 
 ecutive power and prerogative at the summons of a legis- 
 lative cabal, acting without even the semblance of consti- 
 tutional authority. Here was a supreme test of Lincoln's 
 mastership. In the very nature of the case, he could seek 
 no counsel among his customary advisers. The crisis had 
 to be met, at least as far as tactics went, single-handed ; 
 and that somehow reminds us again of Lincoln's early 
 da} r s. It is a far cry from the White House back to 
 Clary's Grove ; yet, as the representatives of the caucus 
 file into the Executive Mansion for their evening confer- 
 ence, we recall a scene in the backwoods settlement, a 
 melee of men, an angry onset, and a cool, muscular young 
 fellow who stands braced against a wall to receive their 
 combined attack. 
 
 When the Senators entered the President's room, they 
 were taken aback at finding all the members of the cab- 
 inet, except Mr. Seward, seated around their chief ; and 
 the cabinet, it must be said, were as greatly surprised 
 over the meeting as the committee. Thus confronted, the 
 two parties, with Lincoln acting as a sort of moderator, 
 entered upon a full and free discussion. The Senators
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 191 
 
 made a brisk attack upon the administration, and upon 
 the Secretary of State, in particular ; the President's 
 counselors defended themselves, as well as their absent 
 associate, with spirit. The attitude of the Secretaries was 
 indicated by Mr. Stanton. " This cabinet, gentlemen," 
 said he, " is like yonder window. Suppose you allowed 
 it to be understood that passers-by might knock out one 
 pane of glass, just one at a time, how long do you 
 think any panes would be left in it?" 41 Seward's cause 
 had become, perforce, that of his colleagues. They were 
 obliged, by the logic of events, to stand as a unit between 
 him and his assailants. Even Chase, brought to bay, was 
 forced into turning, after a fashion, against the men who 
 had come to strengthen his position. He found himself 
 in a predicament. To agree with the Senators, in their 
 attacks upon Seward or the administration, though he had 
 made the identical criticisms to them and to others, was, 
 in that presence, obviously out of the question. To take 
 ground effectively against these charges, without stultify- 
 ing himself, was, under existing conditions, equally impos- 
 sible. So he joined with his fellow ministers, as best he 
 could, protesting angrily, the while, against his dilemma, 
 and expressing regret that he had come. The rest of the 
 meeting, however, talked itself frankly into a better under- 
 standing. Before it was dissolved, late in the night, Lin- 
 coln asked the committee : 
 
 "Do you gentlemen still think Seward ought to be 
 excused?" 
 
 On a formal vote, but four of the eight Senators present 
 Wade was absent answered, "Yes." 42 As the vis- 
 itors were leaving, one of them, unable to conceal his 
 chagrin at Chase's apparent double-dealing, said privately 
 to the President, yet with considerable feeling, that the 
 Secretary of the Treasury had spoken in a different tone 
 elsewhere. 43 This Lincoln knew well enough. He also 
 knew what was perhaps beginning to dawn on the minds 
 of the astute statesmen who had participated in this
 
 1 92 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 remarkable controversy his trap had been sprung, and 
 Chase was fairly caught. 
 
 Overnight reflection revealed to the Secretary of the 
 Treasury how untenable his position had become. His 
 own withdrawal from the cabinet was apparently the sole 
 retreat open to his ruffled dignity. So, the next morning, 
 when the President and some of his advisers met for 
 further consultation, Mr. Chase offered his resignation. 
 He held the paper in his hand, but made no motion to 
 deliver it. Whereupon Mr. Lincoln, we are told, "stepped 
 forward and took it with an alacrity that surprised and, 
 it must be said, disappointed Mr. Chase." 44 Then the 
 meeting was at once dismissed. There was no further 
 need of discussion. From that moment the President 
 saw his way clear before him. With the resignations of 
 the rival leaders in his. hands, he was master of the situ- 
 ation. He might retain them both, by treating their with- 
 drawal as a joint affair, and making the readmission of 
 the one dependent upon that of the other ; or, if the cab- 
 inet was to be reconstructed after all, he would be free, 
 with both of them out, to make such appointments as 
 should still preserve the balance between their respective 
 factions. " Yes, Judge," said Lincoln to Senator Harris, 
 who came upon him as he stood with Chase's letter in 
 his grasp, " I can ride on now, I 've got a pumpkin in 
 each end of my bag." ^ Having delivered himself of this 
 bucolic figure, so nicely expressive of the turn that affairs 
 had taken, the President sent each of the Secretaries a 
 note, addressed to them jointly, declining to accept their 
 resignations. " After most anxious consideration," he 
 wrote, " my deliberate judgment is that the public inter 
 est does not admit of it. I therefore have to request that 
 you will resume the duties of your departments respec- 
 tively." * Seward, promptly taking his cue, answered the 
 following morning : 
 
 " I have cheerfully resumed the functions of this depart- 
 ment in obedience to your command."
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 193 
 
 Chase's lines were not so simple. Realizing that he had 
 blundered into a false exit, when last on the scene, he 
 wrote : 
 
 " Will you allow me to say that something you said or 
 looked, when I handed you my resignation this morning, 
 made on my mind the impression that having received 
 the resignations both of Governor Seward and myself, you 
 could relieve yourself from trouble by declining to accept 
 either, and that this feeling was one of gratification. . . . 
 I could not, if I would, conceal from myself that recent 
 events have too rudely jostled the unity of your cabinet, 
 and disclosed an opinion too deeply seated, and too gen- 
 erally received in Congress and in the country, to be 
 safely disregarded, that the concord in judgment and 
 action, essential to successful administration, does not 
 prevail among its members. ... A resignation is a grave 
 act never performed by a right-minded man without 
 forethought or with reserve. I tendered mine from a 
 sense of duty to the country, to you, and to myself ; and 
 I tendered it to be accepted. So did, as you have been 
 fully assured, Mr. Seward tender his. I trust, therefore, 
 that you will regard yourself as completely relieved from 
 all personal considerations. It is my honest conviction 
 that we can both better serve you and the country at this 
 time as private citizens than in your cabinet." 47 
 
 Before the letter could be despatched, word came to 
 the writer from Seward that he had returned to his post. 
 This completely disarmed Chase. He would have been 
 pleased at the removal of the Secretary of State, or even 
 at the retirement of Seward and himself; but that his 
 rival should be restored to power, while he returned to 
 private life, was hardly to his taste. After another day 
 of perplexity, Chase wrote to the President, also with- 
 drawing his resignation. He enclosed the unsent letter, 
 however, and accompanied his reluctant surrender with 
 reservations that boded no good to the future peace of the 
 administration. Here the episode closed, but it presents a
 
 i 9 4 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 dramatic coincidence that should not be overlooked. The 
 same sagacity, adroitness, and mastery over men with 
 which Lincoln had covered Chase's entrance into the cab- 
 inet, under a storm of opposition from Seward's friends, 
 had been as successfully employed two years later to pro- 
 tect Seward, in his turn, against the assaults of Chase's 
 followers, reenforced though they were by a senatorial 
 caucus of exceptional influence. Both the great ones had 
 thus found shelter from each other, under the Presi- 
 dent's ample shield. Yet the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 strange to say, still failed to discern what had become so 
 evident to his colleague of the State Department, that 
 the man who could do such things was their superior in 
 fact, no less than in station. 
 
 Ere the winter had elapsed, Mr. Chase again measured 
 his strength against that of the President. The occasion 
 arose out of the rejection, by the Senate, of a treasury 
 nomination. Mark Howard, selected by the head of the 
 department to be a Collector of Internal Revenue for the 
 First District of Connecticut, had, through the opposition 
 of Senator Dixon from that State, failed of confirmation. 
 In somewhat of a rage, Mr. Chase urged Mr. Lincoln to 
 renominate his candidate, who, by the way, was giving 
 satisfaction under a temporary appointment, or at least, 
 to await the Secretary's selection of an equally suitable 
 person ; but under no circumstances to appoint any one 
 recommended by the offending Senator. That gentleman, 
 be it said, had acted entirely within his rights in securing 
 Howard's rejection ; and Mr. Lincoln had no intention 
 of disciplining him for so doing. Nor was the President 
 prepared, however much he may have agreed with his 
 Secretary in the general theory of appointments, to dis- 
 regard the wishes of influential legislators. He wrote to 
 Mr. Chase : 
 
 " After much reflection, and with a good deal of pain 
 that it is adverse to your wish, I have concluded that it 
 is not best to renominate Mr. Howard for Collector of
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 195 
 
 Internal Revenue, at Hartford, Connecticut. Senator 
 Dixon, residing at Hartford, and Mr. Loomis, Represent- 
 ative of the district, join in recommending Edward Good- 
 man for the place ; and, so far, no one has presented a 
 different name. I will thank you, therefore, to send me 
 a nomination, at once, for Mr. Goodman." ** 
 
 Upon receipt of the letter, Secretary Chase penned this 
 curt reply : 
 
 " Finding myself unable to approve the manner in 
 which selections for appointment to important trusts in 
 this department have been recently made, and being 
 unwilling to remain responsible for its administration, 
 under existing circumstances, I respectfully resign the 
 office of Secretary of the Treasury." * 9 
 
 But before the message was sent, Senator Dixon called 
 at the Treasury Department. He was in so conciliatory a 
 mood that a compromise was easily effected. Both parties 
 agreed to submit the matter at issue to the President for 
 his further consideration, with the understanding that 
 Chase should not insist on the renomination of Howard, 
 while Dixon and Loomis should claim no recognition in 
 the making of a substitute appointment. 50 The Secretary, 
 laying his resignation aside, accordingly wrote Mr. Lin- 
 coln the purport of the interview, instead. So nettled was 
 he, however, at the President's willingness to act counter 
 to his wishes that he could not forbear, though the occa- 
 sion had passed, to close the letter with this ultimatum : 
 
 "My only object and I think you so understand it 
 is to secure fit men for responsible places, without 
 admitting the rights of Senators or Representatives to 
 control appointments, for which the President and the 
 Secretary, as his presumed adviser, must be responsible. 
 Unless this principle can be practically established, I feel 
 that I cannot be useful to you or the country in my pre- 
 sent position." 51 
 
 The covert threat of resignation was apparently un- 
 heeded by Mr. Lincoln. It was enough for him that the
 
 196 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 quarrel, in which he had no personal interest, had been 
 settled, without alienating either the Secretary or the 
 Senator. As to the rest, a favorite maxim guided his 
 course he never crossed Fox River until he reached 
 there. 
 
 It might seemingly have been better for all concerned 
 had the President departed, in this instance, from his prac- 
 tice, sufficiently to arrive at an understanding with Mr. 
 Chase on the issue thus raised. Yet a glance reveals how 
 impracticable such a step would have been. The Secretary 
 of the Treasury took the ground, not without some show 
 of justice, that, as he was held responsible for so impor- 
 tant a department, all appointments to its numerous places 
 of trust, no less than removals therefrom, should be under 
 his sole control. He insisted, in short, that his substan- 
 tially unrestricted sway over financial matters ought to 
 include the rich patronage of the office, as well. This 
 claim Mr. Lincoln allowed to an unusual degree. Indeed, 
 so often did he defer to Mr. Chase's desires that the Sec- 
 retary became incapable of recognizing a reasonable ex- 
 ception. Consequently when, on rare occasions, personal 
 or political considerations moved the President to insist 
 on nominations or dismissals contrary to the minister's 
 wishes, that gentleman's unruly temper made things as 
 disagreeable as circumstances allowed. At such times 
 Lincoln sought to attain his ends with the least possible 
 friction. Badgered by office-seekers as no American Ex- 
 ecutive had been before him ; holding the balance between 
 conflicting sections of a discordant party, largely by means 
 of his appointments, and dependent upon the good-will of 
 every element in that party, as only a President can be 
 during a great civil war, he would not in fact, could 
 not surrender to Chase the entire patronage of the 
 Treasury, which, it may be added, was then more exten- 
 sive, perhaps, than that of all the other civil departments 
 combined. On the other hand, Mr. Lincoln, both on 
 account of this Secretary's value personally, and because
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 197 
 
 of the powerful wing that he represented, wished to avoid 
 a rupture. So the man iti the Treasury, usually, had his 
 way with the offices ; the man in the White House, now 
 and then, had his. In either event, the question of abso- 
 lute control over appointments lay flickering between 
 them, ready, at the slightest poke among the smouldering 
 embers, to leap into flame again. 
 
 The Howard incident had hardly closed, when a new 
 squabble about patronage arose. Deeming it necessary to 
 make sweeping changes in his department at San Fran- 
 cisco, Mr. Chase invited the three California Congress- 
 men, Messrs. Low, Sargent, and Phelps, to his office, one 
 evening, and informed them of the fact. He declared 
 his determination to remove the leading treasury officers 
 and to supply their places with men whose names he 
 announced. His visitors, taken by surprise and believing 
 his purpose to be irrevocable, offered no objections; but, 
 as they left the building, they gave free vent to their 
 anger. A few days thereafter, these Representatives, 
 Congress having adjourned, left for home by way of New 
 York. Upon their arrival at the metropolis, Mr. Phelps 
 took passage for San Francisco, while his colleagues 
 tarried in the city. Before they were ready to sail, a de- 
 spatch from Mr. Lincoln recalled them to Washington. 
 He had just learned, to his surprise and vexation, how 
 summarily Mr. Chase was about to fill the most impor- 
 tant Federal offices on the Pacific coast. For not only 
 had the members of Congress from that section, as we 
 have seen, been practically ignored by a mere pretence at 
 consultation, but the President, himself, had also been 
 kept in the dark. Upon the return of Messrs. Low and 
 Sargent, the Secretary's plans were speedily revised. It 
 was too late, in the absence of Mr. Phelps, to consider 
 the appointments as Mr. Lincoln had intended ; but he 
 broke Chase's carefully constructed slate, and that stiff- 
 necked minister's feelings, as the President afterwards 
 said, were " exceedingly hurt " in the process.
 
 198 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Shortly after the California affair, another clash of 
 authority arose between Lincoln and Chase, over a trea- 
 sury office on the Pacific coast. Victor Smith, a friend of 
 the Secretary, had, at his request, been made Collector of 
 Customs in the Puget Sound District. The appointee was 
 eccentric, and deft, to a notable degree, in the gentle art 
 of making enemies. So wide-spread grew his unpopularity 
 that Congressmen, Federal officers, and private citizens of 
 influence united in demanding his removal. Not content 
 with the letters and petitions which they had poured into 
 Washington, the people, deeply aroused, sent a deputation 
 all the way from Puget Sound a formidable journey 
 in 1863 with charges against Smith. The accusations 
 were referred by the President, for investigation, to the 
 Secretary of the Treasury, who, throughout the clamor, 
 had stood stoutly by his friend. But before Mr. Chase 
 had time for a report, he was called away from the Capital, 
 on business. During his somewhat protracted absence, the 
 outcry from the scene of the trouble became well-nigh 
 intolerable ; and Mr. Lincoln was forced to the conclu- 
 sion that the public interests required Smith's immedi- 
 ate dismissal. Steps in this direction had already been 
 taken, when Mr. Chase returned. He found that a note 
 had been received at the department, from the President, 
 ordering a Collector's commission for Henry Clay Wilson, 
 as Smith's successor. The man so appointed, however, had 
 recently died. As soon as Mr. Lincoln discovered the 
 fact, he wrote to Mr. Chase, recalling the order and 
 directing a commission to be made out for Frederick A. 
 
 o 
 
 Wilson, instead. Accompanying the first formal message 
 was a private letter from the President, which read : 
 
 " I address this to you personally rather than officially, 
 because of the nature of the case. My mind is made up 
 to remove Victor Smith as Collector of the Customs at the 
 Puget Sound District. Yet in doing this I do not decide 
 that the charges against him are true. I only decide that 
 the degree of dissatisfaction with him there is too great
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 199 
 
 for him to be retained. But I believe he is your personal 
 acquaintance and friend, and if you desire it I will try to 
 find some other place for him." 52 
 
 Mr. Chase felt that both he and his Collector had been 
 grievously wronged. " I had not thought it possible," he 
 replied, " that you would remove an officer of my depart- 
 ment without awaiting the result, although somewhat 
 delayed, of an investigation, directed by yourself; and 
 appoint a successor, for whose action I must be largely 
 responsible, without even consulting me on the subject." 
 He restated, at some length, what he deemed to be his 
 rights in such matters, and concluded with : 
 
 " The blank commission which you direct me to send 
 you is inclosed ; for to obey your directions, so long as I 
 shall hold office under you, is my duty. It is inclosed, 
 however, with my most respectful protest against the 
 precedent, and with the assurance that if you find any- 
 thing in my views to which your own sense of duty will 
 not permit you to assent, I will unhesitatingly relieve you 
 from all embarrassment, so far as I am concerned, by 
 tendering you my resignation." B 
 
 Here was a new coil for the weary President to unravel. 
 Smith had to go, even though he had become " so inter- 
 twined," to use his own high-sounding words, " in the 
 fibers of the government" that his removal from office 
 was " an impossibility." M At the same time, Lincoln could 
 not afford to let the little Collector carry the big Secretary 
 of the Treasury out with him. So the President, order- 
 ing his carriage, drove to Chase's house. What followed 
 between the two men we will let Lincoln himself relate, 
 as he once did to an acquaintance : 
 
 "I went directly up to him with the resignation in 
 my hand, and, putting my arm around his neck, said to 
 him, ' Chase, here is a paper with which I wish to have 
 nothing to do ; take it back and be reasonable.' I then 
 explained to him what had occurred while he was away. 
 I told him that the man whom I had appointed happened
 
 200 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 to have been dead several weeks ; that I could n't replace 
 the person whom I had removed, that was impossible, 
 
 but that I would appoint any one else whom he should 
 select for the place. 55 It was difficult to bring him to 
 terms. I had to plead with him a long time, but I 
 finally succeeded, and heard nothing more of that resig- 
 nation." 56 
 
 A few days thereafter, Mr. Chase found a satisfactory 
 candidate, whom Mr. Lincoln promptly appointed. 
 
 Meanwhile, a customs collectorship of more moment 
 
 in fact, the most important on the list was hatching 
 trouble between the President and his Secretary of the 
 Treasury. They found in Hiram Barney, Collector of the 
 Port of New York, a veritable germ of irritation. He was 
 one of Chase's most valued supporters. As a political 
 lieutenant, Barney had, in years gone by, won the Radical 
 leader's good-will ; as a friend, he had by his private kind- 
 nesses laid that gentleman, more recently, under heavy and 
 somewhat peculiar obligations. Mr. Chase was therefore 
 highly gratified when, in the spring of 1861, the President, 
 who knew and liked Mr. Barney, appointed him, largely if 
 not entirely of his own accord, to the management of the 
 New York Custom House. This post, beset with difficul- 
 ties under the best of conditions, was soon rendered par- 
 ticularly trying by conflicts between the opposing Repub- 
 lican factions. Conservatives accused Barney of running 
 the Custom House in the interests of the anti-slavery 
 men ; while Radicals found fault with him for not using 
 his patronage more freely than he did to strengthen the 
 Chase element. Between these two fires the Collector's 
 health became impaired. In the autumn of 1863, he asked 
 to be relieved from a thankless position ; but neither Lin- 
 coln nor Chase would hear of his retirement. As the time, 
 however, for the next presidential canvass drew near, the 
 attacks upon him grew fiercer than ever. They presently 
 developed into charges of corruption and incompetency, 
 which a Congressional Committee undertook to investi-
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 201 
 
 gate. 57 Meanwhile Mr. Lincoln had come to the conclu- 
 sion that both Mr. Barney and the public service might 
 benefit if the resignation, rejected a few months before, 
 were revived and accepted. He said so to Mr. Chase, and 
 called upon him for his cooperation ; but the Secretary 
 answered with the warmth that had become habitual on 
 such occasions : 
 
 " I am to-day fifty-six years old. I have never con- 
 sciously and deliberately injured one fellow man. It is 
 too late for me to begin by sacrificing to clamor the reputa- 
 tion of a man whom I have known for more than twenty 
 years, and whose repute for honesty has been all that time 
 unsullied. I shall not recommend the removal of Mr. 
 Barney, except upon such show of misconduct, or incapa- 
 city, as makes it my duty to do so. In such a case I shall 
 not shrink from my duty. I pretend no indifference to 
 the consequences, personal to myself, which you refer to 
 as likely to follow this avowal on my part. But the ap- 
 proval of my own conscience is dearer to me than politi- 
 cal position, and I shall cheerfully sacrifice the latter to 
 preserve the former." M 
 
 Four weeks later, Lincoln, disturbed by the misbehavior 
 of an officer high in the Collector's favor, again suggested 
 the wisdom of Barney's retirement from the Custom 
 House. Assuring both the Secretary and the Collector 
 of his continued confidence in the latter, he offered Mr. 
 Barney the mission to Portugal. 59 But the Collector de- 
 clined to withdraw voluntarily, while under fire ; and hia 
 friend at the head of the department sustained him in this 
 position. Chase "was very angry," said the President, 
 describing the interview which followed, " and he told me 
 that the day that Mr. Barney left the New York Custom 
 House, with or without his own consent, he, Chase, would 
 withdraw from the Secretaryship of the Treasury. Well, 
 I backed down again." 60 There the matter rested, pend- 
 ing the investigation. Before the committee had concluded 
 its labors, however, Mr. Lincoln returned to the charge.
 
 202 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Nothing, indeed, had been disclosed to Mr. Barney's per- 
 sonal dishonor ; yet the irregular and, in some instances, 
 corrupt practices traced to some of his subordinates, to- 
 gether with a steadily growing dissatisfaction over his 
 management, confirmed the President's purpose to make 
 a change in the office. Mr. Chase again protested, but 
 less vehemently than before ; and while the question was 
 still, in a sense, unsettled, came the succession of events 
 that put an end to the jangling relations between Lincoln 
 and his refractory minister. 
 
 Mr. Chase's persistent hostility toward the chief who 
 was entitled to his support should, before we go further, be 
 traced back to its one overmastering impulse his own 
 ambition to become President. Had all the other causes 
 of irritation been removed, this aim would still have left 
 him in an attitude of uncompromising antagonism. In 
 fact, it alone accounts for whatever in the man's conduct 
 might otherwise be inexplicable. 
 
 " Such men as he be never at heart's ease, 
 Whiles they behold a greater than themselves." 
 
 An aspirant for the nomination in 1856, and again in 
 1860, Chase had entered Mr. Lincoln's cabinet with the 
 fixed idea that he, not the President, ought to be the stand- 
 ard-bearer of their party in 1864. It is said that a man 
 once bitten with desire for our highest office is never 
 if it remain ungratified wholly healed. This craving, 
 when thwarted, appears to gnaw like the worm which 
 dieth not, and to burn like the fire which is not quenched. 
 Chase's attack of " the White House fever," as Lincoln 
 in speaking of him called it, raged until 1872 within a 
 year or so of his death ; but at no time was it so acute 
 -s during these cabinet days. His course in seeking to 
 supplant Mr. Lincoln while a member of the President's 
 official household has been severely commented on, and 
 not without reason. Granting his fitness for the place to 
 which he aspired, as well as the validity of his claim to 
 the highest rewards within the gift of his party, and dis-
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 203 
 
 regarding all questions concerning his personal disloyalty, 
 we cannot overlook the impropriety which arose the mo- 
 ment he gave free range to an ambition, so dependent for 
 its success on the reverses of the very administration that 
 he was in duty bound to sustain with all his strength. 
 " A man may be either a Minister or an agitator," said 
 Lord Palmerston concerning a restlessly ambitious mem- 
 ber of his cabinet ; and even Chase's genius, as has been 
 seen, failed to carry him with credit through the anom- 
 alous situations that resulted from his attempt to be both, 
 at the same time. Nor could his ordinarily well-poised 
 sense of justice deter him from the unfair criticism and 
 factious opposition into which he allowed himself to be 
 betrayed by his rivalry of the President. 61 
 
 Mr. Chase began his canvass for the nomination betimes. 
 He scattered the seeds of his discontent with Mr. Lincoln 
 broadcast. Indeed, the letters that have supplied us with 
 instances of the Secretary's hostility constituted but a 
 small part of the correspondence by which he sought at 
 once to blight the President's prospects, and to bring his 
 own to fruition. He made it a point to cultivate cordial 
 relations with generals and politicians who had, for one 
 reason or another, become unfriendly to Mr. Lincoln ; 
 and, what is more reprehensible still, he did not hesitate 
 to fan the flames of their resentment. That such conduct 
 was "incompatible" to use one of Chase's own phrases 
 " with perfect honor and good faith," appears never to 
 have entered his mind. Nor did he see the inconsistencies 
 into which he was carried by his almost childish eager- 
 ness. Declaring his affection for the President, he exerted 
 himself, as far as his dignity permitted, to compass that 
 leader's political overthrow ; and affirming his indifference 
 to the highest office, he pushed his chances for it through 
 every avenue not barred by his own peculiar code of 
 public ethics. He even availed himself of the prevalent 
 prejudice against reelecting a President ; for, since Jack- 
 son occupied the White House, no man had been chosen
 
 204 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 to a second term. As early as the autumn of 1863, Chase 
 wrote to his son-in-law, ex-Governor Sprague : 
 
 " If I were controlled by merely personal sentiments, I 
 should prefer the reelection of Mr. Lincoln to that of any 
 other man. But I doubt the expediency of reflecting any- 
 body, and I think a man of different qualities from those 
 the President has will be needed for the next four years." m 
 
 The writer it is perhaps unnecessary to add be- 
 lieved himself endowed with all the gifts in which he 
 fancied the Executive to be lacking. 
 
 Despite his Secretary's unfavorable opinion, Lincoln 
 ardently desired a reelection. Aside from his own ambi- 
 tion, which alone was keen enough to stimulate him in 
 that direction, it was clearly his duty to do what with pro- 
 priety he might toward remaining at the head of affairs. 
 How long the life-and-death struggle for the Union 
 would last, or with what result, no man could, in 1863, 
 foresee. Under the most favorable conditions, part, if not 
 all, of another term might be required for bringing the 
 war to a triumphant close, and restoring the country to 
 its former prosperity. The hope of seeing his efforts thus 
 crowned had sustained the President's steps in the thorny 
 path over which he was even then leading the nation. To 
 be deprived of his command halfway, with the goal per- 
 haps in sight, would have been a disappointment, indeed. 
 He deemed himself, moreover, better fitted than any other 
 man Mr. Chase to the contrary, notwithstanding for 
 the completion of what he had begun. Discussing the mat- 
 ter with a friend, he said, in one of his favorite figures : 
 
 " I am only the people's attorney in this great affair. I 
 am trying to do the best I can for my client the coun- 
 try. But if the people desire to change their attorney, it 
 is not for me to resist or complain. Nevertheless, between 
 you and me, I think the change would be impolitic, who- 
 ever might be substituted for the present counsel." w 
 
 On another occasion, he expressed this opinion in the 
 oft-quoted apothegm :
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 205 
 
 "I don't believe it is wise to swap horses while crossing 
 a stream." 64 
 
 Lincoln's confidence in the wisdom of his reelection 
 was at first not generally shared by leading members of 
 his own party. Some, like Chase, thought him unfit for 
 the office. In this " fellow of infinite jest," with his easy- 
 going moods, his seeming lack of executive talents, and 
 his apparent incapacity to grasp the momentous problems 
 of the war, they failed to discern 
 
 "The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man" 
 
 that the whole world, wise after the event, now knows him 
 to have been. Others, playing politics with the very life 
 of the nation at stake, insisted on forcing out of the gatne 
 a President who, after a masterful fashion of his own, 
 had brushed their hands aside in filling this office or 
 adopting that policy. Here, surely, was not an encourag- 
 ing outlook for a renomination. "Of the more earnest 
 and thoroughgoing Republicans in both Houses of Con- 
 gress," writes a member, "probably not one hi ten really 
 favored it." ^ The spirit of faction, too, xvas bitter, even 
 for those overwrought days. What might be called the 
 Radical Anti-Slavery wing of the party at least, certain 
 politicians and editors who believed themselves to repre- 
 sent that wing cried aloud against the renomination. 
 Lincoln's cautious, conservative methods, particularly his 
 course in subordinating the slavery question to whatever 
 concerned the preservation of the Union, had aroused 
 their vigorous opposition. They demanded a candidate 
 who would push the war more vigorously, perhaps more 
 sternly, in this, as well as other directions ; and they 
 declared Mr. Chase to be that man. Our Secretary met 
 them coyly halfway. Hoping to combine in his favor 
 all these elements of opposition to the President, he 
 permitted a committee of Senators, Congressmen, and 
 prominent citizens to enter upon a formal canvass for 
 his nomination.
 
 206 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 The movement in behalf of Chase was headed by Sena- 
 tor Samuel C. Pomeroy of Kansas, who presently issued 
 the secret circular that is known in history by his name. 68 
 This document though Chase had no hand in it was 
 entirely in his vein. It declared that the reelection of 
 Lincoln was "practically impossible" ; that "the cause of 
 human liberty and the dignity of the nation" suffered 
 from his "tendency toward compromises and temporary 
 expedients " ; that " the application of the one-term prin- 
 ciple" was essential to the safety of our institutions ; that 
 in the Hon. Salmon P. Chase were to be found "more 
 of the qualities needed in a President, during the next 
 four years," than were "combined in any other available 
 candidate" ; and that all those "in favor of the speedy re- 
 storation of the Union, on the basis of universal freedom," 
 should at once form local organizations to promote his 
 nomination. Many copies of the circular were sent out 
 by mail. They were marked " Confidential," it is true, but 
 before long they found their way into the newspapers, 
 much to Mr. Chase's embarrassment. He thereupon, at 
 once, wrote to the President, disavowing any knowledge 
 of the circular, before its appearance in the public prints, 
 but admitting his connection, as a candidate, with the 
 Pomeroy Committee. "If there is anything," he added, 
 "in my action or position which, in your judgment, will 
 prejudice the public interest under my charge, I beg you 
 to say so. I do not wish to administer the Treasury 
 Department one day without your entire confidence. For 
 yourself I cherish sincere respect and esteem ; and, permit 
 me to add, affection. Differences of opinion as to admin- 
 istrative action have not changed these sentiments ; nor 
 have they been changed by assaults upon me by persons 
 who profess themselves the special representatives of your 
 views and policy. You are not responsible for acts not 
 your own ; nor will you hold me responsible except for 
 what I do or say myself." OT 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, with characteristic deliberation, delayed
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 207 
 
 his answer a week. Then he wrote and the letter is 
 worth quoting almost entire : 
 
 " I was not shocked or surprised by the appearance of 
 the letter, because I had had knowledge of Mr. Pomeroy's 
 committee, and of secret issues which, I supposed, came 
 from it, and of secret agents who, I supposed, were sent 
 out by it, for several weeks. I have known just as little 
 of these things as my friends have allowed me to know. 
 They bring the documents to me, but I do not read them ; 
 they tell me what they think fit to tell me, but I do not 
 inquire for more. I fully concur with you that neither of 
 us can be justly held responsible for what our respective 
 friends may do without our instigation or countenance ; 
 and I assure you, as you have assured me, that no assault 
 has been made upon you by my instigation, or with my 
 countenance. Whether you shall remain at the head of 
 the Treasury Department is a question which I will not 
 allow myself to consider from any standpoint other than, 
 my judgment of the public service, and, in that view, I 
 do not perceive occasion for a change." w 
 
 This seeming indifference of the President to his Sec- 
 retary's rivalry, as well as Mr. Lincoln's failure to respond 
 to that gentleman's professions of affection, greatly mor- 
 tified Mr. Chase. He had, to be sure, been retained in 
 the cabinet under conditions that would ordinarily have 
 warranted his dismissal ; but the relations between him 
 and his superior were, from that time, less cordial even 
 than ever. 
 
 Lincoln's attitude toward Chase's electioneering pro- 
 jects reveals the President at his full stature. It affords 
 a view of the master, patient in his strength, under 
 circumstances that would have tried the nerves of an 
 Iron Chancellor. When his friends, advising at the very 
 outset against a cabinet made up of convention rivals, 
 predicted that some of the aspirants would continue 
 antagonistic to him, he is reported to have replied : 
 
 " No, gentlemen, the times are too grave and perilous
 
 208 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 for ambitious schemes, and personal rivalries. I need the 
 aid of all of these men. They enjoy the confidence of 
 their several States and sections ; and they will strengthen 
 the administration." w 
 
 To the Secretaries themselves he said : 
 
 " It will require the utmost skill, influence, and sagacity 
 of all of us to save the republic. Let us forget ourselves, 
 and join hands like brothers to save the republic. If we 
 succeed, there will be glory enough for all." 70 
 
 How deaf one of them was to this appeal the President 
 had soon to discover. Yet he allowed neither his disap- 
 pointment nor the resulting perplexities to modify his 
 high opinion of Chase's value in the Treasury Depart- 
 ment. Although Mr. Lincoln, as the minister complained, 
 may never have expressed to him sufficient appreciation 
 of his services, the President certainly did so, without 
 reserve, to others. "Of all the great men I have ever 
 known," said he, after weighing the Secretary's short- 
 comings, " Chase is equal to about one and a half of the 
 best of them." 71 When Lincoln's supporters, moreover, 
 called his attention to the practices by which the man in 
 the Treasury was advancing his political fortunes, at the 
 expense of the administration, 72 he told them : 
 
 " I have determined to shut my eyes, so far as possible, 
 to everything of the sort. Mr. Chase makes a good Sec- 
 retary, and I shall keep him where he is. If he becomes 
 President, all right. I hope we may never have a worse 
 man." 
 
 Then, turning to the less pleasing aspect of the affair, 
 he continued : 
 
 44 1 have observed with regret his plan of strengthening 
 himself. Whenever he sees that an important matter is 
 troubling me, if I am compelled to decide in a way to 
 give offence to a man of some influence, he always ranges 
 himself in opposition to me and persuades the victim that 
 he has been hardly dealt with, and that he would have 
 arranged it very differently. It was so with General
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 209 
 
 mont, with General Hunter when I annulled his hasty 
 proclamation, with General Butler when he was recalled 
 from New Orleans, with these Missouri people when they 
 called the other day. I am entirely indifferent as to his 
 success or failure in these schemes, so long as he does his 
 duty at the head of the Treasury Department." 73 
 
 These citations, furthermore, would be incomplete 
 without one of those homely stories whereby the President 
 was wont to point his remarks. He narrated it to Henry 
 J. Raymond, when the famous editor called his attention 
 to the danger that might arise from Chase's candidacy. 
 " Raymond," said he, " you were brought up on a farm, 
 were you not? Then you know what a 'chin fly' is. My 
 brother and I were once plowing corn on a Kentucky 
 farm, I driving the horse, and he holding the plow. The 
 horse was lazy ; but on one occasion rushed across the 
 field so that I, with my long legs, could scarcely keep 
 pace with him. On reaching the end. of the furrow, I 
 found an enormous 'chin fly' fastened upon him, and 
 I knocked him off. My brother asked me what I did that 
 for. I told him I did n't want the old horse bitten in 
 that way. ' Why,' said my brother, ' that 's all that made 
 him go ! ' Now, if Mr. Chase has a presidential ' chin 
 fly ' biting him, I 'm not going to knock him off, if it will 
 only make his department go." 7i 
 
 Only a true leader of men could so regard the competi- 
 tion of a powerful subordinate. 
 
 It should not be supposed, however, as some eulogists of 
 the President would have us think, that he was too big to 
 regard Chase's pretensions with any uneasiness. Lincoln 
 never underrated an opponent. He owed his victories as 
 much to his careful measurement of the men with whom 
 he had to deal as to any other single thing. The disaffec- 
 tion of many influential Republicans, during 1863, was 
 painfully apparent to him. He realized how strong might 
 be Chase's chances for the nomination, if the Secretary 
 could combine upon himself the support of these leaders
 
 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 and of their constituencies. Somewhat of this apprehen- 
 sion was revealed in the President's discussion of the 
 situation with Colonel A. K. McClure, the Pennsylvania 
 journalist and politician, at the White House, one even- 
 ing, while the Chase canvass was at its height. The 
 Colonel belittled the movement, but failed to imbue Mr. 
 Lincoln with his confidence in the President's renomi- 
 nation. Their talk lasted well into the night. As the 
 visitor, after several futile attempts to take his leave, 
 reached the door, Lincoln called him back and asked, 
 with a twinkle of the eye : 
 
 " By the way, McClure, how would it do if I were to 
 decline Chase ? " 
 
 The Colonel, surprised at the novel suggestion, inquired 
 as to how that could be done. 
 
 " Well, I don't know exactly how it might be done," 
 answered Mr. Lincoln, " but that reminds me of a story 
 of two Democratic candidates for Senator in ' Egypt,' Illi- 
 nois, 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 exas- 
 perated 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 offence ; and from that time on, the campaign pro- 
 gressed without any special display of ill-temper. On elec- 
 tion 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 confidently expected a large majority was 
 finally reported with a majority against him. The disap- 
 pointed candidate expressed great surprise, to which the 
 other candidate answered that he should not be surprised, 
 as he had taken the liberty of declining him in that dis-
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 211 
 
 trict, the evening before the election. He reminded the 
 defeated candidate that he had agreed that either was free 
 to say anything about the other, without offence ; 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 vote of 
 the district was changed, and the declined candidate was 
 thus defeated. I think," concluded Lincoln, with one of 
 his hearty laughs, " I had better decline Chase." ^ 
 
 It was evident to Colonel McClure that the President 
 then seriously considered the question of inducing Chase 
 to decline, and that what he said in jest he meant in sober 
 earnest. 
 
 For some months Lincoln was tmcertain how the defeat 
 of Chase might be accomplished. When the way was not 
 clear before him, he could sit still with better grace 
 than any man that had occupied the presidential chair. 
 Throughout 1863, therefore, he made no public sign. To 
 the surprise of all observers, his ambitious Secretary was 
 suffered to push the work of opposition against him 
 without let or hindrance. By the time Chase formally 
 announced himself to be a candidate, however, in Janu- 
 ary, 1864, Lincoln began to bring his forces into action. 
 " He did this," says the old campaigner last quoted, 
 " with a degree of sagacity and method that would have 
 done credit to the ripest politician of the age." The 
 President's friends in New Hampshire, Chase's native 
 State, led off at their local convention by voting " Abra- 
 ham Lincoln to be the people's choice for reelection." 
 Some weeks thereafter, a Republican caucus of the legis- 
 lature in Ohio, Chase's State by adoption, followed with 
 a similar resolution ; and Rhode Island, where Senator 
 Sprague, Chase's son-in-law, held sway, lost no time in 
 arraying itself on the side of the President. From all 
 quarters, indeed, as the winter advanced, came the call 
 for his renomination. In local committees, Union League 
 clubs, State legislatures, and State conventions, wher-
 
 212 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 ever Republican politicians in close touch with the voters 
 came together, Lincoln was proclaimed to be the party's 
 choice. 78 How much of this was due to a skilful manipu- 
 lation of his supporters, how much to the spontaneous 
 esteem of the people, and how much to a reaction against 
 Pomeroy's ill-advised circular, we may never know. Suf- 
 fice it to say that the season was hardly over before our 
 Secretary found himself swept by the current of Lincoln's 
 popularity into a formal withdrawal from the contest. 
 
 The sincerity of Chase's request 77 " that no further 
 consideration be given " to his name was open to question. 
 One of the Secretary's supporters describes the letter 
 of withdrawal as a " word of declination diplomatically 
 spoken in order to rouse their flagging spirits." 78 And 
 there are indications that some of Chase's adherents, as 
 well as he, himself, still indulged hopes, all his disclaimers 
 to the contrary notwithstanding, of somehow diverting 
 the nomination from Lincoln. Indeed, his comments on 
 the President during the spring of 1864 were especially 
 censorious. It is not surprising, therefore, all things 
 considered, that some of Mr. Lincoln's friends who had 
 become inimical to the Secretary of the Treasury should 
 have regarded him at the time with increased bitterness. 
 Of this hostility the Blairs furnished a notable instance. 
 They had, from almost the beginning of the administra- 
 tion, been at feud with Chase. He was a Radical, they 
 were Conservatives ; he made no secret of how lightly 
 he regarded the President, they held Mr. Lincoln in high 
 esteem ; he strove to discredit and supplant his chief, they 
 were as zealous, though not a whit more tactful, in that 
 chief's support. Montgomery Blair in the cabinet, and 
 General Francis P. Blair, Jr., on the stump or in Con- 
 gress, lost no opportunity for assailing their common 
 enemy. Like their father, Francis Preston Blair, Sr., 
 "Old Hickory's" friend and kitchen counselor, they be- 
 longed to the Jacksonian school of politicians aggres- 
 sive, intense, uncompromising. " The Blairs," said Mont'
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 213 
 
 gomery, " when they go in for a fight go in for a funeral." 
 They undertook, in Chase's case at least, to make the 
 boast good. Young Frank's attacks upon the Secretary 
 from the floor of the House culminated, on April 23, in 
 a speech which assailed him with extraordinary violence. 
 "Nobody is simple enough," said General Blair, "to 
 believe that the distinguished Secretary has really retired 
 from the canvass for the nomination to the presidency, 
 although he has written a letter declining to be a candi- 
 date. That letter was written because the 'strictly pri- 
 vate ' circular of the Pomeroy Committee unearthed his 
 underground and underhand intrigue against the Presi- 
 dent. It was such a disgraceful and disgusting sight to 
 make use of the patronage and power given him by the 
 President, against his chief, that even Chase got ashamed 
 to occupy such a position publicly. For that reason his 
 letter was written. He wanted to get down under the 
 ground and work there in the dark as he is now doing." 
 The speaker accused Mr. Chase of disunion sentiments, 
 reiterated charges that the Secretary of the Treasury was 
 " sacrificing a vast public interest to advance his ambi- 
 tion," and asserted that corruption pervaded the banking 
 as well as the southern trade operations of the finance 
 department. 79 
 
 This speech, whatever may have been its provocation, 
 was in certain particulars nothing short of scurrilous. 
 Upon hearing of it, Chase gave way to what one of his 
 friends termed "Achillean wrath." His fury was due 
 mainly to the fact that directly after it was delivered, 
 seemingly on the very day, indeed, the President had 
 revived Blair's commission as Major-General, and had sent 
 him to the front in command of an army corps. This left 
 no doubt in the Secretary's mind that the assault had 
 been made with Mr. Lincoln's approval. So the inevitable 
 resignation was again to the fore, but wise friends coun- 
 seled delay. Two of them waited upon the President. 
 He expressed his disapproval of the speech in no
 
 214 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 tain language, and emphasized the injustice of holding 
 the Secretary of the Treasury particularly responsible for 
 the trade regulations which had been adopted in cabinet 
 council. As to Blair's commission, he explained that the 
 General had resigned from the army on taking his seat 
 in Congress, with the understanding that the resignation 
 might be withdrawn at his own pleasure, if he should 
 desire to reenter the service. A command had accordingly 
 been secured for Blair, at his request, several weeks 
 before, and it was merely the necessary formality of his 
 reinstatement that had taken place on the day of the 
 unfortunate attack. " Within three hours," added Mr. 
 Lincoln, " I heard that this speech had been made, when 
 I knew that another beehive was kicked over. My first 
 thought was to have canceled the orders, restoring him to 
 the army and assigning him to command. Perhaps this 
 would have been best. On such reflection as I was able 
 to give to the matter, however, I concluded to let them 
 stand. If I was wrong in this, the injury to the service 
 can be set right." 80 With this explanation Mr. Chas* 
 was fain to be content, or at least to seem so; but the 
 barbs of the Blairs still rankled in his heart. That these 
 inveterate enemies, moreover, enjoyed, without apparent 
 diminution, the protection, even the affection, of the Presi- 
 dent, hardly served to improve the Secretary's temper. 
 He looked upon Mr. Lincoln as an accomplice of his 
 traducers, after the fact, and only the unanimous advice 
 of his friends kept him at his post. 81 
 
 Meanwhile, popular sentiment in favor of the Presi* 
 dent's renomination became more and more pronounced. 
 The loyal people of the country understood him better 
 than did the Washington politicians or the single-minded 
 Radical leaders. From all walks of life came demands 
 that he should have another term. Laborers, farmers, 
 mechanics, merchants, and scholars, alike echoed Profes- 
 sor Gray's dictum, " Homely, honest, ungainly Lincoln is 
 the representative man of the country." 8Z As delegation
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 215 
 
 after delegation was instructed in his favor, the Presi- 
 dent's renomiuation appeared to be a foregone conclu- 
 sion ; but the opposition did not entirely abandon the 
 field, so Lincoln kept his eye warily on it. Within two 
 weeks of the date set for the convention, when one of his 
 supporters sought to relieve his anxiety by pointing out 
 that a majority of the delegates were committed to him, 
 he replied : 
 
 " 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." " 
 
 These misgivings were, of course, groundless. Th& 
 Union-Republican National Convention of June 7, 1864, 
 proved to be not at all " for the other fellow." In fact, 
 strenuous efforts to win over a few delegates for Mr. Chase 
 from the almost solid Lincoln column failed. General 
 Grant, it is true, on the roll-call received the 22 votes of 
 the Missouri Radicals, cast under peremptory instruc- 
 tions, but even these were quickly transferred to Mr. 
 Lincoln, in order that he might have the honor of a unan- 
 imous nomination, on the first ballot. 
 
 The President's brilliant victory in the Baltimore Con- 
 vention hardly improved the already sharp-set temper 
 of his finance minister. Chase would not, indeed could 
 not acknowledge a master. He was as ready as ever to 
 try conclusions with Lincoln ; and the occasion, his final 
 one, for we have now reached the last of these remark- 
 able encounters, soon presented itself. Early in June, 
 John J. Cisco, Assistant Treasurer of the United States 
 at New York, proffered his resignation, to take effect at 
 the close of the month. This office was surpassed in im- 
 portance, financially speaking, by that of the Secretary 
 of the Treasury, alone. To appoint a satisfactory suc- 
 cessor accordingly became a matter of weighty consid- 
 eration ; especially because politics, as well as finance, 
 had to be taken into account. So we find Mr. Chase, at
 
 ai 6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 the President's request, consulting on the subject with 
 the New York members of the Upper House, particularly 
 with Senator Edwin D. Morgan, who was regarded as 
 representing, in a way, the commercial interests of the 
 metropolis. The Senator and the Secretary agreed suc- 
 cessively upon three prominent bankers, who each, in 
 turn, declined the office. Thereupon, Mr. Chase decided 
 to name Maunsell B. Field, an Assistant Secretary of the 
 Treasury, who had previously been Mr. Cisco's deputy. 
 This met with Senator Morgan's spirited opposition. He 
 urged that Mr. Field was not competent for the place, 
 and that his appointment would be hurtful to the inter- 
 ests of their party in New York. He presented, at the 
 same time, the names of three highly esteemed citizens, 
 any one of whom the Secretary was assured would be 
 acceptable. But Mi-. Chase could not be moved from 
 his selection. As Field was one of his favorites, all per- 
 sonal objections nettled the Secretary ; and as the office 
 was one involving confidential relations with the head of 
 the department, these efforts to apply outside political 
 requirements were peculiarly offensive to him. Having 
 made sure that Field's nomination would be confirmed by 
 the Senate, Mr. Chase, without further ado, laid it, on 
 June 27, before the President. Mr. Lincoln answered on 
 the following day : 
 
 " I cannot, without much embarrassment, make this 
 appointment, principally because of Senator Morgan's 
 very firm opposition to it." 
 
 The writer referred to the men whose names had been 
 last submitted by the Senator, and closed with : 
 
 " It will really oblige me if you will make choice among 
 these three, or any other man that Senators Morgan and 
 Harris will be satisfied with, and send me a nomination 
 for him." M 
 
 The Secretary of the Treasury, however, was more de- 
 termined than ever to resist what, as in former instances, 
 he deemed to be an encroachment upon his prerogatives.
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 217 
 
 He replied by note, asking for a personal interview. Re- 
 ceiving no answer, he despatched to Mr. Cisco, the same 
 day, an earnest request that the Assistant Treasurer retain 
 his place, for " at least one quarter longer" ; and sent to 
 the President another letter, setting forth his reasons for 
 selecting Mr. Field. To this Lincoln rejoined : 
 
 " When I received your note this forenoon, suggesting 
 a verbal conversation in relation to the appointment of a 
 successor to Mr. Cisco, I hesitated, because the difficulty 
 does not, in the main part, lie within the range of a conver- 
 sation between you and me. As the proverb goes, no man 
 knows so well where the shoe pinches as he who wears it. 
 I do not think Mr. Field a very proper man for the place, 
 but I would trust your judgment and forego this were the 
 greater difficulty out of the way. Much as I personally 
 like Mr. Barney, it has been a great burden to me to re- 
 tain him in his place, when nearly all our friends in New 
 York were directly or indirectly urging his removal. Then 
 the appointment of Judge Hogeboom to be general ap- 
 praiser brought me to, and has ever since kept me at, the 
 verge of open revolt. Now the appointment of Mr. Field 
 would precipitate me in it unless Senator Morgan and 
 those feeling as he does, could be brought to concur in it. 
 Strained as I already am at this point, I do not think I 
 can make this appointment in the direction of still greater 
 strain. The testimonials of Mr. Field, with your accom- 
 panying notes, were duly received, and I am now waiting 
 to see your answer from Mr. Cisco." ^ 
 
 This answer came within a few hours. It averted or 
 seemed to avert the impending crisis. For the Assistant 
 Treasurer, as requested, withdrew his resignation. 
 
 Here the incident should have closed, but Mr. Chase 
 felt that the President had not treated him with the con- 
 sideration which was his due. A cabinet minister who had 
 rendered such signal service as he, and whose value was 
 emphasized by hosts of admirers, ought, once for all, to 
 have complete control over his own department. It shall
 
 2i 8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 be that, thought he, or nothing. Mr. Lincoln, he told him- 
 self, could not get along without him, certainly not in 
 June, 1864, when the financial outlook was blacker than it 
 had been at any time since Sumter fell. Gold was rising 
 by leaps and bounds, with the national credit, for a brief 
 period, badly shaken ; a deficit of eighty millions, despite 
 heavy taxation, foreshadowed the placing of still heavier 
 burdens upon the people ; and the Treasury was called 
 upon to satisfy a regularly recurring demand for the 
 almost fabulous sum of one hundred million dollars a 
 month. Now was the time to discipline the President 
 to some purpose; for all those previous resignations 
 however Chase may, in each instance, have been concil- 
 iated had evidently failed to advance the Secretary's 
 authority one step. Accordingly, his next letter to Mr. 
 Lincoln read, in part : 
 
 " The withdrawal of Mr. Cisco's resignation, which I 
 inclose, relieves the present difficulty ; but I cannot help 
 feeling that my position here is not altogether agreeable 
 to you ; and it is certainly too full of embarrassment, and 
 difficulty, and painful responsibility, to allow in me the 
 least desire to retain it. I think it my duty, therefore, to 
 inclose to you my resignation." w 
 
 This message greatly troubled the President. It is said 
 to have disturbed him more than any matter that concerned 
 him personally in the course of his whole administration ; 
 but he saw that to treat this resignation, under the circum- 
 stances, like its predecessors, would involve a virtual abdi- 
 cation of his proper functions in favor of his refractory 
 minister. Secretary Chase had jogged the elbow of Fate 
 once too often. In the expressive language of a foreign 
 idiom, he had become impossible. On the following day, 
 therefore, Mr. Lincoln wrote to him : 
 
 " Your resignation of the office of Secretary of the 
 Treasury, sent me yesterday, is accepted. 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
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 219 
 
 of mutual embarrassment in our official relations, which 
 it seems cannot be overcome or longer sustained, con- 
 sistently with the public service." w 
 
 So the overstrained bond between these two remarkable 
 men was snapped at last. 
 
 That Chase should cease to manage the Treasury was 
 regarded on all sides as a public calamity. " Mr. Presi- 
 dent, this is worse than another Bull Run defeat ! " ex- 
 claimed the Register of the department, when he learned 
 of Mr. Lincoln's purpose. "Pray, let me go to Secre- 
 tary Chase and see if I cannot induce him to withdraw his 
 resignation. Its acceptance now might cause a financial 
 panic." 
 
 " I will tell you how it is with Chase," was the reply. 
 " It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to fall into 
 a bad habit. Chase has fallen into two bad habits. One 
 is that to which I have often referred. He thinks he has 
 become indispensable to the country ; that his intimate 
 friends know it, and he cannot comprehend why the coun- 
 try does not understand it. He also thinks he ought to be 
 President ; he has no doubt whatever about that. It is in- 
 conceivable to him why people have not found it out ; why 
 they don't, as one man, rise up and say so. He is, as you 
 say, an able financier ; as you think, without saying so, he 
 is a great statesman, and at the bottom, a patriot. Ordi- 
 narily he discharges a public trust, the duties of a public 
 office, with great ability with greater ability than any 
 man I know. Mind, I say ordinarily, for these bad habits 
 seem to have spoilt him. They have made him irritable, 
 uncomfortable, so that he is never perfectly happy unless 
 he is thoroughly miserable, and able to make everybody 
 else just as uncomfortable as he is himself. He knows that 
 the nomination of Field would displease the Unionists of 
 New York, would delight our enemies, and injure our 
 friends. He knows that I could not make it without seri- 
 ously offending the strongest supporters of the government 
 in New York, and that the nomination would not strengthen
 
 220 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 him anywhere or with anybody. Yet he resigns because I 
 will not make it. He is either determined to annoy me, 
 or that I shall pat him on the shoulder and coax him to 
 stay. I don't think I ought to do it. I will not do it. I 
 will take him at his word." ^ 
 
 The tidings that Secretary Chase had resigned once 
 too often brought a cloud of eminent protestants to the 
 White House. Most urgent among these were the mem- 
 bers of the Senate Committee on Finance, who came in 
 a body. They too believed, for the most part, that the 
 withdrawal of Chase from the Treasury Department, at 
 that time, would be a misfortune. Some of them, more- 
 over, let it be seen that they did not hold the President 
 free from blame for the rupture. Lincoln received the 
 Senators cordially. A frank discussion ensued. 89 He re- 
 counted, incident for incident, the story of his painful 
 relations with this minister, who seemed incapable of 
 understanding that the President, not his Secretaries, 
 must command ; and nothing urged by the Senators 
 could move him from his conclusion that Mr. Chase's 
 usefulness as a cabinet officer was at an end. "I will 
 not longer," said Lincoln, " continue the association. I 
 am ready and willing to resign the office of President, 
 and let you have Mr. Hamlin for your President ; but I 
 will no longer endure the state I have been in." 90 This 
 was sufficiently emphatic. The Committee withdrew, and 
 on the following day their Chairman, William Pitt Fes- 
 senden, became, amidst enthusiastic approval, Chase's 
 successor. 
 
 No one, it is safe to say, was more surprised at the 
 turn affairs had taken than the whilom Secretary of the 
 Treasury, himself. He had confidently expected the Pre- 
 sident to put this resignation through the course of its 
 numerous predecessors. That Mr. Lincoln took a differ- 
 ent tack was greatly to his disappointment. There is 
 even a tinge of bitterness in the regrets confided to his 
 diary. "I had found," writes Mr. Chase, commenting
 
 AN INDISPENSABLE MAN 221 
 
 naively on the President's final letter, " a good deal of 
 embarrassment from him ; but what he had found from 
 me I could not imagine, unless it has been caused by my 
 unwillingness to have offices distributed as spoils or bene- 
 fits, with more regard to the claims of divisions, factious, 
 cliques, and individuals, than to fitness of selection." 91 
 Yet the writer as this same diary abundantly indicates 
 would gladly have resumed those embarrassments. 
 When a friend told him how kindly the President had 
 spoken of him, a few days before the resignation, Chase 
 sadly replied that such expressions of good-will, had they 
 reached him in time, would have averted the trouble ; M 
 and when the new Secretary repeated to his predecessor 
 what Mr. Lincoln had conceded concerning appointments, 
 Mr. Chase made lamentation after this fashion : 
 
 " Had the President, in reply to my note tendering my 
 resignation, expressed himself as he did now to Mr. Fes- 
 senden, I should have cheerfully withdrawn it." M 
 
 Even after Chase had retired from the department, 
 his supporters did not despair of his return. The most 
 potent among them, Charles Sumner, once suggested to 
 the ex-Secretary that the President would perhaps recall 
 him, as Louis XVI had twice recalled Necker. To which 
 Chase replied : 
 
 "That might be if Mr. Lincoln were King and not 
 politician." 94 
 
 Before the year was out, however, that politician 
 evinced how immeasurably he towered above the states- 
 man who had so persistently antagonized him, by nom- 
 inating Mr. Chase to the Chief-Justiceship of the Su- 
 preme Court. 95 
 
 Three months after the appointment, Lincoln entered 
 the eastern portico of the capitol for his second inau- 
 guration. If his thoughts, as he stepped upon the plat- 
 form, reverted to the incidents of that other ceremony 
 which had taken place on the same spot, just four years 
 before, he may have missed the defeated rival, who tlin
 
 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 came forward to hold the President's hat while he took 
 the oath of office. Douglas, indeed, had closed his last 
 earthly canvass ; but another proud opponent of the vic- 
 torious Magistrate stood beside him, as if to take the 
 "Little Giant's" place. It was Salmon P. Chase. By 
 virtue of his new office, he administered the oath and 
 held the book for Abraham Lincoln to kiss.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 
 
 EDWIN MCMASTERS STANTON made the third member 
 of Mr. Lincoln's great cabinet triad. Unlike Seward and 
 Chase, he brought to the government neither the experi- 
 ence nor the prestige that commonly results from a long 
 period of public service. Engrossed in the practice of his 
 profession at the bar, he had managed in his maturer 
 years to eschew active politics, 1 until his brilliant work 
 before the Supreme Court had secured to him, early in 
 1858, a retainer as special counsel for the United States 
 on what were called the California Land Cases. So ably 
 had these been conducted that President Buchanan, less 
 than two years thereafter, appointed him Attorney-Gen- 
 eral. In that capacity Mr. Stanton had straightway be- 
 come the most forceful of those advisers who saved from 
 disgrace the closing days of a crumbling administration. 
 The courage and skill with which he had opposed the 
 intrigues of the secessionists in the cabinet gained for 
 him Democrat though he was the confidence of lead- 
 ing Republicans. His ardent patriotism, indeed, seemed 
 to outrun party fealty. He had gone so far as to hold 
 secret conferences with Seward, Sumner, Wilson, Dawes, 
 Howard, Ashley, and others, who have borne testimony 
 to the value of his services, especially during the critical 
 period that directly preceded Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. 
 After that event, Mr. Stanton, having resumed his prac- 
 tice in Washington, became an anxious observer of the 
 new government. 
 
 Notwithstanding his timely cooperation, while Attorney- 
 General, with Republican Senators and Congressmen,
 
 224 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Stanton looked askance at the man whom they had ele- 
 vated to the presidency. The two had met, several years 
 before, under conditions that left no favorable impression 
 in the recollection of either. As associate counsel with 
 George Harding, in the famous reaper case of McCormick 
 vs. Manny, they had appeared for the defendant, before 
 Judges McLean and Drummond, in the United States 
 Circuit Court, at Cincinnati. When the trial began, it 
 was found that the plaintiff had but two advocates, E. N. 
 Dickerson and Reverdy Johnson, the leader of the Mary- 
 land bar. They expressed their willingness to have the 
 three counsel of the other side heard, if Mr. Dickerson, 
 who was to make the argument on the mechanical phases 
 of their case, might speak twice and Mr. Johnson once. 
 This the attorney who had charge of the defence of course 
 declined. He preferred to withdraw a representative, 
 but which one was it to be? Mr. Harding, then at the 
 zenith of his fame as a patent lawyer, had been retained 
 especially to make the technical argument. Choice for 
 the forensic address, therefore, lay between Lincoln and 
 Stanton. The latter was selected, to Mr. Lincoln's keen 
 disappointment. He had looked forward to an active par- 
 ticipation in the trial, not only on account of the impor- 
 tant interests involved, but also because he was glad of 
 the chance to measure his strength against that of the 
 renowned Baltimore pleader. Lincoln's chagrin, more- 
 over, was greatly intensified by Stanton's behavior. It is 
 not true, as has been generally reported, that the man 
 from Springfield was elbowed out of the case by his east- 
 ern colleague ; but there can be no doubt that what at 
 best was a mortifying experience for Lincoln became 
 doubly so by reason of the other's rudeness. Our prairie 
 lawyer, though he ranked high at home, made a poor 
 impression upon Stanton, who described him, in his acrid 
 vay, as a " long, lank creature from Illinois, wearing a 
 dirty linen duster for a coat, on the back of which the 
 perspiration had splotched wide stains that resembled a
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 225 
 
 map of the continent." What was worse, Mr. Stanton 
 made no secret of his disdain. The object of it overheard 
 him inquiring, 
 
 " Where did that long-armed creature come from, and 
 what can he expect to do in this case ? " 
 
 So gross, indeed, were the discourtesies to which Lin- 
 coln was subjected from this quarter, that his magnani- 
 mous soul for some time harbored bitter feeling. " I have 
 never been so brutally treated as by that man Stanton," 
 was his comment on the affair ; and low as was this gauge 
 of Stanton's breeding, it corresponded closely enough with 
 that worthy's estimate of Lincoln's ability. 2 
 
 The relations between the two men underwent no im- 
 provement, even when the humiliated associate of a few 
 years before became President. What dislikes are so 
 deep-rooted as those for which no adequate reason can 
 be given ? And what public man of his day was so good 
 a hater as Edwin M. Stanton? His recent connection, 
 moreover, with Buchanan's somewhat discredited regime, 
 together with his vehement, impatient patriotism, hardly 
 served to temper his opinion of Mr. Lincoln, or of the 
 new administration's temporizing policy. 3 In view, too, of 
 the faultfinding and distrust which then marked the con- 
 duct of those who stood nearest to the President, it is not 
 surprising that an outsider, so prejudiced as Mr. Stanton, 
 should indulge in adverse criticism. We are not pre- 
 pared, however, for the harsh expressions that he scattered 
 through his private letters, in the spring and summer of 
 1861. 
 
 "No one," wrote he to Major-General John A. Dix, 
 " can imagine the deplorable condition of this city, and 
 the hazard of the government, who did not witness the 
 weakness and panic of the administration, and the painful 
 imbecility of Lincoln." 4 
 
 To ex-President Buchanan he writes : 
 
 " A strong feeling of distrust in the candor and sin- 
 cerity of Lincoln personally and of his cabinet has sprung
 
 226 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 up. If they had been merely silent and secret, there 
 might have been no ground of complaint. But assurances 
 are said to have been given and declarations made in 
 conflict with the facts now transpiring, in respect to the 
 South, so that no one speaks of Lincoln or any member 
 of his cabinet with respect or regard." 
 
 In other letters to Buchanan, Stanton charges the 
 administration with " peculation and fraud," the trend 
 of affairs is supposed to have excited " distrust in every 
 department of the government," " it is said that Lin- 
 coln takes the precaution of seeing no strangers alone," 
 it is believed that " in less than thirty days Davis will be 
 in possession of Washington," there are " reports of the 
 trepidation of Lincoln" after the Baltimore riot, "it is 
 certain that the administration is panic-stricken for some 
 cause," and so on. During the week that was ushered in 
 by the defeat at Bull Run, Mr. Stanton wrote : 
 
 "The imbecility of this administration culminated in 
 that catastrophe ; and irretrievable misfortune and na- 
 tional disgrace, never to be forgotten, are to be added to 
 the ruin of all peaceful pursuits and national bankruptcy, 
 as the result of Lincoln's ' running the machine,' for five 
 months. ... It is not unlikely that some change in the 
 War and Navy Departments may take place, but none 
 beyond those two departments until Jeff Davis turns 
 out the whole concern." 
 
 This correspondence was not given to the public until 
 some years after the war- 5 Even then, several of the letters 
 to Mr. Buchanan we^e charitably suppressed by his bio- 
 grapher, because they were so violent in their denuncia- 
 tions. Mr. Stanton, however, at the time, made no secret 
 of this hostility. His irritation, when quickened by dis- 
 cussion, found vent among friends, in coarse epithets. 
 According to at least two chroniclers, he spoke of the 
 President as " a low, cunning clown." e According to 
 another, he habitually referred to Mr. Lincoln as the 
 *' original gorilla," and " often said that Du Chaillu was a
 
 227 
 
 fool to wander all the way to Africa, in search of what he 
 could so easily have found at Springfield, Illinois." 7 Mr. 
 Stanton went so far, it is reported, as to join the advocates 
 of a revolutionary scheme, by means of which a military 
 dictator was to displace the President. In short, from the 
 day of their first meeting in Cincinnati, until deep into 
 the first year of the war, he looked upon Mr. Lincoln 
 with contempt. 
 
 What change, if any, Mr. Stanton's attitude had un- 
 dergone by January, 1862, is not known. Howbeit, on 
 the 13th of that month, the President, brushing personal 
 feelings aside, nominated him to succeed Simon Cameron 
 as Secretary of War. Though Stanton had been a supported 
 of Breckinridge, the southern Democratic candidate in 
 the canvass of I860, 8 he had, thereafter, as we have seen, 
 given signal evidence of his fidelity to Union principles. 
 The time, moreover, had come for breaking down the par- 
 tisan barriers which divided northern patriots, so that the 
 government might call to its aid friends of the Constitu- 
 tion in whatever party they might be found. This, of 
 course, rendered Mr. Stanton's aggressive Democracy an 
 advantage, in Mr. Lincoln's eyes. It was, in fact, one of 
 the considerations which determined his selection. The 
 appointment, which had been urged by Secretaries Seward 
 and Chase, as well as by the retiring incumbent, had the 
 approval, too, of Radical members in both Houses of Con- 
 gress. It was promptly accepted and as promptly confirmed. 
 
 The elevation of Mr. Stanton to an important place in 
 the Lincoln cabinet was a surprise to the nation. And his 
 consent to associate himself with that administration 
 aroused the still greater wonder of his own friends. One 
 of them, who knew from frequent outbursts of scorn how 
 the appointee regarded the President, referred to this feel- 
 ing when he asked the new Secretary : 
 
 "What will you do?" 
 
 Mr. Stanton, ignoring the purport of the question, an- 
 swered, among other things :
 
 228 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 " I will make Abe Lincoln President of the United 
 States." 9 
 
 To another old friend he wrote, in confidence : 
 
 " I hold ray present post at the request of a 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. I knew that everything I cherish and 
 hold dear would be sacrificed by accepting office. But I 
 thought I might help to save the country, and for that 
 I was willing to perish." 10 
 
 To Mr. Buchanan he wrote : 
 
 "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, and the responsi- 
 ble trust was accepted in both instances from the same 
 motives, and will be executed with the same fidelity to the 
 Constitution and laws." u 
 
 The letters state what the conversation implies. To- 
 gether they indicate the spirit in which Mr. Stanton 
 entered upon his office. He clearly believed himself sum- 
 moned, a second time, to strengthen the hands of an 
 impotent President. 
 
 However grossly Edwin M. Stanton may have mis- 
 judged Mr. Lincoln, his confidence in himself was well 
 founded. A glance at the new war minister's burly, thick- 
 set body revealed something of the force coiled within. 
 His leonine head, with its mass of black, curling hair and 
 long, slightly grizzled beard, gave promise of strength, 
 which the keen, bespectacled eyes, no less than the full, 
 resolute lips, appeared to confirm. In a physique capable, 
 despite chronic asthma, of almost unlimited endurance, he 
 nourished an intellect trained to equally sustained labor. 
 " It is by work that we govern," said a powerful king, and 
 Stanton was in this particular equipped to be a ruler of 
 men. He brought to his undertakings a degree of energy 
 which, according to contemporaries at the bar, had no 
 parallel. Neither his knowledge of the law, comprehen-
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 229 
 
 sive though it was, nor an eloquence that evoked praise 
 from eminent advocates, had contributed so largely to his 
 successes as the ardor, persistence, quickness of percep- 
 tion, executive swing, and promptitude of action with 
 which he plunged into the conduct of a case. When com- 
 plicated details were to be mastered, night and day seemed 
 to him as one. In fact, had testimony on this point been 
 required, any of his associates might have said concern- 
 ing him, as Cecil did of Raleigh, " I know that he can toil 
 terribly." Intense earnestness marked Stanton's every act. 
 His enthusiasm for any cause which he had espoused 
 would allow of no divided attention. So sharply, indeed, 
 were all his faculties focused upon the purpose of the 
 hour, that, he is to be classed among the one-idea men 
 of history. Whatever came between him and his goal 
 encountered an iron will. He was not to be swerved to 
 the right, or to the left ; nor could he easily be reconciled 
 to a backward step, however expedient. The tenacity of 
 conviction which, at times, characterized his conduct must 
 be ascribed after due allowance for a masterful temper 
 to religious feeling. Like the Roundhead and Cove- 
 nanter leaders to whom he has been compared, Stanton 
 not only discerned the hand of the Lord in human affairs, 
 but also believed himself, on more than one occasion, to be 
 an instrument of the divine will. This may account, too, 
 for the emotional quality in an otherwise practical nature. 
 Extremes of reason and passion were here strangely com- 
 mingled. Quick to penetrate through the husks of a fraud 
 into the very nubbin of things, he was even more swiftly 
 moved by relentless wrath to insist upon exposure and 
 punishment. That brief career in Buchanan's cabinet 
 had been long enough to demonstrate his almost savage 
 hostility towards official dishonesty, as well as his moral 
 courage to grapple with treason in high places. Above 
 all, he evinced a loyalty to the Union that rose above the 
 partisan creed of a lifetime that might, in fact, demand 
 of him, and not be denied, any sacrifice, however great.
 
 230 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 So strong a character is seldom free from the defects 
 almost inherent in its rugged structure. As Mr. Stanton's 
 drafts on his own powers were invariably honored, he was 
 unsparing in his demands upon others. Niggardly of 
 praise and caustic in criticism, he set up a high standard 
 of achievement, with no charity for those who fell below 
 it. This led him to underrate most of the persons with 
 whom he came in contact, while it may be doubted whether 
 any one enjoyed his unqualified confidence. Slow to recog- 
 nize what was good in a man, he not infrequently gave 
 way, over slight shortcomings, to violent outbursts of 
 anger. His very earnestness, at times, even when there 
 were no such provocations, rendered him offensively ag- 
 gressive. Tact had but a small place in Stanton's make-up. 
 He drove his wedge broad end foremost. Not only was 
 he lacking in the grace that sometimes transforms an 
 enemy into a friend, but he was equally incapable of con- 
 trolling a temper that, on more than one occasion, changed 
 a friend into an enemy. After his brusque, impulsive 
 manner, he scorned ceremony or etiquette. With rude 
 hands he brushed aside whatever stood in his way. He 
 might have sat for these lines in a notable portrait of 
 Gladstone : " Side issues, risks, the feelings of friends, the 
 prejudices of the day, the lions in the path all would be 
 either ignored, or only recognized to be thrust aside, when 
 he had some great end immediately in view ; and thus he 
 has been looked upon by many as a sort of Juggernaut, 
 who, to attain his end, would drive remorselessly over the 
 bodies of men." 
 
 When thwarted, Stanton's rage, taking note of neither 
 time, place, nor person, expressed itself with cutting preci- 
 sion ; and his disregard of what was thought, or said, about 
 him, in return, rendered him an anomaly in public life. 
 Though careless of popularity, he loved deeply the few upon 
 whom he bestowed his affections. If these might be cred- 
 ited, there was nothing of the bear about this fierce Orson 
 but bis skin. They have recalled how easily his mood
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 231 
 
 shifted from storm to sunshine, and how tenderly his heart 
 responded to humble suffering. But at this very point 
 the corresponding shadow in the portrait is darker than 
 elsewhere ; for the unfortunates, who, with or without 
 cause, excited his dislike, were not safe against insult, 
 injustice, and even persecution. Some of the man's per- 
 sonal prejudices would not have been pounded out of him 
 if he had been brayed in a mortar. Even when shown that 
 he had erred, Stanton could with difficulty be induced to 
 modify his antagonisms. He rarely made amends, and it 
 may be doubted whether he ever brought himself to say, 
 " I was wrong." His firmness degenerated, at times, into 
 sheer obstinacy ; his enthusiasm, into intolerance ; his 
 strength of will, into arrogance. No one who knew the 
 man courted an encounter with him. Only a master of 
 masters could control such an embodiment of force. 
 
 At the time of his appointment, Mr. Stanton had, in 
 some degree, manifested most, if not all, of these traits. 
 They boded no good for the harmony of the cabinet, nor 
 for the President's authority. So thought the friends 
 who warned Mr. Lincoln that nothing could be done with 
 such a man, unless he were allowed to have his own way. 
 There appeared to be abundant ground, moreover, for 
 their comforting prediction that " Stanton would run 
 away with the whole concern." Strangely enough, the 
 President showed no alarm. He was merely reminded of 
 a little story. 
 
 " We may have to treat him," said he, " as they are 
 sometimes obliged to treat a Methodist minister I know 
 of out West. He gets wrought up to so high a pitch of 
 excitement in his prayers and exhortations, that they are 
 obliged to put bricks into his pockets to keep him down. 
 We may be obliged to serve Stanton the same way, but 
 I guess we '11 let him jump awhile first." 12 
 
 The ability and self-sacrificing patriotism with which 
 the appointee administered, from the outset, the affairs 
 of his office, secured to him the President's unreserved
 
 232 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 confidence. " I have faith," said Mr. Lincoln, speaking 
 of the new minister and another, "in affirmative men like 
 these. They stand between a nation and perdition." He 
 not only permitted Mr. Stanton largely to control the 
 details of the War Department, but in matters of gen- 
 eral policy as well, he frequently deferred to that officer's 
 judgment. Men of such dissimilar temperaments, however, 
 working together toward a common end in wholly unlike 
 ways, naturally had frequent differences of opinion. Their 
 very earnestness bred trouble. Mr. Stanton, moreover, 
 conducting his department solely with regard to military 
 requirements, could not fail to clash with a President who 
 had to face the complex problems of a civil war, in their 
 political as well as their strategic aspects. But Mr. Lin- 
 coln fathomed the man with whom he had to deal. When 
 a misunderstanding arose, he ignored the Secretary's 
 flashes of temper, and fixed his attention on the ques- 
 tion at issue. Indeed, the President exercised tact enough 
 for both of them. Whether he withdrew from a position 
 because it was proved to be wrong, or maintained it be- 
 cause it was right, he seldom failed to treat Mr. Stanton 
 with delicate consideration. 13 How far this consideration 
 went is an interesting subject for inquiry, particularly in 
 view of the not uncommon opinion that the fiery war 
 minister dominated the President. Such incidents as gave 
 rise to this belief were neither numerous nor conclusive ; 
 yet in them may be discerned the grain of truth from 
 which the error sprouted. 
 
 Throughout the entire period of the war, Mr. Lincoln 
 was beset, early and late, by people who wanted personal 
 favors in matters that properly fell under the jurisdiction 
 of the War Department. Those who came with an appeal 
 from Mr. Stanton's decision were sometimes received as 
 was Judge Baldwin of California. He applied for a pass 
 through the lines to visit his brother in Virginia. As 
 both of them were Union men, there seemed to be no 
 good reason why it should not be granted.
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 233 
 
 "Have you applied to General Halleck?" inquired the 
 President. 
 
 "Yes," answered the Judge, "and met with a flat 
 refusal." 
 
 " Then you must see Stanton," said Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 "I have, and with the same result," was the reply. 
 
 "Well, then," rejoined the President, with a smile, "I 
 can do nothing ; for you must know that I have very 
 little influence with this administration." 14 
 
 The same answer, though s}'inpathetically uttered, con- 
 cluded an interview with a soldier's widow who asked for 
 a sutler's appointment, which the Secretary of War had, 
 under the regulations, refused. 15 In fact, this whimsical 
 disclaimer of " influence " with the administration became 
 one of Mr. Lincoln's favorite resources. 16 Commenting on 
 the remark, at the time, to a cabinet officer, he said : 
 
 " I cannot always know whether a permit ought to be 
 granted, and I want to oblige everybody when I can ; and 
 Stanton and I have an understanding that if I send 
 an order to him that cannot be consistently granted, he is 
 to refuse it, which he sometimes does. And that led to 
 a remark which I made the other day to a man who com- 
 plained of Stanton, that I had n't much influence with this 
 administration, but expected to have more with the next." " 
 
 This explanation accounts, too, for much, if not all, 
 of Secretary Stanton's seeming insubordination, in the 
 instances that follow. 
 
 If an applicant for military favors went, at the outset, 
 to the White House, rather than to the War Office, he 
 may have received from the President a penciled request 
 in his behalf, addressed to Secretary Stanton. Sometimes 
 this was granted, but it was as often curtly or angrily 
 refused. Occasionally passes signed by Mr. Lincoln were 
 confiscated by order of the War Department, upon pre- 
 sentation ; and, in certain instances, even more formal 
 documents were not safe against the Secretary's destruc- 
 tive fingers. This fact, one enterprising trader learned
 
 234 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 to his disappointment. He had pursued the President, in 
 season and out, for a pass through the lines and a trea- 
 sury license to buy cotton. How persistent he was may 
 be inferred from Mr. Lincoln's complaint of his class, in 
 general : 
 
 " Few things are so troublesome to the government as 
 the fierceness with which the profits in trading are sought." 
 
 This particular trader must have brought more than 
 fierceness to bear upon the harassed President, for he 
 finally received the coveted permit. 
 
 " You will have to take it over to Stanton for counter- 
 signing," said Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 The happy man, hastening to the War Department, 
 handed the document to the Secretary. Mr. Stan tor., 
 taking advantage of military conditions that warranted a 
 refusal, showed his deep-seated contempt for speculators 
 by tearing the paper into shreds and stamping upon them. 
 Our trader returned to the President in a rage, and told 
 him what had occurred. Mr. Lincoln, feigning surprise, 
 asked him to describe exactly how the Secretary had 
 acted. Then, after a moment's pause, he said : 
 
 " You go back and tell Stanton that I will tear up a 
 dozen of his papers before Saturday night." 18 
 
 The Secretary of War made the most of the discretion 
 reposed in him. He insulted Congressmen and bullied 
 traders, impartially, when they brought orders of which 
 he could safely disapprove. Indeed, if an anecdote to 
 which the Hon. George W. Julian has given currency 
 may be relied on, he did not, in his fits of anger, spare 
 the President himself. This story illustrates, better than 
 any other, the popular war-time impression concerning 
 the relations between the two men. For that, if for no other 
 reason, it should be taken into an account which seeks 
 to explain the origin of the belief that Mr. Stanton was 
 master. A committee of western men, we are told, headed 
 by Congressman Owen Lovejoy of Illinois, called on the 
 President to urge that the spirit of national unity might
 
 THE CURBING OF ST ANTON 235 
 
 be promoted in the army by the mingling of eastern 
 and western troops. The plan, on its apparent merits, as 
 well as because it was presented by a warm personal and 
 political friend, interested Mr. Lincoln, who wrote a note 
 to the Secretary of War, suggesting a transfer of some of 
 the regiments. As the scheme seemed impracticable to 
 Mr. Stanton, he refused to carry it out. 
 
 " But we have the President's order, sir," said Mr. 
 Lovejoy. 
 
 " Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind ? " asked 
 the Secretary. 
 
 " He did, sir." 
 
 " Then he is a damned fool I " was the response. 
 
 "Do you mean to say the President is a damned fool?" 
 asked the Congressman in amazement. 
 
 " Yes, sir, if he gave you such an order as that." 
 
 Returning to the Executive Mansion, Mr. Lovejoy 
 reported the result of the conference. 
 
 "Did Stanton say I was a damned fool?" asked Mr. 
 Lincoln, at the close of the recital. 
 
 " He did, sir ; and repeated it." 
 
 "If Stanton said I was a damned fool," concluded 
 the President thoughtfully, " then I must be one ; for he 
 is nearly always right, and generally says what he means. 
 I will step over and see him." 19 
 
 Nor was this the only occasion on which Messrs. 
 Julian and Lovejoy had reason to infer that the man 
 in the War Office dominated the man in the White 
 House. They called on the President at another time to 
 urge a certain army appointment for the son of a man 
 who had befriended Lincoln in the days of his poverty. 
 The President promptly endorsed the application and 
 sent them with it to Mr. Stanton, who as promptly said, 
 "No." 
 
 " Let us give his qualifications," suggested one of the 
 Congressmen. 
 
 " I do not wish to hear them," was the reply. " The
 
 236 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 position is of high importance. I have in mind a man of 
 suitable experience and capacity to fill it." 
 
 When the callers, still persisting, reminded the Secre- 
 tary that the President wished their man to be appointed, 
 he retorted : 
 
 " I do not care what the President wants ; the country 
 wants the very best it can get. I am serving the coun- 
 try regardless of individuals." 
 
 Returning to the White House, the Congressmen re- 
 ported their failure, but Mr. Lincoln gave them no 
 comfort. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " it is my duty to submit. I can- 
 not add to Mr. Stanton's troubles. His position is one of 
 the most difficult in the world. Thousands in the army 
 blame him because they are not promoted, and other 
 thousands out of the army blame him because they are 
 not appointed. The pressure upon him is immeasurable 
 and unending. He is the rock on the beach of our national 
 ocean against which the breakers dash and roar, dash and 
 roar, without ceasing. He fights back the angry waters 
 and prevents them from undermining and overwhelming 
 the land. Gentlemen, I do not see how he survives, 
 why he is not crushed and torn to pieces. Without him I 
 should be destroyed. He performs his task superhumanly. 
 Now do not mind this matter, for Mr. Stanton is right 
 and I cannot wrongly interfere with him." m 
 
 Taking advantage of this purely impersonal attitude 
 of the President, his war minister did not hesitate, when 
 the circumstances warranted, to oppose what Mr. Lincoln 
 wanted for old friends as stubbornly as he planted himself 
 in the path of political favorites. A case in point grew 
 out of the so-called Coles County riot. 21 Some southern 
 sympathizers, living near Charleston, 111., had brought 
 about a quarrel, at that place, with a party of Federal 
 soldiers home on furlough. In the shooting that ensued, 
 eleven officers and privates had been killed or wounded. 
 Whereupon the military authorities, having arrested a
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 237 
 
 number of the rioters, had held fifteen of them prisoners, 
 in Fort Delaware. Their release had, from time to time, 
 been sought by influential Illinoisans, but without success. 
 At last, it occurred to the friends of the prisoners that 
 what the politicians had failed to accomplish might be 
 arrived at through the instrumentality of Mr. Lincoln's 
 cousin and one-time playmate, Dennis Hanks. So behold 
 Dennis, in a new suit of store clothes, presenting himself 
 at the Executive Mansion, on what might be called a 
 diplomatic mission. He was affectionately received by the 
 President, who gravely handed him the official record in 
 the Riot Cases to read. Then, as if to continue the joke, 
 Mr. Lincoln sent him to confer on the subject with the 
 head of the War Department. Luckily for cousin Dennis, 
 the choleric Stanton was not to be found. That officer 
 came to the White House presently, however, for a dis- 
 cussion in which President, Secretary, and citizen Hanks 
 took part. Adopting the garrulous petitioner's own ver- 
 sion, Mr. Stanton pointed out how heinous were the 
 crimes of the rioters, and declared that "every damned 
 one of them should be hung." Even Mr. Lincoln's query, 
 "If these men should return home and become good 
 citizens, who would be hurt?" failed to move the Secretary 
 from his position that the prisoners ought to be severely 
 punished. This opinion the President declined, at the 
 time, to overrule. So Dennis's errand came to an inglo- 
 rious close. He soon returned home, where his visit to 
 the President was, ever afterward, drawn upon for stories 
 that were not always consistent with one another. The 
 envoy, of course, carried away an unfavorable impres- 
 sion of Mr. Stanton, whom he described as a "frisky 
 little Yankee, ... in a spike-tailed coat." After the great 
 conference, when the Secretary had left the room, Dennis 
 said, as he relates : 
 
 " Abe, if I 's as big as you, I would take that little 
 feller over my knee and spank him." 
 
 To which Mr. Lincoln rejoined, with a laugh, that he
 
 2 3 8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 guessed Stanton was a bigger man than he, in some 
 respects. 
 
 " I asked Abe," recalled Dennis, on another occasion, 
 "why he didn't kick him out. I told him he was too 
 fresh altogether." 
 
 And the President is said to have replied : 
 
 "If I did, Dennis, it would be difficult to find anothei" 
 jian to fill his place." 22 
 
 Nevertheless, in the sequel to this episode, Mr. Stan- 
 ton's domination was found, after all, to be apparent 
 rather than real. He demanded not without reason 
 that the rioters should have short shrift before a military 
 court ; but to this the President would not consent. After 
 carefully examining the evidence, Mr. Lincoln directed 
 the prisoners to be returned to Coles County, where those 
 of them who had been indicted were to be surrendered to 
 the civil authorities, and the rest were to be discharged. 
 The required order, it is perhaps needless to say, was 
 promptly issued by the Secretary of War. 
 
 All of Mr. Stanton's arrests were not so defensible 
 as the Charleston ones. Indeed, it became necessary, at 
 times, to interpose between him and the objects of his 
 severity. How to secure these unfortunates substantial 
 justice, without impairing the Secretary's authority, or 
 perhaps losing his services entirely, tried the President's 
 good-humored tact to the utmost. Such a problem pre- 
 sented itself during the presidential canvass of 1864. 
 The votes of the Pennsylvania troops were, in conform- 
 ity with an act of legislature, to be cast in the field, 
 under the eyes of State commissioners. That some of 
 these officers should be Democrats, if the election were to 
 have even a semblance of fairness, was obvious ; but for 
 reasons which were equally clear, prominent members of 
 the minority party could with difficulty be prevailed upon 
 to accept the appointments. At this juncture, Governor 
 Curtin got Colonel A. K. McClure to help him complete 
 the list. The Colonel applied, among others, to Jere
 
 THE CURBING OF ST ANTON 239 
 
 McKibbin, who, at the suggestion that he visit the army 
 as a commissioner, instantly said : 
 
 " 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." 
 
 McClure assured him that the Secretary of War would 
 not attempt any violence against a man who held Governor 
 Curtin's commission. Yet it was only after the Colonel 
 had pledged himself to protect McKibbin, if he got into 
 any difficulty, that the latter consented to serve. He duly 
 left Philadelphia for the front, with the other commis- 
 sioners. They had not been gone two days, when McClure 
 received from McKibbin a Washington despatch which 
 read : 
 
 " Stanton has me in Old Capitol Prison. Come at once." 
 
 The Colonel hastened to make good his promise. Arriv- 
 ing at the Capital late in the night of that same day, he 
 obtained an immediate interview with the President. Mr. 
 Lincoln knew of Stanton's grudge against the McKibbins. 
 He had encountered it on several previous occasions, when 
 Jere's brothers, who were officers in the army, would have 
 lost well-merited promotions but for the President's inter- 
 position. It was not surprising, therefore, to find this last 
 act of enmity, as a glance at the papers revealed, utterly 
 without justification. A "stupid blunder," was Mr. Lin- 
 coln's comment. He appeared to be greatly distressed 
 over the affair, and proposed to release McKibbin at once 
 on his parole. This did not satisfy the Colonel, who urged 
 that the commissioner should be discharged. But the 
 President replied : 
 
 " It seems hardly fair to discharge McKibbin uncon- 
 ditionally without permitting Stanton to give his expla- 
 nation. You know, McClure, McKibbin is safe, parole 
 or no parole, so go and get him out of prison." 
 
 With this the Colonel had, for the time, to be content. 
 He prevailed upon Mr. Lincoln, however, to appoint an
 
 240 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 hour the following morning, at which they might meet 
 the Secretary of War to have the parole discharged. 
 Then hurrying to the Old Capitol Prison, with the Presi- 
 dent's order, he had the commissioner released. On the 
 next day, at the time agreed upon, Colonel McClure sat 
 in the President's room, awaiting Mr. Stanton. The Sec- 
 retary entered, pale with anger. 
 
 " Well, McClure," he exclaimed, " what damned rebel 
 are you here to get out of trouble, this morning?" 
 
 " Your arrest of McKibbin," replied the Colonel, " was 
 a cowardly act. You knew McKibbin was guiltless of 
 any offence, and you did it to gratify a brutal hatred." 
 
 The Pennsylvanian, having given further vent to his 
 indignation in terms no less severe, demanded a final dis- 
 charge of the prisoner. To this, Mr. Stanton, who had 
 been excitedly walking the floor, answered, in his most 
 offensive manner : 
 
 " I decline to discharge McKibbin from his parole. You 
 can make formal application for it if you choose ; and I 
 will consider and decide it." 
 
 " I don't know what McKibbin will do," hotly rejoined 
 McClure, " but if I were Jere McKibbin, as sure as there 
 is a God, I would crop your ears before I left Washing- 
 ton." 
 
 Mr. Stanton made no reply. He abruptly turned and 
 left the room. Whereupon the President, who had been 
 a silent auditor, said, in his jocular way : 
 
 " Well, McClure, you did n't get on very far with Stan- 
 ton, did you ? But he '11 come all right. Let the matter 
 rest." 
 
 A formal request, however, for the discharge of the 
 parole was sent, at once, to the Secretary of War, who as 
 formally replied, in an autograph letter, that the applica- 
 tion, having been duly considered, " could not be granted 
 consistently with the interests of the public service." Mr. 
 McKibbin outlived Mr. Stanton, yet he died a prisoner 
 on parole. 23
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 241 
 
 Mr. Lincoln made no secret of his anxiety to avoid 
 conflicting with his irascible Secretary, whose objection 
 to a measure was, at times, frankly assigned as a sufficient 
 reason for its rejection. This was the case when Major- 
 General Nathaniel P. Banks, commanding the Department 
 of the Gulf, sought to extend his authority by having that 
 of his division commander, Major-General E. R. S. Canby, 
 curtailed. The latter officer had been appointed to the 
 Military Division of West Mississippi, constructed out 
 of the departments of Arkansas and the Gulf, in the 
 spring of 1864, directly after Banks's unsuccessful Red 
 River campaign. General Banks chafed under the arrange- 
 ment. But his administrative abilities were held in such 
 high esteem by the President that several expedients were 
 tried for keeping him contentedly at his post, where he 
 was expected to play an important part in reorganizing the 
 Louisiana state government. As he persisted, however, in 
 his appeals to be relieved of Canby's authority, Mr. Lin- 
 coln finally dismissed the matter, with a refusal which 
 read in part : 
 
 " I know you are dissatisfied, which pains me very 
 much ; but I wish not to be argued with further. I enter- 
 tain no abatement of confidence or friendship for you. I 
 have told you why I cannot order General Canby from 
 the Department of the Gulf that he whom I must hold 
 responsible for military results is not agreed." 24 
 
 And with this Banks had to rest content. 
 
 On several of the numerous occasions when the Presi- 
 dent found it necessary to thwart Mr. Stanton's wishes, 
 he did so in a way which tended to confirm, rather than 
 to remove, the impression that the Secretary controlled 
 him. An instance of this is preserved in another letter 
 one of Mr. Lincoln's characteristic pleas for mercy. 
 His oft-mentioned clemency was not limited to northern 
 offenders. He could not bring himself to regard the sol- 
 diers of the Confederacy with the bitterness evinced by 
 his Secretary of War, whose uncompromising hostility
 
 242 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 toward those who had taken up arms against the Union 
 had repeatedly opposed itself to the President's desire 
 that certain penitent prisoners should be set free. This 
 wish was finally embodied in the following communication 
 to Mr. Stanton : 
 
 " I am so pressed in regard to prisoners of war in our 
 custody, whose homes are within our lines, and who wish 
 to not be exchanged, but to take the oath and be dis- 
 charged, that I hope you will pardon me for again calling 
 up the subject. My impression is that we will not ever 
 force the exchange of any of this class ; that, taking the 
 oath and being discharged, none of them will again go to 
 the rebellion ; but the rebellion again coming to them, 
 a considerable percentage of them, probably not a major- 
 ity, would rejoin it ; that, by a cautious discrimination, 
 the number so discharged would not be large enough to 
 do any considerable mischief in any event, will relieve 
 distress in at least some meritorious cases, and would 
 give me some relief from an intolerable pressure. I shall 
 be glad, therefore, to have your cheerful assent to the 
 discharge of those whose names I may send, which I 
 will only do with circumspection." 25 
 
 This tactful presentation of the matter accomplished as 
 much as would have resulted from a positive mandate. 
 The Secretary responded : 
 
 " Mr. President : Your order for the discharge of any 
 prisoners of war will be cheerfully and promptly obeyed." 26 
 
 Another illustration of how Mr. Lincoln, to use one of 
 his own phrases, " plowed around " this sometimes ob- 
 structive minister is supplied by John Adams Kasson, 
 who represented an Iowa district in Congress during the 
 latter half of the war. His constituents desired him to 
 procure promotion for the gallant Colonel James A. Wil- 
 liamson, commanding the Fourth Infantry Regiment of 
 that State. The officer deserved the higher rank, but it 
 was difficult of attainment. Letters and petitions poured 
 in upon Mr. Kasson. He was given to understand that
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 243 
 
 his failure to obtain the promotion might cost him his 
 reelection. The case was laid before the President, who 
 valued this particular Congressman both as a personal 
 friend and as one of the administration's most zealous 
 supporters. It would not do to lose him for a brigadier's 
 commission. Accordingly, at the first Iowa resignation of 
 the rank desired, Mr. Lincoln signed an order upon Sec- 
 retary Stanton to make the favorite colonel a brigadier- 
 general. Pleased with his success, Mr. Kasson presented 
 himself, with the order, at the War Department. He did 
 not realize what difficulties were still in his way, or how 
 fiercely the Cerberus at the portals to military prefer- 
 ment resented the intrusion of civilians. What followed 
 is best told in Mr. Kasson's own language. 
 
 " Mr. Stanton," he says in his Reminiscences, 27 " was 
 seated on the sofa, talking with a friend, and his immedi- 
 ate clerk was standing at a neighboring desk, with his pen 
 in hand. As I advanced, taking off my hat, Mr. Stanton 
 turned to me to hear what I had to say. I told hii my 
 errand, and handed him the President's order. He glanced 
 at it, and said, in an angry tone, ' I shan't do it, sir ; 
 I shan't do it ! ' and passed the paper up to his clerk. 
 Utterly amazed at his words, and indignant at his tone, 
 I inquired why he refused to obey the President's order. 
 * It is n't the way to do it, sir, and I shan't do it.' I was 
 going on to speak of the merits of the officer, and of the 
 proceeding, my wrath rising, when he cut me off with 
 ' I don't propose to argue the question with you, sir ; I 
 shan't do it.' Utterly indignant, I turned to the clerk 
 and asked to withdraw the paper. ' Don't you let him 
 have it, sir,' said Stanton ; * don't let him have it.' The 
 clerk, whose hands were trembling like an Eastern slave 
 before his Pasha, withdrew the document which he was 
 in the act of giving to me. I felt my indignation getting 
 too strong for me, and putting on my hat and turning my 
 back to the Secretary, I slowly went to the door, with set 
 teeth, saying to myself, ' As you will not hear me in your
 
 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 own forum, you shall hear from me in mine.' A few days 
 later, after recovering my coolness, I reported the affair 
 to the President. A look of vexation came over his face, 
 and he seemed unwilling then to talk of it, and desired 
 me to see him another day. I did so, when he gave me 
 a positive order for the promotion of the colonel to be a 
 brigadier, and told me to take it over to the War Depart- 
 ment. I replied that I could not speak again with Mr. 
 Stanton till lie apologized for his insulting manner to 
 me on the previous occasion. ' Oh,' said the President, 
 4 Stanton has gone to Fortress Monroe, and Dana is 
 acting. He will attend to it for you.' This he said with 
 a manner of relief, as if it was a piece of good luck to 
 find a man there who would obey his orders. The nomi- 
 nation was sent to the Senate and confirmed." 
 
 Soon after this occurrence, when the House was debat- 
 ing a motion concerning the investigation of the Old Cap- 
 itol and the Carroll prisons, Mr. Kasson carried out his 
 threat. 28 Describing what he termed Secretary Stanton's 
 " arbitrary habit of mind," he denounced this war-lord 
 for his tyrannical course and his disobedience toward his 
 chief. To substantiate the latter accusation, the speaker 
 related to an attentive audience his own experience with 
 Mr. Stanton. The story not only helped to swell the over- 
 whelming vote in favor of the resolution, but it also gave 
 the widest publicity to what was considered an authorita- 
 tive insight into the peculiar relations existing between 
 Mr. Lincoln and the head of the War Department. 
 
 There is at least one other anecdote of how the Presi- 
 dent " plowed around " Stanton to reach a military ap- 
 pointment. In this instance, he had to encounter not only 
 the Secretary's cogent objection to civilian interference in 
 such matters, but that alert minister's equally sound rule 
 as well, against the transfer of volunteer officers to the 
 regular army. So, when a number of prominent public 
 men came to the White House one day to urge such a 
 transfer of Captain John J. S. Hassler, who was serving
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 245 
 
 with credit in the Thirty-first New York Regiment, Mr. 
 Lincoln threw up his hands in mock agony and said : 
 
 " Gentlemen, I can do nothing. That rests entirely with 
 Mr. Stanton, but I can go over and join in a request to 
 Mr. Stanton to have Captain Hassler appointed in the 
 regular army." 
 
 The Secretary of War received the petitioners with 
 an absolute refusal. Similar requests, it was explained, 
 came to him in such numbers that to comply would result 
 in leaving the volunteer regiments almost without officers. 
 An ironclad rule had therefore been made against such 
 transfers, and he declined to break it under any condi- 
 tion. Returning from the War Office, the delegation met 
 Adjutant-General Townsend, to whom they related the 
 whole affair. 
 
 " I think I can fix it for you," he said. " Let it be 
 understood by the President that Mr. Hassler will step 
 across the street and enlist as a private in the regular 
 army, at the same time resigning his commission as an 
 officer of volunteers. He can then at once be promoted." 
 
 When the plan was laid before Mr. Lincoln, he smil- 
 ingly assented, but Stanton had no smile for the officer 
 who shortly brought him the papers for Hassler's promo- 
 tion in the regular army. He is said to have given the 
 man " one of those through-and-through looks with which 
 it was his habit to chastise in silence those who had done 
 something they knew was not right," and then he signed 
 the document. 29 
 
 The Secretary of War did not always hold himself so 
 well in hand. There were times when his spleen made 
 serious trouble, when, in fact, he did not spare even his 
 cabinet colleagues. It was then that the President's touch 
 could be especially delicate, as he evinced in the handling 
 of a certain disagreement between Secretary Stanton and 
 Postmaster-General Montgomery Blair. Mr. Lincoln set- 
 tled the question at issue adversely to his hot-headed war 
 minister, yet he again skilfully avoided a struggle with
 
 246 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 him. The Blair-Stan ton feud was of long standing. It 
 had antedated the war, and had caused the Postmaster- 
 General bitterly to oppose Mr. Stanton's appointment to 
 a cabinet office. As they were both men of aggressive 
 temperament, they naturally did not work harmoniously 
 when, later, their department duties brought them into 
 relations with each other. Several attempts, at the same 
 time, to involve the President in the quarrel were without 
 avail. " I learned a great many years ago," he once said, 
 referring to a controversy carried on by two prominent 
 Republicans, "that in a fight between man and wife, a 
 third party should never get between the woman's skillet 
 and the man's ax-helve." How Mr. Lincoln managed the 
 cabinet belligerents was illustrated, during the summer of 
 1864, when Mr. Stanton refused Mr. Blair's request to 
 issue certain orders that would facilitate the postal service 
 within the lines of the army. The orders had been 
 drafted at headquarters, under General Grant's super- 
 vision, but he waited for Secretary Stanton's sanction. 
 As this was withheld, because it would " accommodate Mr. 
 Blair," an appeal to the President followed. After read- 
 ing the Postmaster-General's letter of complaint, and hav- 
 ing questioned the bearer, Colonel Absalom H. Markland 
 of the army mail service, he said : 
 
 " If I understand the case, General Grant wants the 
 orders issued, and Blair wants them issued, and you want 
 them issued, and Stanton won't issue them. Now, don't 
 you see what kind of a fix I will be in if I interfere ? I '11 
 tell you what to do. If you and General Grant under- 
 stand one another, suppose you try to get along without 
 the orders, and if Blair or Stanton make a fuss, I may be 
 called in as a referee, and I may decide in your favor." M 
 
 The contemplated changes were made without the 
 orders, and nothing further was heard about this particu- 
 lar difference. 
 
 The foregoing instances of Secretary Stanton's alleged 
 insubordination, or excessive power over Lincoln, are the
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 247 
 
 only ones worthy of record that have come to the writer's 
 notice. They are not all, it is true, supported by docu- 
 mentary evidence ; yet the standing of the narrators, 
 with perhaps one exception, certain corroborative cir- 
 cumstances, and the entire absence of conflicting testimony 
 entitle them to credit. As much cannot be said, however, 
 for many of the anecdotes of Mr. Stanton's mastery, in 
 which the newspaper and magazine press have abounded. 
 Now and then, one of these apocryphal tales has found 
 its way into some historical work of authority, where it 
 has served, more than its fellows, to keep alive an exag- 
 gerated conception of the Secretary's influence over the 
 President. A typical case is to be found in the Personal 
 Memoirs of General Grant. He speaks of Mr. Stanton 
 as " a man who never questioned his own authority, and 
 who always did in war time what he wanted to do." In 
 connection with this statement, it is related that Mr. Lin- 
 coln, on the occasion of his visit to the captured city of 
 Richmond, issued permission to "the body, calling itself 
 the Legislature of Virginia, to meet for the purpose of 
 recalling the Virginia troops from the Confederate 
 armies." The summons for a meeting which, according 
 to the illustrious author, "immediately" afterward ap- 
 peared in the local newspapers, " went very much further 
 than Mr. Lincoln had contemplated, as he did not say 
 the ' Legislature of Virginia,' but * the body which called 
 itself the Legislature of Virginia.' Mr. Stanton," con- 
 tinues Grant, " saw the call, as published in the northern 
 papers, the very next issue, and took the liberty of coun- 
 termanding the order authorizing any meeting of the 
 legislature, or any other body, and this notwithstanding 
 the fact that the President was nearer the spot than he 
 was." 31 The story is incorrect. Mr. Lincoln did, on April 
 6, 1865, while at City Point and after several interviews 
 with Judge Campbell, the Confederate Assistant Secretary 
 of War, 32 write to Major-General Godfrey Weitzel, in 
 command at Richmond :
 
 248 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 " It has been intimated to me that the gentlemen who 
 have acted as the Legislature of Virginia, in support of 
 the rebellion, may now desire to assemble at Richmond, 
 and take measures to withdraw the Virginia troops and 
 other support from resistance to the general government. 
 If they attempt it, give them permission and protection." 33 
 
 But the call to the members of the legislature was 
 not published, even in Richmond, until April 12, three 
 days after the President had returned to Washington. 
 He then found that Judge Campbell had gone beyond 
 the authority conferred, and had we quote Mr. Lin- 
 coln's criticism assumed the President to " have called 
 the insurgent Legislature of Virginia together, as the 
 rightful legislature of the State, to settle all differences 
 with the United States." S4 This misconstruction gave the 
 President pause. He found disapproval, moreover, within 
 the cabinet, of any plan for reconstruction that even 
 seemed to recognize the political elements of the Con- 
 federacy. Most strenuous in opposition was Secretary 
 Stanton, who earnestly advised Mr. Lincoln to revoke the 
 City Point instructions. This the President concluded to 
 do, especially as the recent surrender of the Virginia 
 troops to General Grant had removed all occasion for the 
 meeting. Mr. Lincoln, accordingly, brought the incident 
 to a close, on the evening of April 12, by telegraphing to 
 General "Weitzel, from the Capital, that the permission to 
 assemble was withdrawn. Strange to say, General Grant, 
 himself, the following day, despatched from Washington 
 to the commander at Richmond certain supplementary in- 
 structions. To this extent the Lieutenant-General, rather 
 than the Secretary of War, figures officially in the corre- 
 spondence. 35 So far from countermanding the President's 
 orders was Mr. Stanton, that none of the messages con- 
 cerning the Virginia legislature even went through the 
 customary form of carrying his signature. 38 
 
 The Secretary of War never successfully opposed his 
 will to that of the President in any matter concerning
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 249 
 
 which his chief had reached a definite purpose. Yet Mr. 
 Lincoln made no display of his authority. He even, as 
 we have seen, turned it over at times to Mr. Stanton ; or, 
 anxious to avoid a conflict, exercised it with all the deli- 
 cacy of which he was capable. Few, if any, of the world's 
 great captains could have managed this truculent lieuten- 
 ant with so little friction. To that end, concession, per- 
 suasion, and diplomacy were freely intermingled. When 
 they failed, however, the President asserted his mastery 
 with a vigor before which the Secretary's passion and 
 obstinacy had to give way. 
 
 This was the case in the autumn of 1864, after com- 
 pulsory military service had been introduced. To fill 
 their quotas, without drawing too heavily on their own 
 citizens, some communities voted liberal bounties, by 
 means of which their agents obtained recruits wherever 
 they could be found. One of these agents, Colonel Huide- 
 koper, representing a Pennsylvania district, evolved a 
 crafty scheme. Learning that some Confederate prisoners 
 at Rock Island, 111., were about to be released and en- 
 listed for our frontier service, he secured permission from 
 Mr. Lincoln to pay them bounties so that they might 
 be credited to his county. 37 When Huidekoper presented 
 the President's order for the credits at the War Depart- 
 ment, Mr. Stanton refused to obey it. Indignant and 
 disappointed, the Colonel reported this to Mr. Lincoln, 
 who repeated the order, but without effect. Then the 
 President, himself, visited the War Department, and the 
 Secretary called in his Provost-Marshal-General, James 
 B. Fry, to state the facts. 
 
 " I reported to the two high officials," says General Fry, 
 who relates the incident, " as I had previously done to the 
 Secretary alone, that these men already belonged to the 
 United States, being prisoners of war ; that they could 
 not be used against the Confederates ; that they had no 
 relation whatever to the county to which it was proposed 
 they should be credited ; that all that was necessary
 
 250 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 toward enlisting them in our army for Indian service was 
 the government's release of them as prisoners of war ; 
 that to give them bounty and credit them to a county 
 which owed some of its own men for service against the 
 Confederates would waste money and deprive the army, 
 operating against a powerful enemy, of that number of 
 men, etc." 
 
 " Now, Mr. President," added Stanton, " those are the 
 facts, and you must see that your order cannot be exe- 
 cuted." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, who had sat attentively listening, with his 
 legs crossed, said, in a somewhat positive tone : 
 
 " Mr. Secretary, I reckon you '11 have to execute the 
 order." 
 
 Stanton replied with asperity : 
 
 " Mr. President, I cannot do it. The order is an im- 
 proper one, and I cannot execute it." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, eyeing Stanton fixedly, rejoined with an 
 emphasis that clearly showed his determination : 
 
 " Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done." 
 
 " Stanton," concludes Mr. Fry, " then realized that he 
 was overmatched. He had made a square issue with the 
 President and been defeated, notwithstanding the fact 
 that he was in the right. Upon an intimation from him 
 I withdrew, and did not witness his surrender. A few 
 minutes after I reached my office, I received instructions 
 from the Secretary to carry out the President's order." * 
 
 Here was a bitter leek for Mr. Stanton to eat, the 
 more so because he had such good ground for his opposi- 
 tion. Indeed, not many days thereafter, Mr. Lincoln 
 admitted to General Grant that the entire proceeding had 
 been a blunder. Taking all the blame upon himself, in 
 his own frank way, he especially exculpated the Secretary 
 of War, and explained that before Mr. Stanton could 
 convince him of his error, he had committed himself too 
 far to recede. 39 
 
 In determining the proportion of troops to be furnished
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 251 
 
 by each of the States, the War Department aroused con- 
 siderable faultfinding. To all the complaints, whether jus- 
 tifiable or not, the brusque Secretary turned a deaf ear. 
 He rigidly adhered to the assignment for New York, 
 under the call of December 19, 1864, although Reuben 
 E. Fenton, the newly installed Republican Governor of 
 the State, went to Washington in person, to point out its 
 inaccuracies. Failing to secure a reduction, Mr. Fenton 
 appealed to the President, who, having listened to his 
 argument, said : 
 
 " I guess you have the best of it, and I must advise 
 Stanton and Fry to ease up a little." 
 
 Then Mr. Lincoln wrote to the Secretary of War, on 
 one of his little cards : 
 
 "The Governor has a pretty good case. I feel sure 
 he is more than half right. We don't want him to feel 
 cross and we in the wrong. Try and fix it with him." 
 
 The War Department did " fix it," by a reduction 
 of nine thousand from the number of men that had ori- 
 ginally been required. 40 
 
 The President's attitude toward Mr. Stanton on these 
 occasions was supplemented, in comparatively trivial af- 
 fairs, by an equally firm bearing. One instance of this, 
 at least, should be cited. It indicates that Mr. Lincoln, 
 notwithstanding his habitual disregard of ceremony, did 
 not brook disrespectful treatment in an official matter, at 
 the Secretary's hands. The head of the War Department, 
 in the spring of 1862, sent to the Executive Mansion 
 Edward Stanley's commission as Militaiy Governor of 
 North Carolina, with the request that the President should 
 sign and return it. The document was sent back, but 
 without the signature. Another attempt to have the com- 
 mission completed met with the same fate. Then Mr. 
 Stanton placed the scroll in the hands of Major William 
 G. Moore, his private secretary, with instructions to call 
 on Mr. Lincoln and ascertain whether he had any objec- 
 tions to signing it. When the document was presented
 
 252 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 by Major Moore, the President unrolled it and turned 
 it about as if in search of something. 
 
 " Did Mr. Stauton say where I was to put my signa- 
 ture?" he asked. 
 
 "No, sir," answered the messenger. 
 
 " Can you tell me," continued Mr. Lincoln, striking 
 the commission two or three times with his forefinger, 
 " whereabouts on this paper I am to put my signature ? " 
 
 Major Moore had not read the document. He now 
 looked, and saw Mr. Stanton's name written in a bold 
 hand directly below the body of the instrument, with the 
 Adjutant-General's counter-signature to the left. He also 
 saw, beneath the name of the Secretary, sufficient space 
 for another signature ; but he was a discreet young man, 
 so he replied : 
 
 " I don't see any place provided for your signature, 
 Mr. President." 
 
 Then he sought to explain the omission. Interrupting 
 him, Mr. Lincoln said : 
 
 " Take the paper back to the Secretary of War, with 
 my compliments, and say that the President will promptly 
 sign any proper commission that may be sent to him for 
 Governor Stanley or anybody else." 
 
 Hastening back to the War Department, Major Moore 
 reported to his chief what had occurred. Mr. Stanton, 
 as his secretary relates, showed considerable feeling over 
 the matter. Ringing violently for the Adjutant-General, 
 he directed him upon his appearance to draft another 
 copy as quickly as possible. When this order had been 
 obeyed, the commission made its fourth journey to the 
 White House, whence it soon returned with the desired 
 signature. 41 
 
 In this episode President and Secretary appear, as far 
 as habits go, to have exchanged places. For the volcanic 
 Stanton paradoxical though it may seem had ideals 
 of regularity, while Lincoln, who was deliberation itself, 
 did not hesitate to sever red tape, if it lay across his
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 253 
 
 path to a legitimate end. Occasionally these short-cuts 
 led through the War Department, much to the annoyance 
 of the man at its head. In fact, his stern adherence to 
 established rules, and the President's proneness to set 
 them aside, led to several sharp disagreements. On ques- 
 tions of mercy at times, even of justice their points 
 of view were not in the same plane. With Lincoln's 
 broad humanity, Mars, as he playfully called his war min- 
 ister, had but little sympathy. The Secretary insisted 
 not without reason that military discipline was endan- 
 gered by the President's clemency, and by his too liberal 
 interpretation of the laws. Nevertheless, pardons arrived 
 at the War Office with irritating frequency. The head 
 of the department delayed, argued, protested, blustered, 
 threatened, and obeyed. 42 To do the last was especially 
 hard for him when he believed that Mr. Lincoln had 
 been imposed on. Such an instance is recalled by Henry 
 Laurens Dawes, who during the war represented a Massa- 
 chusetts district in Congress. His constituents were inter- 
 ested in a quartermaster from his State, who had been 
 sentenced to five years in the penitentiary for gambling 
 with government money. The convict's influential neigh- 
 bors, together with a prominent physician and the prison 
 doctor, signed a petition for his pardon, on the ground 
 that his health had become seriously impaired, with every 
 prospect of a speedy death unless he were released. 
 
 " I took this petition," says Mr. Dawes, in whose hands 
 the document had been placed, " to Mr. Lincoln, who, 
 after carefully reading it, turned to me and said, ' Do you 
 believe that statement ? ' ' Certainly, I do, Mr. President, 
 or I should not have brought it to you.' ' Please say so 
 here on the back of it, under these doctors.' I did as 
 requested, adding, ' And because I believe it to be true I 
 join in this petition.' As I signed my name he remarked, 
 * We can't permit that man to die in prison after that 
 statement,' and immediately wrote under it all, ' Let this 
 man be discharged. A. L.' He handed the paper back to
 
 254 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 me, and told me to take it to the War Office and give it 
 to Mr. Stan ton. He saw at once something in my coun- 
 tenance which led him to think that I had already encoun- 
 tered some rough weather in that quarter, and had little 
 relish for more. He took back the paper, and smiling, 
 remarked that he was going over there pretty soon, and 
 would take it himself." 
 
 What followed was related the next day, by the Presi- 
 dent, to two Michigan Representatives, in response to 
 their appeal for the pardon of a deserter who had been 
 sentenced to death. He told them how, on the preceding 
 clay, he had granted a petition for the discharge of a 
 convict, and how, when he had taken the order to the War 
 Department, Mr. Stanton had refused to execute it. 
 
 " He told me," concluded the President, " that it was 
 a sham, and that Dawes had got me to pardon the biggest 
 rascal in the army, and that I had made gambling with 
 the public funds perfectly safe. I could n't get him to let 
 the man off. The truth is, I have been doing so much 
 of this thing lately that I have lost all influence with this 
 administration, and have got to stop." 
 
 On learning from his fellow Congressmen what had 
 happened, the member from Massachusetts hastened to 
 the White House, and asked the President whether the 
 pardon had been issued. 
 
 " He replied that it had not," writes Mr. Dawes, continu- 
 ing his narrative, " and then recounted, in his quaint way, 
 the scene in the War Office, much as it had been already 
 repeated to me. I said to him that I could not afford to 
 have this matter rest on any uncertainty. ' Retain this par- 
 don, send a messenger to Albany, and make certain the 
 truth or falsity of this statement at my expense, if we 
 have been imposed upon.' His reply was, ' I think, if you 
 believe it, I will. At any rate, I will take the risk on the 
 side of mercy.' So the pardon went out." 
 
 When Mr. Dawes, after the adjournment of Congress, 
 returned to his home, one of the first to greet him on the
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 255 
 
 street was his " dying " quartermaster. The man's appear- 
 ance of robust health left small room for doubt that Mr. 
 Stanton's intuitions had been correct. 43 
 
 The President's ever ready sympathy went out, in the 
 same impulsive way, to a handsome young lady who 
 called on him, in dire distress. She had been married to a 
 lieutenant in a Pennsylvania regiment, who had been com- 
 pelled to rejoin his command the day after the wedding. 
 He had then secured a leave of absence for a brief honey- 
 moon journey with his bride ; and on the tour had failed 
 to see a War Department order requiring all absent offi- 
 cers to rejoin their regiments by a certain day, under pen- 
 alty of being treated as deserters. Upon returning home, 
 after the specified date, he had found a notice of dismissal 
 from the service. His young wife, leaving her husband 
 prostrated by the disgrace, had hastened to Washington, 
 where she told her simple story to the President. 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln," she pleaded, in conclusion, " won't you 
 help us? I promise you, if you will restore him, he will 
 be faithful to his duty." 
 
 The President, who had listened with a somewhat 
 amused smile on his furrowed face, said : 
 
 " And you say, my child, that Fred was compelled to 
 leave you the day after the wedding ? Poor fellow, I don't 
 wonder at his anxiety to get back, and if he stayed a little 
 longer than he ought to have done, we '11 have to overlook 
 his fault this time. Take this card to the Secretary of 
 War and he will restore your husband." 
 
 Later, as the young lady left the office of the War De- 
 partment, where she had been curtly dismissed with a 
 rebuke by the Secretary for troubling the President, she 
 met Mr. Lincoln, on his way in. 
 
 " Well, my dear," he asked, " have you seen the Sec- 
 retary?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Lincoln," she replied, " and he seemed very 
 angry with me for going to you. Won't you speak to him 
 forme?"
 
 256 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 " Give yourself no trouble," was the answer. " I will 
 see that the order is issued." 
 
 Within a few clays the lieutenant was reinstated ; and 
 not long thereafter, on the field of Gettysburg, he re- 
 deemed with his life the young wife's pledge. 44 
 
 Another officer, Captain Edward W. Andrews, who had 
 been dismissed from the service unjustly, as he thought, 
 by Secretary Stanton, appealed to Mr. Lincoln for re- 
 dress. The incident illustrates at once the Secretary's 
 zeal and the President's manner of checking it, when car- 
 ried beyond the limits of propriety. The offence which had 
 aroused Mr. Stanton's ire had been committed during 
 the presidential canvass of 1864, while Captain Andrews, 
 as Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief-of-Staff to Gen- 
 eral William W. Morris, was stationed in the defences 
 of Baltimore. The Captain, a Democrat who favored 
 the election of General McClellau, had, when attending 
 a political meeting of his party, one evening, been called 
 upon persistently for a speech. 
 
 " Forced to say something," as he afterward explained, 
 " I contented myself with a brief expression of my high 
 regard for McClellan as a soldier, and a statement of my 
 intention to vote for him. I made no reference to Mr. 
 Lincoln, and soon left the hall." 
 
 On the following day, when the occurrence was reported 
 to the Secretary of War, he indignantly commented on 
 the Captain's conduct, and, without formally assigning a 
 reason, ordered him to be mustered out of the service. 
 Captain Andrews, who had been unwavering in his loy- 
 alty to the Union, determined not to suffer this disgrace 
 without a protest. Going to Washington, he sent a per- 
 sonal friend, a Republican member of Congress, to ask 
 the President whether the commission had been revoked 
 by his order. 
 
 " I know nothing about it," was Mr. Lincoln's reply. 
 " Of course Stanton does a thousand things in his offi- 
 cial character which I can know nothing about, and
 
 THE CURBING OF ST ANTON 257 
 
 which it is nc\ necessary that I should know anything 
 about." 
 
 When the cas* i had been stated, he added : 
 
 " Well, that 's QO reason. Andrews has as good a right 
 to hold on to his Democracy, if he chooses, as Stan ton 
 had to throw his overboard. If I should muster out all my 
 generals who avow themselves Democrats, there would be 
 a sad thinning out of commanding officers in the army. 
 No, when the military duties of a soldier are fully and 
 faithfully performed, he can manage his politics in his 
 own way. We 've no more to do with them than with his 
 religion. Tell this officer he can return to his post, and if 
 there is no other or better reason for the order of Stanton 
 than the one he suspects, it shall do him no harm. The 
 commission he holds will remain as good as new. Sup- 
 porting General McClellan for the presidency is no vio- 
 lation of army regulations, and as a question of taste 
 of choosing between him and me well, I 'm the longest, 
 but he 's better looking." 
 
 Captain Andrews did return to his post. He was not 
 again molested by the Secretary of War. 45 
 
 A private, equally guiltless of intentional wrong-doing, 
 applied to the Secretary of War for relief from unmerited 
 disgrace. He had been sent home from his regiment on 
 sick furlough. At its expiration, his disability continuing, 
 he had not rejoined his company for several weeks ; but 
 had regularly forwarded to his officers surgeon's certifi- 
 cates of his condition. These had probably miscarried, 
 for upon his return to the army, as soon as he could 
 travel, he had been surprised to learn that his name was 
 on the rolls as a deserter. His fault having been a purely 
 technical one, he had been permitted to go on duty ; but 
 the stigma remained on the records. The task of having 
 it removed was entrusted to the young soldier's friend 
 and neighbor, James F. Wilson, a Congressman at the 
 time, from Iowa. He called on the Secretary of War, 
 briefly explained the case, and presented the accompany-
 
 258 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 ing papers. Declining abruptly to receive them, Mr c 
 Stanton said : 
 
 " Ah, this is the case of a deserter, is it ? I want nothing 
 to do with it. We are having too many of them now. We 
 had better make a few examples by shooting a deserter 
 now and then. That might put a stop to the business." 
 
 To this outburst, Mr. Wilson answered : 
 
 " Mr. Secretary, this is not the case of a deserter, except 
 in the narrowest and most technical sense." 
 
 " That is what they all say," was the reply. " Every 
 man of them, when caught, or in hiding and asking for 
 relief, has some plausible excuse. I have no time to spare 
 for the consideration of the cases of men who run away 
 from their duty." 
 
 Having failed to impress upon the Secretary's mind 
 the peculiar merits of the case, the Congressman declared 
 that he should lay it before the President, who would 
 no doubt restore the soldier to his place on the rolls. To 
 which Mr. Stanton rejoined : 
 
 " Go to the President, if you please. I will not consider 
 the case, nor will I execute such an order." 
 
 Mr. Wilson, narrating the incident many years later, 
 writes : 
 
 " Proceeding at once to the Executive Mansion, I placed 
 . the papers in the hands of the President. He read them, 
 and said, 4 If the statements herein made are true, this 
 soldier ought to be relieved ; for he is in no proper sense 
 a deserter. He seems to have done all that he could do to 
 comply with the regulations governing such cases, and to 
 discharge his duty. Are you sure that the facts are cor- 
 rectly stated ? ' To this question my answer was, ' I have 
 personal knowledge that all of the material facts are true as 
 stated in the papers you have read ' ; and I explained the 
 sources of my knowledge. The President handed me the 
 papers, requesting me to endorse on them the statement I 
 had made, which I did, and, after signing my name to it, 
 I hauded the papers back to him. He was proceeding to
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 259 
 
 endorse the proper order on them, when I requested him 
 to stay his hand for a moment that he might be placed in 
 possession of some further facts connected with the case. 
 He complied with the request, and I gave him a circum- 
 stantial statement of my interview with the Secretary of 
 War. It seemed to interest him. At its conclusion he 
 made no remark, but endorsed and signed the order as 
 requested. He then returned the paper to me, quaintly 
 remarking, ' Your persistence in this case is right. There 
 is the order, and I guess it will be obeyed.' I thanked the 
 President, and was about to depart, when it occurred to me 
 that another question and answer might be of some service. 
 I asked him what I should do in case the Secretary of 
 War should decline to execute the order. He promptly 
 replied, ' Report the fact to me, but I guess he will obey 
 that order. I know it is a small thing, as some would look 
 at it, as it only relates to a private soldier, and we have 
 hundreds of thousands of them. But the way to have good 
 soldiers is to treat them rightly. At all events, that is my 
 order in this case. Let me know what comes of it.' 
 
 "The result of this interview," continues Mr. Wilson, 
 " was promptly reported to the Secretary of War. The 
 papers were placed before him and his attention directed to 
 the endorsement of the President. He read it and evidently 
 was vexed, for with a noticeable degree of feeling he re- 
 peated the declaration that he would not execute the order. 
 A circumstantial statement was then made to him of the 
 interview with the President, nothing being omitted. This 
 did not seem to affect the Secretary nor move him to com- 
 pliance. After waiting a moment and seeing no indication 
 of action on his part, I picked up the papers, remarking 
 as I did so, 'Mr. Secretary, as you decline to obey the Pre- 
 sident's order to you, I will obey the one he gave to me, 
 and report the result of this interview to him at once.' 
 Leaving the Secretary's room, I proceeded down the stair- 
 way leading to the first floor of the department, intending 
 to go directly to the Executive Mansion with my report
 
 260 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 of the foregoing interview, and ascertain the further pur- 
 pose of the President. Before I reached the outer door of 
 the department a messenger overtook me and said the 
 Secretary desired to see me. Returning to his room, I 
 found him apparently in better mood, and his manner 
 greatly changed. He pleasantly requested me to give him 
 the papers in the case, and I passed them to him. With- 
 out further remark he endorsed on them directions to the 
 Adjutant-General to execute the President's order. This 
 done, he turned to me and said, ' It seems to me that the 
 President would rather have a fuss with anybody than 
 miss a chance to do a kindness to a private soldier. But 
 I suppose this case is all right. At all events, I like 
 your dogged persistence in it, and we will be good friends.' 
 And so we ever after were." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's firmness in the matter was still further 
 evinced, some days later, when, on learning from Mr. 
 Wilson how it had terminated, he remarked : 
 
 " Well, I 'm glad you stuck to it, and that it ended as 
 it did ; for I meant it should so end, if I had to give it 
 personal attention. A private soldier has as much right 
 to justice as a Major-General." 4B 
 
 If the stern Stanton was disinclined to obey the Presi- 
 dent's orders when they related to men who had been 
 unjustly treated, how much stronger must have been his 
 repugnance toward the clemency that was extended to 
 wrongdoers undergoing deserved punishment. An in- 
 stance of this is outlined in two notes addressed to him 
 by Mr. Lincoln. In the first the President wrote : 
 
 " Mrs. Baird tells me that she is a widow ; that her two 
 sons and only support joined the army, where one of them 
 still is ; that her other son, Isaac P. Baird, is a private in 
 the Seventy-second Pennsylvania Volunteers Baxter's 
 Fire Zouaves, Company K ; that he is now under guard 
 with his regiment on a charge of desertion ; that he was 
 under arrest for desertion, so that he could not take the 
 benefit of returning under the proclamation on that sub-
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 261 
 
 ject. Please have it ascertained if this is correct, and if 
 it is, let him be discharged from arrest and go on duty. I 
 think, too, he should have his pay for duty actually per- 
 formed. Loss of pay falls so hard upon poor families." * 7 
 
 That Mr. Lincoln's wishes were not, at the time, com- 
 plied with may be inferred from the second note, sent 
 many months later. Having restated Baird's case, the 
 President wrote : 
 
 " At the tearful appeal of the poor mother, I made a 
 direction that he be allowed to enlist for a new term, on 
 the same conditions as others. She now comes, and says 
 she cannot get it acted upon. Please do it." 48 
 
 This polite yet firm command finally won obedience. 
 Baird was transferred to another regiment, and was per- 
 mitted to reenlist. 
 
 When other means of staying the President's merciful 
 hand failed, the Secretary of War had recourse to threats. 
 So Mr. Lincoln informed his friend Joshua F. Speed, on 
 the occasion of a visit to the White House, a few weeks 
 before the assassination. Mr. Speed was present when two 
 women appealed for the release, the one, of her hus- 
 band, the other, of her son, both of whom had been im- 
 prisoned for resisting the draft in western Pennsylvania. 
 
 "Where is your petition?" asked the President. 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln," replied the old lady, " I 've got no peti- 
 tion. I went to a lawyer to get one drawn, and I had not 
 the money to pay him and come here too ; so I thought 
 I would just come and ask you to let me have my boy." 
 
 " And it 's your husband you want ? " said he, turning 
 to the young woman. 
 
 " Yes," she answered. 
 
 The papers in the case were, in response to the Presi- 
 dent's summons, brought to him by Charles A. Dana, the 
 Assistant Secretary of War. 
 
 " General," said Mr. Lincoln, after counting the names 
 of the prisoners, " there are twenty-seven of these men. 
 Is there any difference in degree of their guilt?"
 
 262 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 ** No," was the answer ; " it is a bad case and a merciful 
 finding." 
 
 " Well," said the President, looking out of the window 
 and seemingly talking to himself, " these poor fellows have, 
 I think, suffered enough. They have been in prison fifteen 
 months. I have been thinking so for some time, and have 
 so said to Stanton, and he always threatened to resign 
 if they are released. But he has said so about other 
 matters, and never did. So now, while I have the paper 
 in my hand, I will turn out the flock." 
 
 Then be wrote, " Let the prisoners named in the within 
 paper be discharged " ; and signed his name. Turning to 
 the women, he said : 
 
 " Now, ladies, you can go. Your son, madam, and your 
 husband, madam, is free." 49 
 
 The Secretary's threat to resign, it may be added, proved 
 to be, like its predecessors a sound and nothing more. 
 
 Thus Mr. Lincoln found it using his own phrase 
 " necessary to put the foot down firmly," when Stanton 
 would have forced shut the gates of mercy. But stronger 
 pressure still had to be exerted, at times, to keep an open 
 door in the War Department for the President's appoint- 
 ments. An instance of this has been recalled by former 
 Vice-President William A. Wheeler. He relates that while 
 in Congress, during the early days of the war, he applied 
 to Mr. Lincoln, before leaving Washington at the close 
 of a session, for the appointment of his friend, John A. 
 Sabin, as additional paymaster. The President, assenting, 
 directed his private secretary to take note of the matter. 
 A few weeks later, Mr. Lincoln wrote to Mr. Wheeler that 
 the appointment had been sent to the Secretary of War, 
 who would notify Mr. Sabin to report for muster into the 
 service. As no such notification was received, and as a let- 
 ter of inquiry to the Secretary remained unanswered, the 
 Congressman, upon his return to the Capital, waited upon 
 Mr. Stanton and called his attention to the appointment. 
 
 " He had no recollection of the matter," says Mr.
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 263 
 
 Wheeler, "but told me, in his brusque manner, that Mr. 
 Sabiu's uame would be sent in, with hundreds of others, 
 to the Senate for its consideration. Earnestly I argued 
 that Mr. Sabin had been appointed by the Commander- 
 in-Chief of the army, and that it was unjust to ask hiut to 
 wait, perhaps the whole winter, the tardy action of the 
 Senate upon his nomination, and that he was entitled to 
 be mustered in at once. But all in vain. I got but this 
 reply from the iron Secretary, ' You have my answer ; no 
 argument.' M I went to the chief clerk of the department 
 and asked him for Mr. Lincoln's letter directing the ap- 
 pointment. Receiving it, I proceeded to the White House, 
 although it was after Executive hours. I can see Mr. 
 Lincoln now as when I entered the room. He wore a long 
 calico dressing-gown, reaching to his heels. His feet were 
 encased in a pair of old-fashioned, leathern slippers such 
 as we used to find in the old-time country hotels, and 
 which had evidently seen much service in Springfield. 
 Above these appeared the home-made, blue woolen stock- 
 ings which he wore at all seasons of the year. He was 
 sitting in a splint rocking-chair, with his legs elevated and 
 stretched across his office table. He greeted me warmly. 
 Apologizing for my intrusion at that unofficial hour, I 
 told him I had called simply to ascertain which was the par- 
 amount power in the government, he or the Secretary of 
 War. Letting down his legs and straightening himself up 
 in his chair, he answered, ' Well, it is generally supposed 
 (emphasizing the last word) I am. What 's the matter ? ' 
 " I then briefly recalled the facts attending Sabin's 
 appointment," continues Mr. Wheeler, " when, without a 
 word of comment, he said, 'Give me my letter.' Then 
 taking his pen, he endorsed upon it, * Let the within 
 named J. A. Sabin be mustered in AT ONCE. It is due to 
 him and to Mr. W. under the circumstances. A. Lin- 
 coln.' He underscored with double lines the words *at 
 once.' Armed with this Executive mandate, I called on 
 Mr. Stauton the next morning, who, on its presentation,
 
 264 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 was simply furious. He charged me with interfering with 
 his prerogatives, and with undue persistence perhaps 
 as to the last, not without some force, for I had wearied 
 with the delay and was a little provoked by what I 
 regarded as the ' insolence of office.' I told him I would 
 call the next morning for the order to muster in. I called 
 accordingly, and handing it to me in a rage, he said, ' I 
 hope I shall never hear of this matter again.' " 51 
 
 The member from New York was always, thereafter, 
 cordially received at the War Department ; and none of 
 his requests were again refused by the grim minister who 
 presided there. 
 
 One more episode in this class must suffice. We are 
 indebted for it to Josiah B. Grinnell, a member of Con- 
 gress from Iowa during the latter years of the war. He 
 called on Mr. Stanton to urge the advancement of Colonel 
 Elliott W. Rice to the rank of brigadier-general. That 
 sterling officer had not only shown himself worthy of the 
 promotion, at the head of his regiment, the Seventh Iowa 
 Infantry, but he had demonstrated his fitness for it as 
 well, in the actual command of a brigade. The Secretary 
 of War, however, according to his wont, regarded this 
 application as an unwarrantable interference with his 
 department. 
 
 " No use, sir," was his reply to Mr. Grinnell's importu- 
 nities ; " your case, sir, is like thousands. What we want 
 now is victories, not brigadiers. We are in a crisis. I 
 refuse, sir, to make a promise even to consider the wish 
 of a civilian at such a time. I am sorry. My desk is loaded 
 with business. I must say good-morning." 
 
 A second interview ended as abruptly as the first. 
 
 " No use," repeated Mr. Stanton, " in a civilian's talking 
 to me on the subject, sir." 
 
 " Neither," replied Mr. Grinnell, " can I waive a civil- 
 ian's rights." 
 
 " Then go to the President," said the Secretary sharply. 
 
 " That would be an offence," rejoined the Congressman.
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 265 
 
 " My regard for the Secretary of War would make that 
 step a last resort." 
 
 " Get your request granted and X will resign," was 
 Stanton's angry retort. 
 
 After another unsuccessful effort Mr. Grinnell did go 
 to the President. 
 
 " What does Stanton say ? " asked Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 " Nothing," was the answer, " will not even look up the 
 papers." 
 
 "Yes, I know," responded the President, "the cases 
 like yours are hundreds, and it disturbs him even my 
 hint that we may move up the boys and encourage enlist- 
 ments. It is a very delicate question. Don't be impatient, 
 but get on the right side of a very good officer." 
 
 When our undaunted Congressman next presented him- 
 self at the Executive Mansion, Mr. Lincoln said : 
 
 " Stanton was fairly mad on the suggestion of promo- 
 tion by civilians or members of Congress." 
 
 To which Mr. Grinnell replied : 
 
 " I base my claim on the recommendations of superior 
 officers in the field." 
 
 "You get the facts," suggested Mr. Lincoln, "and 
 quietly say the President hopes your request will be 
 granted." 
 
 There followed still another interview, as Mr. Lincoln 
 was returning from a walk in which he had vainly tried 
 to shift the weary burden of the cares that beset him. 
 
 " I cannot attempt to make Stanton over at this stage," 
 he declared. " You will win, if patient." 
 
 But as they reached the White House door, the Presi- 
 dent asked : 
 
 " Have you a slip of paper ? " 
 
 Resting the scrap that had been handed to him against 
 &ne of the columns, he addressed this note to Mr. Stanton : 
 
 " Sir, Without an if or an and, let Colonel Elliott W. 
 Rice be made a Brigadier- General in the United States 
 array. A. Lincoln."
 
 266 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Giving this to Mr. Grinnell, the President added : 
 
 " Report, if necessary, from the War Office." 
 
 When the order was presented at the department, the 
 Secretary muttered, as he tossed it into his waste basket : 
 
 " I will resign." 
 
 But as the Congressman turned to go, he said, with a 
 smile : 
 
 " Wait, Mr. Grinnell ; come over and take dinner with 
 me." 52 
 
 Colonel Rice was duly commissioned a brigadier. Not 
 long afterward, the member from the Fourth Iowa District 
 secured a military appointment for one friend, and a pro- 
 motion in the army for another, on demand. It is a note- 
 worthy fact, moreover, that Mr. Grinnell, like Mr. Wilson 
 and Mr. Wheeler, won by his spirit the arrogant Stanton's 
 good-will, or a semblance thereof. For the Secretary of 
 War may be said to have reversed, on occasion, the maxim 
 of that other great minister, Cardinal Richelieu, and to 
 have conciliated when he could not crush. 
 
 Military appointments of far greater importance than 
 those of brigadiers and paymasters were made by the 
 President in the teeth of Mr. Stanton's opposition. All 
 the power at the war-lord's command was exerted in vain, 
 at certain junctures, to prevent the advancement, sever- 
 ally, of Rosecrans, Hooker, and McClellan. The first of 
 these became commander of the Army of the Ohio, under 
 peculiar circumstances. When it was decided to remove 
 General Buell from that place, the choice of the adminis- 
 tration fell upon one of the Secretary's favorites, General 
 George H. Thomas of Virginia. As soon as an order 
 directing this change reached headquarters, at Louisville, 
 the army was turned over to Thomas, who was, at the 
 time, in command of the First Division. 53 That officer, 
 however, as promptly, despatched a request to Washing- 
 ton for Buell's immediate restoration. 
 
 " General Buell's preparations," it read, " have been 
 completed to move against the enemy, and I therefore
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 267 
 
 respectfully ask that he may be retained in command. 
 My position is very embarrassing, not being as well in- 
 formed as I should be as the commander of this army 
 and on the assumption of such a responsibility." 5< 
 
 Upon receipt of this appeal Buell was reinstated. But 
 within a few weeks after he had fought the indeci- 
 sive battle of Perryville dissatisfaction with his course 
 revived, and led to his final removal. The selection of 
 his successor gave Mr. Lincoln some trouble ; for the Sec- 
 retary of the Treasury, as well as the Secretary of War, 
 had a candidate. Mr. Chase urged the appointment of 
 General William Starke Rosecrans, whose successes in 
 western Virginia and northern Mississippi had brought 
 him into prominence. A blunt, impulsive soldier, indiffer- 
 ent to the opinions on military matters of civilians, 
 however lofty, " Old Rosy," as the soldiers fondly called 
 him, had failed to win Mr. Stanton's favor. So the Sec- 
 retary of War hotly opposed his advancement and, with 
 equal vehemence, advocated the appointment of Thomas, 
 who had so magnanimously declined the command, several 
 weeks before. The President, having listened patiently to 
 both his Secretaries, said : 
 
 "Let the Virginian wait. We will try Rosecrans." 55 
 
 The details of the discussion have not been preserved, 
 but Mr. Stanton's behavior, after he left the Executive 
 Mansion, indicated how entirely his wishes had been ig- 
 nored. Flushed with anger, he returned to his office, and 
 said abruptly to an officer who had previously excited his 
 wrath by suggesting the appointment of Rosecrans : 
 
 " Well, you have your choice of idiots. Now look out 
 for frightful disasters." M 
 
 Mr. Stanton then issued the orders which placed General 
 Rosecrans, as General Buell's successor, in command of 
 the newly constituted Department of the Cumberland. 
 
 Three months later, the President and the Secretary of 
 War were again at variance over the selection of a com- 
 mander this time, for the Army of the Potomac. The
 
 268 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 noble but ill-fated troops composing that body had, after 
 the disaster of Fredericksburg and the hardships of the 
 so-called " mud march," regained the winter camp near 
 Falmouth. Here their commander, Major-General Am- 
 brose E. Burnside, humiliated by his failures and smart- 
 ing under the criticisms of some of his lieutenants, had, on 
 January 23, 1863, written the famous General Orders No. 
 8, disciplining nine officers, by the removal of five from the 
 Army of the Potomac and the dismissal of four from the 
 service. 57 The document had been presented to the Presi- 
 dent for his approval, with the consistent alternative of 
 accepting General Burnside's resignation. That loyal 
 officer, frankly acknowledging the lack of confidence in 
 himself which he, however, resented in his subordinates, 
 had twice before asked to be relieved from the command 
 and to be retired to private life. His successor had there- 
 fore already been tentatively selected by Mr. Lincoln, and, 
 strange to say, he was the man whom Burnside's orders 
 had most severely marked for disgrace Major-General 
 Joseph Hooker. 58 In the important engagements of the 
 Army of the Potomac, Hooker had gained unusual dis- 
 tinction. He had led divisions and corps with equal gal- 
 lantry. There was no handsomer or braver officer in the 
 service than " Fighting Joe," as the soldiers and war cor- 
 respondents called him. 59 His commanding appearance 
 and engaging manner, no less than his dash and skill, had 
 rendered his presence on the field of battle an inspiration 
 to the troops. These high qualities were in a measure 
 offset, however, by the liquor habit, selfish ambition, a 
 spirit of insubordination, an exaggerated idea of his own 
 merits, and a proneness to belittle or to criticise adversely 
 the acts of other officers. His unrestrained censure of his 
 superiors, civil as well as military, after the battle of 
 Fredericksburg, had moved General Burnside to say of 
 him, in the orders submitted to the President : 
 
 " General Joseph Hooker, Major-General of Volunteers 
 and Brigadier-General U. S. Army, having been guilty
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 269 
 
 of unjust and unnecessary criticisms of the actions of 
 his superior officers, and of the authorities, and having, 
 by the general tone of his conversation, endeavored to cre- 
 ate distrust in the minds of officers who have associated 
 with him, and having, by omissions and otherwise, made 
 reports and statements which were calculated to create 
 incorrect impressions, and for habitually speaking in dis- 
 paraging terms of other officers, is hereby dismissed the 
 service of the United States as a man unfit to hold an 
 important commission during a crisis like the present, when 
 so much patience, charity, confidence, consideration, and 
 patriotism, are due from every soldier in the field." m 
 
 In conjunction with this arraignment of Hooker, it should 
 be said that Mr. Stanton had, for some time, opposed his 
 elevation to an independent command. Notwithstanding 
 the General's ability, courage, and personal popularity, 
 his faults unfitted him, in the Secretary's opinion, for the 
 control of the most important army in the service. When 
 choice of a commander, in the event of Burnside's resig- 
 nation, was nevertheless found to lie between Hooker and 
 General George G. Meade, the head of the War Depart- 
 ment took the position that the former was not to be 
 appointed in any contingency. On the other hand, the 
 President, recognizing the importance of making a selec- 
 tion that would be equally acceptable to the army and to 
 the country at large, inclined toward " Fighting Joe." 
 " Hooker does talk badly," he admitted, when his attention 
 was called to that officer's indiscreet language concerning 
 General Burnside and himself ; " but the trouble is, he is 
 stronger with the country to-day than any other man." w 
 This strength was augmented by the friendship of Secre- 
 tary Chase, who again in opposition to Secretary Stan- 
 ton had, for some time, urged General Hooker's ad- 
 vancement. 82 In return for this support the General was 
 expected to throw the weight of whatever military glory 
 he might gain, in favor of Mr. Chase's presidential aspi- 
 rations. As the intrigue came to the knowledge of Mr.
 
 270 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Stanton, his personal loyalty to Mr. Lincoln, no less than 
 his distrust of General Hooker, rendered unavailing the 
 repeated efforts that were made to remove his opposition. 
 Whether or not he called the President's attention to the 
 electioneering aspect of the matter is not known ; but, in 
 his eagerness to prevent the appointment, he is not likely 
 x> have omitted it. If the appeal to Mr. Lincoln's political 
 interests was made, it failed, as had all other arguments, 
 to move him from the conclusion that circumstances re- 
 quired the selection of Hooker. 63 The President, having 
 declined to disorganize the already demoralized Army of 
 the Potomac by approving of the drastic measures de- 
 manded by its commander, directed the Secretary of War 
 to issue orders relieving General Burnside and assigning 
 General Hooker to his place. When this decision was 
 announced, Mr. Stanton's first impulse was to resign. Then 
 cooler counsels prevailed. He not only remained faithfully 
 at his post, but he also supported the new commander to 
 the utmost of his power, until the defeat at Chancellors- 
 ville added the name of Hooker to the dreary list of gen- 
 erals who led the Army of the Potomac to disaster. 
 
 The operations of "this poor old strategy-possessed 
 army " had been hampered, from time to time, by the ne- 
 cessity for defending Washington. The loss of the north- 
 ern Capital, particularly in the earlier years of the war, 
 would, from a diplomatic no less than from a military 
 point of view, have been a serious blow to the Union cause. 
 This fact was appreciated more keenly, perhaps, by the 
 Secretary of War than by any other member of the ad- 
 ministration. His anxiety on the subject previous to and 
 during General McClellan's Peninsular campaign led to 
 conflicts of opinion between Mr. Stanton and the Presi- 
 dent. As the affair involved their only recorded disagree- 
 ments in important strategical matters, it has an interest 
 beyond that created by the endless discussions over who 
 was and who was not to blame for the failure of that expe- 
 During the winter of 1861-62, Mr. Lincoln, with
 
 THE CURBING OF ST ANTON 271 
 
 a view to the protection of Washington while attacking 
 Richmond, had advocated an early opening of the spring 
 campaign by a direct march overland upon the Confeder- 
 ate Capital. This plan, though warmly approved of by 
 Secretary Stanton and certain prominent military men, 
 was as earnestly opposed by General McClellan, who 
 urged an advance by way of the lower Chesapeake Bay 
 with a base at Urbana. After much discussion, the plans 
 were, with the consent of the President, submitted by 
 General McClellan on March 8, 1862, to a council of divi- 
 sion commanders. As eight of these out of twelve voted 
 in favor of the Urbana route, Mr. Lincoln acquiesced. 64 
 Not so, Mr. Stanton, whose confidence in the general 
 commanding the army was rapidly waning. McClellan's 
 assurances that the movement would " not at all expose 
 the City of Washington to danger," and that he regarded 
 " success as certain by all the chances of war," 65 did not 
 satisfy the head of the War Department. He still objected 
 to the project under which more than one hundred thou- 
 sand troops were to be set afloat in wooden bottoms, to 
 seek a battle-field many miles away, while the enemy lay 
 fortified before the Capital. 
 
 " We can do nothing else," said the President, " than 
 adopt this plan, and discard all others ; with eight out of 
 twelve division commanders approving it, we can't reject 
 it and adopt another, without assuming all the responsi- 
 bility in case of the failure of the one we adopt." 
 
 The Secretary took issue with Mr. Lincoln as to his 
 method of computation. 
 
 " Who are the eight generals," he asked, " upon whose 
 votes you are going to adopt the proposed plan of cam- 
 paign? All made so since General McClellan assumed 
 command, and upon his recommendation, influenced by 
 his views, and subservient to his wishes, while the other 
 four are beyond these influences, so that in fact you have 
 in this decision only the operation of one man's mind." M 
 
 This clever, though not entirely correct analysis of the
 
 272 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 vote reversed the odds of eight against four in support 
 of McClellan so that they became four to one in favor of 
 Mr. Lincoln's plan. Admitting the apparent force of the 
 argument, he remained, however, steadfast in his decision 
 to abide by the action of the council ; and instructed Mr. 
 Stan ton to proceed with the preparations for the cam- 
 paign. How chagrined the Secretary felt over his lack of 
 influence was revealed at a conference held, about this 
 time, with the Committee on the Conduct of the War. 
 " He was thoroughly discouraged," says one of the mem- 
 bers. " He told us the President had gone back to his 
 first love as to General McClellan, and that it was need- 
 less for him or for us to labor with him, although he had 
 finally been prevailed on to restrict McClellan's command 
 to the Army of the Potomac." 67 One other crumb of 
 comfort the disappointed Stanton had carried away from 
 his discussion with the Executive. Their interview closed 
 with the President's assurance that sufficient troops should 
 be retained for the protection of the Capital. To this end, 
 on the day the division commanders met, Mr. Lincoln 
 ordered : 
 
 " No change of the base of operations of the Army of 
 the Potomac shall be made without leaving in and about 
 Washington such a force as in the opinion of the General- 
 in-Chief and the commanders of all the army corps shall 
 leave said city entirely secure." 68 
 
 When the evacuation of Manassas and Centreville, on 
 the following day, rendered a change of plan necessary, 
 General McClellan submitted the question with the Pre- 
 sident's order to four newly created corps commanders, 
 Generals McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes. 
 They unanimously approved of his alternative route by 
 way of the peninsula between the York and the James 
 rivers, with a base at Fortress Monroe, providing, among 
 other things, that the troops left in the forts on the Po- 
 tomac and in front of the Virginia line to cover Wash- 
 ington should be "such as to give an entire feeling of
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 273 
 
 security for its safety from menace." This required from 
 40,000 to 55,000 men, according to the several stipula- 
 tions made by the corps commanders. 69 Their conclusions 
 were, with General McClellan's concurrence, reported to 
 the Secretary of War, who, responding with the Presi- 
 dent's assent, took occasion again to repeat the command, 
 " Leave Washington entirely secure." 70 
 
 Immediately after General McClellan had, with part 
 Df his troops, embarked for the Peninsula, alarm spread 
 through the city at the rumor that it had been left inade- 
 quately guarded. Such neglect of orders, particularly in 
 view of the stress laid upon them, was almost incredi- 
 ble. Nevertheless, Secretary Stan ton at once called upon 
 General James S. Wadsworth, Military Governor of the 
 District of Columbia, to make a report of the forces 
 left under his command for its defence. In reply, Gen- 
 eral Wadsworth stated that he had 19,000 available men, 
 most of them " new and imperfectly disciplined." About 
 4500 of these were, under General McClellan's orders, to 
 be sent to Manassas, Warrenton, and Budd's Ferry ; while 
 about 1500 were to join certain divisions, on their way 
 to the Peninsula. 71 This report, together with a formal 
 opinion secured from Adjutant-General Thomas and 
 Major-General Hitchcock, military adviser of the War 
 Department, to the effect that the force was " entirely 
 inadequate," and that the President's requirements had 
 " not been fully complied with," was laid by the Secre- 
 tary before Mr. Lincoln. 72 Then followed an anxious 
 conference at the War Office between the President and 
 the chiefs of bureaus. They agreed with Mr. Stanton in 
 the conviction that the Capital was not safe. At the con- 
 clusion of the meeting, the Secretary, under instructions 
 from the President, retained McDowell's corps, which 
 belonged to McClellan's army, but had not yet left for 
 the Peninsula. This command, of about 36,000 men, con- 
 sisting of Franklin's, McCall's, and King's divisions, was 
 to have served as a flanking column. The withdrawal of
 
 274 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 the corps from the campaign, at the eleventh hour, was a 
 shock to General McClellan, who regarded the part as- 
 signed to it as vital to the success of his operations. When 
 the news of this change in his circumstances reached him 
 before Yorktown, he at once to borrow a phrase from 
 a letter to his wife " raised an awful row." 73 
 
 In the despatches to the President and to the Secretary 
 of War that followed one another in close succession, the 
 General commanding protested against the action of the 
 administration, and urgently requested that at least 
 Franklin's division be restored to his command. Then 
 arose the quarrel between McClellan and his superiors 
 that has survived the principal disputants. The last word, 
 in fact, has not yet been said ; but the evidence is more 
 than sufficient to prove that the commander brought this 
 disappointment upon himself by his neglect of the Presi- 
 dent's orders. So Mr. Lincoln, after his kindly fashion, 
 stated to General McClellan, whose complaints, however, 
 that he had not been properly sustained in other respects, 
 were entitled to consideration. Persisting in his appeals, 
 he finally telegraphed to Secretary Stanton : 
 
 " The reconnoissance to-day proves that it is necessary 
 to invest and attack Gloucester Point. Give me Franklin 
 and McCall's divisions, under command of Franklin, and 
 I will at once undertake it. If circumstances of which I 
 am not aware make it impossible for you to send me two 
 divisions to carry out this final plan of campaign, I will 
 run the risk and hold myself responsible for the results 
 if you will give me Franklin's division. If you still con- 
 fide in my judgment, I entreat that you will grant this 
 request. The fate of our cause depends upon it." 74 
 
 This extraordinary message brought the President to 
 the War Office for another consultation. The reports on 
 file there showed that the army sent to the Peninsula 
 already consisted of more than 100,000 men. 75 How 
 greatly it, in fact, outnumbered the force opposed to it 
 was, of course, not known until some time afterward. 76
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 275 
 
 But General McClellan's tendency to underrate his own 
 strength and to exaggerate that of the enemy may have 
 been taken into the account by the Secretary of War, who 
 was once moved to say of him : 
 
 " If he had a million men, he would swear the enemy 
 had two million, and then he would sit down in the mud 
 and yell for three." " 
 
 At the conference, Mr. Stanton insisted that General 
 McClellan did not need the troops that had been detached 
 from the expedition, and that they could not even be em- 
 ployed if they were restored. He objected, moreover, to 
 the withdrawal of Franklin's division from McDowell's 
 corps, on the ground that the entire force, by advancing 
 over the shortest land route toward Richmond, so as to 
 keep between Washington and the enemy, could aid Gen- 
 eral McClellan while protecting the Union Capital. This 
 argument, although it was sustained by Adjutant-General 
 Thomas, Quartermaster-General Meigs, Major-General 
 Hitchcock, and Brigadier-General Ripley, Chief of Ord- 
 nance, failed to influence the President. Anxious to 
 gratify McClellan and to give him all the support avail- 
 able, he overruled the head of the War Department, for 
 the second time in the history of the Peninsular campaign, 
 and directed Franklin's division to be shipped at once to 
 the Lower Chesapeake. 
 
 " I yielded my opinion to the President's order," wrote 
 Mr. Stanton to a friend ; but how vigorously the order was 
 carried out, he omitted to mention. Before our Secretary 
 slept that night he telegraphed to General McClellan : 
 
 "Franklin's division is marching to Alexandria to 
 embark. McCall's will be sent if the safety of this city 
 will permit. Inform me where you want Franklin to land. 
 He will embark to-morrow and as quickly as possible." 78 
 
 Without pursuing the narrative of the hapless opera- 
 tions that immediately followed, it may be added that 
 when the troops, so persistently pleaded for as a flanking 
 column, arrived below Yorktown, they floated idly in their
 
 276 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 transports, nearly a fortnight. At the end of that period, 
 just as their disembarkation seemed " about completed," 
 the besieged enemy was found, as at Manassas, to have 
 vanished from the scene. 
 
 Two mouths of fruitless campaigning on the Penin- 
 sula ensued. They did not improve Stanton's opinion of 
 McClellan. The General, moreover, at almost every step 
 demanded reinforcements which the Secretary, for the 
 most part, could not supply. Each fresh disappointment 
 intensified McClellan's bitterness toward the administra- 
 tion, and toward his one-time friend, the head of the War 
 Department, in particular. This feeling manifested itself 
 in violent attacks upon Mr. Stanton. He became a target 
 for the abuse of the General's military and political sym- 
 pathizers, as well as for that officer's own insubordinate 
 faultfindings. How far McClellan carried his insolence 
 may be gathered from the message that he despatched 
 to the Secretary of War, after the desperate battle of 
 Gaines's Mill. It closed with : 
 
 "I know that a few thousand more men would have 
 changed this battle from a defeat to a victory. As it is, 
 the government must not and cannot hold me responsible 
 for the result. I feel too earnestly to-night. I have seen 
 too many dead and wounded comrades to feel otherwise 
 than that the government has not sustained this army. If 
 you do not do so now, the game is lost. If I save this army 
 now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to 
 any other persons in Washington. You have done your 
 best to sacrifice this army." ra 
 
 When the message reached the military telegraph 
 bureau of the War Department, Major Thomas T. Eckert, 
 the officer on duty, was amazed at this sharp attack upon 
 Mr. Stanton and, over his shoulder, upon the President 
 himself. He forthwith laid the despatch before Colonel 
 E. S. Sanford, Military Supervisor of Telegraphs, who, 
 exceeding his authority, indignantly struck out the two 
 closing sentences. Thus mutilated, a copy of the telegram
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 277 
 
 was handed to the Secretary of "War, and he carried it to 
 the President. Neither of them knew how sharp had origi- 
 nally been the sting which Colonel Sanford's blue pencil 
 left but partly extracted. Enough of the accusation against 
 the government remained, however, to have, under any 
 other administration, cost McClellan his command. Yet 
 Lincoln's unparalleled forbearance was equal to the test. 
 In his anxiety for the Army of the Potomac, he lost sight 
 of the affront offered by its commander. Not so with 
 Stanton ; though moved by the danger to send the offend- 
 ing General assurances of his friendship and support, he 
 was incapable of overlooking such an insult. He had, 
 indeed, reached a state of mind that could be satisfied 
 with nothing short of McClellan's removal. To this end, 
 the Secretary of War joined hands in a powerful coali- 
 tion with the Secretary of the Treasury, who had long 
 before lost confidence in " Little Mac." Together they 
 urged the President to recall that officer, and to give 
 Major-General John Pope, commanding the recently con- 
 stituted Army of Virginia, his post. Mr. Lincoln was 
 not prepared, however, for so drastic a step. Instead of 
 removing McClellan, he placed him, together with the 
 other commanders in the field, under the orders of a 
 newly commissioned General-in-Chief, Henry W. Halleck. 
 This appointment, let us say in passing, was almost as 
 distasteful to our truculent war minister as the Presi- 
 dent's refusal to dismiss McClellan. Stanton and Hal- 
 leck cherished a mutual dislike, which dated from their 
 professional encounters before the war, on opposing sides 
 in certain of the California Land Cases. The Secretary 
 is said to have " used some pretty strong language " con- 
 cerning Mr. Lincoln's selection, when it was announced ; ^ 
 but he speedily established friendly relations with the 
 new commander. They were soon in entire accord about 
 McClellan, and when Halleck cast his influence into the 
 already heavily weighted scale of that officer's declining 
 fortunes, the President yielded.
 
 2 7 8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Early in August, the Army of the Potomac was recalled 
 from the Peninsula to be merged, corps by corps, in 
 Pope's forces before Washington. General McClellaii's 
 chagrin over this inglorious close to his campaign was 
 exceeded only by the keen humiliation that followed. 
 Stripped of all but a nominal authority, we find him at 
 Alexandria forwarding his beloved troops to another com- 
 mander, and begging, in vain, for the privilege of joining 
 them on the battle-field. Then came General Pope's de- 
 feat at Second Bull Run. To what extent, if any, that 
 disaster may fairly be charged to the tardiness of McClel- 
 lan's cooperation remains a moot point. It is sufficient for 
 the purposes of this study to record that the administra- 
 tion, civil as well as military, was, at the time, almost a 
 unit in deeming him partly responsible. The Secretary 
 of War became especially incensed at his seeming disin- 
 clination to support Pope. While the two days' conflict 
 was at its height, Mr. Stantou had prepared a letter to 
 the President recommending General McClellan's imme- 
 diate removal. This the Secretary had laid before some 
 of his colleagues in the cabinet for their signatures, but 
 its language was obviously too harsh even for their angry 
 mood. 81 The protest was accordingly modified to read: 
 
 "The undersigned, who have been honored with your 
 selection as a part of your confidential advisers, deeply 
 impressed with our great responsibility in the present 
 crisis, do but perform a painful duty in declaring to you 
 our deliberate opinion that, at this time, it is not safe to 
 entrust to Major- General McClellan the command of any 
 army of the United States. And we hold ourselves ready, 
 at any time, to explain to you in detail the reasons upon 
 which this opinion is founded." ffi 
 
 It was signed by Messrs. Stanton, Chase, Smith, and 
 Bates. Mr. Blair favored McClellan ; Mr. Seward hap- 
 pened to be absent. Mr. Welles had declined to add his 
 name, not because he was out of harmony with his asso- 
 ciates in the matter, but because he considered the man*
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 279 
 
 ner of their proceeding "improper and disrespectful to 
 the President." 83 This objection, as well as the promise 
 made by the Secretary of the Navy to second his col- 
 leagues, verbally, at the next cabinet meeting, had caused 
 them to withhold the paper. 84 Whether it ever came to 
 Mr. Lincoln's knowledge, or not, has been left in doubt. 85 
 There can be no question, however, that he knew how 
 embittered these men had become against McClellan. 
 Indeed, the President himself said privately concerning 
 the General : 
 
 " He has acted badly towards Pope ; he really wanted 
 him to fail." 88 
 
 So matters stood when Bull Run became, for the second 
 time, a field of ill omen to the Union arms, and Pope's 
 routed columns reeled back toward Washington. 
 
 A crisis confronted the government. Lee's victorious 
 army was said to be pressing close upon the disorganized 
 Federals, as they poured toward the city. The Capital 
 seemed lost. Terror and confusion reigned on all sides. 
 Halleck was unequal to the emergency ; Stanton, prepar- 
 ing for the flight of the administration, directed all sup- 
 plies in the arsenal to be shipped to New York ; Chase 
 gave orders for the removal of the money in the Treasury 
 to the same place ; and Pope, as he neared Washington, 
 telegraphed, "Unless something can be done to restore 
 tone to this army, it will melt away before you know it." 87 
 The situation called for masterly action. President Lin- 
 coln did not falter. He knew that there was but one 
 man who had the love, as well as the confidence, of those 
 defeated troops one man who could restore them to dis- 
 cipline speedily enough to preserve the Capital. Turning 
 a deaf ear to the public clamor against McClellan, setting 
 aside most of his military advisers, and deliberately ignor- 
 ing the nearly unanimous wish of his cabinet, Mr. Lincoln 
 called upon the General to take command of the routed 
 forces, as they reached the defences of Washington. An. 
 official order to this effect was issued in Secretary Stan-
 
 280 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 ton's name, though that functionary had not even been 
 consulted in the matter. 88 His indignation found expres- 
 sion at a cabinet meeting, on the day of the appointment. 
 " Stanton entered the council-room," reports Secretary 
 Welles, " a few moments in advance of Mr. Lincoln, and 
 said, with great excitement, he had just learned from 
 General Halleck that the President had placed McClellan 
 in command of the forces in Washington. The informa- 
 tion was surprising, and, in view of the prevailing excite- 
 ment against that officer, alarming. The President soon 
 came in, and in answer to an inquiry from Mr. Chase, 
 confirmed what Stanton had stated. General regret was 
 expressed, and Stanton, with some feeling, remarked that 
 no order to that effect had issued from the War Depart- 
 ment. The President calmly, but with some emphasis, 
 said the order was his, and he would be responsible for 
 it to the country." 
 
 " In stating what he had done," proceeds Mr. Welles, 
 "the President was deliberate, but firm and decisive. 
 His language and manner were kind and affectionate, 
 especially toward two of the members who were greatly 
 disturbed ; but every person present felt that he was 
 truly the chief, and every one knew his decision, though 
 mildly expressed, was as fixed and unalterable as if given 
 out with the imperious command and determined will of 
 Andrew Jackson." 89 
 
 A spirited discussion ensued. Mr. Lincoln gave the 
 reasons for his course. The cabinet disapproved. Even 
 Postmaster-General Blair, McClellan's friend, appears to 
 have reached the conclusion that the General could not 
 then be wisely trusted with the chief command. Of course, 
 the most strenuous objections came from the two minis- 
 ters who had led the opposition. Mr. Chase expressed 
 apprehensions that the reinstatement of McClellan would 
 prove to be a national calamity. He went so far as to 
 declare the appointment " equivalent to giving Washing- 
 ton to the rebels." 90 And Mr. Stanton's bitterness, ac-
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 281 
 
 cording to one of his fellow Secretaries, can scarcely be 
 conceived. 91 Their combined onslaught at last moved the 
 President to say, as he did to Seward's senatorial foes, 
 that he would gladly resign his place, but that he could 
 not rescind the order. Then this remarkable meeting 
 closed closed as it had begun with Abraham Lincoln 
 master of the situation. The entire cabinet acquiesced in 
 his decision. Even the two aggressive leaders, who had 
 at one point been prepared to make McClellan's dismissal 
 the price of their further service, bowed to the inevita- 
 ble. The object of their hostility not only retained his 
 command in the defences of the Capital, but what is 
 more, when the reorganized army marched out a few 
 days thereafter, on the Antietam campaign, he was still 
 at its head. Secretary Stanton, let us add, disappointed 
 and dispirited as he is said to have been, gave General 
 McClellan, none the less, his loyal support. 
 
 About two years thereafter was enacted another sig- 
 nificant cabinet scene, when the high-strung Stanton 
 again tried to force the President's hand. The second 
 occasion, like the first, was brought about, in a way, by a 
 Confederate advance upon the Capital, and by the efforts 
 of the Secretary to secure the removal of an obnoxious 
 officer. This time, no less a person than one of his 
 own colleagues, Montgomery Blair, had been marked for 
 sacrifice. The Postmaster-General's antagonisms in the 
 cabinet, it should be remembered, were not limited to 
 Mr. Stanton. Secretary Chase, during his entire period 
 recently concluded at the head of the Treasury De- 
 partment, had found Mr. Blair, as we have seen, to be 
 a thorn in his side ; while the Postmaster-General's per- 
 sonal aggressiveness, as well as his conservative attitude 
 toward slavery and reconstruction, had led to friction 
 with still other associates. They might all, perhaps, have 
 agreed with that newspaper correspondent who called 
 him "the stormy petrel" of the administration. Mr. 
 Blair had managed, moreover, to arouse the uncompro'
 
 282 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 raising hostility of Radical Republicans throughout the 
 country. Their leaders had gone so far as to exact from 
 the convention that renominated Mr. Lincoln, early in 
 June, 1864, a resolution which, counseling harmony in 
 the cabinet, asked by unmistakable implication for the 
 dismissal of the man in the Post Office. 92 But the Pre- 
 sident made no sign of compliance. He was fond of 
 Montgomery Blair, appreciative of his ability, and mind- 
 ful of the obligations under which the Blair family had 
 placed the Union cause, during the early days of the 
 war. In the midst of this clamor, however, for the Post- 
 master-General's removal, he himself furnished an addi- 
 tional provocation, which Stanton was not slow to seize. 
 When the Confederates, on their famous raid under 
 Early, withdrew from before Washington, they plundered 
 and burned the residence of Mr. Blair, in the suburbs. 
 His misfortune, involving the destruction of a valuable 
 library, stirred him it was alleged to severe criticism 
 of the officers in command about the Capital. This Gen- 
 eral Halleck resented. He sent an indignant letter to 
 Secretary Stanton : 
 
 " It should be known," wrote the chief of staff, 
 " whether such wholesale denouncement and accusation 
 by a member of the cabinet receives the sanction and 
 approbation of the President of the United States. If 
 so, the names of the officers accused should be stricken 
 from the rolls of the Army ; if not, it is due to the honor 
 of the accused that the slanderer should be dismissed 
 from the cabinet." M 
 
 This communication Mr. Stanton forwarded, with a 
 note, to the President, who addressed his reply to the 
 Secretary of War. Mr. Lincoln's letter, after summarizing 
 General Halleck's charges, read : 
 
 " Whether the remarks were really made I do not know, 
 nor do I suppose such knowledge is necessary to a correct 
 response. If they were made, I do not approve them ; and 
 yet, under the circumstances, I would not dismiss a meuv
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 283 
 
 ber of the cabinet therefor. I do not consider what may 
 have been hastily said in a moment of vexation at so 
 severe a loss is sufficient ground for so grave a step. Be- 
 sides this, truth is generally the best vindication against 
 slander. I propose continuing to be myself the judge as 
 to when a member of the cabinet shall be dismissed." M 
 
 So masterful a treatment of the matter might have 
 sufficed, but the President thought it was time to assert 
 himself in another direction. At the next cabinet meet- 
 ing he read to his astonished councilors the following 
 curt lecture : 
 
 " I must myself be the judge how long to retain in and 
 when to remove any of you from his position. It would 
 greatly pain me to discover any of you endeavoring to 
 procure another's removal, or in any way to prejudice 
 him before the public. Such endeavor would be a wrong 
 to me, and, much worse, a wrong to the country. My wish 
 is that on this subject no remark be made nor question 
 asked by any of you, here or elsewhere, now or here- 
 after." * 
 
 A schoolmaster reprimanding a class of unruly boys 
 could hardly have been more peremptory. Certainly, no 
 President ever taught his cabinet its place in language 
 that rang so true to the tone of absolute authority. 96 
 
 One of these ministers especially needed a sharp word 
 now and then. Secretary Stanton's temperament, as we 
 have seen, rendered him anything but an easy instrument 
 in any man's hand. His very faults partook of the rugged 
 strength which, viewed at this distance, makes him stand 
 out as the Titan of Lincoln's cabinet. That the President 
 controlled so turbulent a force without sacrificing aught 
 of its energy was perhaps his highest achievement in the 
 field of mastership. This was due, primarily, of course, to 
 his insight into Stanton's character. Few men, if any, had 
 fathomed as truly the sterling qualities that lay beneath 
 the failings of the great Secretary. For the real Stanton 
 revealed himself to the President in the daily at times
 
 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 hourly meetings imposed upon them by the require- 
 ments of the war. Together they bore the anxieties and 
 shared the joys of the struggle. Their cooperation in the 
 absorbing work to which both had dedicated themselves 
 established between the men, dissimilar as they were by 
 nature, a bond of sympathy which even Stanton's headi- 
 ness could not destroy. Indeed, Mr. Lincoln, treating 
 the Secretary somewhat as a parent would a talented but 
 high-strung child, now humoring, now commanding, 
 appears to have risen above even a shadow of personal 
 resentment, and to have overlooked an occasional opposi- 
 tion that, however violent might have been its outbursts, 
 always yielded in the end to his authority. His esteem 
 for Mr. Stanton not only suffered no impairment in these 
 passages at arms, but stranger still, it ripened into affec- 
 tion. The President's protection went out unasked to the 
 Secretary of War, as it did to his other councilors. Mr. 
 Stanton's enemies and he had a choice assortment of 
 them lost no opportunity for assailing him. When he 
 was attacked publicly because of certain administrative 
 acts, Mr. Lincoln, stepping between him and his critics, 
 assumed the responsibility. When his detractors sought 
 to undermine him privately with the President, they 
 made no headway. At times, in fact, they found a tiger 
 while beating the jungle for a deer, as happened to one 
 who came with severe denunciations against the Secre- 
 tary. " Go home, my friend," interrupted Mr. Lincoln, 
 " and read attentively the tenth verse of the thirtieth 
 chapter of Proverbs." 97 If the man turned to the text, 
 he read: 
 
 " Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse 
 thee, and thou be found guilty." 
 
 No better fate attended the efforts that were confessedly 
 made to get Mr. Stanton out of the cabinet. So strong 
 became the pressure in this direction that it aroused 
 anxiety among his supporters. One of them, Judge E. 
 K. Hoar, discussing cabinet appointments for the second
 
 THE CURBING OF ST ANTON 285 
 
 administration, in November 1864, said to the Presi- 
 dent : 
 
 " I hope, whatever is done, that Stanton will be retained 
 in his position until the war is over." 
 
 To which Lincoln replied : 
 
 " Mr. Stanton has excellent qualities, and he has his 
 defects. Folks come up here and tell me that there are a 
 great many men in the country who have all Stanton's 
 excellent qualities without his defects. All I have to 
 say is, I have n't met 'em ! I don't know 'em ! I wish I 
 did!" 98 
 
 The answer makes clear why the foes who sought the 
 minister's overthrow, and the friends who urged his 
 elevation to the Supreme Court bench, on the death of 
 Chief Justice Taney, were alike unsuccessful. When this 
 promotion was advocated by Bishop Simpson, the Presi- 
 dent replied : 
 
 " If you will find me another Secretary of War like 
 him, I will gladly appoint him." " 
 
 But Mr. Stanton himself contemplated a change. Bend- 
 ing at that very time under the terrible strain of his 
 exertions, he looked forward longingly to a release from 
 his place in the cabinet. When the Surgeon-General, 
 alarmed over his condition, urged him to take a furlough, 
 he said : 
 
 " Barnes, keep me alive till this rebellion is over, and 
 then I will take a rest a long one, perhaps." 10 
 
 In a similar strain, after several days on a bed of sick- 
 ness, he wrote to Mr. Chase : 
 
 " I am better now and again at work, but with feeble 
 and broken health, that can only be restored by absolute 
 rest from all labor and care. This I long for, and hope 
 soon to have. Our cause is now, I hope, beyond all dan- 
 ger, and when Grant goes into Richmond my task is 
 ended. To you and others it will remain to secure the 
 fruits of victory." m 
 
 Upon the announcement, in the following spring, that
 
 a86 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Lee was about to surrender, Mr. Stanton accordingly ten- 
 dered his resignation. A letter which he handed to the 
 President took the ground that this event would virtu- 
 ally end the war, and leave him free with his work 
 done to give up his portfolio. Mr. Lincoln is reported 
 to have been greatly moved. Tearing the resignation in 
 pieces, and throwing his arms about the Secretary, he 
 said, according to Mr. Carpenter, who tells the story : 
 
 " Stanton, you have been a good friend and a faithful 
 public servant ; and it is not for you to say when you will 
 no longer be needed here." 102 
 
 The Secretary himself has left an account of the scene. 
 He relates how the President, with tears in his eyes, put 
 his hands on the other's shoulders, and said : 
 
 " Stanton, you cannot go. Reconstruction is more diffi- 
 cult and dangerous than construction or destruction. You 
 have been our main reliance ; you must help us through 
 the final act. The bag is filled. It must be tied, and tied 
 securely. Some knots slip ; yours do not. You under- 
 stand the situation better than anybody else, and it is 
 my wish and the country's that you remain." 103 
 
 What could be answered to such an appeal ? The Secre- 
 tary of War once again bowed before a will stronger than 
 his own, and cheerfully resumed his duties. 
 
 There was something more than mere obedience in this 
 submission. The minister's heart had been touched as 
 well as the President's. Stanton's distrust even con- 
 tempt of Lincoln in 1861, had given way, by 1865, to 
 entirely different sentiments. Like his associates in the 
 cabinet, with possibly one exception, the Secretary of 
 War had at last correctly gauged the President's intellec- 
 tual and moral force. That this force, when exerted to 
 the full, was well-nigh irresistible, he had, as we know, 
 painfully learned by repeated but unsuccessful strivings 
 to get his own way. No one had ever so worsted Edwin 
 M. Stanton. He was outclassed. With his increasing 
 respect for Mr. Lincoln's power came, naturally enough,
 
 THE CURBING OF STANTON 287 
 
 something like a fair appreciation of the President's 
 lofty character. Such magnanimity, devotion to duty, 
 and homely sincerity could have but one effect upon a 
 man of Stanton's intense nature. He began with reviling 
 Lincoln, he ended with loving him. 
 
 Among the friends who desired the President's reelec- 
 tion, none labored more loyally to that end than Mr. 
 Stanton. Every available resource of the War Depart- 
 ment was employed in Mr. Lincoln's interest. So earnest 
 did the Secretary grow that on one occasion Mr. Dana 
 tells us he became greatly vexed at the President's 
 seeming indifference as to the result. 104 Still, Mr. Lincoln, 
 as we know, was triumphantly reflected. He had entered 
 upon his second term, when Stanton's concern took an- 
 other form not new, but more marked than ever before, 
 He became anxious for the President's personal safety. 
 This was especially so while Mr. Lincoln was on his 
 Eichmond jaunt. When he telegraphed to the Secretary 
 of War that he was about to visit Petersburg, which 
 had just been evacuated, Mr. Stanton immediately re- 
 plied : 
 
 " Allow me respectfully to ask you to consider whether 
 you ought to expose the nation to the consequence of any 
 disaster to yourself in the pursuit of a treacherous and 
 dangerous enemy like the rebel army. If it was a ques- 
 tion concerning yourself only, I should not presume to 
 say a word. Commanding generals are in the line of their 
 duty in running such risks ; but is the political head of 
 a nation in the same condition ? " 105 
 
 Nevertheless, the President continued his excursion into 
 Confederate territory ; but he despatched thanks to the 
 Secretary, and promised : 
 
 " I will take care of myself." 106 
 
 Eleven days later, that promise went by default. A 
 capricious fate, which suffered him to walk the streets of 
 an enemy's Capital unharmed, reached him in his own 
 Washington ; and Abraham Lincoln fell, wounded to
 
 288 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 death by John Wilkes Booth. A notable group watched 
 around the bed on which he breathed his last. Among 
 all the public men in the sorrowing company, no grief was 
 keener than that of his iron war minister. None of them 
 had tested, as Edwin M. Stanton had, the extraordinary 
 resources of the stricken chief. It was fitting, therefore, 
 that he, as " past the strong heroic soul away," should 
 pronounce its eulogy : 
 
 " There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world 
 has ever seen." 107
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 HOW THE PATHFINDER LOST THE TRAIL 
 
 AMONG the public men who, at the outbreak of the Civil 
 War, offered their services to the government, none was 
 more warmly welcomed than Colonel John Charles Fre- 
 mont. In him seemed to be happily combined two ele- 
 ments which the administration then greatly valued 
 political influence and military skill. His exploits as the 
 " Pathfinder " who had conducted five exploring expedi- 
 tions through the wilds of the far West, no less than his 
 splendid canvass in 1856 as the first national standard- 
 bearer of the Republican Party, singled him out for high 
 command. Indeed, he was looked upon by many of his 
 fellow countrymen as an ideal leader, for he brought to 
 the Union cause what animated few of its captains the 
 inspiration that springs from a romantic career. 
 
 Fremont inherited through his father, a French refugee, 
 the love of adventure. He was born, in fact, on one of 
 several expeditions which his parents made among the 
 southern Indians ; 1 and the untimely death of that father, 
 a few years thereafter, was due to exposure during a for- 
 est excursion. At school the boy evinced talents of a high 
 order, yet there were early indications of a restive dispo- 
 sition. His formal education came to a sudden stop upon 
 his expulsion from the college in Charleston, S. C., as he 
 himself narrates, " for continued disregard of discipline." 
 This somewhat sobered him, and years of earnest labor 
 ensued. Teaching school at home in Charleston, cruising 
 as an instructor of mathematics on a United States sloop 
 of war, pursuing scientific studies, making railroad sur- 
 veys among the Tennessee mountains,.. and taking part in
 
 290 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 a military reconnoissance of the Cherokee country, he 
 acquired the experience that led to his appointment as 
 second lieutenant in the United States Topographical 
 Corps. Then followed government explorations of the 
 region lying between the Mississippi and the Missouri 
 rivers, in which the young officer served under Nicollet, 
 the distinguished French scientist. 
 
 While at work in Washington upon a report of these 
 expeditions, Fremont fell in love with Jessie Ann Benton, 
 the gifted daughter of the Senator from Missouri. The 
 young lady smiled upon the lieutenant's suit, but her 
 parents were less cordial. So Fremont, displaying charac- 
 teristic dash and impatience of restraint, eloped with her. 
 This marriage has been described by a not too friendly 
 critic as " the most brilliant achievement of his life." It 
 certainly exerted a far-reaching influence upon the young 
 subaltern's fortunes. Mrs. Fremont, a model of wifely 
 devotion, was destined to share her husband's aspirations, 
 in a notable degree ; but what was of greater immediate 
 importance his new relationship to her father, together 
 with his tastes and qualifications, fitted him providentially, 
 as it were, into Senator Benton's long-cherished dream of 
 western expansion. Through that statesman's influence, 
 Lieutenant Fremont was commissioned to make his first 
 exploration of the extensive and practically unknown 
 country beyond the Missouri River. Four great expedi- 
 tions to the Pacific slope followed. They brought Fremont 
 international renown. His simple, straightforward reports, 
 wherein he told 
 
 " Of moving accidents by flood and field, 
 
 Of antres vast, and deserts wild, 
 
 Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven," 
 
 Charmed admirers of the romantic wherever these widely 
 scattered narratives were read. Not less enthusiastic were 
 eminent scientists of the day over the precision and 
 variety of his contributions to our knowledge of this
 
 THE PATHFINDER 291 
 
 newly unfolded wonderland ; and so serviceable, withal, 
 were his observations that caravan after caravan of west- 
 ern emigrants laid its course across the prairies according 
 to his charts. 
 
 Fremont was not merely a finder of paths. On the far 
 side of his adventures he also found military and political 
 distinction. Arriving in the Mexican province of Cali- 
 fornia, on the third exploring expedition, while a revolu- 
 tion was in progress, he played a prominent role among 
 the dramatic scenes which culminated in the winning of 
 the country for the United States. Not less spectacular 
 were other incidents that presently crowded upon one 
 another in kaleidoscopic succession. Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Fremont he had risen to that rank acted, for a brief 
 period, as military commandant of the conquered territory. 
 Becoming involved in a conflict for authority on the coast, 
 between General Kearney and Commodore Stockton, he 
 was convicted by court-martial of mutiny, disobedience of 
 the lawful command of a superior officer, and conduct 
 prejudicial to good order and military discipline. A sen- 
 tence of dismissal from the army followed. But, in view 
 of his valuable services, of the extenuating circumstances, 
 and of a recommendation for clemency by a majority of 
 the court, President Polk, although he approved of the 
 findings as to the second and third charges, remitted the 
 penalty. Whereupon Colonel Fremont, with popular sym- 
 pathy on his side, resigned. Presently came the announce- 
 ment that gold had been discovered in the new possessions. 
 California, entering the Union, elected Fremont its first 
 Senator ; and, as if nothing might be lacking to complete 
 the marvelous story, mines of apparently fabulous value 
 were found on a grant which had been bought by him a 
 year before Sutter's tail-race yielded up its golden secret. 
 At the proper moment, moreover, though a southerner 
 by birth and education, he declared himself to be a hater 
 of slavery. That such a career should appeal to the pop- 
 ular imagination was inevitable. It presented so strong a
 
 292 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 promise of gallant leadership that the Republican National 
 Convention of 1856 nominated Colonel Fremont for the 
 presidency. 2 Having served but part of a short term in 
 the Senate, he was practically untried in statesmanship. 
 The absence, however, of a political record that fre- 
 quent bugbear of public men rendered him, then, pecul- 
 iarly available as the nominee of a party in process of 
 formation from the remains of many parties ; while his 
 pronounced anti-slavery views supplied sufficient common 
 ground on which these not entirely harmonious sections 
 of the young organization could make their first vigorous 
 fight for freedom. " Free speech, free press, free soil, 
 freemen, Fremont, and victory ! " was a favorite slogan, 
 in the North, throughout that stirring campaign. The 
 Republicans were defeated, but by so narrow a margin in 
 some quarters that all signs gave promise of success within 
 the near future. Their electors had carried eleven States ; 
 and their popular vote, aided by the Fillmore ballots, had 
 left Buchanan a minority President. To Fremont largely 
 went the credit of having made this breach in the Demo- 
 cratic columns. Long after the din of that canvass had 
 ceased, he was looked upon with a certain sentimental 
 regard by many of those who had worked and marched 
 and sung and voted for him with so much enthusiasm. 
 
 One of these supporters was Abraham Lincoln. Though 
 the candidate had not been his first choice for the nomi- 
 nation, he had labored in Illinois, with voice and pen, at 
 the head of the Republican electoral ticket, for FremontV 
 election. Four years later, when Lincoln himself won th 
 presidency, it was his purpose to find some appropriate 
 station under his administration for the leader whom he 
 had so zealously served. Fremont was talked of for a place 
 in the cabinet, and then for a first-class foreign mission. 
 The President had finally decided upon him as Minister 
 to France, but in deference to Secretary Seward's plans, the 
 appointment was not made. So it happened that when the 
 beginning of the Civil War found Colonel Fremont abroad,
 
 THE PATHFINDER 293 
 
 he was still a private citizen. Hastening back to this coun- 
 try, he received from Mr. Lincoln the highest military 
 commission within the President's gift that of Major- 
 General in the regular army; and on July 3, 1861, he was 
 assigned to the command of the Western Department. 3 
 
 The appointment was in accordance with Fremont's own 
 preference. It was the most extensive and, as he believed, 
 the most important department in the service. 4 It compre- 
 hended, together with Illinois and New Mexico, all the 
 country west of the Mississippi as far as the Rocky Moun- 
 tains ; but this, unfortunately, was not to be the West of 
 our explorer's experience the West of prairie, forest, and 
 canon, of Indian stalking and Mexican skirmishing. The 
 scene of action now lay, for the most part, in the Border 
 Slave State of Missouri, where the intrigues and pitfalls of 
 party strife were more to be dreaded than the hardships 
 or dangers of Fremont's early days. His new path to 
 use his own language " led out from among the grand 
 and lovely features of nature, and its pure and wholesome 
 air, into the poisoned atmosphere and jarring circumstances 
 of conflict among men, made subtle and malignant by 
 clashing interests." 5 Missouri was, in fact, already, to a 
 certain extent, the center of those political complications 
 which made it one of the vexatious problems of the war. 
 Governor Jackson and Lieutenant-Governor Reynolds, 
 supported by the General Assembly, had committed the 
 State, as far as they could, to secession. A convention, on 
 the other hand, summoned by the legislature with the ex- 
 pectation that it would complete their work, had remained 
 loyal to the Federal government, by a strong majority. 
 This loyalty, however, was not without important reserva- 
 tions ; for it actuated patriots holding every shade of 
 opinion, from Radicals, who would have no Union with- 
 out immediate emancipation, to ultra-Conservatives, who 
 demanded that slavery and the Union be saved together. 
 Their "pestilent factional quarrel," as Mr. Lincoln once 
 impatiently termed it, gave him more trouble in the State
 
 294 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 than the enemy. And how bitter this antagonism became 
 may be inferred from the President's remark, " Either 
 party would rather see the defeat of their adversary than 
 that of Jefferson Davis." Yet these extreme partisans 
 and the other Unionists, who differed from them in this 
 or that particular, had one point of agreement they 
 all desired the success of the Federal cause. To combine 
 such warring elements into an effective force against a 
 common foe, was a problem for a statesman rather than 
 for a soldier. It called for wisdom and administrative 
 skill of a type so rare that we may well stop here to 
 inquire more closely into the character of the man who 
 was to undertake the task. 
 
 Fremont's personality was not less romantic than the 
 story of his life. Moving in a material age, among practi- 
 cal matter-of-fact men, he exhaled, as it were, an atmos- 
 phere of bygone chivalry. The slender, well-knit frame, 
 with its alertness of action and grace of bearing, could 
 have belonged only to one who had spent many of his 
 adult years in the saddle, close to nature. He was slightly 
 above the medium height, but his habitual dignity of car- 
 riage made him seem taller ; just as a full beard and long 
 curling brown hair streaked with gray lent to his dreamy 
 countenance an additional touch of the picturesque. The 
 handsome weather-browned face, with its high forehead, 
 deep blue eyes, and aquiline nose, gave index of mental 
 vigor. What Fremont had done, however, more than what 
 he looked, was stamped upon the world's valuation of him. 
 His achievements as an explorer had called for so many 
 manifestations of pluck, dash, self-reliance, energy, and 
 perseverance that, in the popular fancy, he became invested 
 with qualities well-nigh heroic. Nor did the man's intel- 
 lectual accomplishments appeal less to the respect of edu- 
 cated people. His knowledge of the sciences rendered him 
 a unique figure in politics. He spoke French and Span- 
 ish fluently, while his command of the English language, 
 in speech no less than in writing, was scholarly. That he
 
 THE PATHFINDER 295 
 
 owed this culture largely to his own efforts is the more 
 surprising, as it was accompanied by a refinement of 
 manner to which our so-called self-made men are, for the 
 most part, strangers. Courtly in demeanor, and amiable 
 withal, he generally exercised a certain personal fascina- 
 tion over those who came into relations with him. But 
 this power to attract men was, unfortunately, accompanied 
 by no nice discernment into the characters of his admirers. 
 Accordingly, we find Fremont, from time to time, sur- 
 rounded by followers who were as unscrupulous in their 
 designs as they were unblushing in their flattery. Vanity 
 and ambition twin products of such influences colored 
 the visions in which his imagination abounded. He chafed 
 under authority at mature age, hardly less than during 
 the days of his impetuous youth. In fact, a certain spirit 
 of insubordination was the most conspicuous blemish of 
 this otherwise amiable character. Like your true knight- 
 errant, moreover, Fremont did not hesitate, on occasion, 
 to be a law unto himself ; and still further recalling the 
 romantic ideal, he presently revealed a strong distaste for 
 the details of administrative affairs. Nor was he lacking, 
 as we shall see, in these respects only. When confronted 
 by important questions that required a tactful, sagacious 
 handling of things as they were, or a comprehensive grasp 
 of things as they should be, he was destined to prove pain- 
 fully ineffective. What had served for brilliant leadership 
 in the limited field of western exploration, hardly met the 
 requirements of a departmental command on the larger 
 theater of our Civil War. In brief, though the glamour 
 that enveloped him had concealed the fact, Fremont was 
 unfit by nature and by training for the enormous respon- 
 sibility laid upon him by Mr. Lincoln's appointment. 
 
 The new general's initial duties were of vital impor- 
 tance. His earliest efforts should obviously have been 
 directed toward harmonizing the discordant factions which, 
 as we have seen, distracted the Union cause in Missouri. 
 That commonwealth was especially delicate ground. It
 
 296 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 put to a severe test the famous " Border State policy," 
 by which the President labored to rescue Missouri, Ken- 
 tucky, and Maryland from secession. " These all against 
 us," said he, " and the job on our hands is too large 
 for us. We would as well consent to separation at once, 
 including the surrender of this Capital." 6 Whether the 
 wavering sections could be induced to wheel into the Fed- 
 eral column turned largely, of course, on the question of 
 slavery. Mr. Lincoln, accordingly, during the first period 
 of the struggle, maintained a conservative attitude toward 
 that institution. Laying aside his own deep sympathy for 
 the bondmen, he strove to retain the support of loyal 
 slaveholders in the Border States, and of their sympathiz- 
 ers in the North, by repeatedly declaring his controlling 
 purpose to be the preservation of the Union. He went 
 so far, indeed, as to proclaim that it was not the intention 
 of the government to interfere with slavery, as such, in 
 any of the Southern States. This policy need we add ? 
 had been adopted in good faith. That its sincerity 
 should be generally unquestioned was, judging from the 
 President's utterances, essential to the very existence of 
 the country. He expected his subordinates, as a matter 
 of course, to cooperate with him along a line so deliber- 
 ately chosen ; and upon none did this obligation more 
 palpably rest than upon the commander of the Western 
 Department. 
 
 But, almost from the day of his assignment, Fremont 
 was a source of anxiety and embarrassment to the ad- 
 ministration. He became, in fact, one of the keenest of 
 Lincoln's disappointments. When, after three weeks of 
 perhaps unavoidable delay, the General arrived at his 
 headquarters in St. Louis, he found the department in a 
 state of disorganization which energetic, though often- 
 times misdirected, efforts improved too slowly. The regu- 
 lar forces of the enemy menaced him from several direc- 
 tions, small bands of bushwhackers spread through country 
 districts the horrors of guerrilla warfare, and neighbor-
 
 THE PATHFINDER 297 
 
 hood feuds were responsible for private outrages of every 
 kind. To meet the military needs of the situation, without 
 losing sight of its political aspects, required the exercise 
 of an unclouded judgment. That is precisely what Fre- 
 mont, at this juncture, did not have. He was surrounded 
 by a swarm of time-servers, who, for their own ends, 
 played upon the weaknesses of a brave man. Their ful- 
 some praise, together with the clamor of the Abolitionists, 
 whose idol the " Pathfinder " still was, incited him to the 
 one thing which, above all others, he should not have done. 
 On August 30, 1861, Fremont issued his famous emanci- 
 pation proclamation. This announced that owing to the 
 lawless condition of Missouri, the General commanding 
 " should assume the administrative powers of the State," 
 and establish martial law. Having defined the limits of 
 military occupation, the document proceeded : 
 
 " All persons who shall be taken with arms in their 
 hands within these lines shall be tried by court-martial, 
 and if found guilty will be shot. 
 
 " The property, real and personal, of all persons in the 
 State of Missouri who shall take up arms against the 
 United States, or who shall be directly proven to have 
 taken an active part with their enemies in the field, is 
 declared to be confiscated to the public use, and their 
 slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared freemen." 7 
 
 To render this last startling clause operative, the au- 
 thor of it at once convened a military commission, which 
 began to issue deeds of manumission. 
 
 By a stroke of his pen, so to say, Fremont had momen- 
 tarily changed the issue before the country from Union 
 to Emancipation. That the change might be fraught with 
 danger to the Federal arms, and with perplexities beyond 
 calculation to the already overburdened President who had 
 reposed so much confidence in him, does not appear to 
 have given the General any concern. That his act, withal, 
 greatly aggravated rather than soothed the local irritation 
 which he had been sent to allay, seemed equally unimpor-
 
 298 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 tant to him. For, granting a set-back in the Western 
 Department, he no doubt thought himself more than 
 compensated, in the country at large, by a return of his 
 old-time popularity. Fremont, in fact, now again loomed 
 large in the public eye. His proclamation aroused the 
 Radicals throughout the North to the highest pitch of 
 enthusiasm ; while many Unionists, who had not been so 
 keen about slavery, applauded what looked at first sight 
 like a crushing blow against the South. But Mr. Lincoln, 
 stationed where he could see and indeed where he had 
 to deal with both sides of the question, saw mischief 
 alone in this extraordinary fiat. Immediately upon its 
 appearance, the support which he had been so tactfully 
 nursing in the ^Border States, especially in Kentucky, 
 threatened to become antagonism ; just as the embers of 
 factional difference within the Republican Party itself, 
 kept previously under control by his cool management, 
 were stirred, no less suddenly, into a blaze of controversy. 
 In the excitement that ensued, some of the President's 
 best friends appeared to waver. Like his critics, they 
 failed, for a time, to realize that however much Fremont's 
 proclamation might please them, the impetuous hand 
 which penned it had thereby sought to grasp not only 
 the executive powers of the government, but the legis- 
 lative and judicial functions as well. 
 
 This view was set forth, with Mr. Lincoln's accustomed 
 force, in a confidential letter to his old friend, Senator 
 Orville H. Browning, who had approved of the manifesto. 
 Here, in part, is what the President wrote : 
 
 " General Fremont's proclamation as to confiscation of 
 property and the liberation of slaves is purely political ', 
 and not within the range of military law or necessity. If 
 a commanding general finds a necessity to seize the farm 
 of a private owner for a pasture, an encampment, or a 
 fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it 
 as long as the necessity lasts ; and this is within military 
 law, because within military necessity. But to say the
 
 THE PATHFINDER 299 
 
 farm shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs for- 
 ever, and this as well when the farm is not needed for 
 military purposes as when it is, is purely political, without 
 ihe savor of military law about it. And the same is true 
 of slaves. If the general needs them, he can seize them 
 and use them; but when the need is past, it is not for 
 him to fix their permanent future condition. That must 
 be settled according to laws made by law-makers, and 
 not by military proclamations. The proclamation in the 
 point in question is simply ' dictatorship.' It assumes that 
 the general may do anything he pleases confiscate the 
 lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of 
 disloyal ones. And going the whole figure, I have no 
 doubt, would be more popular with some thoughtless 
 people than that which has been done ! But I cannot 
 assume this reckless position, nor allow others to assume 
 it on my responsibility." 8 
 
 The President, it should be observed, saw fit, in the fol- 
 lowing year, to shift his ground somewhat ; but he did so 
 deliberately, under vastly different conditions, and by his 
 own act not at the dictation of a usurping subordinate. 
 
 Meanwhile the clash of policy to say nothing of 
 authority between Fremont and Lincoln required im- 
 mediate attention. Something, moreover, had to be done 
 at once in order that the General might be turned from 
 his declared purpose to shoot prisoners. As soon as a copy 
 of the proclamation reached the President, he despatched 
 a special messenger to St. Louis with a " private " letter, 
 which read : 
 
 "Two points in your proclamation of August 30 give 
 me some anxiety. 
 
 "First. Should you shoot a man, according to the 
 proclamation, the Confederates would very certainly shoot 
 our best men in their hands in retaliation ; and so, man 
 for man, indefinitely. It is, therefore, my order that 
 you will allow no man to be shot under the proclamation 
 without first having my approbation or consent.
 
 300 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 " Second. I think there is great danger that the closing 
 paragraph, in relation to the confiscation of property and 
 the liberating slaves of traitorous owners, will alarm our 
 southern Union friends and turn them against us ; per- 
 haps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky. Allow 
 me, therefore, to ask that you will, as of your own motion, 
 modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and 
 fourth sections of the Act of Congress entitled, * An act 
 to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,' 
 approved August 6, 1861, and a copy of which act I 
 herewith send you. 9 
 
 " This letter is written in a spirit of caution, and not 
 of censure. I send it by special messenger, in order that 
 it may certainly and speedily reach you," 10 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's first point was, as the parliamentarians 
 say, well taken. That headlong threat of indiscriminate 
 military executions had shared, without particular scrutiny, 
 the plaudits bestowed upon the order of emancipation. 
 Its unwisdom was, nevertheless, obvious to the President. 
 And how accurately, although nine hundred miles from the 
 scene of action, had he gauged the temper of the enemy! 
 On the very day his letter was sent, General M. Jeff 
 Thompson, Confederate Commander of the First Military 
 District of Missouri, issued a retaliatory proclamation, in 
 which he "most solemnly" announced that for every 
 soldier of the State guard or of the southern army so put 
 to death, he would " hang, draw, and quarter a minion of 
 said Abraham Lincoln." n Yet Fremont could not bring 
 himself frankly to acknowledge his error. On the con- 
 trary, we find him, six days later, defending his position, 
 in an answer to the President. This missive ignored, with 
 singular untruthfulness, Thompson's proclamation, and 
 said as to his own : 
 
 " I do not think the enemy can either misconstrue or 
 urge anything against it, or undertake to make unusual 
 retaliation." 12 
 
 Having thus seemingly maintained his dignity, the
 
 THE PATHFINDER 301 
 
 General seized an early opportunity to assure another 
 Confederate officer, who demanded an explanation, that 
 he did not intend to violate, under his proclamation, the 
 usages of war. 13 
 
 Point number two in Mr. Lincoln's letter was made 
 with characteristic delicacy. There was as we know 
 not a word about the General's presumptuous exercise of 
 an authority which properly belonged to the government ; 
 nor was there more than a gentle reference to the troubles 
 which his impulsive act had brought upon the Head of 
 that government. 14 The President's self-restraint deceived 
 Fremont, as it did so many other " big men," in 1861. 
 Our "Pathfinder" managed not to find the kindness that 
 had inspired the letter; but he did find at least, he is 
 credibly said to have found in it an attempt to rob him 
 of his newly enhanced popularity. Be this as it may, he 
 felt strong enough to take issue with the Executive in 
 defence of the proclamation. "Modify" that illustrious 
 document ! not he. His wife, the daughter of the great 
 Benton, advanced upon Washington to deliver Fremont's 
 reply and, incidentally, to bully the President. That one 
 of the so-called gentler sex should be sent on such a mis- 
 sion need not surprise us after we learn that during her 
 stay at department headquarters she was described as 
 " the real chief of staff." When it is remembered, more- 
 over, that Jessie Benton had inherited a son's full portion 
 of her distinguished father's aggressive personality, we 
 tremble for poor Mr. Lincoln. " She sought an audience 
 with me at midnight," said he afterwards, in a confiden- 
 tial chat, 15 " and taxed me so violently with many things, 
 that I had to exercise all the awkward tact I have to 
 avoid quarreling with her. . . . She more than once in- 
 timated that if General Fremont should decide to try 
 conclusions with me, he could set up for himself." w Such 
 a menace from such a source was significant. It must 
 have reminded the President of the rumors which had 
 persistently linked the name of the lady's husband with
 
 302 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 revolutionary designs. According to some, Fremont was 
 to establish an independent Confederacy in the Northwest ; 
 while others principally extreme Abolitionists, and his 
 own personal followers urged that he ought to be placed, 
 as dictator, in absolute control of national affairs. Yet 
 these mutterings do not appear to have greatly disturbed 
 Mr. Lincoln. He took no formal notice of Mrs. Fremont's 
 treasonable talk, nor of the insubordination that lurked on 
 the under side of the written message which she brought. 
 
 In his letter to the President, General Fremont asserted 
 the wisdom of the proclamation and his right to make it. 
 
 " This is as much a movement in the war as a battle,'* 
 said he, "and in going into these I shall have to act 
 according to my judgment of the ground before me, as I 
 did on this occasion. If, upon reflection, your better judg- 
 ment still decides that I am wrong in the article respecting 
 the liberation of slaves, I have to ask that you will openly 
 direct me to make the correction. The implied censure 
 will be received as a soldier always should the reprimand 
 of his chief. If I wei'e to retract of my own accord, it 
 would imply that I myself thought it wrong, and that I 
 had acted without the reflection which the gravity of the 
 point demanded. But I did not. I acted with full delib- 
 eration, and upon the certain conviction that it was a 
 measure right and necessary, and I think so still." " 
 
 Fremont's request, whatever may be said of its wilful- 
 ness, looked shrewd enough. If he was playing politics, 
 and there is reason for so believing, he could hardly 
 have found a surer method of strengthening himself, in 
 certain quarters, at Lincoln's expense. Should the Presi- 
 dent publicly order him to modify the proclamation, they 
 might stand before the people as the champions of oppos. 
 ing policies. In that event, the advantage of positions 
 would, to all appearances, from a sentimental as well as 
 from a moral point of view, rest with Fremont. His 
 pretensions could not, in the nature of things, fail to 
 command Radical support ; and the North at large, or,
 
 THE PATHFINDER 303 
 
 accurately speaking, a considerable part thereof, had 
 already, by its first frank outburst of approval over the 
 proclamation, seemingly indicated on which side its choice 
 would lie. 
 
 Still Mr. Lincoln stood firm. True to the singleness of 
 purpose that distinguished him at critical junctures, he 
 adhered to his much-condemned policy. The prospect of 
 Fremont's rivalry, with all its adventitious strength, was 
 allowed to influence his course, in this respect, no more 
 than had Fremont's contumacious letter or the threats of 
 Fremont's messenger. On the day following her arrival 
 in Washington, the President despatched an answer to 
 St. Louis. Touching in his passionless way on the emanci- 
 pation clause of Fremont's proclamation, he commanded 
 it to be so modified as not to go beyond the Act of August 
 6, 1861, and directed a copy of the law to be published 
 with his order. 18 This made up the issue between them 
 precisely as the General had desired. It left his prestige 
 with the Abolitionists unimpaired, and seemed to estab- 
 lish his status generally as the better if not indeed the 
 stronger Republican of the two. Comparisons between 
 Lincoln and Fremont were, in fact, now freely made to 
 the President's disparagement. " He is not a genius," said 
 Wendell Phillips, from the platform, some months later ; 
 " he is not a man like Fremont, to stamp the lava mass of 
 the nation with an idea." 19 But it was in the first throes 
 of their disappointment over the fate of the proclamation 
 that the anti-slavery people were especially severe upon 
 Lincoln. Great newspapers and influential men were 
 equally unsparing in their censure. Some even went so 
 far as to advocate the impeachment of the President, and 
 to spread the talk of a military dictatorship under General 
 Fremont. " I have never," wrote Judge Hoadly of Cin- 
 cinnati to a member of the cabinet, " heard wilder or 
 more furious denunciation than yesterday and day before 
 found expression from the lips of cool men. Three times 
 I was applied to, to join in getting up a public meeting to
 
 304 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 denounce the administration and support Fremont ; and 
 while no such disturbance will be permitted, I am never- 
 theless certain that there is here a perfect and, I am sorry 
 to say, very angry unanimity in support both of Fremont's 
 proclamation and of his action at St. Louis in other re- 
 spects, expensive though it may have been. . . . General 
 Fremont is thus far the favorite of the Northwest, because 
 he has come up to the standard. And if the election were 
 next fall, to displace him would be to make him Presi- 
 dent." M That Fremont's removal was commonly expected 
 at the time is its own commentary on his behavior. But 
 we have studied Abraham Lincoln to small purpose if we 
 are prepared for such a sequel to the incident. The Presi- 
 dent, in fact, declared that he had " no thought of remov- 
 ing General Fremont on any ground connected with his 
 proclamation." And this brings us to the reasons why 
 the gentleman was, about seven weeks later, relieved of 
 his command. 
 
 Troublesome to the administration as were Fremont's 
 anti-slavery tactics, the General's military and executive 
 blunders proved to be no less embarrassing. During the 
 first eight weeks of his control in the Western Depart- 
 ment, Missouri was the scene of two relatively important 
 battles. They were both disastrous to the Federal cause, 
 and in each instance he was severely blamed ; for Wil- 
 son's Creek, as well as Lexington, is charged to Fremont's 
 account. The former engagement was the culmination of 
 a campaign that had begun before the General assumed 
 command. While he tarried in New York, those precious 
 weeks after his appointment, came appeals for reinforce- 
 ments from southwestern Missouri, where General Nathan- 
 iel Lyon, with a wretchedly equipped force, faced twice 
 his strength in State and Confederate troops. These calls 
 for aid became more urgent on the arrival of Fremont at 
 St. Louis. Letters, telegrams, special messengers, followed 
 one another in quick succession. They continued, in fact, 
 almost up to the hour sixteen days later when Lyon.
 
 THE PATHFINDER 305 
 
 making his choice between a hazardous retreat and a des- 
 perate battle, attacked the enemy at Wilson's Creek. 21 In 
 the ensuing action, one of the bloodiest of the war, 
 the Union forces struggled vainly against overwhelming 
 numbers, and the gallant Lyon fell at the head of his 
 troops. He had seemingly been left to fight without guid- 
 ance or succor from his superior officer. There is good 
 reason to believe, however, that a message from Fremont, 
 received on the eve of the battle, had instructed Lyon, in 
 case he found himself too weak for his position, to fall 
 back until reinforcements should meet him. Yet nothing 
 was generally known, at the time, about this order, which 
 has disappeared from the Official Records; and the De- 
 partment Commander, when he testified in his defence 
 before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, omitted, 
 for reasons that can only be conjectured, to include a copy 
 of the document among the despatches that he submitted 
 with his testimony. 22 It is but fair to add that Fremont 
 gave tardy orders for several regiments to join Lyon ; 
 though they did not it should also be said move in 
 time to be of any service. Owing to a similar failure, the 
 Union arms were again defeated in Missouri, under mor- 
 tifying conditions, the following month, at Lexington. 
 That place was held by Colonel James A. Mulligan, with 
 a force of about 2800 Federals, when General Stirling 
 Price appeared before it, with an army of State troops, 
 which soon numbered over 20,000 men. Against these 
 heavy odds the little garrison, confident that it would be 
 relieved, held out through siege and assault for eight 
 days. This gave General Fremont ample time in which 
 to send the sadly needed reinforcements ; but he again 
 acted too slowly, and when several relief columns had 
 been set in motion, their efforts to reach Colonel Mulligan 
 were, by one fatality or another, rendered futile. Despair- 
 ing of help, that officer, after a spirited resistance to the 
 limit of his resources, surrendered. 23 Tidings of this dis- 
 aster were received in the North with a cry of indigna*
 
 306 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 tion against the General commanding the department. 
 He was condemned on the face of it by the deadly par- 
 allel which people drew between Lexington and Wilson's 
 Creek. To what precise extent these two reverses were 
 justly laid at Fremont's door need not be determined 
 here. Granting all the difficulties, however, under which 
 he claims to have labored, it is the judgment of history 
 that, with the means at his command, better generalship 
 could have brought about different results in both actions. 
 
 Meanwhile, Fremont's exertions at headquarters to 
 bring order out of chaos opened up a whole Iliad of woes. 
 He worked hard, with insufficient means, to organize and 
 equip an army for a great campaign down the Mississippi. 
 But obstacles that would have tried a stronger man beset 
 him on every side. His confused efforts to remove them 
 laid a train of troubles which he might have avoided only 
 by exercising administrative skill of the first order ; aud 
 this, as we know, Fremont did not possess. Unfortunately, 
 what the General lacked in that particular could hardly 
 be supplied by the persons to whom he entrusted impor- 
 tant duties. For his confidence was given not to the officers 
 nearest to him in rank, but to a coterie of parasites, among 
 whom he scattered commissions and contracts with a lib- 
 eral hand. This gang of speculators, held together, as has 
 been pithily said, by the cohesive power of public plunder, 
 subordinated the welfare of the department to their own 
 interests ; and went so far, at times, as to crowd out loyal 
 men from intercourse with the misguided commander. 
 Fremont's methods not only seriously retarded his opera- 
 tions, but what proved right here to be of even greater 
 moment, they, at the same time, estranged from him some 
 of the most prominent Unionists in the State. 
 
 Among those who found fault with the General was 
 Colonel Francis Preston Blair, Jr. Indeed, his voice most 
 insistently of all cried, 
 
 " Fie on the chance that brings the righteous man 
 Clos^-mated with the ungodly I "
 
 THE PATHFINDER 307 
 
 He had the right to speak, if any one had. A member of 
 Congress from St. Louis, as well as commanding officer 
 in the First Volunteer Regiment of Missouri Light Artil- 
 lery, he had done more than any other man to hold his 
 State in the Federal columns. By common consent, the 
 " unconditional Unionists " of that section looked upon 
 him as their leader. Whatever he did was therefore in- 
 vested with an importance of its own, regardless of the 
 President's friendly attitude toward the Blair family. 
 When their opinion had been taken, at the outbreak of 
 the war, concerning the best man for Missouri, they had 
 enthusiastically recommended their old friend and political 
 favorite, Colonel Fremont. 24 As his nomination to the 
 presidency, in 1856, was generally credited to Francis 
 P. Blair, Sr., so his assignment, five years later, to the 
 Western Department as far as this may not have been 
 Mr. Lincoln's spontaneous act must be ascribed to the 
 influence of that same redoubtable politician and his two 
 no less strenuous sons. The older of these, Montgomery, 
 who had become Postmaster-General, is even said to have 
 been the sole advocate in the cabinet of Fremont's appoint- 
 ment. Be that as it may, the General had no sooner taken 
 command than the Blairs, with the whole-heartedness so 
 characteristic of the family, threw themselves into his 
 service. Frank at St. Louis and Montgomery at Wash- 
 ington advised, planned, and labored for his success. But 
 Frank's confidence in Fremont, rudely shaken by the 
 affair of Wilson's Creek, became still further impaired by 
 the disaster at Lexington, and by what he deemed the 
 gross mismanagement at headquarters. His letters, after 
 a time, to the Postmaster-General " were pervaded," said 
 Mr. Lincoln, in the confidential chat to which reference 
 has been made, " with a tone of sincere sorrow and of fear 
 that Fremont would fail. Montgomery showed them to 
 me," the President continued, " and we were both grieved 
 at the prospect." 25 In a letter dated September 1, this 
 correspondence reached its inevitable climax. Declaring
 
 308 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 the General " incapable of comprehending his position," 
 Frank urged that he " should be relieved of his command, 
 and a man of ability put in his place." 28 Such a dictum 
 from the leader who had a few weeks before been Fre- 
 mont's stanchest supporter could not fail to weigh heavily 
 with the President. He found in what Colonel Blair wrote, 
 moreover, striking corroboration of the charges and com- 
 plaints that had assailed him from many sources ; but 
 Lincoln sometimes carried to an almost culpable extreme 
 the loyalty with which he stood by the men to whom he 
 had given his confidence. For a week the very week, 
 indeed, which followed the publication of that trouble- 
 some emancipation proclamation he pondered, not the 
 truculent commander's removal, but how best to sustain 
 him in his place. 
 
 Fremont had evidently fallen into the hands of bad 
 advisers. Concluding them to be responsible for most of 
 these weak spots in the General's armor, the President 
 set out to reenforce it, after his own informal fashion. 
 He despatched two confidential representatives with in- 
 structions to look into the condition of things at St. 
 Louis, and to give Fremont a little judicious counsel. 
 The visitors were Postmaster-General Blair who, by the 
 way, had a West Point education and Montgomery C. 
 Meigs, Quartermaster-General of the army. They car- 
 ried with them a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to 
 his friend, General David Hunter, stationed at Chicago. 
 It read : 
 
 " General Fremont needs assistance which it is difficult 
 to give him. He is losing the confidence of men near him, 
 whose support any man in his position must have to be 
 successful. His cardinal mistake is that he isolates himself 
 and allows nobody to see him, and by which he does not 
 know what is going on in the very matter he is dealing 
 with. He needs to have by his side a man of large expe- 
 rience. Will you not, for me, take that place? Your 
 rank is one grade too high to be ordered to it, but will
 
 THE PATHFINDER 309 
 
 you not serve the country and oblige me by taking it 
 voluntarily ? " 27 
 
 General Hunter took the post of second in command 
 at St. Louis, as the President had requested ; but matters 
 did not appear to mend. Like several experienced officers 
 of high rank, before him, the newcomer failed to get on a 
 confidential footing with his superior. Fremont's affairs, 
 in fact, went from bad to worse, and complaints redoubled 
 on every hand. The resources of the Treasury were 
 strained by the exorbitant bills of the rascals who were 
 looting the Western Department ; while what Montgomery 
 Blair saw but served to confirm the reports of maladmin- 
 istration, already in Mr. Lincoln's hands. The Postmas- 
 ter-General, therefore, upon returning to Washington, 
 expressed his opinion that the good of the service required 
 Fremont's removal. 
 
 An acrimonious personal quarrel with the Blairs had 
 meanwhile complicated the situation. Mrs. Fremont, after 
 her arrival at the Capital, on that memorable mission in 
 defence of the proclamation, had heard about the Colonel's 
 criticisms. She indignantly denounced them, in her inter- 
 view with the President, and subsequently made a written 
 demand upon him for copies of all the faultfinding letters 
 that had come from the West. These he politely declined 
 to fumish without the consent of the writers. He was 
 moved by the lady's heat, moreover, to explain that the 
 Postmaster-General had been sent to St. Louis, as a 
 friend of her husband ; and he protested, with no uncertain 
 tone, " against being understood as acting in any hostil- 
 ity " toward General Fremont. 28 But here the President, 
 of course, found himself at a disadvantage. He could not 
 show the confidential reports that made it his duty to 
 investigate the affairs of the Western Department; nor 
 could he prove how kindly despite what had happened 
 he felt toward Fremont, by telling that officer's militant 
 spouse about the message to Hunter. Mrs. Fremont natu- 
 rally lost no time in reporting how things stood, to her
 
 310 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 General, who, smarting under a sense of injury, ordered 
 Colonel Blair's arrest. Notice of this was telegraphed to 
 the War Department, with an intimation that charges in 
 preparation would touch upon the Colonel's "insidious 
 and dishonorable efforts to bring " the commander's " au- 
 thority into contempt with the government, and to under- 
 mine" his "influence as an officer." 29 After an interval 
 of ten days, Frank was, at his brother's request, released. 
 He forthwith declared that he, in turn, would prefer 
 charges against Fremont, who met this announcement with 
 the rearrest of his now embittered critic. When Colonel 
 Blair's formal accusations reached the authorities, they 
 were found to be of a grave character. Charging General 
 Fremont with neglect of duty, unofficer-like conduct, dis- 
 obedience of orders, behavior unbecoming a gentleman, 
 waste of the public moneys, and despotic courses, he sup- 
 ported this catalogue of his superior's sins with a still 
 more formidable array of specifications. 30 
 
 The tangle into which Missouri had, by this time, fallen, 
 was a source of almost constant anxiety to the President. 
 Determined upon having things set right, once for all, 
 he hurried the Secretary of War to the scene, with power 
 to act. Mr. Cameron, accompanied by Adjutant-General 
 Thomas, overtook Fremont in the field, after he had started 
 on his campaign. The Secretary of War, like the cabinet 
 colleague who had preceded him, speedily arrived at an 
 unfavorable conclusion. " I had an interview with General 
 Fremont," he wrote to Mr. Lincoln, "and in conversation 
 with him showed him an order for his removal. He was 
 very much mortified, pained, and, I thought, humiliated. 
 He made an earnest appeal to me, saying that he had 
 come to Missouri, at the request of the government, to 
 assume a very responsible command, and that when he 
 reached this State he found himself without troops and 
 without any preparation for an army ; that he had ex 
 erted himself, as he believed, with great energy, and had 
 now around him a fine army, with everything to make
 
 THE PATHFINDER 311 
 
 success certain ; that he was in pursuit of the enemy, who 
 he believed were within his reach ; and that to recall him 
 at this moment would not only destroy him, but render his 
 whole expenditure useless. In reply to this appeal, I told 
 him that I would withhold the order until my return to 
 Washington, giving him the interim to prove the reality 
 of his hopes as to reaching and capturing the enemy, giv- 
 ing him to understand that, should he fail, he must give 
 place to some other officer. He assured me that, should 
 he fail, he would resign at once." 31 
 
 The reprieve was hardly warranted by what Mr. Cam- 
 eron's investigations disclosed. A report drawn up under 
 his direction by General Thomas, when they had returned 
 to Washington, appeared even after allowing for the 
 hearsay nature of certain statements to bear out the 
 most serious among Colonel Blair's charges. 32 So severe 
 was the Adjutant- General's censure that one might doubt 
 his good faith, if it were not for the cloud of witnesses 
 whose testimony against Fremont had, all this time, con- 
 tinued to pour in upon the administration. There could 
 no longer be any question as to the President's duty. 
 Even his rnuch-enduring patience had well-nigh reached 
 its limit. Fremont's time was up. Whatever might be the 
 hapless General's grievances, his ability, or his deserts, 
 the period of his usefulness in Missouri had plainly 
 passed. 33 Aside from weighty considerations of public pol- 
 icy, moreover, General Thomas reported an instance of 
 disobedience so flagrant that, under any other President 
 than Abraham Lincoln, it would have brought the offender 
 to immediate disgrace. Somewhat over a week, ran the 
 story, after Fremont had received the President's order 
 modifying his emancipation proclamation, two hundred 
 copies of that very document as originally issued were 
 sent, by the General's express commands, to eastern Mis- 
 souri for distribution. 34 That there might be no doubt 
 about so grave a charge, Fremont's order was quoted ver- 
 batim in the Adjutant-General's report. Yet this piece
 
 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 of extraordinary misconduct failed to elicit further official 
 notice. Had Lincoln paid any public attention to it what- 
 soever, nothing short of Othello's sentence upon Cassio, 
 
 " I love thee, 
 But never more be officer of mine," 
 
 could have done justice to the occasion. 
 
 In a wholly different spirit did the President approach 
 Fremont's removal. We scrutinize his conduct, in vain, 
 for traces of the personal resentment to which any other 
 Executive would doubtless, under the circumstances, have 
 given way. Even after Fremont's fate had been decided, 
 Mr. Lincoln attached conditions that left the General 
 ample chance for escape. With the order recalling him 
 and appointing General Hunter temporarily to his com- 
 mand, 35 were enclosed private instructions for General 
 Curtis, who, from St. Louis, was to manage the transfer. 
 " If," wrote the President, " when General Fremont shall 
 be reached by the messenger yourself or any one sent 
 by you he shall then have, in personal command, fought 
 and won a battle, or shall then be actually in a battle, or 
 shall then be in the immediate presence of the enemy in 
 expectation of a battle, it is not to be delivered, but held 
 for further orders." 36 Whether this lenity was due to 
 ordinary military foresight, to Secretary Cameron's pro- 
 mises, to the protests by Fremont's supporters against his 
 repeatedly rumored removal, to mutterings in the army 
 of resistance against such an order, to Lincoln's sense of 
 justice, to his good-will toward the General, or to his prac- 
 tice of not displacing favorite commanders until they 
 had fully manifested their incapacity, or whether these all 
 and several entered into the President's motives, is matter 
 for speculation only. The essential facts are that Mr. 
 Lincoln, so far from trying to get rid of Fremont as a 
 dangerous rival, did, to the very end, what lay in his 
 power to save him ; and that the General's downfall at 
 last must be ascribed to circumstances which were as 
 much under his control as they were beyond the Presi-
 
 THE PATHFINDER 313 
 
 dent's. For, when the officer whom Curtis had sent over- 
 took the " Mississippi Army " in the field, it had neither 
 fought a battle, nor was it within striking distance of the 
 enemy. The order of removal was therefore delivered ; 
 and Fremont relinquished his command with a dignity, 
 as well as a subordination, so perfect that they compelled 
 praise from many who had, not without reason, looked 
 for different behavior. 37 
 
 Though the expected outbreak among the western 
 troops failed to occur, men and officers alike with cer- 
 tain exceptions deplored their commander's downfall. 
 It was an excited camp to which Fremont addressed his 
 farewell message. He may have lacked military capacity, 
 but he possessed, in an eminent degree, one attribute, if no 
 other, of good generalship the art of endearing himself 
 to his soldiers. Loud and bitter were their denunciations 
 of the government ; but more formidable still, as the news 
 spread, became the outcry of disapproval from Fremont's 
 political admirers. Their hopes centered in " the states- 
 man-soldier " to use Wendell Phillips's appellation 
 as in no other leader, during the autumn of 1861 ; and 
 many of the extreme anti-slavery men among them could 
 not or would not see that he had been at fault. " If Fre- 
 mont has been guilty of mistakes, or even of crimes," 
 wrote an able journalist, at the time, " there are a million 
 men now living who will forgive him, in consideration 
 of his proclamation and his deed of manumission docu- 
 ments which will be as immortal as the Declaration of 
 Independence." * What seemed to increase this obliga- 
 tion a hundredfold was the belief that he had fallen a 
 martyr to the anti-slavery cause. Even public men who 
 should have known better looked upon Fremont as a friend 
 of freedom, sacrificed to appease the slave power. " What- 
 ever may have been his acts, or omissions to act," wrote 
 Senator Grimes, one of these blunderers, " there is no ques- 
 tion in my mind that the real cause of his removal was 
 the proclamation he issued, and which he failed to modify
 
 3 14 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 in accordance with the President's wishes. That was the 
 great sin for which he was punished." M A similar view was 
 voiced by Whittier, the laureate of Abolitionism, in the 
 well-known lines : 
 
 " Thy error, Fre'mont, simply was to act 
 A brave man's part, without the statesman's tact, 
 And, taking counsel but of common sense, 
 To strike at cause as well as consequence." 
 
 The role of picturesque victim to governmental injustice 
 was, as we have seen, not new to Fremont. He had, in 
 fact, mastered the part. So now, as at other monumental 
 moments of his career, the " Pathfinder " rose, in certain 
 eyes at least, to heroic stature. From influential Radicals, 
 on all sides, came expressions of esteem for him, and of 
 censure for the administration. Press, pulpit, and plat- 
 form, together with both houses of Congress, made liberal 
 contributions for a brief season to the work of exalting 
 Fremont, while putting down Lincoln. How deeply, too, 
 that spirit moved the people, in certain sections of the 
 country, may be gathered from this letter, written by 
 Richard Smith of the Cincinnati Gazette to his friend, 
 Secretary Chase, a few days after the removal : 
 
 "Could you have been among the people yesterday 
 and witnessed the excitement, could you have seen sober 
 citizens pulling from their walls and trampling under foot 
 the portrait of the President, and could you hear to-day 
 the expressions of all classes of men of all political 
 parties, you would, I think, feel as I feel, and as every 
 sincere friend of the government must feel, alarmed. 
 What meaneth this burning of the President in effigy, 
 by citizens who have hitherto sincerely and enthusiasti- 
 cally supported the war? What meaneth these boister- 
 ous outbursts of indignation, and these low mutterings 
 favorable to a Western Confederacy that we hear? Why 
 this sudden check to enlistments? Why this rejection of 
 treasury notes by German citizens ? W r hy is it that on 
 the 6th of November, 1861, not one dollar was subscribed
 
 THE PATHFINDER 315 
 
 here to the national loan ? Why is it that it would not be 
 safe to go into places where the Germans resort, and pub- 
 licly express an opinion favorable to the President ? Why 
 this sudden, this extraordinary, this startling change in 
 public sentiment, on 'change, in the street, in the banking- 
 house, in the palace and the cottage, in country and city ? 
 Is it not time for the President to stop and consider 
 whether, as this is a government of the people, it is not 
 unsafe to disregard and override public sentiment, as has 
 been done in the case of General Fremont? The public 
 consider that Fremont has been made a martyr of. ... 
 Consequently he is now, so far as the West is concerned, 
 the most popular man in the country. He is to the West 
 what Napoleon was to France ; while the President has 
 lost the confidence of the people." * 
 
 For the moment, it did indeed look, in some quarters, as 
 if Lincoln had reaped the whirlwind. But was this storm 
 fierce enough to bear out Judge Hoadly's warning that to 
 displace Fremont might result in making him President ? 
 
 The next election was still three years distant. As this, 
 for the time being, precluded political operations, Fremont's 
 supporters directed their energies toward securing his 
 restoration to active service. Some of his partisans in 
 Missouri held secret meetings that did not stop short of 
 planning treason in their favorite's behalf ; but most of his 
 friends throughout the North contented themselves with 
 the orderly presentation of his case. They asserted that 
 in a purely military command the General would do jus- 
 tice to his reputation ; and this claim Mr. Lincoln, despite 
 what had happened, was willing to treat with indulgence. 
 So, after the first pressure upon the President had subsided, 
 we find him, one day, calling into the Executive Cham- 
 ber Henry C. Bowen, the proprietor of the Independent, 
 who happened to be passing the open door, on his way to 
 another office. 
 
 " Come in," said Mr. Lincoln, in his unceremonious 
 j " y u are the very man I want to see. I have been
 
 3 i6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 thinking a great deal lately about Fremont ; and I want 
 to ask you, as an old friend of his, what is the thought 
 about his continuing inactive." 
 
 " Mr. President," was the reply, " I will say to you 
 frankly that a large class of people feel that General 
 Fremont has been badly treated, and nothing would give 
 more satisfaction, both to him and to his friends, than 
 his reappointment to a command commensurate, in some 
 degree, with his rank and ability." 
 
 " Do you think," asked Mr. Lincoln, " he would accept 
 an inferior position to that he occupied in Missouri?" 
 
 " I have that confidence in General Fremont's patriotism 
 that I venture to promise for him in advance," was Mr. 
 Bowen's earnest reply. 
 
 " Well," said the President thoughtfully, " I have had 
 it on my mind for some time that Fremont should be 
 given a chance to redeem himself. The great hue and 
 cry about him has been concerning his expenditure of the 
 public money. I have looked into the matter a little, and 
 I can't see as he has done any worse or any more, in that 
 line, than our eastern commanders. At any rate, he shall 
 have another trial." 41 
 
 Shortly after this interview, when the Mountain De- 
 partment was carved out of the steeps and forests of 
 western Maryland, western Virginia, eastern Ohio, east- 
 ern Kentucky, and eastern Tennessee, 42 the command of it 
 was appropriately enough assigned to the "Pathfinder." 43 
 Here he figured, not greatly to his credit, in the govern- 
 ment's disastrous experiment of opposing to " Stonewall " 
 Jackson the three independent departmental commands 
 of Fremont, Banks, and McDowell. Their efforts to 
 entrap that brilliant campaigner, in his dash down the 
 Shenandoah valley, were a succession of failures ; and 
 naturally so, for only the most efficient cooperation of the 
 Union generals could have secured a different finish to 
 the intricate strategy imposed upon them from Washing- 
 ton. When at last it appeared as if Jackson might be
 
 THE PATHFINDER 317 
 
 caught between the converging columns of McDowell 
 and Fremont, those officers were ordered to the only out- 
 let through which the then retreating Confederates could 
 escape from the valley. McDowell reached his appointed 
 post in time ; but Fremont arrived just too late, and their 
 alert foe slipped between them. " Too late " has ever been 
 a sorry commentary when the day is lost. What shall 
 we say, then, of a general to whom it must be applied 
 thrice within the year ? Not a little, moreover, of this last 
 failure was due to Fremont's constitutional disrespect for 
 orders. According to his instructions from the President, 
 he was to advance by a route that would have brought his 
 line of march between the enemy and the southern exit 
 from the valley, for which Jackson was headed. Taking 
 what he believed to be a more practicable road, without 
 notifying Mr. Lincoln of so important a modification of 
 his orders, Fremont made a detour that led him several 
 days' march away from the Confederate line of retreat, 
 and brought him out, when he did reach the strategic 
 point, in the rear of the enemy, just as the last of Jack- 
 son's troops were leaving that place. 
 
 Though Fremont failed, his reasons, as usual, were 
 excellent. The road prescribed by the President had 
 we are told been "obstructed"; it would have been 
 " fatal " in the General's opinion to a line of supplies ; 
 and to have taken it he asserted must, under any 
 conditions, have defeated the end in view." When Mr. 
 Lincoln said to Major Zagonyi : 
 
 " General Fremont ought to have informed me of his 
 plans, and of the reasons why he could not obey my 
 orders " ; he was answered : 
 
 " Mr. President, I am instructed by General Fremont 
 to say that he could not spare any of his officers, nor trust 
 the telegraph ; and, furthermore, to say that all the intel- 
 ligence of his movements which has been placed in the 
 office of the Adjutant-General has reached the enemy soon 
 afterwards," to
 
 3i8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 But it has been urged there was still ample time, 
 even after the detour, to cut off Jackson's worn-out and 
 bedraggled forces. To which Fremont replies that the 
 weather was so stormy, the roads so heavy, the men so 
 weakened by fatigue and want of food, that a whole day 
 had to be lost in resting them on the march. 46 All these 
 things might be pleaded in mitigation before a court- 
 martial. They are as dust in the balance, however, at 
 the bar of military history, where commanders are judged, 
 not by the plausibility of the reasons that they assign for 
 their defeats, but by the victories that they have snatched, 
 with straitened means, from unpropitious circumstance. 
 Before this tribunal the Fremont of the Mountain cam- 
 paign, like the Fremont who warred a hundred days in 
 Missouri, stands condemned. 
 
 After Jackson's escape, the President realized his own 
 share in the disaster. It was evident that the three divided 
 commands, which had supported one another so loosely, 
 should be united, at once, under one general in the field. 
 This honor might properly have fallen to Fremont, the 
 ranking officer of the group ; but Lincoln, for obvious 
 reasons, looked elsewhere. He selected Major-General 
 John Pope, who had made a good record in the West, to 
 lead the combined forces. They constituted, for the most 
 part, the newly organized Army of Virginia. It was 
 divided, to correspond with the former departments, into 
 three army corps, under the command, respectively, of 
 Fremont, Banks, and McDowell. 47 These officers were all 
 Pope's seniors in the service. Banks and McDowell, 
 nevertheless, bowed to the President's wishes ; but Fre- 
 mont, belying the good Mr. Bo wen's " confidence " in his 
 patriotism, declined as Mr. Lincoln had surmised he 
 would to " accept an inferior position." On receipt of 
 the order, the General forthwith telegraphed to the Sec- 
 retary of War : 
 
 " I respectfully ask that the President will relieve me 
 of my present command. I submit for his consideration
 
 THE PATHFINDER 319 
 
 that the position assigned me by his recent order is sub- 
 ordinate and inferior to those hitherto conceded me, and 
 not fairly corresponding with the rank I hold in the army. 
 I further desire to call his attention to the fact that to 
 remain in the subordinate command to which I am now 
 assigned would virtually and largely reduce my rank and 
 consideration in the service of the country. For these 
 reasons I earnestly request that the President will not 
 require the order to take effect so far as I am concerned, 
 but will consent immediately to relieve me." ** 
 
 This missive was a blunder. The ambitious man who 
 penned it must have lost sight, for the moment, not only 
 of what he owed to his country, but also of what he 
 owed to himself. 49 He was plainly in the wrong on a ques- 
 tion that involved no political differences, and that could, 
 therefore, not so easily be befogged by partisan prejudice. 
 Fremont had gone the whole length of his tether. There 
 is no mistaking the hand that pulled him up short, though 
 it was ostensibly that of Mr. Stanton. The Secretary of 
 War answered promptly : 
 
 " Your telegram requesting to be relieved from duty 
 has been received and laid before the President, who 
 directs me to say that Congress having by special resolu- 
 tion vested him with authority to assign the chief command 
 between officers of the same grade as he might consider 
 best for the service of the country, without regard to pri- 
 ority of rank, he exercised that authority in respect to the 
 Army of Virginia, as he has done in other instances, in 
 the manner which, in his judgment, was required for the 
 service, and without design to detract from the ' rank and 
 consideration' of any general. 50 General Pope was the 
 junior in rank, but of the same grade not only of yourself, 
 but also of Generals Banks and McDowell, neither of 
 whom have considered their rank and consideration in the 
 service of the country as a condition upon which they 
 would withdraw from that service. 
 
 " The President regrets' that any officer in the service
 
 320 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 should withdraw from the service of his country, in any 
 position where he is lawfully assigned by his commander- 
 in-chief ; but he cannot consistently with his sense of duty 
 grant your request that an order, made according to his 
 judgment for the welfare of the nation, should not be re- 
 quired to take effect, so far as you are concerned. The 
 obligation of duty is the same upon all officers in the ser- 
 vice, whatever their rank, and if there be any difference, 
 it should be most readily observed by those of highest 
 rank. Your request, therefore, to be relieved from your 
 present command is granted. 
 
 " You will turn over your command and orders to the 
 officer next highest in rank to yourself, and direct him to 
 report to the department for further orders." 51 
 
 A general's popularity must be deep-rooted indeed to 
 survive such a blast. 
 
 Notwithstanding his misconduct and his failures, many 
 of the Radicals clung to Fremont. He was still their 
 champion political and militant, the leader on whom 
 they depended for the ultimate triumph of Abolition. They 
 applauded him accordingly, without reservation, but their 
 faith in his soldierly qualities, be it said, was no longer 
 shared by the President. " I thought well of Fremont," he 
 remarked, chatting confidentially one evening with a few 
 friends. " Even now I think well of his impulses. I only 
 think he is the prey of wicked and designing men, and I 
 think he has absolutely no military capacity." 52 This 
 opinion, though expressed more than a year after the 
 Shenandoah campaign, was probably held by Mr. Lincoln 
 at the conclusion of that fiasco ; yet we fail to find among 
 his open utterances a word that might hurt the General's 
 sensitive pride or impair his reputation. Meanwhile Fre- 
 mont's supporters left no stone unturned in their efforts 
 to secure his restoration. From the East, as well as from 
 the West, came delegations, petitions, letters, telegrams, 
 and what not, urging that he be sent to the field at the 
 head of another army, or be assigned to some responsible
 
 THE PATHFINDER 321 
 
 executive post under the administration. For a time, Mr. 
 Lincoln readily disposed of these appeals. When, for in- 
 stance, Congressman George W. Julian of Indiana, in the 
 spring of 1863, expressed his regret that Fremont had 
 not received another command, 53 the President replied 
 that as he did not know where to place the General, he 
 was reminded of the young man who, when advised by 
 his father to take a wife, answered, " Whose wife shall I 
 take?" Mr. Lincoln proceeded to explain that a suitable 
 appointment could be provided for Fremont only by re- 
 moving some other general, which he did not wish to do. 
 
 " I remarked," reports Mr. Julian, " that I was very 
 sorry if this was true, and that it was unfortunate for our 
 cause, as I believed his restoration to duty would stir the 
 country as no other appointment could." 
 
 The President might have become reminiscent as to the 
 General's stirring powers, but he contented himself with 
 saying : 
 
 "It would stir the country on one side, and stir it 
 the other way, on the other. It would please Fremont's 
 friends, and displease the Conservatives ; and that is all 
 I can see in the stirring argument." 54 
 
 Mr. Lincoln replied after a similar fashion, some weeks 
 later, when a St. Louis mass meeting " resolved " that 
 Fremont and several other anti-slavery generals had been 
 " systematically kept out of command." To the committee 
 which presented these resolutions the President senten- 
 tiously said that there were " more pegs than holes to put 
 them in." The officers mentioned had, he added, placed 
 themselves by their own actions in the positions they then 
 occupied, and however willing he might be to send them 
 to the field, it could not be done without working injustice 
 to those whom they would displace. 55 This was unan- 
 swerable. It seemed as if, by a neat application of the 
 physical law that inhibits two bodies from occupying the 
 same space at the same time, Lincoln had effectually 
 shelved Fremont or, more accurately speaking, fastened
 
 322 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 him to the shelf upon which the General had placed him- 
 self. 
 
 Still the extreme anti-slavery men were far from content 
 to leave their idol in retirement. If there was no suitable 
 post for Fremont, why they queried not create one ? 
 So said Horace Greeley, William Cullen Bryant, Parke 
 Godwin, Peter Cooper, and other prominent citizens, who 
 signed a memorial suggesting that the General should be 
 commissioned to organize and command an army of negro 
 troops. The delegation that carried the petition to the 
 President was introduced by Senator Charles Sumner, to 
 whom Lincoln, after the interviews, addressed his answer. 
 This letter evinces how the President's good-will toward 
 Fremont, no less than his desire to conciliate the General's 
 powerful friends, brought him to the inconsistency of again 
 contemplating the appointment of that officer to a military 
 command. It reads, in part : 
 
 " In relation to the matter spoken of Saturday morning 
 and this morning to wit, the raising of colored troops 
 in the North, with the understanding that they shall be 
 commanded by General Fremont I have to say : 
 
 " That while it is very objectionable, as a general rule, 
 to have troops raised on any special terms, such as to serve 
 only under a particular commander or only at a particular 
 place or places, yet I would forego the objection in this 
 case upon a fair prospect that a large force of this sort 
 could thereby be the more rapidly raised ; 
 
 " That being raised, say to the number of ten thousand, 
 I would very cheerfully send them to the field under 
 General Fremont, assigning him a department, made or 
 to be made, with such white force also as I might be able 
 to put in." M 
 
 Nothing came of this, however, for the enlistment of 
 negro troops was entrusted, in good time, to safer men 
 than the " Pathfinder." 
 
 Another notable attempt to get Fremont back into 
 active service brought Wendell Phillips, the Rev. Mon-
 
 THE PATHFINDER 323 
 
 cure D. Con way, F. W. Bird, Dr. Howe, and others to 
 Washington. Calling on the President, they requested him 
 to remove Edward Stanley from the military governor- 
 ship of North Carolina, on the ground that he was not 
 acting in sympathy with the then recently issued procla- 
 mation of emancipation. Mr. Lincoln asked the delega- 
 tion who was wanted in Stanley's place. They promptly 
 answered, " Fremont." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the President, " it is generally the 
 case that a man who begins a work is not the best man to 
 carry it on to a successful termination. I believe it was 
 so in the case of Moses was n't it ? who got the chil- 
 dren of Israel out of Egypt, but the Lord selected some- 
 body else to bring them to their journey's end. A pioneer 
 has hard work to do, and generally gets so battered and 
 spattered that people prefer another man, though they 
 may accept the principle. Don't understand me as having, 
 myself, the least objection to Mr. Fremont ; but he is so 
 associated with Abolitionism that many people object to 
 the man, even though they go his way." 57 
 
 Stanley's office, like the other coveted places, did not 
 fall to Fremont; and his disappointed adherents grum- 
 bled more than ever. At last, applying Lincoln's biblical 
 citation to the President himself, they diligently spread 
 the opinion that he ought to give way, on the completion 
 of his first term, to some other leader. Who that leader 
 should be had become a fixed idea in the Radical mind. 
 
 By the spring of 1864, Union opposition to Lincoln's 
 renomination centered chiefly around Fremont. He suc- 
 ceeded to what remained of the following which Secretary 
 Chase, as we have seen, had wisely resigned. In fact, no 
 sooner had the Ohio man actually withdrawn his candi- 
 dature than the " Pathfinder's " little lightning-rod was 
 pushed up into the presidential heavens. Fremont's name 
 became a rallying-cry for such of the Radicals as were 
 out of patience with the President's cautious attitude 
 toward slavery ; for such of the Conservatives as believed,
 
 324 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 or pretended to believe, that Lincoln's reelection would 
 be a menace to Republican institutions ; and for such 
 political and private malcontents, generally, as had been 
 unavoidably created by the exigencies of a war adminis- 
 tration. These discontented elements now drew together. 
 
 O 
 
 With a view to influencing the regular Republican Con- 
 vention M that was to meet at Baltimore on the 7th of 
 June, they assembled on May 31, in Cleveland, for what 
 they called a " Mass Convention." This body by acclama- 
 tion nominated General Fremont for the presidency, and 
 General John Cochrane of New York a few dissenting 
 for the vice-presidency. 
 
 The candidates hastened to issue their letters of accept- 
 ance, which appeared three days before the Baltimore 
 Convention. What Fremont wrote seemed tinged with 
 the yellow of his grudge against Lincoln. The President 
 was here accused of creating a schism in the party by not 
 remaining "faithful to the principles he was elected to 
 defend." His administration was severely arraigned for 
 its " disregard of constitutional rights," for " its violation 
 of personal liberty and the liberty of the press," its 
 " abandonment of the right of asylum," its " feebleness," 
 " want of principle," " incapacity, and selfishness." All of 
 which led up smoothly enough to the General's ultima- 
 tum : 
 
 "If the Convention at Baltimore will nominate any 
 man whose past life justifies a well-grounded confidence 
 in his fidelity to our cardinal principles, there is no reason 
 why there should be any division among the really patri- 
 otic men of the country. To any such I shall be most 
 happy to give a cordial and active support. My own 
 decided preference is to aid in this way, and not to be 
 myself a candidate. But if Mr. Lincoln should be nomi- 
 nated, as I believe it would be fatal to the country to 
 indorse a policy and renew a power which has cost us the 
 lives of thousands of men, and needlessly put the country 
 on the road to bankruptcy, there will remain no other
 
 THE PATHFINDER 325 
 
 alternative but to organize against him every element 
 of conscientious opposition with the view to prevent the 
 misfortune of his reelection." 59 
 
 This shaft fell wide of the mark. So far as its effect 
 upon the Baltimore Convention was concerned, it might 
 as well never have been discharged. For that body re- 
 nominated Abraham Lincoln by a unanimous vote, on 
 the first ballot. 
 
 If the President felt aggrieved at Fremont's behavior, 
 he made no visible sign. Yet the rancor of the General's 
 attacks upon him and upon his administration was in 
 striking contrast to the consideration with which the 
 "Pathfinder" had uniformly been treated. Indeed, at 
 this, the very climax of Fremont's opposition, Lincoln's 
 sole recorded comment was a jest. It related to the Cleve- 
 land "Mass Convention," "mass" in name only, of 
 which William Lloyd Garrison, arch-Radical though he 
 had been, said in the Liberator, " There never was a more 
 abortive or a more ludicrous gathering held, politically 
 speaking." Very few representative people attended ; and 
 the assembly, instead of numbering thousands as appears 
 to have been expected, consisted, at no time, of more than 
 four hundred men. When this disparity was mentioned 
 by Congressman Deming, in a chat with the President, 
 the number caught Mr. Lincoln's attention. Putting on 
 his spectacles, he opened the bible on his desk, turned, 
 after a moment's search, to the twenty-second chapter of 
 the First Book of Samuel, and read in a waggish tone : 
 
 " And every one that was in distress, and every one 
 that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, 
 gathered themselves unto him ; and he became a captain 
 over them : and there were with him about four hundred 
 men." 60 
 
 Auspicious as the President's comparison may, from 
 the historical point of view, have been for Fremont, that 
 leader, unlike the chieftain in the Cave of Adullam, did 
 not become a ruler in Israel. Those who might have
 
 326 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 encouraged the General to " set up for himself," as Mrs. 
 Fremont appears to have expressed it in 1861, understood 
 him, and Lincoln too, somewhat better in 1864. Even 
 the " Pathfinder's " old friends the Abolitionists refused 
 with certain notable exceptions to follow him on this 
 last and stoniest of his trails. They realized, as soon as 
 the Democrats put forth their candidate and their plat- 
 form, that emancipation would triumph, if at all, through 
 Abraham Lincoln. Reluctantly, in some instances half- 
 mutinously, his opponents within the party came to the 
 support of the great statesman whose course they had 
 condemned ; but whose hold on " the plain people," and 
 whose perfect mastery of the situation, had made him the 
 indispensable man of the hour. As for Fremont, he found 
 himself, before the canvass had rightly begun, that most 
 humiliating of political spectacles a nominee without a 
 party. Nothing that he contrived could impart serious- 
 ness or dignky to his situation. When the issues between 
 Lincoln and McClellan were sharply denned, moreover, 
 his position of antagonism to the President became, for a 
 loyal Republican leader, clearly untenable. So, early in 
 the autumn, Fremont withdrew from the canvass. 61 Even 
 this step, however, was taken with bad grace. For he was 
 careful to explain that he retired "not to aid in the 
 triumph of Mr. Lincoln," but to do his part "towards 
 preventing the election of the Democratic candidate." As 
 an illustration, perhaps, of how he would perform this 
 extraordinary feat, the writer went on to say : 
 
 " In respect to Mr. Lincoln, I continue to hold exactly 
 the sentiments contained in my letter of acceptance. I 
 consider that his administration has been politically, 
 militarily, and financially a failure, and that its necessary 
 continuance is a cause of regret for the country." 62 
 
 With this last futile stroke at the man who had so com- 
 pletely routed him, Fremont disappears from the stage of 
 national politics, disappointed alike in his ambition and 
 his spite.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 
 
 THE dead level of disappointment which marked the 
 opening operations of the Civil War, on the northern side, 
 was relieved by one brief and comparatively brilliant cam- 
 paign. This took place in upper western Virginia, where 
 Federal troops drove less than their number of Confed- 
 erates before them in a succession of engagements. Phi- 
 lippi, Laurel Hill, Rich Mountain, and Carrick's Ford 
 were, it is true, mere skirmishes when viewed beside the 
 great battles of the war that followed ; but in the summer 
 of 1861 they were hailed throughout the North as impor- 
 tant victories. To judge by results, they were not so insig- 
 nificant, either, as at first glance now seems to be the case. 
 For that decisive little campaign shattered a Confederate 
 army, rescued what before long became the State of West 
 Virginia from secession, infused renewed courage into 
 northern hearts, and formally introduced to Union men 
 their first military idol George Brinton McClellan. As 
 Major-General in command of the Department of the 
 Ohio, 1 that officer had won some of these successes, and 
 had received credit for them all. Their moral effect on the 
 country, be it said, was heightened not a little, at the time, 
 by the trumpet-like tones of his proclamations, addresses, 
 and despatches, which followed one another, during the 
 campaign, in rapid succession. 2 Bulletins fell as thick as 
 bullets. The General carried a portable printing-press, 
 which worked overtime ; and its output was disfigured by 
 a vein of exaggeration, amounting occasionally as we 
 now perceive to bombast. Amidst the jubilation aroused 
 by his joyful tidings, however, and in the confusion of the
 
 328 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 gathering conflict, these productions were received at their 
 face value. Even Lieutenant-General Scott, the venerable 
 chief of the army, did not scrutinize them too closely. This 
 sudden triumph of an officer who had once been numbered 
 among the veteran's most promising subalterns so moved 
 the old campaigner that he added his praise, without re- 
 serve, to the general acclaim. McClellan was easily the 
 hero of the hour. His vigor of rhetoric, combined, as it 
 seemed, with a genius for tactics, recalled to men's minds 
 the conqueror of Austerlitz. Reversing history, in their 
 enthusiasm, they fondly styled him the " Young Napoleon," 
 though he was considerably older than Bonaparte had been 
 at the close of his first campaign ; 3 and in that same spirit 
 they turned, as by one accord, toward the new prodigy, 
 with high hopes of great achievements to come. 
 
 The North was still rejoicing over McClellan's victories, 
 the thanks of Congress and the congratulations of the 
 administration were still making the rounds of an applaud- 
 ing press, when the Union army under McDowell came to 
 grief at the first battle of Bull Run. As the routed volun- 
 teers poured into Washington, in a state of almost total 
 demoralization, their first need was evidently a new com- 
 mander ; and to provide one was President Lincoln's first 
 care. His choice naturally fell upon the popular favorite, 
 the only general officer who had, since the war opened, 
 gained any distinction. It seemed to Mr. Lincoln, no less 
 than to the country at large, that this picturesque soldier 
 was destined to repair the disaster of July 21, and to 
 lead the reorganized troops to victory. So McClellan re- 
 ceived a hurried summons to the Capital. Upon his arrival 
 he was assigned to the command of the newly created 
 Division of the Potomac, by far the most responsible post 
 in the field. 4 
 
 This promotion, dazzling as it must have been even to 
 the man so honored himself, did not rest upon those few 
 successful weeks in western Virginia, alone. Some credit, 
 however slight, should doubtless be conceded to his earlier
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 329 
 
 history and training. A graduate of West Point shortly 
 after the outbreak of the Mexican War, McClellan had 
 seen active service before his twentieth birthday. 5 He had 
 distinguished himself repeatedly, though only a second 
 lieutenant of engineers, in General Scott's campaign ; and 
 that commander's attention was, on several occasions, 
 called to the youthful officer's exploits. At the close of the 
 Mexican War, Captain McClellan he was so brevetted 
 for gallantry had entered upon eight busy years of 
 varied official duties. Serving with his engineer company 
 as an instructor at West Point, assisting Major John 
 Sanders in construction work at Fort Delaware, exploring 
 the country of the Upper Ked River under Captain Ran- 
 dolph B. Marcy, making a military inspection of Texas 
 as chief engineer on the staff of General P. F. Smith, sur- 
 veying the coast of that State for the improvement of its 
 harbors, exploring the Cascade Mountains to determine 
 part of the proposed route for the Pacific Railroad, recon- 
 noitering the West Indies in a secret search for a coaling 
 station, and visiting Europe during the Crimean War as 
 one of the three commissioners appointed to make military 
 observations abroad, he had won, in whatever task was 
 assigned to him, golden opinions from his superiors. He 
 had found time, moreover, during this period, busy as 
 it was, to employ his pen with good effect. A general me- 
 moir on the island of Hayti, a monograph on railroad con- 
 struction, Regulations for the Field Service of Cavalry 
 in Time of War, a Manual of Bayonet Exercise which 
 upon General Scott's urgent recommendation was adopted 
 by the War Department as an official text-book, and a 
 voluminous treatise on The Armies of Europe, besides a 
 number of minor reports, all bear testimony to his ability 
 no less than to his zeal. 8 But in times of peace army life 
 usually fails to fill the measure of such a man's ambition. 
 Resigning his commission in 1857, 7 Captain McClellan 
 had become successively Chief Engineer of the Illinois 
 Central Railroad Company, Vice-President of the same
 
 330 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 corporation, and President of the Eastern Division of 
 the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, with headquarters at 
 Cincinnati. Hence, when the Civil War began, Ohio 
 rather than New York or Pennsylvania for his services 
 were sought by both the latter commonwealths had 
 secured the honor of McClellan's enrollment. Promptly 
 finding employment in military preparations at Colum- 
 bus, he had been appointed by Governor Dennison Major- 
 General of State Volunteers. 8 At the head of the local 
 forces, he had straightway impressed those about him with 
 a confidence in his skill that as speedily found its way to 
 the National Capital. For, presto! in just three weeks, 
 this militia officer had been commissioned remarkable 
 to relate a Major-General of the United States Army. 9 
 In that capacity, he had presently conducted the campaign 
 into western Virginia which made his name a household 
 word all over the Union ; and directly afterward, a symbol 
 of security in Washington, when he reached there, during 
 the week of Bull Run. 
 
 McClellan and Lincoln were not, at the time, strangers 
 to each other. They had met before the war in the con- 
 duct of certain lawsuits, which concerned the one as an 
 officer of the Illinois Central Railroad Company and the 
 other as its counsel. On these occasions, the then unpol- 
 ished lawyer had been an object of interest to the well- 
 bred West Pointer, who many years later thus touched 
 upon his early acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln : 
 
 " More than once I have been with him in out-of-the- 
 way county-seats where some important case was being 
 tried, and, in the lack of sleeping accommodations, have 
 spent the night in front of a stove listening to the unceas- 
 ing flow of anecdotes from his lips. He was never at a 
 ioss, and I could never quite make up my mind how many 
 of them he had really heard before, and how many he 
 invented on the spur of the moment. His stories were 
 seldom refined, but were always to the point." 10 
 
 If memories of those Attic nights on the Eighth Judi-
 
 cial Circuit arose in the minds of the two men as General 
 McClellan presented himself to President Lincoln at the 
 White House, on the morning of July 27, 1861, there 
 might also have been recollections not quite so agreeable. 
 When Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas had 
 made their memorable canvass for the senatorship three 
 years before, one of the " Little Giant's " most ardent 
 supporters was George B. McClellan. As Vice-President 
 of a railroad company which, for reasons of its own, 
 favored Douglas, he had employed in the Senator's behalf 
 all the influence and facilities at his command. Special 
 trains on occasion even McClellan's private car had 
 carried the Democratic champion to the scenes of the 
 debates, while his opponent, in order to keep these ap- 
 pointments, had been reduced at times, as we have seen, 
 to the necessity of begging rides on freight trains. This 
 discrimination, though it had greatly angered Lincoln's 
 friends, evoked, so far as we know, not a complaint from 
 the man against whom it was directed. Nor does the 
 closest scrutiny into his conduct reveal a trace of resent- 
 ment. He had never, in all the ruck of frontier politics, 
 learned how to nurse personal grievances. It goes without 
 saying, therefore, that in the loftier sphere of the presi- 
 dency his heart, big as it was, had no room for a private 
 grudge. If any misgivings on this score troubled General 
 McClellan when he made his first bow in Washington, 
 they were speedily dispelled by Mr. Lincoln's cordial 
 greeting. Neither mistrust for the past nor doubt of the 
 future was allowed to mar the harmony of their meeting. 
 The new commander glowed with the warmth of his re- 
 ception. Touched by the President's kindness, he eagerly 
 accepted the great dual task assigned to him of defending 
 the Union Capital and taking Richmond. 
 
 McClellan seemed at first glance equal to the emer- 
 gency. He entered upon the arduous labors of recon- 
 structing, indeed of creating, an army with the prime 
 requisite, bodily vigor. A muscular frame, deep-chested,
 
 332 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 broad-shouldered, full-throated, rendered him capable of 
 physical exertions so long sustained that they aroused 
 the admiration of those who had to keep up with him in 
 a trying round of duties. His bearing, as he rode about 
 Washington from post to post, was alert and soldierly. 
 Though but slightly above medium height, length of body 
 made him look tall in the saddle, while a good seat and a 
 steady hand completed the impression of superb horse- 
 manship. His every movement betokened dignity, every 
 command perfect self-reliance. When with these exter- 
 nals are recalled the well-set, closely -cropped head, martial 
 mustache, bronzed complexion, aquiline nose, and com- 
 pelling blue eyes, we comprehend why many who saw him 
 at the time pronounced him to be the beau-ideal of a mili. 
 tary chieftain. His appearance, it may be said, gave 
 promise of more than his talents were destined to fulfil, 
 yet McClellan's powers were of no common order. A 
 study of modern warfare in all its aspects, supplemented 
 by a broad general scholarship, had admirably prepared 
 him in the theory of military organization. Hardly less 
 notable seemed the skill with which this knowledge was 
 now employed. Indeed, McClellan's tireless energy, mas- 
 tery of details, comprehensive discipline, and administra- 
 tive grasp of what was needed to place the country on 
 a war footing justified more nearly than in any other 
 respects a comparison to the great Napoleon. Immeasur- 
 ably inferior, withal, to the Corsican in military ability, 
 as we shall see, the American surpassed him in charac- 
 ter. McClellan was a man of good impulses, for the most 
 part, in fact, of high ideals. The romantic more pre- 
 cisely speaking, the sentimental view of life appealed to 
 his imagination. He plunged into a duty, as he saw it, 
 with all the fervor of an emotional nature. That he did 
 not always see clearly at critical moments must be con- 
 ceded. Nevertheless, his integrity, courage, and fidelity to 
 a trust, private or official, were in the main as deep-rooted 
 as the religious feeling from which they sprung. A man
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 333 
 
 of prayers, like so many who have led in the world's 
 bitterest conflicts, he was, to a remarkable degree for a 
 professional soldier, pure in thought and word and deed. 
 Some fellow officer might fitly have applied to him, with 
 perhaps a slight modification, that eulogy addressed by a 
 comrade, full two hundred and fifty years before, to the 
 first illustrious captain on Virginian soil : 
 "I never knew a warrior yet, but tbee, 
 From wine, tobacco, debts, dice, oaths, so free." 
 
 This resemblance to John Smith may be traced still 
 further in McClellan's charm of manner. Richly endowed 
 with the social virtues, he was so cordial, frank, and sym- 
 pathetic, so courteous in demeanor, so buoyant of speech, 
 that men were insensibly drawn toward him, even on first 
 acquaintance. Not a few, after closer intercourse, came 
 to hold him in affectionate regard ; while the favored 
 ones whom he admitted to his friendship repaid it with 
 signal love and loyalty. This power to inspire devotion, 
 this personal magnetism, is an important, if not an essential 
 element of successful leadership. Measured according to 
 that attribute alone, the first commander of the Army of 
 the Potomac would easily have ranked as its greatest. 
 
 But McClellan fell short of heroic proportions. To 
 what extent, the campaigns upon which he eventually 
 entered all too clearly disclosed. In fact, before opera- 
 tions began, certain defects of temperament that con- 
 tributed not a little to his failures showed themselves 
 through the pomp and circumstance of military grandeur. 
 The pace, as is usual in revolutionary times, was rapid 
 far too rapid for McClellan's equipoise. His sudden bound 
 into fame had, as early as the west Virginian days, dis- 
 turbed that nicety of balance, lacking which, no man can 
 long maintain suitable relations with the rest of the world. 
 We find him, then, already nursing an inordinate respect 
 for his own importance, that grew by the flattery and hero- 
 worship on which it was fed, until it had swelled, at the 
 commencement of his Washington career, to a condition
 
 334 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 bordering upon exaltation. He believed himself " called " 
 to a sacred mission. No " man of destiny " ever approached 
 an allotted task in a profounder spirit of consecration. To 
 McClellan's stimulated imagination it seemed as if Pro- 
 vidence had fashioned him throughout his earlier life 
 into an instrument of the divine will for the preservation 
 of his country; and this notion unfortunately received 
 apparent confirmation from the manner of his reception 
 at the Capital. Our Camillus had been on duty there 
 just one day, when he wrote to his wife : 
 
 "I find myself in a new and strange position here 
 President, cabinet, General Scott, and all, deferring to me. 
 By some strange operation of magic I seem to have become 
 the power of the land." u 
 
 Another branch of the government paid its tribute, 
 three days later, to the rising sun. Visiting the Senate, for 
 the purpose of urging some special military legislation, 
 McClellan " was quite overwhelmed," as he expressed it, 
 at his treatment by the members. " I suppose," reads a 
 message to the same fair correspondent, " half a dozen of 
 the oldest made the remark I am becoming so much used 
 to, ' Why, how young you look, and yet an old soldier ! ' 
 It seems to strike everybody that I am very young. They 
 give me my way in everything, full swing and unbounded 
 confidence. All tell me that I am held responsible for the 
 fate of the nation, and that all its resources shall be placed 
 at my disposal. It is an immense task that I have on my 
 hands, but I believe I can accomplish it. ... When I 
 was in the Senate chamber to-day, and found those old 
 men flocking around me ; when I afterwards stood in the 
 library, looking over the capitol of our great nation, and 
 saw the crowd gathering around to stare at me, I began 
 to feel how great the task committed to me. Oh ! how 
 sincerely I pray to God that I may be endowed with the 
 wisdom and courage necessary to accomplish the work. 
 Who would have thought, when we were married, that I 
 should so soon be called upon to save my country? " u
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 335 
 
 These are but specimens of the ebullitions in which the 
 General's earlier private letters to his wife abounded. A 
 dip, at random, into almost any of them, for they have, 
 since his death, been rather injudiciously published, 
 reveals at once the egotism of the writer, and the well- 
 nigh unprecedented good-will lavished upon him at the 
 start, by eminent public men. What wonder if the new 
 wine of their adulation mounted to McClellan's head ! 
 He had not been in Washington long before the fixed 
 idea that God had placed him there to save his country 
 became tinged with the fatal delusion that it could be 
 saved by him alone. 
 
 Here was a saviour of no common mold. Beside him 
 all those other tutelary personages who surrounded the 
 President seem to fade into insignificance. McClellan's 
 own confidence in his star, to say nothing of the popular 
 belief that he was about to do great things, had been 
 frankly adopted by Mr. Lincoln himself. He petted the 
 General in his simple, abnegating way, and did his best 
 to satisfy that officer's innumerable demands upon the 
 government. McClellan's engaging personality, more- 
 over, was not without its wonted effect, for it stirred the 
 great heart in the White House to a feeling of friendliness 
 quite apart from mere official support. We have seen 
 something of the President's amiable indulgence toward 
 the statesmen who severally fancied that their names 
 spelled the country's salvation ; but none of them, it is 
 safe to say, were treated with such consideration as was 
 shown, in the beginning, at least, to the " Young Napo- 
 leon." McClellan's pretensions met with the utmost good 
 humor. Flowers and invitations to dinner and kind words 
 poured in upon him from the Executive Mansion, until 
 even he, a very glutton for honor, turned aside to cry, 
 " Enough ! " " I enclose," reads one of those private let- 
 ters to his wife, " a card just received from ' A. Lincoln ' ,* 
 it shows too much deference to be seen outside." 13 This 
 complaisance hardly raised " A. Lincoln " in the eyes of
 
 336 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 his punctilious subordinate. To McClellan's straitened 
 vision, the President differed but little from the country 
 attorney, who had made entertainment on the western 
 circuit, with stories that " were seldom refined." The 
 homely manners, unconventional methods, and whimsical 
 moods which misled, as we have seen, so many politicians 
 naturally carried this soldier of aristocratic tendencies, 
 far afield. He failed more grievously, perhaps, than any 
 of them to comprehend the extraordinary man with whom 
 they were dealing. The nearest that he could bring him- 
 self to expressing anything like appreciation was contained 
 in a patronizing comment, " The President is honest and 
 means well." M He might have said, with equal grace, 
 "The President is a worthy dunce." For, to sum it all 
 up, conformably with McClellan's academic standards, 
 and he knew no other, Lincoln seemed to fall as far 
 below the requirements of the situation as the General 
 fancied himself to rise above them. 
 
 An officer who has fallen into such a frame of mind 
 will not submit patiently to the supervision even of his 
 commander-in-chief. So the President's natural interest 
 in military matters, as the work of organization went 
 on, greatly annoyed McClellan. It soon began to look as 
 if the " full swing and unbounded confidence," in which 
 he had exulted, might have its limitations after all. He 
 chafed under Mr. Lincoln's questions, and had but a cold 
 welcome for his suggestions. Nor was this the only source 
 of irritation. Day by day the General's resentment of 
 what he called " meddling " took a wider compass, until 
 finally, not the Chief Executive alone, but the Lieutenant- 
 General, most of the cabinet officers, and other public 
 men, as well, appear to have fallen within the spreading 
 circle of his displeasure. That something of this feeling 
 should find expression in McClellan's private correspond- 
 ence was to be expected. We are unprepared, however, 
 for the spleen which has left its unseemly tracks among 
 these posthumous revelations of the man's vanity.
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 337 
 
 " I am weary of all this," reads a letter to his wife, 
 after the third week at the Capital. " I have no ambition 
 in the present affairs ; only wish to save my country, and 
 find the incapables around me will not permit it." 15 
 
 Who these incapables were may be inferred from other 
 outbursts that followed. The first splutter of McClellan's 
 rage was directed, in part at least, against his venerable 
 patron and commander, General Scott, concerning whom 
 the younger officer confided many complaints to the lady 
 at home. Early in August he wrote : 
 
 " The old General always conies in the way. He under- 
 stands nothing, appreciates nothing." 
 
 On the following day he added, in the same strain : 
 
 " General Scott is the great obstacle. He will not 
 comprehend the danger. I have to fight my way against 
 him." 
 
 A few days more brought an ultimatum in sight : 
 
 " General Scott is the most dangerous antagonist I 
 have. Our ideas are so widely different that it is impos- 
 sible for us to work together much longer." 
 
 Then there was something very like a panic, with honors 
 for the responsibility about evenly divided: 
 
 "I am here in a terrible place. The enemy have from 
 three to four times my force. The President, the old Gen- 
 eral, cannot or will not see the true state of affairs." 
 
 And so on, to the end of the chapter, when Scott's re- 
 tirement made way for the last coveted promotion of his 
 ambitious junior. 
 
 Painful as are these manifestations of McClellan's acer- 
 bity toward an illustrious chief, they do not quite move 
 us to the sense of outrage with which we come upon his 
 privately expressed ill-will at times, even contempt 
 for Abraham Lincoln and the statesmen by whom the 
 President was supported. 
 
 " I can't tell you," wrote the General at the beginning 
 of October, " how disgusted I am becoming with these 
 wretched politicians." 18
 
 338 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Yet straightway he proceeded, in letter after letter, 
 to enlighten his sympathetic correspondent on that very 
 subject. A few extracts must suffice here. 
 
 " This getting ready," reads one lament, " is slow work 
 with such an administi'ation. I wish I were well out of it." 
 
 Then makes he moan after the following fashion : 
 
 "I am becoming daily more disgusted with this ad- 
 ministration perfectly sick of it. If I could with honor 
 resign, I would quit the whole concern to-morrow." 
 
 He does not quit, however, but remains for martyr- 
 dom: 
 
 " I was obliged to attend a meeting of the cabinet at 
 eight P. M., and was bored and annoyed. There are some 
 of the greatest geese in the cabinet I have ever seen 
 enough to tax the patience of Job." 
 
 Not long thereafter he strikes a harsher note : 
 
 " I have a set of men to deal with unscrupulous and 
 false. . . . The people think me all-powerful. Never was 
 there a greater mistake. I am thwarted and deceived by 
 these incapables at every turn." 
 
 Meanwhile, like an alert tactician, McClcllan countered 
 with a little thwarting and deceiving of his own. For the 
 same letter tells how he concealed himself in order " to 
 dodge all enemies in shape of 'browsing ' Presidents, etc." 
 
 This happened during November, by which time his 
 scorn for the administration knew no bounds. "It is 
 sickening in the extreme," he wrote, " and makes me feel 
 heavy at heart, when I see the weakness and un fitness of 
 the poor beings who control the destinies of this great 
 country." 
 
 But enough of such vaporings, for the present. Happily, 
 " the poor beings " who controlled were unaware how low 
 they stood in their accomplished critic's private books, 
 though he furnished the prime offender with grounds for 
 more than a conjecture. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln had made it a practice, from the begin- 
 ning, to pay informal visits at McClellan's headquarters.
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 339 
 
 Waiving, with characteristic self-surrender, all questions 
 of etiquette, he hoped thus to keep in touch with military 
 affairs at the least possible expenditure of the General's 
 time. Before breakfast or after supper, as the case might 
 be, the President would arrive with some such greeting 
 as, "Is George in?" And it became a matter of com- 
 ment that, if George was in, he did not always receive his 
 distinguished caller promptly. Seemingly unconscious of 
 any discourtesy, Mr. Lincoln waited with unruffled good 
 humor, in McClellan's reception-room, among the " other 
 common mortals," as one indignant chronicler expressed 
 it, until the oracle was pleased to have him admitted. 17 
 More vehement still must have been the rage of a White 
 House clerk, who tells how he accompanied his Chief, 
 one evening, to the headquarters in H Street. "We are 
 seated," he writes, " and the President's arrival has been 
 duly announced, but time is being given him to think over 
 what he came for. General McClellan is probably very 
 busy over some important detail of his vast duties, and 
 he cannot tear himself away from it at once. A minute 
 passes, and then another, and then another, and with 
 every tick of the clock upon the mantel your blood warms 
 nearer and nearer its boiling-point. Your face feels hot 
 and your fingers tingle, as you look at the man, sitting so 
 patiently over there, whom you regard as the Titan and 
 hero of the hour ; and you try to master your rebellious 
 consciousness that he is kept waiting, like an applicant in 
 an ante-room." 18 On another occasion, Secretary Seward 
 had the honor of sharing a snub with the President. Call- 
 ing together at headquarters, one evening, they were told 
 that the General was out, but would soon return. After 
 they had waited in the reception-room almost an hour, 
 McClellan came back. Disregarding the orderly who had 
 told him about his visitors, he went directly upstairs. 
 Whereupon Mr. Lincoln, thinking that perhaps he had 
 not been announced, sent up his name ; but the messenger 
 returned with the information that the General had gone
 
 340 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 to bed. It is doubtful whether the President ever required 
 or received an explanation of this gross misbehavior. 19 
 There was no appreciable change in his friendly attitude 
 toward McClellan, but thenceforth most of their consulta- 
 tions took place at the White House. What happened 
 concerning an appointment for one of these meetings 
 nicely illustrates how Lincoln, at the time, regarded his 
 inflated subordinate. The President had arranged a con- 
 ference, to be held in the Executive Mansion, between 
 General Ormsby M. Mitchel, Governor Dennison, and 
 General McClellan. All but the last-named gentleman 
 kept the engagement. After Mitchel and Dennison had, 
 with perhaps some show of irritation, waited a long time, 
 Mr. Lincoln said : 
 
 " Never mind ; I will hold McClellan's horse, if he will 
 only bring us success." * 
 
 Meanwhile the President's forbearance was subjected to 
 a stilt severer strain. As time advanced, it appeared to him, 
 and indeed to a considerable portion of the loyal North, 
 that the Army of the Potomac lingered longer than neces- 
 sary in the camps about Washington. This splendid force 
 had been due to an outpouring of men and means lavish 
 beyond parallel. With unlimited confidence in McClellan, 
 the people, as well as the administration, had determined 
 that nothing should be lacking to his success. By com- 
 mon consent, moreover, it had been agreed that he should 
 not be hurried ; for Bull Run had sobered the nation, and 
 the cry of " On to Richmond ! " had, temporarily at least, 
 fallen into disfavor. Relying besides upon the General's 
 promise, when he assumed command, that the war should 
 be "short, sharp, and decisive," the public watched in 
 patience, through the late summer and early fall, while 
 the army took shape under his skilful hands. Organiza- 
 tion was then the order of the day. But there came a 
 time, after months of elaborate preparations and imposing 
 reviews, when the country began to grow restless again. 
 On all sides arose demands for an advance of the army ;
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 341 
 
 yet comparatively few of those who found fault with its 
 inaction during October blamed McClellan. Professing 
 himself eager to open the campaign, he charged his delays 
 now to the government, now to the aged General-in-Chief, 
 until, at last, one of these alleged obstacles was removed. 
 Scott, bending beneath the weight of his infirmities, and 
 smarting under the junior officer's repeated discourtesies, 
 had, in August, asked to be retired. 21 This request was 
 finally granted on the 1st of November, but not before 
 McClellan, by representing that the Lieutenant-General 
 stood in the way of a forward movement, had secured 
 the intervention of Senators Wade, Chandler, and Trum- 
 bull. Their belief in the younger General's ardor was 
 then still shared by Mr. Lincoln, as indeed by the nation 
 at large. So, when the President appointed McClellan 
 to the command of the whole army in Scott's place, his 
 act met with general approval ; 22 yet the eager patriots, 
 who looked for an advance as soon as the new General- 
 in-Chief got a free hand, were doomed to disappointment. 
 Drills and parades and the work of getting ready went 
 on as before. The beautiful autumn weather invited 
 McClellan into Virginia, without response ; while his vast 
 host remained coiled around the Capital, like an overfed 
 serpent, about to take its winter sleep. 
 
 Why did not the Army of the Potomac advance ? 
 Disciplined and equipped by perhaps the ablest military 
 organizer on American soil, it excelled the force con- 
 fronting it in resources, health, and efficiency. So formid- 
 able an array had never before been seen in the Western 
 World. With fine enthusiasm, the troops chafed while 
 awaiting the order to march. They longed to break camp 
 for the enemy's country, and their many weeks of labor 
 on a formidable chain of earthworks had gone far enough 
 for them to feel that they would leave Washington a forti- 
 fied city. When it is added that the Federals at this point 
 outnumbered the Confederates by more than three to one, 
 we may well ask the reason for further delay. A satisfao-
 
 342 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 tory explanation must be sought far below the surface of 
 things, in the purpose and disposition of the General 
 commanding. His aim, as he expressed it at the very out- 
 set, was to carry matters " en grand and crush the rebels 
 in one campaign." If this might be accomplished by a 
 single decisive battle, so much the more to his liking. For 
 McClellan evidently aspired to the strategic triumphs of 
 a Turenne, rather than the bloody progress of a Tamer- 
 lane or a Bonaparte. He had accordingly set about the 
 creation of an army which should be so overwhelmingly 
 superior to that of the enemy as to demonstrate " the utter 
 impossibility of resistance." ^ And here rose the rock 
 upon which this talented officer eventually came to grief. 
 A weakness for overrating his antagonist's strength and 
 for underrating his own rendered him incapable of making 
 a correct comparison. To such an extent was this carried 
 that he persisted in demanding more men, and time for 
 further preparations, long after the balance tipped heavily 
 to his side. There was still room, it is true, for improve- 
 ment in the Army of the Potomac, as of what army 
 might that not at any time be said? but war, like poli- 
 tics, is the science of the attainable, and, all things con- 
 sidered, the troops were ready to move by December. 
 
 About the first of that month the President suggested 
 an advance against the enemy encamped before Washing- 
 ton. A memorandum, which he handed to McClellan, 
 asked a few pertinent questions about the situation, and 
 outlined a plan of operations. After a delay of perhaps 
 ten days, this paper was returned to Mr. Lincoln with 
 brief answers inserted, in pencil ; while the plan was dis- 
 missed somewhat after the same curt fashion. " Informa- 
 tion recently," wrote the General, " leads me to believe 
 that the enemy would meet us in front with equal forces 
 nearly and I have now my mind actually turned towards 
 another plan of campaign that I do not think at all an- 
 ticipated by the enemy, nor by many of our own people." 24 
 The information referred to was far from accurate. It is
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 343 
 
 now known that the Confederates along the Manassas line 
 numbered, at the time, about 47,000 effective men, whereas 
 the Federals, according to McClellan's own showing, had 
 a force of over 164,000 equipped and present for duty. 
 Deducting 60,000 on garrison or other service, as he 
 did, still left 104,000 with which to meet 47,000. 25 But 
 the General, with something akin to infatuation, declared 
 himself confronted by a force "not less than 150,000 
 strong, well drilled and equipped, ably commanded, and 
 strongly intrenched." 28 To make headway against this 
 fanciful host, he had insisted, a few weeks before, that 
 the Army of the Potomac should be increased to an effec- 
 tive strength of 208,000 men. 27 McClellan's tendency to 
 exaggerate did not escape Mr. Lincoln, who tried to cor- 
 rect it, we surmise, in his characteristic way. They were 
 together one night when the General received a telegram 
 from an officer commanding a regiment on the Upper 
 Potomac. The despatch described in magniloquent lan- 
 guage a desperate conflict that had taken place during the 
 day, and closed with a list of casualties so small as to be 
 out of all proportion to the alleged importance of the 
 struggle. " The President," relates McClellan, " quietly 
 listened to my reading of the telegram, and then said that 
 it reminded him of a notorious liar, who attained such a 
 reputation as an exaggerator that he finally instructed his 
 servant to stop him, when his tongue was running too 
 rapidly, by pulling his coat or touching his feet. One day 
 the master was relating wonders he had seen in Europe, 
 and described a building which was about a mile long and 
 a half mile high. Just then the servant's heel came down 
 on the narrator's toes, and he stopped abruptly. One 
 of the listeners asked how broad this remarkable build- 
 ing might be. The narrator modestly replied, ' About a 
 foot ! ' " M That there could be any personal application 
 in the parable apparently never entered the listener's 
 mind ; but those who have made themselves familiar with 
 Lincoln's tactful use of the little stories which this, that,
 
 344 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 and the other thing reminded him of, will find no difficulty 
 in drawing the moral, though it was lost upon McClellan. 
 He stood stoutly by his inflated estimates. How erroneous 
 these were, the President had no means of demonstrating, 
 nor was he favored with a hint of the new plan for which 
 his suggestion had been so unceremoniously brushed aside. 
 He waited for the General to speak, hoping against hope 
 that the spell of inaction which brooded over the army 
 might soon be broken. Still the oracle made no sign. 
 
 A fatal irresolution appears to have possessed McClel- 
 lan. He was not willing to take the field until his ideal 
 of completeness had been attained, nor could he bring 
 himself to the unpopular course of going into winter quar- 
 ters. In this latter respect only, the General-in-Chief 
 recognized the existence of an aroused public opinion, 
 which he would have done well to take carefully into ac- 
 count. No commander, worthy of the name, opens a cam- 
 paign, under ordinary conditions, by cutting himself off 
 from his base of supplies ; and, in a free country, this 
 base, whatever may seem to be its place on the theater of 
 operations, really lies close to the hearts of the people. 
 Without their continued support, the general cannot hope 
 to succeed ; for, sooner or later, their wishes compel atten- 
 tion even to the point, at times, of becoming a control- 
 ling factor in his calculations. When McClellan, therefore, 
 in the arrogance of military pride, refused to give the 
 popular wilj that consideration to which it was clearly 
 entitled, he showed himself lacking, as has well been 
 said, " in those statesmanlike qualities that enter into the 
 composition of a great general." M His failure, moreover, 
 to set the army promptly in motion foreshadowed other 
 deficiencies not less serious. 
 
 How urgent grew the need of military action, before the 
 close of 1861, may be seen at a glance. A body of north- 
 ern soldiers the largest ever collected on this continent, 
 was seemingly held in and around Washington by an 
 inferior southern force, which, unmolested, had flaunted
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 345 
 
 its flag for months in sight of the capitol ; a chance 
 encounter the disastrous battle of Ball's Bluff had 
 confirmed a belief, among some, in the superior courage 
 of the besiegers ; railroad communication with the city, 
 by way of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, was inter- 
 rupted ; and Confederate batteries, on the Virginia side 
 of the Potomac, effectually closed the river to navigation. 
 The humiliation, to say nothing of the trouble, produced 
 by this condition of affairs, was none the less keen because 
 McClellan, after repeatedly emphasizing the necessity 
 for vigorous operations, continued merely to mark time. 
 Within ten days of his arrival at Washington, he had 
 delivered himself of a " memorandum " to the President, 
 in which he said : 
 
 " Our foreign relations and financial credit also impera- 
 tively demand that the military action of the government 
 should be prompt and irresistible." 30 
 
 No wiser words had, at the time, been uttered. Never- 
 theless, after four months of exhaustive preliminaries, his 
 own course the very reverse of what was prompt or 
 irresistible had brought both those important interests 
 into jeopardy. Europe could not but respect a secession 
 movement which seemed strong enough to keep the Union 
 Capital so long in a state of partial siege. For it goes 
 without saying that such prestige as could be extracted 
 from the pitiful spectacle was made the most of by south- 
 ern sympathizers abroad, and the Confederate government 
 at home. Every day of inaction on the Potomac now 
 favored the diplomatic hopes of Jefferson Davis, as it aug- 
 mented among Abraham Lincoln's supporters an ever-pre- 
 sent fear of foreign intervention. 31 Meanwhile the other 
 danger forecast by McClellan also made itself manifest. 
 Actual war had hardly begun, yet the treasury was nearly 
 empty. With a daily expenditure of almost $2,000,000 
 and a steadily increasing public debt that threatened to 
 reach almost fabulous proportions, the government could 
 not look upon this apparent torpor in the Army of the
 
 346 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Potomac with anything but the gravest anxiety. Nor 
 was the situation improved when the loyal people of the 
 North, paying war taxes as freely as they had recruited 
 regiments, clamored in the midst of their sacrifices for 
 action. From all sides came the pressure upon the admin- 
 istration, and McClellan himself was now no longer 
 spared. His hold on the confidence of the nation became 
 considerably shaken. Criticism took the place of lauda- 
 tion. Men, recovering from their excess of hero-worship, 
 began to suspect that "our chicken," in the language of 
 Lowell's North American Review essay, " was no eagle, 
 after all." Even the daily bulletin, " All quiet on the 
 Potomac," once a welcome message throughout the 
 land, became a text for newspaper satire and popular 
 derision. 
 
 Many representatives of the people, when they reached 
 Washington in December, echoed their constituents' de- 
 mands for a more spirited prosecution of the war. This 
 was especially so among the Radical members of the House 
 and Senate, who, finding bitter fault with McClellan's 
 tactics, were not less severe upon his politics. A War 
 Democrat of the conservative type, he hoped to see the 
 Union restored without the immediate abolition of slavery. 
 Although his attitude, in this particular, was seemingly 
 justified by Mr. Lincoln's Border State policy, and by 
 the declared purpose of Congress not to interfere with 
 the established institutions of the southern common- 
 wealths, 32 such tenderness as he manifested for the rights 
 of slave-owners was exceedingly offensive to the most in- 
 fluential of the Republican leaders. Their hostility toward 
 McClellan became intensified, moreover, by the fact that 
 unfriendly critics of the administration appeared to be 
 his adherents, while even outspoken opponents of the war 
 championed his cause. Only your true Napoleon could, 
 by force of great military triumphs, come unharmed out 
 of such a coil ; but this unfortunate general, lingering 
 too long in the shadow of the capitol, had become in-
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 347 
 
 volved, as we shall see, beyond relief. Idolized at the 
 outset by Union men of all parties, he found himself pre- 
 sently the storm center about which beat the fiercest 
 currents of contending political factions. 
 
 Over McClellan, thus beset, the President held the 
 segis of his protection. This smart young General had, 
 it is true, been at no pains to conceal an overweening 
 contempt for Mr. Lincoln or his civilian advisers ; and 
 whatever victories he might win would assuredly be 
 turned into political capital by the administration's Demo- 
 cratic opponents, who were already getting into a position 
 to appropriate his laurels. That he could, moreover, be 
 continued in command only at the risk of alienating 
 from the government some of its own party chiefs to 
 say nothing of a patriotic populace, press, and platform, 
 clamoring against a so-called Fabian policy greatly 
 troubled the President. Yet loyalty, in the last extreme, 
 to the men about him was one of Lincoln's dominant 
 traits ; and to support the " Young Napoleon," early in 
 the winter of 1861-62, was loyalty to the country, as well. 
 For the President, frankly conceding his own ignorance 
 of military affairs, knew of no one who was likely to 
 wield the formidable weapon which McClellan had fash- 
 ioned, more effectually than the General-in-Chief himself. 
 To sustain that officer in public, and to defend him in 
 private against the aspersions of his powerful critics, 
 became at this time not the least of Lincoln's cares. 
 When ardent friends of the administration insisted upon 
 the necessity for immediate action, he replied that Mc- 
 Clellan was right not to advance before his preparations 
 were completed. The faultfinding even took the shape 
 of protests by special committees. One of these dele- 
 gations consisted of three influential Representatives, 
 Sehuyler Colfax, Reuben E. Fenton, and Galusha A. 
 Grow, Speaker of the House. They came to point out the 
 importance not only of appeasing popular discontent with 
 the lagging army, but also of averting a heated discussion
 
 348 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 about its commander, which threatened daily to break out 
 on the floor of Congress. What they had to say was 
 hardly news to the President. Yet he received them in 
 the jocular mood behind which so often lay hidden the 
 anxiety that gnawed at his heart. It seemed to him, he 
 said, as if Providence, with favoring sky and earth, beck- 
 oned the army on; but that General McClellan, who 
 knew his business, no doubt had his reasons for disre- 
 garding these hints. " As we have got to stand by the 
 General," continued Mr. Lincoln, " I think a good way 
 to do it may be for Congress to take a recess for several 
 weeks, and by the time you get together again, if McClel- 
 lan is not off with the army, Providence is very likely to 
 step in with hard roads and force us to say, ' the army 
 can't move.' You know Dickens said of a certain man 
 that if he would always follow his nose he would never 
 stick fast in the mud. Well, when the rains set in, it will 
 be impossible for even our eager and gallant soldiers to 
 keep their noses so high that their feet will not stick in 
 the clay mud of old Virginia." 33 To the General himself, 
 the President used a very different tone. He sought, at 
 every opportunity, to impress privately upon that officer 
 how serious the situation had become, and how vital to 
 the cause which they both held dear was the striking of 
 a decisive blow. 
 
 Military affairs were in this unsatisfactory state at 
 Christmas time, when McClellan took to his bed, for what 
 proved to be a period of three weeks, with an attack of 
 typhoid fever. As he had not conferred adequate authority 
 upon any one to act for him meanwhile, " his absence," 
 to quote a far from unfriendly member of the general 
 staff, "paralyzed work at headquarters." 34 The outlook 
 for the Army of the Potomac was consequently as gloomy 
 as ever when Congress reassembled after the holiday 
 recess. Members no longer restrained themselves from 
 demanding explanations ; the Joint Committee appointed 
 to inquire into the conduct of the war K held daily ses-
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 349 
 
 sions, at which one military expert after another testified 
 to the readiness of the troops for a campaign ; and pro- 
 tests against their continued idleness focused upon the 
 President, from every conceivable direction, with a heat 
 that became almost intolerable. Matters had evidently 
 reached a crisis. Having failed in several attempts to 
 consult with the sick man, Mr. Lincoln, on January 10, 
 summoned two division commanders, Generals Irvin Mc- 
 Dowell and William B. Franklin. To them the harassed 
 chief unburdened himself. " The President," as McDowell 
 relates, " said he was in great distress, and, as he had 
 been to General McClellan's house, and the General did 
 not ask to see him, and as he must talk to somebody, he 
 had sent for General Franklin and myself, to obtain our 
 opinion as to the possibility of soon commencing active 
 operations with the Army of the Potomac. To use his own 
 expression, if something was not soon done, the bottom 
 would be out of the whole affair ; and, if General Mc- 
 Clellan did not want to use the army, he would like to 
 ' borrow it,' provided he could see how it could be made 
 to do something." ^ Then followed a series of conferences 
 with Mr. Lincoln, in which, at one time or another, Sec- 
 retaries Sevvard and Chase, Postmaster-General Blair, 
 Assistant Secretary of War Scott, 37 Quartermaster-Gen- 
 eral Meigs, and the two officers mentioned, took part. 
 Their advice excepting that of Judge Blair, McClellan's 
 stanch supporter was in favor of moving, within a short 
 time, as the President had suggested six weeks before, 
 upon the enemy's position at Centreville and Manassas. 38 
 Deliberations had progressed thus far when rumors of 
 what was going on reached the General-in-Chief. His 
 friend, Edwin M. Stanton, then about to be made Secre- 
 tary of War, brought the first hint, in characteristically 
 acrid language. " They are counting," said he, " on your 
 death, and are already dividing among themselves your 
 military goods and chattels." ^ No tonic on the invalid's 
 table could have done so much to hasten his convalescence.
 
 350 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Mustering his returning strength, he had himself driven, 
 on Sunday morning, 40 to the White House, where the 
 President, receiving him kindly, invited him to attend one 
 of the conferences, which was to be held on the following 
 day. At the appointed time, McClellan met the cabinet 
 officers and military men, already spoken of, in Mr. Lin- 
 coln's office. The situation was, to say the least, embar- 
 rassing, especially for the President. He wished to pre- 
 serve cordial relations among these men ; but he wished, 
 still more, to carry out the program on which most of 
 them had virtually agreed. At his request, General Mc- 
 Dowell explained the plan under consideration, concluding 
 what he had to say with somewhat of an apology for tke 
 peculiar position in which McClellan's critical illness and 
 the President's orders had placed the three subordinate 
 officers present. To this the General-in-Chief curtly re- 
 plied, " You are entitled to have any opinion you please," 
 adding, with evident resentment, that, as he was again 
 restored to health, further investigations or explanations 
 were unnecessary. Here Mr. Lincoln interposed to ask 
 what was to be done and when. McClellan rejoined that 
 " the case was so clear a blind man could see it." Yet he 
 straightway proceeded to raise difficulties, in a way that 
 left most, if not all, of those present less enlightened than 
 that hypothetical person of impaired vision. At last, Mr. 
 Chase once McClellan's friend and sponsor, now his 
 declared opponent 41 repeated, with manifest impatience, 
 the President's question. To which the General-in-Chief 
 promptly replied that the Secretary of the Treasury had 
 no right to interrogate him about military affairs. Turn- 
 ing to Mr. Lincoln, he protested, on grounds of secrecy, 
 against developing his plans before such advisers; and 
 declared that he would do so only in obedience to a writ- 
 ten order, and on the President's responsibility. It was 
 obviously high time to terminate this discussion, which 
 appeared to be drifting into a dangerous channel. So 
 Mr. Lincoln asked McClellan whether he had fixed upon
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 351 
 
 a date, in his own mind, for commencing operations. The 
 General answered, " Yes." " Then," said the President, 
 " I will adjourn this meeting." 42 
 
 In averting a disclosure of his plans to a mixed council 
 of civilians and soldiers, McClellan conformed to time- 
 honored military traditions. Absolute secrecy is the car- 
 dinal rule of strategy. It received pithy expression from 
 the Great Frederick, when he said that if his night-cap 
 knew what was in his head, he would throw it into the fire ; 
 and President Lincoln, trying to put down a civil war 
 from a Capital infested with spies, had not been slow to 
 recognize the truth of the principle. In fact, just a week 
 before the meeting here described, he had, at a conference 
 with his cabinet and the Committee on the Conduct of the 
 War, surprised the latter gentlemen, not only by admit- 
 ting that the administration was ignorant of McClellan's 
 plans, but still more, by approving of the General's reti- 
 cence. It was to a sympathetic judgment, therefore, that 
 our officer had addressed his plea against divulging mili- 
 tary secrets. The President, as we have seen, yielded 
 gracefully. Restoring McClellan to the saddle, he ad- 
 journed, without date, the meeting from which so much 
 had been expected. Yet this was done, be it said, not 
 without a feeling that his own wishes had again been 
 thwarted ; and that the General-in-Chief, now more than 
 ever, stood obligated to lose not a day in getting the army 
 under way. 
 
 Here closed what may be called the first phase in the 
 relations between President Lincoln and General Mc- 
 Clellan. That the pretensions of this accomplished but 
 autocratic soldier had been suffered to go month after 
 month unchecked was owing, of course, to unique con- 
 ditions. If during that period " the Chief Magistrate," as 
 one caustic pamphleteer expressed it, " went into voluntary 
 or involuntary eclipse " so far as directing the movements 
 of the army was concerned, he did what any prudent 
 leader without military training would have done. Yet so
 
 352 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 heavy were the drafts made on Lincoln's forbearance, 
 that his almost unbounded patience had, by this time, 
 nearly reached the vanishing point. Indeed, an incident 
 which happened within a week after McClellan's trium- 
 phant dispersal of the President's little council affords a 
 glimpse once more of the master whose strong band curbed 
 Seward, Chase, and Stanton. 
 
 Early in the winter of 1861-62, Washington had been 
 visited by the tuneful Hutchinson family. Their concerts 
 of ballads and patriotic songs had drawn enthusiastic 
 audiences. After singing at one of the White House 
 receptions, greatly to the enjoyment of Mr. Lincoln, they 
 had applied to the Secretary of War for permission to 
 entertain the soldiers in the camps across the Potomac. 
 A pass was readily secured from Mr. Cameron, 43 through 
 the good offices of Secretary Chase, between whom and 
 the Hutchinsons existed the strong bond of anti-slavery 
 opinions. As it happened, the singers did not journey 
 far. Their first concert was given before two New Jersey 
 regiments of General Franklin's division, in the spacious 
 chapel connected with Fairfax Seminary, near Alexan- 
 dria. Number after number was applauded by the sol- 
 diers, until the vocalists began John G. Whittier's hymn 
 of liberty, " Ein Feste Burg 1st Unser Gott." They had 
 finished the third verse, 
 
 " What gives the wheat fields blades of steel ? 
 
 What points the rebel cannon ? 
 What sets the roaring rabble's heel 
 On the old star-spangled pennon ? 
 What breaks the oath 
 Of the men o' the South ? 
 What whets the knife 
 For the Union's life ? 
 Hark to the answer : Slavery ! " 
 
 when a hiss was heard from a corner of the church. Sur- 
 geon Lewis W. Oakley had taken this method of showing 
 his contempt for abolition doctrine. The gage was picked 
 up by Major David Hatfield. Rising in a front pew, he
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 353 
 
 angrily threatened to have any one ejected who should re- 
 peat the interruption. A brief altercation ensued, amidst 
 cheers, hisses, and much confusion. Order was at last 
 restored, but the song- was not finished. On the follow- 
 ing morning, General Kearney, in command at Fairfax, 
 prohibited the next concert, for which preparations were 
 making ; and a copy of the obnoxious hymn was forwarded 
 to Franklin's headquarters, whence the matter finally 
 reached General McClellan. He promptly disposed of it 
 by revoking the pass, as well as the permit to sing for the 
 troops. Returning to Washington, the Hutchinsons laid 
 their grievance before a sympathetic listener in the per- 
 son of their friend, Secretary Chase. He carried into the 
 next cabinet meeting a copy of the alleged " incendiary " 
 verses ; and, what was of greater moment, entered a pro- 
 test against the action of McClellan in annulling a permit 
 issued by his superior, Secretary Cameron. 44 On hearing 
 the words read, Mr. Lincoln warmly approved of the 
 hymn. It was, he remarked, just the kind of a song for 
 the soldiers to hear ; and, as far as canceled passes were 
 concerned, the Hutchinsons should have the right to go 
 among any of the troops whose commanders invited them 
 to sing. Our melodious friends retraced their steps, forth- 
 with, to Alexandria, where they gave two concerts 
 interdicted song and all before delighted audiences of 
 soldiers. 45 
 
 Throughout the North, meanwhile, this interlude had 
 created much excitement. Factional feeling ran high. In- 
 censed as the Radicals were, they found not a little com- 
 fort in the fact that the President had brought himself, 
 at last, directly to reverse an order of the General-in- 
 Chief ; while McClellan's admirers gloried in his recent 
 recovery of the command, and insisted that he should not 
 be hampered by civilian interference. Standing between 
 these two forces, Lincoln now opposed his masterful will 
 to both. He declined to remove McClellan, as one faction 
 demanded, or to leave him in absolute military control, as
 
 354 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 was urged by the other. The President had, in fact, been 
 preparing himself to take that control into his own hands. 
 For weeks he had devoted every available moment to a 
 study of strategy. Text-books, reports, plans, and maps, 
 over which he pored, at times, late into the night, as well 
 as numerous consultations with commanders in active ser- 
 vice, had gone far toward removing the feeling of help- 
 lessness with which he originally approached military 
 matters. Consequently, when the General-in-Chief came, 
 near the close of January, with his project for a campaign 
 against Richmond by way of Chesapeake Bay, the Presi- 
 dent received him in a new role. Disapproving of this 
 route, which involved prolonged preparation, he deter* 
 mined to put forward his own plan again, not, however, 
 as before, in the form of a suggestion, but of a positive 
 command. 
 
 On the 27th of January, Mr. Lincoln, without consult- 
 ing the General-in-Chief, or his cabinet advisers, to whom 
 he merely read the document for their information, issued 
 the " President's General War Order No. 1." In this he 
 directed " that the 22d day of February, 1862, be the day 
 for a general movement of the land and naval forces of 
 the United States against the insurgent forces." Specify- 
 ing, moreover, which troops were chiefly meant, the list 
 of course included the Army of the Potomac, he an- 
 nounced " that the heads of departments, and especially 
 the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with all their 
 suboi-dinates, and the General-in-Chief, with all other com- 
 manders and subordinates of land and naval forces, will 
 severally be held to their strict and full responsibilities 
 for prompt execution of this order." ^ Having by virtue 
 of his constitutional authority thus assumed the active 
 direction of military operations, Mr. Lincoln, four days 
 later, issued the "President's Special War Order No. 1." 
 This commanded " that all the disposable force of the 
 Army of the Potomac, after providing safely for the de- 
 fence of Washington, be formed into an expedition for the
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 355 
 
 immediate object of seizing and occupying a point upon 
 the railroad southwestward of what is known as Manassas 
 Junction, all details to be in the discretion of the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, and the expedition to move before or on 
 the 22d day of February next." " McClellan protested. 
 He asked permission to submit in writing his objections 
 to the overland route, and his reasons for preferring to 
 advance by way of the Chesapeake. These arguments 
 had doubtless already been considered in the course of his 
 recent discussions with the President, yet Mr. Lincoln 
 gave the desired consent. He even furnished McClellan 
 with a basis for his memorandum, in the following note : 
 
 EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, 
 February 3, 1862. 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN, 
 
 My dear Sir : You and I have distinct and different 
 plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac 
 yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock 
 to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the rail- 
 road on the York River; mine to move directly to a 
 point on the railroad southwest of Manassas. 
 
 If you will give me satisfactory answers to the follow- 
 ing questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours. 
 
 First, Does not your plan involve a greatly larger 
 expenditure of time and money than mine ? 
 
 Second, Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan 
 than mine? 
 
 Third, Wherein is a victory more valuable by your 
 plan than mine ? 
 
 Fourth, In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, 
 that it would break no groat line of the enemy's com- 
 munications, while mine would ? 
 
 Fifth, In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more 
 difficult by your plan than mine ? 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.*"
 
 356 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 These questions were never directly answered. What 
 might be regarded as McClellan's replies to them were 
 embodied in an elaborate statement of his views, ad- 
 dressed, on the same day, not to the President, but to the 
 Secretary of War. Opening this paper with a defence 
 of his course in not advancing until the Army of the 
 Potomac was fully prepared for action, the General-in- 
 Chief proceeded to give both plans of campaign detailed 
 consideration. He opposed the attack upon Manassas in 
 a series of ingenious objections, which were based prima- 
 rily as transpired too late on a gross exaggeration of 
 the enemy's strength. He advocated, with equal earnest- 
 ness, the adoption of the Chesapeake route, by way pre- 
 ferably of Urbana. Should that fail him, however, as a 
 landing point, Mob Jack Bay was suggested, or " the 
 worst coming to the worst" Fortress Monroe. And 
 these considerations brought the General to a significant 
 summing up. " It is by no means certain," he wrote, 
 " that we can beat them at Manassas. On the other line, 
 I regard success as certain, by all the chances of war." * 
 There was nothing equivocal about such language, and 
 the writer flattered himself that it should have carried 
 conviction. 50 " This letter," he said later, " must have 
 produced some effect upon the mind of the President, 
 since the execution of his order was not required, although 
 it was not revoked as formally as it had been issued." 51 
 
 True, the letter had " produced some effect " on Lin- 
 coln's mind, but hardly in the way implied by McClel- 
 lan's contemptuous phrase. The President's confidence 
 in the merits of his own plan remained unshaken. For 
 political, no less than for military reasons, an immediate 
 attack upon the enemy before Washington, by a column 
 which should protect the Union Capital while advanc- 
 ing upon Richmond, appeared wiser to him than a flank 
 movement that, uncovering Washington for a shorter 
 march to the Confederate Capital, would still consume, m 
 transportation down the Chesapeake, much more time and
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 357 
 
 money. Experts, reviewing McClellan's plan since the 
 war, along purely strategical lines, have differed widely 
 in their opinions of its soundness. The President's plan, 
 on the other hand, as more nearly meeting the require- 
 ments of the situation, had the approval, at the time, of 
 some able soldiers, and of well-nigh all the civilians whom 
 he consulted. Mr. Stanton, the new Secretary of War, 
 was especially earnest in its support ; and he urged Mr. 
 Lincoln, as has been related, to insist upon having his way. 
 Here is where the " effect," produced on the President's 
 mind by McClellan's views, came into play. Though the 
 General-in-Chief had failed to prove that the Chesapeake 
 route was the better of the two, he had committed him- 
 self, in his letter, so unreservedly against the overland 
 plan, as to put all thought of forcing it upon him out of 
 the question. Lincoln's abundant common sense, to say 
 nothing of his recent military studies, saved him from 
 the blunder of ordering a commander upon a campaign 
 in which that officer placed no confidence. The Chief 
 Magistrate had, it is true, taken the reins into his own 
 hands; yet he knew with unerring precision as we have 
 repeatedly seen when to tighten and when to slacken 
 his hold. So, despite the vigorous remonstrance of the 
 Committee on the Conduct of the War, Secretary Stan- 
 ton, and many other influential men, preparations were 
 begun for transporting the army down the Chesapeake. 
 
 The President directed, however, that the troops should 
 not leave Washington for this distant field, until the 
 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had been reopened, and 
 the enemy's batteries on the Potomac destroyed. Here 
 arose another source of disagreement between Lincoln 
 and McClellan. According to the General's theory, these 
 positions would necessarily be abandoned by the Confed- 
 erates, as soon as his prospective operations on the Lower 
 Chesapeake should be developed ; but that this would in- 
 evitably be the result, he failed no less than in the case 
 of the project itself to convince the President or his
 
 358 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 advisers. " They had," wrote McClellan scornfully, some 
 years later, " neither the courage nor the military insight 
 to understand the effect of the plan." 52 Yielding, never- 
 theless, to Mr. Lincoln's decided opinions, he reluctantly 
 prepared to carry out the President's wishes in these two 
 particulars. As the railroad was interrupted near Har- 
 per's Ferry, McClellan determined to cross the Upper 
 Potomac at that point, in force, by means of a permanent 
 bridge to be constructed of canal-boats, cover the rebuild- 
 ing of the railroad-bridge, and push on to Winchester, 
 where he expected to fight a battle. Meanwhile, the Con- 
 federate batteries on the Lower Potomac were to be 
 stormed by a division under General Hooker. So san- 
 guine was McClellan of the result that he assured Mr. 
 Lincoln, before leaving Washington, of a brilliant and 
 successful dash. Every contingency had seemingly been 
 provided for. " If this move fails," he said, " I will have 
 nobody to blame but myself." 53 In fact, there is reason 
 to believe that, all his theories to the contrary notwith- 
 standing, the General-in-Chief thought, at the time, of 
 turning these simple operations into what the President 
 had wanted a decisive overland campaign. 54 
 
 About Washington's birthday, the date set by Mr. 
 Lincoln, an advance may be said to have been in pro- 
 gress. A strong force, collected near Harper's Ferry, held 
 itself ready to move. The oanal-boats lay in the Chesa- 
 peake and Ohio Canal, whence they were to be floated 
 into the Potomac. Everything looked favorable for the 
 immediate construction of a stout bridge and the rapid 
 passage of a powerful army into Virginia. McClellan him- 
 self hastened to the spot. A considerable portion of his 
 troops were under orders to follow. On February 26, he 
 despatched back to the War Department an enthusiastic 
 message. On the 27th, all was gloom and disappointment. 
 When the canal-boats had, that morning, reached the lift- 
 lock through which alone they could pass into the river, 
 they were found to be too wide by several inches. 55 With
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 359 
 
 this discovery, celerity of movement the essential fac- 
 tor in the affair became impossible. The expedition, 
 as planned, was at once abandoned. McClellan coun- 
 termanded his order for an advance from the Capital, 
 and revoked, at the same time, Hooker's instructions to 
 attack the batteries. 56 After taking measures to cover the 
 restoration of the railroad, the General-in-Chief returned 
 to Washington. Another brilliant project had come to 
 naught, in rather a ridiculous manner. As some wag, at 
 the time, remarked, it " died of lockjaw." 
 
 The fiasco at Harper's Ferry increased the number and 
 bitterness of McClellan's opponents. In their denuncia- 
 tions to the President, they accused him, all told, of every 
 fault that may be charged against an unsuccessful general, 
 not stopping short of even the most heinous treason to 
 his cause. What impression, if any, such wild talk made 
 upon Lincoln cannot now be known. Without really 
 doubting the General's loyalty, he probably deemed it 
 necessary to let him know how others felt on the subject. 
 Perhaps the President hoped, by a revelation of this sort, 
 to sting that self-satisfied officer into doing what had 
 become as important to his impaired reputation as to 
 the success of the Union arms. At all events, we have 
 McClellan's own word for an extraordinary interview 
 between Lincoln and himself. 57 The President, according 
 to this account, sent for his General-in-Chief, early on 
 the morning of the 8th of March. After expressing his 
 chagrin at the outcome of the Harper's Ferry expedition, 58 
 Mr. Lincoln said that he desired to talk about another 
 " a very ugly matter." It had been represented to him, 
 he continued, that the movement by way of the Lower 
 Chesapeake " was conceived with the traitorous intent of 
 removing its defenders from Washington, and thus giving 
 over to the enemy the Capital and the government, thus 
 left defenceless." If it was the President's purpose to 
 arouse McClellan, he certainly succeeded ; for the General 
 resented, with hot indignation, this imputation on his
 
 360 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 honor. Mr. Lincoln hastened to assure him "that he 
 merely repeated what others had said, and that he did 
 not believe a word of it," himself. McClellan replied 
 with a suggestion, by which he hoped to set all doubts on 
 the subject at rest. He had called, he explained, a meet- 
 ing of division commanders at his headquarters, that very 
 morning, to consider another proposed attack upon the 
 enemy's Potomac batteries. Why not lay before them, 
 he asked, the question of the Chesapeake route ? And to 
 this the President readily consented. 
 
 It was more than a coincidence that Mr. Lincoln on 
 the same day emphasized, by a step in another direction, 
 the passing of McClellan' s military supremacy. For some 
 time the advisability of dividing the Army of the Poto- 
 mac into army corps had been under consideration. That 
 so large a body of troops could not be maneuvered to 
 advantage by brigades and divisions was generally con- 
 ceded. All the experienced officers whom the President 
 consulted advised against a campaign in any but corps 
 formation ; every modern text-book that he could lay his 
 hands on, as well as the practice in European warfare, 
 sustained this counsel ; and leading supporters of the 
 administration, especially the Committee on the Conduct 
 of the War, besought him to effect such an organization 
 before the army took the field. McClellan, himself, 
 acknowledged the wisdom of the measure. Nevertheless 
 when urged by Mr. Lincoln to form army corps, ht 
 declared his intention not to do so until active service 
 " had indicated what general officers were best fitted to 
 exercise those most important commands." Taking the 
 ground, correctly enough, that incompetent men in such 
 positions "might cause irreparable damage," he deter- 
 mined to pick his corps commanders, later on, with the 
 greatest possible care. 59 It did not occur to him, appar- 
 ently, that any one but he would venture to make these 
 selections they came so clearly within his province. 
 Had he not, moreover, while at the zenith of his popularity,
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 361 
 
 served notice on the administration concerning such very 
 matters ? In a letter addressed to Secretary Cameron, as 
 early as September 8, 1861, McClellan had written: 
 
 " I have selected general and staff officers with distinct 
 reference to their fitness for the important duties that may 
 devolve upon them. Any change or disposition of such 
 officers without consulting the commanding General may 
 fatally impair the efficiency of this army and the success 
 of its operations. I therefore earnestly request that in 
 future every general officer appointed upon my recom- 
 mendation shall be assigned to this army ; that I shall 
 have full control of the officers and troops in this depart- 
 ment ; and that no orders shall be given respecting my 
 command without my being first consulted. It is evident 
 that I cannot otherwise be responsible for the success of 
 our arms." m 
 
 The theory on which this precept rested was sound. 
 But the all-powerful General, who asserted his preroga- 
 tive with such spirit in September, 1861, had, during the 
 intervening six months, frittered away, by this and that, 
 as we have seen, much of the prestige essential to the lofty 
 part he desired to play. A military role can be sustained, 
 in the last analysis, by military prowess alone. The 
 McClellan who stood before Lincoln on the defensive, in 
 that early morning interview after Harper's Ferry, was a 
 very different man, so to say, from the McClellan to whom 
 Lincoln had deferred after Bull Run. At all events, the 
 President treated him differently. For that very day, as 
 soon as their conflicting plans of campaign were submitted 
 to the division commanders, Mr. Lincoln, anticipating an 
 advance either way, took the matter of army corps into 
 his own hands. Without consulting the General-in-Chief, 
 he framed the "President's General War Order No. 2," 
 directing McClellan forthwith to organize that part of 
 the Army of the Potomac which was intended for active 
 operations into four corps ; and assigning them, respec- 
 tively, to the ranking division commanders, Generals
 
 362 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes. 61 Three of 
 these, it has been frequently remarked, were known to 
 favor the President's rather than McClellan's plan. That 
 they felt out of sympathy, to this extent at least, with the 
 General-in-Chief, and that none of the appointments were, 
 for other reasons, of an ideal character, cannot be gain- 
 said. Yet it was once in McClellan's power his own 
 partisans agree to order things otherwise. Had he 
 formed the army corps when Mr. Lincoln desired them, the 
 selection of their commanders would, most likely, have 
 been left to his judgment. As it was, lieutenants whom 
 he would probably not have chosen were, at the eleventh 
 hour, imposed upon him, to the exclusion of officers who 
 enjoyed his confidence. McClellan's first intimation of 
 these radical changes in his own army is said to have 
 reached him only after the order had been issued. Sur- 
 prised and pained beyond measure, he realized too late 
 what embarrassment might have been averted in this quar- 
 ter by more courteous attention to the President's wishes. 
 Meanwhile the council of war called by the General-in- 
 Chief had taken place. Eight of the twelve generals pre- 
 sent, without discussion or deliberation, voted offhand in 
 favor of McClellan's plan. 62 At a subsequent interview 
 between them and the President, in which the Secretary 
 of War participated, these officers were put through a 
 searching examination ; but the same majority stood by 
 their approval of the Chesapeake route. Before so strong 
 an endorsement Mr. Lincoln's opposition fell away, once 
 for all. Mr. Stanton, on the other hand, stubbornly per- 
 sisted in his antagonism. Like Chase, Wade, Chandler, 
 and so many other earnest leaders, the head of the War 
 Department was fast losing confidence in the commander 
 upon whom they had all looked, not many months previous, 
 as the rising hope of the Union cause. McClellan's Fabian 
 tactics cost him much. Perhaps the heaviest single price 
 was Stanton's regard. Totally unlike Lincoln in this re- 
 spect, the grim war minister, once a man had fallen under
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 363 
 
 his displeasure, could never again entirely divest himself 
 of the resulting prejudice. It was with more than his 
 customary vehemence, therefore, that Stanton, believing 
 firmly in the President's plan, opposed McClellan's. He 
 decried to repeat somewhat from a preceding chapter 
 the project under which more than one hundred thousand 
 troops were to be set afloat in wooden bottoms to seek a 
 battle-field many miles away, while the enemy lay fortified 
 before the Capital. Stanton's ingenious reasoning for 
 the question was discussed at length failed to move Mr. 
 Lincoln. Admitting the force of the Secretary's objec- 
 tions, he remained steadfast in his decision to abide by 
 the action of the council, and instructed him to proceed 
 with the preparations for the campaign. McClellan's plan 
 was to have right of way, after all. 
 
 How closely Mr. Lincoln, notwithstanding this conces- 
 sion, adhered to some of his purposes, may be gathered 
 from the " President's General War Order No. 3." This, 
 like its immediate predecessor, he issued without consult- 
 ing McClellan, on that same eventful 8th of March. It 
 prohibited any change of base by the Army of the Poto- 
 mac, unless such a force were stationed around Washing- 
 ton as would, " in the opinion of the General-in-Chief and 
 the commanders of all the army corps," leave that city 
 " entirely secure." It ordered " an immediate effort to 
 capture the enemy's batteries " upon the Lower Potomac ; 
 and, until this was accomplished, "no more than two 
 army corps " were to embai'k on the Chesapeake. Finally, 
 the movement down the bay was to begin "as early as the 
 18th day of March," with the General-in-Chief held per- 
 sonally " responsible " for attention to that date. 63 The 
 peremptory, almost harsh tones of this order should have 
 warned McClellan that he had won a precarious victory. 
 Still, it maybe doubted whether the President's rising ire, 
 or his anxiety for the safety of Washington, made much 
 of an impression on the General's mind. He was, how- 
 ever, greatly troubled over the restrictions laid upon him
 
 364 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 in these last two mandates of the President General 
 Orders Nos. 2 and 3. They are not, it is true, entirely 
 defensible from a military point of view ; yet McClellan 
 had clearly brought them upon himself by his own errors, 
 his dilatory tactics, and, above all, his total failure to 
 recognize Lincoln's dual responsibility to the nation for 
 success in the field as well as in the cabinet. It has been 
 said, with some force, that a General-in-Chief who needed 
 to be hampered by such orders had outlived his usefulness 
 in that exalted office. Doubtless the President was ap- 
 proaching this conclusion, but he did not contemplate the 
 removal of McClellan from the command of the particular 
 army which owed so much of its discipline and enthusiasm 
 to the General's administrative talents. Lincoln's faith 
 in McClellan's star was far from spent. He still believed 
 that this commander, at the head of the Army of the 
 Potomac, once they were fairly launched together upon 
 a campaign, would justify all his forbearance. 
 
 The test came sooner than the President had expected. 
 Within twenty-four hours after Orders 2 and 3 were 
 put forth, on Sunday, March 9, startling news reached 
 Washington the Confederate batteries on the Potomac 
 had been abandoned, and the Army of Northern Virginia 
 was retreating southward from Manassas. Incredulous, 
 almost stupefied, at this unlooked-for intelligence, Mc- 
 Clellan, as soon as it could be verified, ordered the entire 
 army to move, the following day, upon the enemy's lines. 
 Before he started, however, occurred a tilt between him 
 and the Secretary of War, which illustrates down to how 
 slender a thread had worn the once cordial ties between 
 the General-in-Chief and the government. During that 
 Sunday evening, McClellan telegraphed to Stanton, from 
 the front : 
 
 " In the arrangements for the advance of to-morrow it 
 is impossible to carry into effect the arrangements for the 
 formation of army corps. I am obliged to take groups as 
 I find them and to move them by divisions. I respect-
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 365 
 
 fully ask a suspension of the order directing it, till the 
 present movement be over." 
 
 To this the Secretary curtly replied : 
 
 " I think it is the duty of every officer to obey the Pre- 
 sident's orders, nor can I see any reason why you should 
 not obey them in present instance. 1 must therefore de- 
 cline to suspend them." 
 
 At one o'clock A. M., McClellan sent this explanation 
 over the wire : 
 
 " You have entirely misunderstood me, and the idea I 
 intended to convey was simply that I could not, under the 
 pressure of the new aspect of affairs, immediately carry out 
 the President's orders as to the formation of army corps. 
 It is absolutely necessary that I should at once move 
 divisions as they stand. If you require me to suspend 
 movements until army corps can be formed, I will do so ; 
 but I regard it as a military necessity that the divisions 
 should move to the front at once, without waiting for the 
 formation of army corps. If it is your order to wait until 
 the corps can be formed, I will, of course, wait. I will 
 comply with the President's order as soon as possible. 
 I intended to do so to-morrow, but circumstances have 
 changed. If you desire it, I will at once countermand all 
 the orders I have given for an advance until the formation 
 of army corps is completed. I have only to add that the 
 orders I have given to-night to advance early in the morn- 
 ing will be dictated solely by the present position of affairs. 
 If the leave to suspend the order be granted, there will 
 be no unreasonable delay in the formation of army corps. 
 I await your reply here. If you so direct that I may 
 countermand my orders at once, please reply at once." 
 
 Stanton promptly rejoined : 
 
 " I do not understand the President's order as restraining 
 you from any military movement by divisions or otherwise 
 that circumstances in your judgment may render expedient, 
 and I certainly do not wish to delay or change any move- 
 ment whatever that you have made or desire to make. I
 
 3 66 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 only wish to avoid giving my sanction to a suspension of a 
 policy which the President has ordered to be pursued. But 
 if you think that the terms of the order as it stands would 
 operate to retard or in any way resti-ain movements that 
 circumstances require to be made before the army corps 
 are formed, I will assume the responsibility of suspending 
 the order for that purpose, and authorize you to make any 
 movement by divisions or otherwise, according to your own 
 judgment, without stopping to form the army corps. My 
 desire is that you should exercise every power that you 
 think present circumstances require to be exercised, with- 
 out delay ; but I want that you and I shall not seem to 
 be desirous of opposing an order of the President without 
 necessity. I say, therefore, move just as you think best 
 now, and let the other matter stand until it can be done 
 without impeding movements." 
 
 It was nearly three o'clock in the morning when the 
 General closed the incident with this message : 
 
 "Your reply received. The troops are in motion. I 
 thank you for your despatch. It relieves me much, and 
 you will be convinced that I have not asked too much of 
 you." M 
 
 Redeeming his promise, three days later, McClellan 
 constituted the army corps in accordance with Mr. Lin- 
 coln's orders. 65 
 
 Important history was making in the mean time. The 
 Army of the Potomac had started at last. Advancing into 
 Virginia with unaccustomed celerity, it gallantly stormed 
 those abandoned works at Centreville and Manassas. The 
 recent tenants, it is true, were safely on their way to a new 
 haven beyond the Rappahannock. As they had taken the 
 precaution, moreover, to destroy the bridges behind them, 
 there was nothing left for the disgusted pursuers but to 
 retrace their steps from the deserted camps. On all sides 
 were unmistakable indications of how inferior, in numbers 
 and munitions of war, had been the Confederate force 
 to the splendid array which it had kept at bay so long.
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 367 
 
 That the dismantled barracks evidently had not held one 
 half the men McClellan affirmed to be there, looked bad 
 enough ; but that, for lack of sufficient heavy artillery, 
 painted logs filled a number of the embrasures in the 
 fortifications, was infinitely worse. These " Quaker guns," 
 as they were called, made the whole North laugh. On the 
 under side of its merriment, however, lay a feeling of 
 mortification and disappointment that boded no good to 
 the fame of the " Young Napoleon." Painfully alive to the 
 blow-holes in his armor, he poured out the bitterness of 
 his soul to the fond wife at home. " I regret," he wrote 
 from Fairfax Court House, " that the rascals are after me 
 again. I had been foolish enough to hope that when I 
 went into the field they would give me some rest, but it 
 seems otherwise. Perhaps I should have expected it. If 
 I can get out of this scrape, you will never catch me in the 
 power of such a set again. The idea of persecuting a man 
 behind his back! I suppose they are now relieved from 
 the pressure of their fears by the retreat of the enemy, 
 and that they will increase in virulence." w Who " the 
 rascals " were may be surmised. The men who had, week 
 after week, supported the President's plan for immediate 
 operations against the enemy's position at Manassas now 
 claimed that Mr. Lincoln's judgment had been vindicated 
 by the event. They grew hot over McClellan's failure to 
 seize so cheap a victory when it lay within his grasp, and 
 sarcastic at the manner in which vast hosts and impreg- 
 nable ramparts had melted away together. What seemed 
 most difficult to understand was the General's ignorance 
 of how matters had been going within the lines of an 
 enemy stationed, for over seven months, not more than a 
 day's march from his camp. 67 McClellan's loyalty again 
 became a debated question, and friends of the adminis- 
 tration once more beset the Executive with appeals for 
 his removal. 
 
 Circumstances had certainly conspired to place the 
 General in an awkward situation ; yet he, or more pre-
 
 3 68 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 eisely speaking, his facile pen, was almost equal to the 
 emergency. In his official papers he ascribes the Confed- 
 erates' "very sudden" retreat to information which they 
 had received of his intended movement down the Chesa- 
 peake, and he points to this retirement toward Richmond 
 as conclusive proof that his projected operations would 
 have compelled the evacuation of Manassas. Persisting, 
 moreover, in his delusions, or those of his secret service 
 officers, as to the enemy's strength, he claims to have 
 found ample corroboration of their estimates. A stack 
 of affidavits were introduced to bear out the official re- 
 port of March 8 that credited the southern army before 
 Washington with "115,500 men, about 300 field guns, 
 and from 26 to 30 siege guns." Upon these figures he 
 impales, with fine scorn, " the ignorance which led some 
 journals at that time, and persons in high office, unwit- 
 tingly to trifle with the reputation of an army, and to 
 delude the country with Quaker-gun stories of the defences 
 and gross understatements of the numbers of the enemy." m 
 Verily McClellan's pen was mightier than his sword, yet 
 it could not slay the facts. It is now established beyond 
 a doubt that General Joseph E. Johnston, commanding 
 the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, had long 
 regarded his position at Manassas and Centreville as un- 
 tenable. Anticipating attack, he commenced on the 23d 
 of February the retrograde movement which was skil- 
 fully completed on the 9th of March. So the " very sud- 
 den" retreat which McClellan and his eulogists charged 
 to indiscreet disclosures of what took place at the council 
 of March 8 m had, in fact, been going on for two weeks 
 previous to that date. We have General Johnston's own 
 word for it that he received no warning concerning the 
 Chesapeake plan, and that his withdrawal was due solely 
 to fear of some such flank movement as Lincoln is now 
 known to have advocated. An advance along this route 
 the Confederate leader looked upon as "the most diffi- 
 cult to meet." True to the rules of strategy, he assumed
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 369 
 
 that McClellan would discover the weak spot, and strike 
 there. 70 But nothing, as we have seen, could convince 
 the Union commander of his opportunity. During the 
 very period in which he was declaring the President's plan 
 impracticable, chiefly on the ground that the Manassas 
 line held a force, variously estimated at from 115,500 to 
 150,000 men, Johnston's official report showed just 47,306 
 men, present for duty, in the entire Department of North- 
 ern Virginia. 71 McClellan, at the same time, had present 
 for duty in the Army of the Potomac officers and men 
 amounting to 185,420. 72 Nor does the General-in-Chief 
 emerge in any better light from the episode of the imita- 
 tion guns. His sweeping denial breaks down beneath the 
 evidence of trustworthy men who saw them in the defences, 
 to say nothing of General Johnston's explanation of how 
 they came to be there. The Confederate commander, 
 referring to his officers at Centreville, writes : 
 
 " As we had not artillery enough for their works and 
 for the army fighting elsewhere, at the same time, rough 
 wooden imitations of guns were made, and kept near the 
 embrasures, in readiness for exhibition in them. To con- 
 ceal the absence of carriages, the embrasures were covered 
 with sheds made of bushes. These were the Quaker guns 
 afterward noticed in northern papers." 73 
 
 At every essential point in this affair McClellan stands 
 condemned. To what precise extent was of course not 
 revealed until long thereafter ; yet enough became known 
 without delay to justify the opinion that he had been 
 completely outgeneraled. 
 
 When failure overtakes a commander through his own 
 repeated neglect to carry out the desires of his superiors, 
 he becomes a proper subject for discipline. So at last 
 thought Lincoln. Though "slow to smite and swift to 
 spare," he could withhold the blow no longer. For, what 
 the President's most influential advisers had not suc- 
 ceeded in bringing about, speedily ensued xipon McClel- 
 lan's fruitless "promenade" to Manassas. This revelation
 
 370 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 of how much the General's inaction probably cost the 
 tJnion cause aroused Lincoln's belated indignation. All 
 the pent-up irritation of weeks found vent in one mighty 
 outburst of wrath. A scene not unlike that enacted by 
 President Washington when he received the tidings of St. 
 Glair's disaster is said to have taken place. Lincoln's 
 passion was hailed by Senator Chandler, who related 
 the incident, as an omen of better days. "Old Abe," said 
 he exultingly, " is mad, and the war will now go on." 74 
 Before the Executive slept on the first night that saw 
 the retreating Confederates securely encamped behind the 
 Rappahannock, he issued the "President's Special War 
 Order No. 3." 75 This mandate deposed McClellan from 
 the command-in-chief on the ostensible ground that he 
 had " personally taken the field," and limited his author- 
 ity to the Department of the Potomac. All department 
 commanders, furthermore, including several newly ap- 
 pointed, were instructed to report directly to the Secre- 
 tar} r of War. 78 Here was a serious reverse in McClellan's 
 fortunes, yet he knew nothing about it until the Washing- 
 ton newspapers reached Fairfax Court House on the fol- 
 lowing day. Taken " entirely by surprise," as he tells us, 
 the General appears to have seen no reason and how 
 characteristic of the man that was ! for Mr. Lincoln's 
 order, while his partisans resented the way in which the 
 change had been made perhaps more than the act itself. 
 Nevertheless, McClellan kissed the chastening rod. He 
 straightway sent the President a graceful letter, in which, 
 with expressions of esteem and gratitude, the writer 
 promised cheerful submission. 77 
 
 One of McClellan's first steps thereafter was to obey 
 Mr. Lincoln's General Order No. 3, for a council of corps 
 commanders. Summoning the four who were with him at 
 Fairfax Court House, as has been narrated in a previous 
 chapter, he laid the President's requirements before them. 
 They unanimously pronounced the Chesapeake route by 
 way of Urbana, on the Rappahaunock, unavailable, since
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 371 
 
 the enemy had retreated south of the river ; and agreed 
 that the projected operations down the bay could best 
 be carried out the navy cooperating on the peninsula 
 between the York and the James rivers, with Fortress 
 Monroe as a base. They stipulated, moreover, that the 
 force left behind for the protection of Washington should 
 be sufficient "to give an entire feeling of security for 
 its safety from menace." This required between 40,000 
 and 55,000 men, according to the commanders' several 
 estimates, in which McClellan apparently acquiesced. 78 
 Though the Peninsula plan had been described by him, 
 not many weeks before, as a last resort, to be adopted 
 only when the worst came to the worst, he approved of 
 that too, and telegraphed Mr. Stanton : " The council 
 of commanders of army corps have unanimously agreed 
 upon a plan of operations. General McDowell will at once 
 proceed with it to Washington and lay it before you." 
 
 The Secretary immediately replied : " Whatever plan 
 has been agreed upon, proceed at once to execute with- 
 out losing an hour for my approval." 79 
 
 Later in the day, however, came the President's ap- 
 proval, in a form which still further illustrates the temper 
 of the government. Directing McClellan again to " leave 
 Washington entirely secure," it authorized him to choose 
 a new base anywhere between Fortress Monroe and the 
 Capital, so long as he moved " the army at once in pursuit 
 of the enemy, by some route." * Official courtesy does not 
 admit of much stronger language ; but between the lines 
 we read, as plainly as did a noted war correspondent : 
 
 " Go anywhere, move anywhere you please, only let us 
 have an end of excuses do something." 81 
 
 McClellan complied. He made an address to his sol- 
 diers in approved Napoleonic style, and marched them 
 to Alexandria, where transports were collecting for the 
 voyage down the Chesapeake. 
 
 Before sailing, McClellan was again made to feel how 
 great a change had come over his standing with the Presi-
 
 372 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 dent. Mr. Lincoln, while on a visit to Alexandria, men. 
 tioned to him that he was " strongly pressed " by friends of 
 Fremont to transfer Blenker's command of about 10,000 
 men from the Army of the Potomac to the newly created 
 Mountain Department. It was not his intention, he added, 
 when the General objected, to deprive McClellan of this 
 division. Yet the discussion touched that officer on a sen- 
 sitive spot. In the first flush of his power, during the 
 autumn of 1861, he had forbidden his superiors to detach 
 any troops from the army under him, in language even more 
 dictatorial than that employed to protest against their 
 appointment of officers without his consent ; 82 and the 
 President had meekly promised, at the time, to leave his 
 force intact. Such promises are outlawed, however, as the 
 circumstances under which they were given alter. Thus, 
 no doubt, thought Mr. Lincoln six months later, in the 
 spring of 1862. For, changing his mind a few days after 
 the interview at Alexandria, he ordered Blenker's division 
 to join Fremont. " I did so with great pain," he wrote to 
 McClellan, " understanding that you would wish it other- 
 wise. If you could know the full pressure of the case, I 
 am confident that you would justify it, even beyond a 
 mere acknowledgment that the Commander-in-Chief may 
 order what he pleases." ra This act has properly enough 
 been condemned by military writers. Still, in justice to 
 the President, it should be said that by placating the Fre- 
 mont wing of the Republican Party, he hoped to keep 
 united the support without which the war could not have 
 been carried on. Unfortunately, his political cares evoked 
 no sympathy from McClellan. The General, it is true, 
 at a later interview, acquiesced reluctantly in what he 
 regarded as an unwarrantable exercise of the supreme au- 
 thority ; but this was only after Mr. Lincoln had assured 
 him so McClellan relates that no other troops should 
 be withdrawn from his command. Yet, worse remained 
 behind. 
 
 Hardly had McClellan, with part of his army, reached
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 373 
 
 Fortress Monroe, when a cry went up that he had left 
 Washington insecure. An anxious investigation by the 
 War Department followed. This revealed, as was fully 
 narrated elsewhere, less than half the number of troops 
 prescribed by the corps commanders, on guard over the 
 city. Lincoln's order, so oft repeated, to leave the Capi- 
 tal " entirely secure " had been flatly disobeyed. That 
 McClellan, after his recent discipline at the hands of 
 the President, should again have ventured to pit his will 
 against Lincoln's, in a matter of such moment, seems in- 
 conceivable. The General himself, as well as his defenders, 
 disclaim that he did so. By what might fairly be called a 
 plea in confession and avoidance, they assert that more 
 than the required number of men were left at Manassas, 
 in the valley of the Shenandoah, before Washington, and 
 elsewhere ; but they fail utterly to show, as indeed they 
 cannot, that McClellan had heeded the President's explicit 
 instructions to leave, "in and about Washington," the 
 force deemed necessary for its protection by the council 
 of corps commanders. Nor does it improve the General's 
 case to treat with contempt Lincoln's acute anxiety for 
 the safety of the National Capital. 84 Unfortunately situ- 
 ated as it was near the frontier, that city, on several occa- 
 sions during the war, narrowly escaped capture. Such an 
 event would have been damaging enough to the Union 
 cause, at any time ; in the spring or summer of 1862, 
 it might have been fatal. The fall of Washington, to 
 touch upon but one aspect of a manifold disaster, would 
 most likely have precipitated European intervention a 
 proceeding against which the whole diplomatic strength 
 of the administration had for months been strained, as 
 against dissolution itself. It is not surprising, therefore, 
 that the President placed the defence of the Capital above 
 every other strategic consideration, or that he had again 
 and again renewed his instructions to McClellan on the 
 subject. 
 
 But the General had other views. Assuming that the
 
 374 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 troops left in northern Virginia were ample, all told, to 
 guard Washington, he had deliberately determined not to 
 detach from his main army the number of men required 
 for garrison duty by Mr. Lincoln's orders. Whether or 
 not this belief was well founded has nothing to do with the 
 fact of McClellan's insubordination. Equally beside the 
 question is his much quoted argument that the safety of 
 the Union Capital could best be secured on the Peninsula, 
 by an advance in force against Richmond. Whether Mc- 
 Clellan was correct, moreover, in believing that the Con- 
 federates would surely defend the lesser, rather than seize 
 the greater prize, may be doubted. According to military 
 rules, it is true, the defence of Washington lay at the gates 
 of Richmond; but unluckily, some of the southern gen- 
 erals, like the fencer quoted in Macaulay, did not always 
 tight by rule. Violating the very A B C of warfare, they 
 more than once thrust in quarte when they should have 
 thrust in tierce, and incidentally, be it said, made "a hit, a 
 very palpable hit." Had Lee found the Army of the Poto- 
 mac operating on the Peninsula, and Washington inade- 
 quately guarded, would he not have thrown all his strength 
 into the capture of that city? To borrow one of his favor- 
 ite expressions, might he not have swapped queens? 85 
 Or worse still, was there any assurance that he could 
 not have held MeClellan in check long enough to take 
 the Federal piece, and return in time to defend his own ? 
 The Confederates had recently demonstrated their skill 
 at blocking the Union general's way, with notably inferior 
 numbers ; while his record for deliberation hardly war- 
 ranted much dependence upon him, if suddenly recalled 
 from a distant field to rescue the Capital. That it should 
 now be imperiled, or even subjected to a chance of peril, 
 after so many cautions, aroused the President's just indig- 
 nation. There seemed but a single thing for him to do. 
 As soon as the extent of his lieutenant's disobedience was 
 definitely ascertained, he ordered one of the army corps, 
 which had not yet embarked for the Peninsula, to be
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 375 
 
 held back for the protection of Washington. General 
 McDowell's corps, comprising about 36,000 men and 68 
 guns, was accordingly detached from the Army of the 
 Potomac. Mr. Lincoln, at the same time, fearing lest 
 Fortress Monroe recently placed under McClellan's 
 command might also be stripped of its troops, further 
 humiliated the General by practically withdrawing the 
 post from his control. 86 
 
 The news of these changes staggered McClellan. He 
 was especially distressed over the loss of McDowell's 
 corps, to which had been assigned the important duty of 
 turning the Confederate positions at the lower end of 
 the Peninsula, while the main ' body attacked in front. 
 " It is the most infamous thing that history has recorded," 
 read his private comment on the President's course, at 
 the time ; and he straightway to quote him further 
 44 raised an awful row." 87 Protest followed protest, until 
 Lincoln replied : 
 
 " Your despatches, complaining that you are not pro- 
 perly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me 
 very much. 
 
 " Blenker's division was withdrawn from you before you 
 left here, and you knew the pressure under which I did 
 it, and, as I thought, acquiesced in it certainly not 
 without reluctance. 
 
 "After you left I ascertained that less than 20,000 
 unorganized men, without a single field-battery, were all 
 you designed to be left for the defense of Washington 
 and Manassas Junction, and part of this even was to go 
 to General Hooker's old position ; General Banks's corps, 
 once designed for Manassas Junction, was divided and 
 tied up on the line of Winchester and Strasburg, and 
 could not leave it without again exposing the Upper Poto- 
 mac and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This presented 
 (or would present, when McDowell and Sumner should be 
 gone) a great temptation to the enemy to turn back from 
 the Rappahannock and sack Washington. My explicit
 
 376 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 order that Washington should, by the judgment of all 
 the commanders of corps, be left entirely secure, had been 
 neglected. It was precisely this that drove me to detain 
 McDowell. 
 
 " I do not forget that I was satisfied with your arrange- 
 ment to leave Banks at Manassas Junction ; but when 
 that arrangement was broken up and nothing was substi- 
 tuted for it, of course I was not satisfied. I was con- 
 strained to substitute something for it myself. 
 
 " And now allow me to ask, do you really think I should 
 permit the line from Richmond via Manassas Junction to 
 this city to be entirely open, except what resistance could 
 be presented by less than 20,000 unorganized troops? 
 This is a question which the country will not allow me to 
 evade." M 
 
 Yet McClellan would not, or could not, then or there- 
 after, recognize how proper was Mr. Lincoln's solicitude. 
 Indeed, the General's military harness seems to have been 
 equipped with blinkers of so prodigious a size that, while 
 he saw his own ends distinctly enough, the duties and 
 prerogatives of this mere civilian President though he 
 was made but a hazy impression upon his mind. Only 
 such purblindness can account for the man's conduct. It 
 never, apparently, occurred to him that he was in any 
 way at fault; no more than it did to certain military 
 critics who, touched by the plight in which he now found 
 himself, lost sight of his own responsibility in bringing it 
 about, and cried out against the administration. Yet the 
 facts confute them. Whatever may have been the errors 
 of strategy chai'geable during this luckless campaign to 
 Lincoln, Stanton, or McClellan for honors were easy 
 in that respect the loss of McDowell's corps, as well 
 as the resultant train of mishaps, lies, beyond a doubt, at 
 the recalcitrant General's door. 
 
 McClellan's disappointments rapidly multiplied. Not 
 only did he find himself deprived of the flanking column 
 that was to have turned Yorktown, but the gunboats
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 377 
 
 upon which he had erroneously depended to reduce its 
 batteries failed him also ; while the Warwick River, repre- 
 sented on his faulty maps as off to one side, proved to be 
 a fortified barrier reaching almost across the Peninsula. 
 Another General or rather a truly great one at the 
 head of so powerful an army, would have modified his 
 plans to meet these changed conditions, and have pushed 
 on. Not so McClellan. Seized with his old weakness for 
 underrating his own strength and overrating that of the 
 enemy, he sat down before Yorktown to besiege the 
 place scientifically. Yet Magruder, the Confederate com- 
 mander, opposed him, at first, with but 11,000 men, all 
 told. Six thousand of these were required for the fortifi- 
 cations at Yorktown and elsewhere, leaving only 5,000 to 
 defend the line of the Warwick, thirteen miles across the 
 Peninsula. This latter obstacle could easily have been 
 pierced by McClellan's overwhelming force, had he acted 
 promptly. When it became apparent, therefore, that the 
 opening skirmishes were not to be followed up forthwith 
 by vigorous fighting, Magruder could hardly believe his 
 good luck. He reported jubilantly : 
 
 " Thus, with 5,000 men exclusive of the garrisons, we 
 stopped and held in check over 100,000 of the enemy. 
 Every preparation was made in anticipation of another 
 attack by the enemy ; the men slept in the trenches and 
 under arms, but to my utter surprise he permitted day 
 after day to elapse without an assault." 89 
 
 Another leading Confederate officer wrote to Richmond, 
 in terms of mingled contempt and astonishment : 
 
 "No one but McClellan could have hesitated to 
 attack." 8 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Lincoln, not less surprised, had tele- 
 graphed to the Union commander : 
 
 " I think you better break the enemy's line from York- 
 town to Warwick River at once." 91 
 
 Whereupon McClellan relieved his mind privately with 
 the scornful comment :
 
 378 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 " I was much tempted to reply that he had better come 
 and do it himself." 92 
 
 In official despatches, however, to the President and to 
 the Secretary of War, he lamented, on the following day, 
 that he could not attack because his diminished ranks 
 numbered but 85,000 men, while the enemy's had been 
 increased to " 100,000 and probably more." It is now 
 known how extravagant this figure was. No considerable 
 additions to Magruder's small force were made for several 
 days ; and when reinforcements did come, in the course of 
 the month, they raised the effective strength of Johnston, 
 his successor, to just 55,633 men. 93 McClellan's failure 
 to attack before these new troops arrived was indefensible. 
 Had he obeyed Lincoln, the Union army would not have 
 wasted the precious month before Yorktown, that enabled 
 the South to concentrate its energies around Richmond ; 
 the Peninsular campaign would have furnished a vastly 
 different story ; and the " Young Napoleon " might have 
 led a triumph in the Confederate Capital, after all. 
 
 These circumstances the downright common sense of 
 the President must have grasped as he hastened to answer 
 McClellan's complaints. 
 
 " There is a curious mystery," he wrote, " about the 
 number of the troops now with you. When I telegraphed 
 you on the 6th, saying you had over 100,000 with you, 
 I had just obtained from the Secretary of War a state- 
 ment, taken as he said from your own returns, making 
 108,000 then with you and en route to you. You now say 
 you will have but 85,000 when all en route to you shall 
 have reached you. How can this discrepancy of 23,000 
 be accounted for ? 
 
 "As to General Wool's command [at Fortress Monroe], 
 I understand it is doing for you precisely what a like 
 number of your own would have to do if that command 
 was away. I suppose the whole force which has gone for- 
 ward to you is with you by this time ; and if so, I think 
 it is the precise time for you to strike a blow. By delay
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 379 
 
 the enemy will relatively gain upon you that is, he 
 .will gain faster by fortifications and reinforcements than 
 you can by reinforcements alone. 
 
 " And once more let me tell you, it is indispensable to 
 you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. 
 You will do me the justice to remember I always insisted 
 that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of 
 fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting and not 
 surmounting a difficulty ; that we would find the same 
 enemy and the same or equal intrenchments at either 
 place. The country will not fail to note is noting now 
 that the present hesitation to move upon an intrenched 
 enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated. 
 
 " I beg to assure you that I have never written you or 
 spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, 
 nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as in my 
 most anxious judgment I consistently can ; but you must 
 act." M 
 
 Unfortunately, advice from this quarter was as cheap 
 as ever in the estimation of the General commanding. 
 His overweening professional conceit would not allow him 
 to admit that Lincoln could be right in a military matter, 
 or that there was any parallel between Manassas and 
 Yorktown. So the siege continued. It went forward with 
 a precision which would have done credit to the allies in 
 Flanders. Yet McClellan was not so much occupied that 
 he could not find time to keep up an almost incessant 
 demand for more men. Yielding at last to his entreaties, 
 the President, as has been told more at length elsewhere, 
 sent down Franklin's division of McDowell's corps. We 
 have seen how these reinforcements lay below Yorktown 
 a whole fortnight, idly in the transports ; and how, when 
 preparations for a grand assault all along the line had 
 been nearly completed, the beleaguered Confederates COD* 
 trived to 
 
 " fold their tents, like the Arabs, 
 And as silently steal away."
 
 380 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Lincoln's phrase, "the story of Manassas repeated," 
 had been verified in more ways than one. For the second 
 time in eight weeks, McClellan led the Army of the Poto- 
 mac into deserted trenches, under conditions that rendered 
 his victory a tactical defeat ; and for the second time, 
 the President's directions to attack, had they been fol- 
 lowed, would have averted a costly blunder. 
 
 McClellan of course blamed this inauspicious opening 
 of the Peninsular campaign on the authorities at Wash- 
 ington. Nor were they less answerable, according to his 
 Own Story, for the failures that followed. A morbid 
 belief in the jealousy of Lincoln and his advisers had 
 taken firm hold of him. He fancied them engaged in a 
 conspiracy to sacrifice the Army of the Potomac rather 
 than allow its commander to reap the political reward 
 which might result from its success. " That they were 
 not honest," he says in his book, " is proved by the fact 
 that, having failed to force me to advance at a time 
 when an advance would have been madness, they withheld 
 the means of success when I was in contact with the 
 enemy, and finally relieved me from command when the 
 game was in my hands. They determined that I should 
 not succeed, and carried out their determinations only 
 too well and at a fearful sacrifice of blood, time, and 
 treasure." K Having worked himself into this frame of 
 mind, McClellan we are not surprised to find easily 
 traversed the narrow interval between contempt for his 
 superiors and something akin to hatred. In fact, from 
 the beginning to the end of the Peninsular campaign, his 
 private and at times even his official utterances reveal 
 far liiore enmity toward the administration than toward 
 the opposing foe. 
 
 To what extreme the General's embittered feelings 
 carried him, a few extracts may perhaps sufficiently show. 
 Writing to his wife, on the steamer which conveyed him 
 down the Chesapeake, he exults over his escape from " that 
 sink of iniquity," the National Capital. A few days later,
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 381 
 
 after the McDowell episode, he sends her this soothing 
 message : 
 
 " Don't worry about the wretches ; they have done 
 nearly their worst, and can't do much more. I am sure 
 that I will win in the end, in spite of all their rascality. 
 History will present a sad record of these traitors who are 
 willing to sacrifice the country and its army for personal 
 spite and personal aims. The people will soon understand 
 the whole matter." 
 
 During the siege of Yorktown, he lamented : 
 
 " I am tired of public life ; and even now, when I am 
 doing the best I can for my country in the field, I know 
 that my enemies are pursuing me more remorselessly than 
 ever, and ' kind friends ' are constantly making themselves 
 agreeable by informing me of the pleasant predicament in 
 which I am the rebels on one side, and the Abolitionists 
 and other scoundrels on the other." 
 
 A few days thereafter, the fond wife at home received 
 this despondent note : 
 
 " I feel that the fate of a nation depends upon me, 
 and I feel that I have not one single friend at the seat of 
 government." 
 
 So the General punctuated his whole luckless expedition 
 with acrimonious faultfindings. Achilles crying, 
 
 " My wrongs, my wrongs, my constant thought engage," 
 
 was not more dismal. On one occasion, McClellan writes: 
 " My government, alas ! is not giving me any aid." 
 On another, a midnight postscript reads : 
 " Those hounds in Washington are after me again." 
 Then he explains : 
 
 " I am as anxious as any human being can be to finish 
 this war. Yet when I see such insane folly behind me, I 
 feel that the final salvation of the country demands the 
 utmost prudence on my part, and that I must not run 
 the slightest risk of disaster, for if anything happened to 
 this army, our cause would be lost. . . . But I will yet
 
 382 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 succeed, notwithstanding all they do and leave undone 
 in Washington to prevent it. I would not have on my 
 conscience what those men have for all the world." 
 
 Still later, the sympathetic helpmeet is assured : 
 
 " You do not feel one bit more bitterly towards those 
 people than I do. I do not say much about it, but I fear 
 they have done all that cowardice and folly can do to ruin 
 our poor country, and the blind people seem not to see it. 
 It makes my blood boil when I think of it." 
 
 And again : 
 
 " I am sick and weary of all this business. I am tired 
 of serving fools. God help tny country ! He alone can 
 save it." 
 
 Needless to add, when our country was saved, the writer 
 of those letters had no hand in the operation. Saviours of 
 nations are made of different stuff. 
 
 Side by side with the General's unsoldierlike, almost 
 childish railings to Mrs. McClellan against the govern- 
 ment must be considered his official despatches. If less 
 violent than his private messages, they still evince a spirit 
 of antagonism, which at times breaks through all proper 
 restraint. As the Duke of Wellington, when he came to 
 publish his despatches, was righted in the good opinion 
 of those who had misjudged him, it may be said reversely 
 of the American commander that a similar publication on 
 his part has caused him to fall in the estimation of many 
 war-time admirers. To judge by a few of McCIellan's 
 military communications, he fancied himself and Lincoln 
 to be playing some sort of a game, with men for the count- 
 ers and personal glory for the stakes. It seems as if the 
 General accused the administration of cheating over the 
 count, and as if his incessant calls for more troops must 
 be satisfied or there would be an end of the whole affair, 
 with the President overwhelmed beneath a carefully fixed 
 responsibility for the failure. McCIellan's pet delusion, 
 moreover, that the enemy outnumbered him two to one, 
 apparently accompanied him throughout the campaign.
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 383 
 
 After repeating this belief, at some length, in a letter to 
 Mr. Lincoln from Cumberland, he wrote : 
 
 " I most respectfully and earnestly urge upon your ex- 
 cellency that the opportunity has come for striking a fatal 
 blow at the enemies of the Constitution, and I beg that 
 you will cause this army to be reinforced without delay 
 by all the disposable troops of the government. I ask for 
 every man that the War Department can send me." "" 
 
 In rather a sharper vein, on the day after the battle of 
 Hanover Court House, he telegraphed to the War Depart- 
 ment : 
 
 " It is the policy and duty of the government to send 
 me by water all the well-drilled troops available. I am 
 confident that Washington is in no danger. ... It can- 
 not be ignored that a desperate battle is before us; if 
 any regiments of good troops remain unemployed, it will 
 be an irreparable fault committed." " 
 
 Another despatch, sent at about the same time, read: 
 
 " The enemy are even in greater force than I had sup- 
 posed. I will do all that quick movements can accomplish, 
 but you must send me all the troops you can, and leave 
 to me full latitude as to choice of commanders." " 
 
 McClellan's insistence upon absolute authority in the 
 field was theoretically correct. His disobedience, however, 
 of the President's directions concerning the safety of 
 Washington had seriously impaired the General's title 
 to untrammeled command over one particular column, at 
 least. When McDowell finally advanced overland' to co- 
 operate with him, Mr. Lincoln especially stipulated that 
 the junior officer should, retain control of all his troops, 
 and that he should receive from the General command- 
 ing no orders which would place him out of position to 
 cover the Capital. Nevertheless, as these reinforcements 
 approached, McClellan telegraphed to the Secretary of 
 War: 
 
 " It ought to be distinctly understood that McDowell 
 and his troops are completely under my control. I received
 
 384 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 a telegram from him requesting that McCall's division 
 might be placed so as to join him immediately on his 
 arrival. 
 
 "That request does not breathe the proper spirit. 
 Whatever troops come to me must be disposed of so as to 
 do the most good. I do not feel that, in such circum- 
 stances as those in which I am now placed, General 
 McDowell should wish the general interests to be sacri- 
 ficed for the purpose of increasing his command. 
 
 " If I cannot fully control all his troops, I want none of 
 them, but would prefer to fight the battle with what I 
 have, and let others be responsible for the results." 10 
 
 This ultimatum apparently received no attention. And 
 as McDowell was again recalled, at the eleventh hour, to 
 the defence of Washington, the question raised by McClel- 
 lan never came to an issue. Some time later, on the eve 
 of his Seven Days' Retreat, the " Young Napoleon," still 
 hedging against failure, telegraphed to Stanton : 
 
 " The rebel force is stated at 200,000, including Jack- 
 son and Beauregard. I shall have to contend against 
 vastly superior odds, if these reports be true. But this 
 army will do all in the power of men to hold their posi- 
 tion and repulse any attack. 
 
 " I regret my great inferiority in numbers, but feel that 
 I am in no way responsible for it, as I have not failed 
 to represent repeatedly the necessity of reinforcements ; 
 that this was the decisive point, and that all the available 
 meanS of the government should be concentrated here. I 
 will do all that a general can do with the splendid army 
 I have the honor to command, and, if it is destroyed 
 by overwhelming numbers, can at least die with it and 
 share its fate. 
 
 " But if the result of the action, which will probably 
 occur to-morrow or within a short time, is a disaster, the 
 responsibility cannot be thrown on my shoulders ; it must 
 rest where it belongs." 101 
 
 The President's reply was a trifle firmer, though not
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 385 
 
 less kind than previous messages with which he had sought 
 to encourage this weak-kneed campaigner. Your despatch, 
 he wrote, " suggesting the probability of your being over- 
 whelmed by 200,000, and talking of where the responsi- 
 bility will belong, pains me very much. I give you all I 
 can, and acton the presumption that you will do the best 
 you can witk what you have ; while you continue ungen- 
 erously, I think, to assume that I could give you more if 
 I would. I have omitted and shall omit no opportunity 
 to send you reinforcements whenever I possibly can." 102 
 
 But such assurances were in vain. Neither fair words 
 nor additional troops the administration had responded 
 from time to time with both served to mollify McClel- 
 lan's rancor. On the contrary, they seemed to act merely 
 as water upon his mill, for he went right on grinding out 
 more complaints. 
 
 Amidst the bloodshed and disaster of the "Seven 
 Days" that followed, the General's truculence, as has 
 been set forth in a previous chapter, reached its shrillest 
 note. At midnight, after the defeat of Gaines's Mill, he 
 despatched a report of the battle to Secretary Stanton. 
 Judging him by this production, we should say in passing, 
 that McClellan, whatever may have been his habitual 
 bravery, was not then eminently endowed with 12 P. M, 
 courage. The message closed with these extraordinary 
 lines : 
 
 " In addition to what I have already said, I only wish 
 to say to the President that I think he is wrong in regard- 
 ing me as ungenerous when I said that my force was too 
 weak. I merely intimated a truth which to-day has been 
 too plainly proved. If, at this instant, I could dispose of 
 ten thousand (10,000) fresh men, I could gain the victory 
 to-morrow. 
 
 " I know that a few thousand more men would have 
 changed this battle from a defeat to a victory. As it is, 
 the government must not and cannot hold me responsible 
 for the result.
 
 3 86 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 " I feel too earnestly to-night. I have seen too many 
 dead and wounded comrades to feel otherwise than that 
 the government has not sustained this army. If you do 
 not do so now, the game is lost. 
 
 " If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe 
 no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. 
 
 " You have done your best to sacrifice this'army." 103 
 
 Insubordination could go no further. It may be doubted 
 whether any general ever before sent from stricken field 
 such a message to his government. Even after making 
 due allowance for the terrible strain under which McClel- 
 lan must have labored when he wrote the despatch, such 
 insolence seems unpardonable. Though directed at Stan- 
 ton, the stroke was manifestly meant for Lincoln as well, 
 with an eye, perhaps, to its effect upon the onlooking 
 public in the background. 104 How the blow was softened 
 as it passed through the War Department telegraph office 
 has already been told. Yet enough of the message, as we 
 have seen, reached the General's superiors to carry home 
 his accusation that they had failed to sustain the army, 
 and were responsible for its defeat. Any other President 
 would probably have made short work of the insult ; but 
 Lincoln here, as elsewhere, was incapable of turning into 
 a personal affair what vitally concerned the welfare of 
 the nation. His self-surrender appears to have been as 
 complete in the one direction as was McClellan's egotism 
 in the other. The President's anxious thoughts were fixed 
 upon the Army of the Potomac, not upon its General or 
 himself. For between the lines of this wild denunciation 
 he read panic and disaster. It appeared to him that 
 nothing but the imminent danger of losing the whole 
 army and such a catastrophe had lately been more than 
 hinted at would account for McClellan's bitter words. 
 Overlooking them entirely, Lincoln put all his heart into 
 this reply, which was speedily placed on the wire : 
 
 " Save your army, at all events. W T ill send reinforce- 
 ments as fast as we can. Of course they cannot reach
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 387 
 
 you to-day, to-morrow, or next day. I have not said you 
 were ungenerous for saying you needed reinforcements. 
 I thought you were ungenerous in assuming that I did 
 not send them as fast as I could. I feel any misfortune to 
 you and your army quite as keenly as you feel it yourself. 
 If you have had a drawn battle, or a repulse, it is the price 
 we pay for the enemy not being in Washington. We pro- 
 tected Washington, and the enemy concentrated on you. 
 Had we stripped Washington, he would have been upon 
 us before the troops could have gotten to you. Less than 
 a week ago you notified us that reinforcements were leav- 
 ing Richmond to come in front of us. It is the nature of 
 the case, and neither you nor the government is to blame. 
 Please tell at once the present condition and aspect of 
 things." 105 
 
 Before McClellan could relieve the President's anxiety, 
 his communications were cut, and the Army of the Poto- 
 mac was again fighting its way to a safe haven at Harri. 
 son's Landing. Here the Peninsular campaign presently 
 came to an end, one of the costliest failures of the war. 
 
 On what ground, if any, could this lack of success be 
 charged against the administration? Was it true that 
 Lincoln and his advisers were jealous of McClellan, and 
 conspired to destroy him, together with his army, by 
 withholding reinforcements? Of the General's disfavor 
 in certain governmental quarters, there can be no doubt. 
 Before the opening of the Peninsular campaign he had 
 lost standing, as we have seen, with many of the strong 
 men by whom the President was surrounded. But we 
 have also seen how loyally Lincoln stood by the com- 
 mander of his choice against all comers ; how he sup- 
 ported him, moreover, with "good measure, pressed down, 
 and shaken together, and running over," through the de- 
 lays and disappointments of the winter. Taking sides 
 with neither McClellanites nor anti-McClellanites, for 
 unhappily this had become a matter of factions, the 
 President viewed every question as it arose, with an eye
 
 388 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 single to the preservation of the Union. Even the appeal 
 to Caesar that the General's military fame would become 
 a menace to his superior's tenure of office had failed in 
 its purpose. When one of Lincoln's friends warned him 
 of McClellan's reputed ambition to reach the White 
 House, the President answered : 
 
 " I am perfectly willing, if he will only put an end to 
 this war." m 
 
 That, however, is just what the General's opponents 
 believed him incapable of doing. Their distrust of him, 
 need we add, was deepened by his deliberate attempt to 
 carry off down the Chesapeake troops which, under the 
 Chief Magistrate's orders, should have been left to guard 
 Washington. Nevertheless, McClellan's claim that these 
 leaders tried to compass his defeat on the Peninsula is 
 as absurd as it is unfounded. Such treason could have 
 been accomplished through only one of two men in the 
 government Lincoln or Stan ton. 
 
 The Secretary of War, despite his occasional outbursts 
 of indignation over the General's course, gave the Army 
 of the Potomac, as far as the records show, conscientious 
 support ; 107 and the discussions on this subject that have 
 outlived the war furnish no substantial proofs to the con- 
 trary. While recriminations were at their height, more- 
 over, during the summer of 1862, a calm, straightforward 
 statement made by Mr. Lincoln, at a public meeting, 
 obviously placed the matter in its proper light. 
 
 " There has been a very widespread attempt," said he, 
 " to have a quarrel between General McClellan and the 
 Secretary of War. Now, I occupy a position that enables 
 me to observe that these two gentlemen are not nearly so 
 deep in the quarrel as some pretending to be their friends. 
 General McClellan's attitude is such that, in the very 
 selfishness of his nature, he cannot but wish to be success- 
 ful, and I hope he will ; and the Secretary of War is in 
 precisely the same situation. If the military commanders 
 in the field cannot be successful, not only the Secretary of
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 389 
 
 War, but myself for the time being the master of them 
 both cannot but be failures. I know General McClellaa 
 wishes to be successful, and I know he does not wish it 
 any more than the Secretary of War for him, and both 
 of them together no more than I wish it. Sometimes we 
 have a dispute about how many men General McClellan 
 has had, and those who would disparage him say that he 
 has had a very large number, and those who would dis- 
 parage the Secretary of War insist that General McClel- 
 lan has had a very small number. The basis for this is, 
 there is always a wide difference, and on this occasion 
 perhaps a wider one than usual, between the grand total 
 on McClellan's rolls and the men actually fit for duty ; 
 and those who would disparage him talk of the grand 
 total on paper, and those who would disparage the Secre- 
 tary of War talk of those at present fit for duty. General 
 McClellan has sometimes asked for things that the Secre- 
 tary of War did not give him. General McClellan is not 
 to blame for asking for what he wanted and needed, and 
 the Secretary of War is not to blame for not giving when 
 he had none to give. And I say here, as far as I know, 
 the Secretary of War has withheld no one thing at any 
 time in my power to give him. I have no accusation 
 against him. I believe he is a brave and able man, and 
 I stand here, as justice requires me to do, to take upon 
 myself what has been charged on the Secretary of War, 
 as withholding from him." m 
 
 This narrows the question down, and properly so, to 
 how the President treated McClellan on the Peninsula. 
 
 The army of invasion, according to the original esti- 
 mate of its commander, was to comprise " from 110,000 
 to 140,000 " troops. War Department returns show that 
 121,500 men were transported, at the outset, to Fortress 
 Monroe. McClellan may consequently be said to have 
 started on his campaign with an effective force equal at 
 least to the minimum number that he had required. Not- 
 withstanding this, Lincoln strained every effort, from
 
 390 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 beginning to end, in his anxiety to satisfy the General's 
 strident calls for more. When McClellan, a few days 
 after his arrival on the Peninsula, despatched that he 
 would hold himself " responsible for the results " of the 
 campaign, if he could have Franklin's division, the 12,000 
 men constituting that splendid body were immediately 
 forwarded. They failed, as we know, to be utilized in 
 time ; but the President was not deterred by the disap- 
 pointment from meeting further demands, to the best of 
 his ability. In fact, his cooperation later drew from the 
 insatiable General this acknowledgment : 
 
 " I am glad to learn that you are pressing forward re- 
 inforcements so vigorously. I shall be in perfect readiness 
 to move forward and take Richmond the moment McCall 
 reaches here and the ground will admit the passage of 
 artillery." 1W 
 
 McCall's 10,000 men duly arrived. McClellan's pro- 
 mises, however, as in the case of Franklin, went by default. 
 He now wanted the rest of McDowell's detained corps, 
 from which these two divisions had been detached. That 
 command, after starting several times to join him, was 
 each time recalled to the defence of the Capital. It 
 never reached McClellan, and finally participated, despite 
 McDowell's own earnest protests, in the government's 
 faulty tactics against Jackson in the Shenandoah valley. 110 
 Other reinforcements had, however, been sent to the Army 
 of the Potomac, so that by the middle of June, over 39,000 
 men were, according to McClellan's own official returns, 
 added to his original force. In brief, as may be seen at a 
 glance over the figures, there were enough Union troops, 
 from first to last, on the Peninsula, to take Richmond. 
 
 At every point throughout the campaign the northern 
 forces outnumbered and at times heavily so their 
 southern foes ; but McClellan failed to bring his entire 
 strength into action. He fought battle after battle with 
 inferior numbers, while unemployed divisions stood idle 
 within striking distance. The conclusion is inevitable.
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 391 
 
 This commander, who kept the wires hot with demands 
 for reinforcements, and accused the administration of 
 treason because he did not get as many as he wanted, had 
 more men than he knew how to use. Napoleon's opinion 
 that the Archduke Charles and he, himself, were the only 
 men of his day who could maneuver one hundred thousand 
 troops, would evidently not have been modified in favor of 
 his American namesake. McClellan's errors under this 
 head, however, were more than once redeemed by the con- 
 duct of the army, which he had so effectively disciplined. 
 Officers and men fought their way from Williamsburg to 
 Malvern Hill like heroes. The story of the Peninsidar 
 campaign, which, by the way, it does not lie within the 
 scope of this work to tell, abounds in brilliant exploits. 
 Twice, perhaps three times, the Confederate Capital 
 seemed within the Union grasp. A Grant, a Sherman, a 
 Thomas, or a Hooker would have marched into Richmond ; 
 but the talented McClellan, without initiative or dash in 
 the field, retreated from his victories. Through the cloud 
 of controversy, in which he and his friends have tried 
 to envelop these operations, looms the rigid truth that 
 McClellan was again outgeneraled. What lions he had 
 to slay were not in far-away Washington. They blocked 
 his path right on the Peninsula, in the shape successively 
 of three able Confederate commanders J. Bankhead 
 Magruder, Joseph E. Johnston, and Robert E. Lee. 
 
 McClellan's attempt to shift the blame for his failure 
 upon Stanton, Chase, and the rest was bad enough 
 to hint, even, that the President desired his defeat was 
 monstrous. Any formal refutation of such a charge would 
 almost seem insulting to the memory of the most magnan- 
 imous public man of his time. Yet this topic should not 
 be dismissed without reference, at least, to Lincoln's ear- 
 nest interest in the campaign. His yearning for success 
 on the Peninsula was pathetic. Moving, like the central 
 figure of some old Greek tragedy, through the shadow of 
 successive misfortunes, he seems to have entered into every
 
 392 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 conflict, though he could not be actually seen to take part 
 in any. And at the close of these three harrowing months, 
 as the action reaches its climax, we find him in an agony 
 of disappointment, second not even to that of McClellan, 
 himself. "When the Peninsula campaign terminated 
 suddenly at Harrison's Landing," said the President to a 
 friend, " I was as nearly inconsolable as I could be and 
 live." m Indeed, only one whose soul was bound up in 
 the hope that McClellan might win, would have sent the 
 General such messages, or have suffered such answers, as 
 passed between them. A father advising, chiding, encour- 
 aging, by turns, a wilful sou could not have treated this 
 rasping officer with more uniform indulgence. We rise 
 from a reading of their correspondence with a nicer per- 
 ception of the President's nobility of character a keener 
 admiration than ever of his rugged strength. Strong 
 enough to hold McClellan where he had put him, in the 
 teeth of perhaps as powerful an opposition as has ever 
 been massed against a commander ; strong enough to 
 ignore the signs which foreshadowed McClellan's political 
 rivalry ; and strong, above all, in the perfect self-control 
 with which he met McClellan's unmerited reproaches, 
 Lincoln manifested, throughout this trying period, how 
 high he deserves to rank among the masters of men. 
 
 With the arrival of the army at Harrison's Landing, 
 fresh perplexities beset the President. He was not ready 
 yet to give up its commander, though that officer had 
 hardly a friend left at court. Stirred by the fruitless 
 sacrifices of the campaign, McClellan's opponents now re- 
 doubled their efforts to bring about his removal. In their 
 prejudiced eyes, the embattled march to the James River, 
 which he had described as a change of base, was a retreat, 
 pure and simple. Whatever the movement may be called, 
 it partook, in fact, of the nature of both, Lincoln 
 recognized how skilful had been those defensive oper- 
 ations on the way, that finally saved the army from de- 
 struction. Hence there were no reproaches from the White
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 393 
 
 House for the unsuccessful General. When he announced, 
 on the 2d of July, that his entire force had reached the 
 protection of the gunboats, the President, haggard with 
 suspense, telegraphed : 
 
 " I am satisfied that yourself, officers, and men have 
 done the best you could. All accounts say better fighting 
 was never done. Ten thousand thanks for it." 112 
 
 As if not content with this praise, which McClellan 
 himself, by the way, termed " kind," the General entered 
 a special plea for more, after the following fashion : 
 
 " Never did such a change of base, involving a retro- 
 grade movement, and under incessant attacks from a most 
 determined and vastly more numerous foe, partake so little 
 of disorder. . . . When all the circumstances of the case 
 are known, it will be acknowledged by all competent 
 judges, that the movement just completed by this army 
 is unparalleled in the annals of war. Under the most 
 difficult circumstances, we have preserved our trains, our 
 guns, our material, and, above all, our honor." 113 
 
 To which Mr. Lincoln promptly responded : 
 
 " Be assured, the heroism and skill of yourself, officers, 
 and men, is and forever will be appreciated. If you can 
 hold your present position, we shall hive the enemy 
 yet." 1U 
 
 But to " hive the enemy," which had driven the Grand 
 Army of the Potomac to cover, required, McClellan as- 
 serted, heavy reinforcements. "I need 50,000 more men," 
 he had telegraphed the day before his arrival at Harri- 
 son's Landing, " and with them I will retrieve our for- 
 tunes." 1U 
 
 To which the President had made one of his character- 
 istic replies. " Your despatch of Tuesday morning," it read, 
 " induces me to hope your army is having some rest. In. 
 this hope allow me to reason with you a moment. When 
 you ask for 50,000 men to be promptly sent you, you surely 
 labor under some gross mistake of fact. Recently you sent 
 papers showing your disposal of forces made last spring
 
 394 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 for the defence of Washington and advising a return to 
 that plan. I find it included in and about Washington 
 75,000 men. Now, please be assured I have not men 
 enough to fill that very plan by 15,000. All of Fremont's 
 in the valley, all of Banks's, all of McDowell's not with 
 you, and all in Washington, taken together, do not ex- 
 ceed, if they reach, 60,000. With Wool and Dix added to 
 those mentioned, I have not, outside of your army, 75,000 
 men east of the mountains. Thus the idea of sending you 
 50,000, or any other considerable force, promptly, is sim- 
 ply absurd. If, in your frequent mention of responsibility, 
 you have the impression that I blame you for not doing 
 more than you can, please be relieved of such impression. 
 I only beg that in like manner you will not ask impossi- 
 bilities of me. If you think you are not strong enough to 
 take Richmond just now, I do not ask you to try just now. 
 Save the army, material and personal, and I will strengthen 
 it for the offensive again as fast as I can. The Governors 
 of eighteen States offer me a new levy of 300,000, which 
 I accept." 118 There can be no doubt of Lincoln's inten- 
 tion, when this letter was written, to support McClellan 
 in an early resumption of his campaign. 
 
 From every available source, meanwhile, from Hunter 
 at Hilton Head, Burnside at New Berne, Halleck at 
 Corinth, and certain commands around Washington, de- 
 tachments were ordered to the Peninsula. Most of these, 
 it should be said, for one reason or another, never reached 
 McClellan. Yet had they all come, his appetite would 
 probably still have remained unappeased. In less than 
 three days from the time of that promise to " retrieve our 
 fortunes " with " 50,000 more men," he wrote : 
 
 " To accomplish the great task of capturing Richmond 
 and putting an end to this rebellion reinforcements should 
 be sent to me rather much over than much less than 
 100,000 men." 117 
 
 The difference in these figures puzzled Mr. Lincoln, as 
 did the more startling statement, in the same despatch : '
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 395 
 
 " It is of course impossible to estimate as yet our losses, 
 but I doubt whether there are to-day more than 50,000 
 men with their colors." 
 
 That the army had shrunk to anything like the extent 
 thus indicated was inconceivable to the President. He 
 could not hope to learn the facts, however, from McClel- 
 lan's inconsistent messages ; nor was he disposed, in view 
 of the partisan feelings that had been aroused, to rely on 
 the reports of others. There appeared to be no alterna- 
 tive for him but to judge of the situation at Harrison's 
 Landing with his own eyes. So, on the 8th of July, Lin- 
 coln paid McClellan a visit. 
 
 The President stayed less than twenty-four hours, but 
 he spent the time to advantage. A hasty inspection of 
 the army, and conferences with its principal officers, suffi- 
 ciently revealed the condition of affairs. McClellan's 
 50,000 men had unaccountably become 86,500. 118 The 
 days of miracle-workers were past, so no one suggested 
 that he had, like the King of the Myrmidons, recruited 
 his ranks overnight from among certain insects, which 
 plagued the camp on the banks of the James. But what 
 troubled Lincoln more than this discrepancy between the 
 commander's understated figures and his actual strength 
 was the large number of soldiers, a host in itself, still 
 missing from the ranks. " Sending men to that army," 
 he once j?aid, "is like shoveling fleas across a barn-yard 
 not half of them get there." 119 And shortly after this 
 visit, the President, with official returns before him, thus 
 summed up his conclusions on the subject, in a despatch 
 to McClellan : 
 
 " I am told that over 160,000 men have gone into your 
 army on the Peninsula. When I was with you the other 
 day, we made out 86,500 remaining, leaving 73,500 to be 
 accounted for. I believe 23.500 will cover all the killed, 
 wounded, and missing in all your battles and skirmishes, 
 leaving 50,000 who have left otherwise. Not more than 
 5,000 of these have died, leaving 45,000 of your army
 
 396 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 still alive and not with it. I believe half or two thirds of 
 them are fit for duty to-day. Have you any more perfect 
 knowledge of this than I have ? If I am right, and you 
 had these men with you, you could go into Richmond in 
 the next three days. How can they be got to you, and 
 how can they be prevented from getting away in such 
 numbers for the future ? " 12 
 
 McClellan's reply was hardly satisfactory. He felt con- 
 fident, he said, that so many men had not reached him ; 
 but he admitted that there were 40,000 absentees, over 
 34,000 of whom were absent by authority. His explana- 
 tion of how this surprising number got away on leave, 
 during the very period in which he clamored most des- 
 perately for additional troops, was far from adequate. 121 
 Nor did Mr. Lincoln take much comfort in the admission, 
 " If I could receive back the absentees and could get my 
 sick men up, I would need but small reinforcements to 
 enable me to take Richmond." m Unfortunately, " ifs " 
 capture no citadels. So we presently find McClellan tele- 
 graphing to the President, as of old, "It appears mani- 
 festly to be our policy to concentrate here everything we 
 can possibly spare from less important points," 123 etc., etc. 
 And thus his dreary nagging continued to the end of the 
 story ; but we look in vain, at about this juncture, for 
 more of Lincoln's soothing answers. That they ceased 
 after his return from Harrison's Landing is significant. 
 
 During this visit, brief as it was, the President had 
 learned several things besides the real size of the army. 
 Not the least of these was the size of McClellan's self- 
 esteem. That officer, several weeks before, while in the 
 midst of the Peninsular campaign, when every thought 
 should have been fixed on the task before him, had tele- 
 graphed to Mr. Lincoln for permission to submit his 
 " views as to the present state of military affairs through- 
 out the whole country," requesting, at the same time, 
 detailed information about the troops not under his 
 orders. 124 The President had replied :
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 397 
 
 "If it would not divert too much of your time and 
 attention from the army under your immediate command, 
 I would be glad to have your views as to the present 
 state of military affairs throughout the whole country, as 
 you say you would be glad to give them. I would rather 
 it should be by letter than by telegraph, because of the 
 better chance of secrecy. As to the numbers and positions 
 of the troops not under your command in Virginia and 
 elsewhere, even if I could do it with accuracy, which I 
 cannot, I would rather not transmit either by telegraph or 
 letter, because of the chances of its reaching the enemy. 
 I would be very glad to talk with you, but you cannot 
 leave your camp, and I cannot well leave here." 125 
 
 The reproof was too delicately hinted. McClellan de- 
 ferred the execution of his purpose, but he did not give 
 it up. As soon as Mr. Lincoln arrived at Harrison's 
 Landing, the General hastened on board the steamer to 
 receive him. When they had been together in the cabin 
 for a short time, McClellan handed the President a letter. 
 Having read it through, Lincoln, with some such expres- 
 sion as " All right," put the document into his pocket, and 
 made no reference to it during the rest of his visit. 
 
 This, reticence is not to be wondered at. In that letter 
 a defeated commander tried to impose upon his President 
 an entire system of civil, as well as military, doctrine. 
 Assuming, after the manner of Mr. Seward, in a no less 
 remarkable communication, that Lincoln lacked a policy, 
 McClellan undertook to supply him with one, "cover- 
 ing the whole ground of our national trouble." A large 
 contract, to be sure, for a soldier whose strategy had just 
 ended in a pitiable failure, and whose neglect of things po- 
 litical, all his life, had usually kept him from performing 
 even the simplest duties of citizenship. Yet McClellan 
 seems to have appreciated, at least, the rhetorical demands 
 of the situation. His letter is a marvel. The exordium 
 solemnly pleads the privilege of speaking freely, because 
 the army under him might be overwhelmed, any moment,
 
 398 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 by the enemy in its front, though that enemy let us 
 whisper was, at this very time, turning back to Rich- 
 mond. Wherefore his conclusion, as artfully calculated 
 to disarm criticism, also becomes a mere flourish of lan- 
 guage. "I may be on the brink of eternity," it reads, 
 " and as I hope for forgiveness from my Maker, I have 
 written this letter with sincerity towards you, and from 
 love for my country." The body of the lecture for that 
 in fact it is tells the President what he must do to 
 save the Union ; while a sweeping criticism of what he 
 has done is written large between the lines. After adjur- 
 ing Lincoln never to abandon the fight, McClellan says, 
 " Let neither military disaster, political faction, nor for- 
 eign war shake your settled purpose to enforce the equal 
 operation of the laws of the United States upon the people 
 of every State." Advising against the subjugation of the 
 southern people, he urges that there " should not be at 
 all a war upon population, but against armed forces and 
 political organizations. Neither confiscation of property, 
 political executions of persons, territorial organization of 
 States, or forcible abolition of slavery should be contem- 
 plated for a moment." Then the President is admonished 
 that " military arrests should not be tolerated, except in 
 places where active hostilities exist ; and oaths not re- 
 quired by enactments constitutionally made should 
 be neither demanded nor received." Here follow some 
 confused suggestions favoring compensated emancipation 
 of slaves, in certain States, " upon grounds of military 
 necessity," tacked to the stipulation that " military power 
 should not be allowed to interfere with the relations of 
 servitude." Unless these principles are made known, he 
 adds, ' the effort to obtain requisite forces will be almost 
 hopeless." But " a declaration of radical views, especially 
 upon slavery," warns the oracle, ''will rapidly disintegrate 
 our present armies." His final piece of advice, still strik- 
 ingly reminiscent of the Seward memorandum, reads: 
 " In carrying out any system of policy which you may
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 399 
 
 form, you will require a comraander-in-chief of the army, 
 one who possesses your confidence, understands your 
 views, and who is competent to execute your orders by 
 directing the military forces of the nation to the accom- 
 plishment of the objects by you proposed. I do not ask 
 that place for myself. I am willing to serve you in such 
 position as you may assign me, and I will do so as faith- 
 fully as ever subordinate served superior." 128 
 
 Had Julius Caesar refused the kingly crown by mail, 
 he would have employed, perhaps, some such phraseology. 
 
 The Harrison's Landing letter was broader in scope, 
 to raise a parliamentary objection, than the petition on 
 which it rested so much broader, in fact, as to be out 
 of order. Such an utterance from a victorious general 
 would have been inept, from a defeated one it was imper- 
 tinent. " You know," McClellan once wrote to his wife, 
 " that I have a way of attending to most other things than 
 my own affairs," and the avowal applies here with par- 
 ticular force. An adept in military lore, he must have 
 recognized, if any one did, how improper it was for a gen- 
 eral in the field to meddle with purely political questions. 
 Yet he plunged into the mazes of this forbidden domain, 
 foreign alike to his office and his experience, under the 
 honest delusion, apparently, that Lincoln needed his guid- 
 ance there. " I have written a strong, frank letter to the 
 President," McClellan informs the lady at home. " If he 
 acts upon it, the country will be saved." ^ But the silence 
 with which Mr. Lincoln received his lesson kept the Gen- 
 eral guessing. " I do not know," he wrote her, after the 
 President's departure, " to what extent he has profited by 
 his visit; not much, I fear. I will enqlose with this a 
 copy of a letter I handed him, which I would be glad to 
 have you preserve carefully as a very important record." 128 
 This anxiety about his " record," by the way, cropped out 
 so often with McClellan as to give one the impression of a 
 man who was building up a case. Indeed, however deeply 
 he might have been engrossed in saving the country, he
 
 400 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 never failed to save the evidence by which he expected, 
 some day, to prove how hard the administration had made 
 the task for him ; and of the documents so cherished the 
 most important, beyond a question, was this Harrison's 
 Landing letter. Under the form of advising the Presi- 
 dent, it condemned, with peculiar emphasis, his attitude 
 toward the war; while the whole spirit of the production, 
 as we shall see, made its author, later, when it became 
 public property, the logical standard-bearer of those vari- 
 ous discontented elements which fused for the purpose of 
 defeating Lincoln's reelection. There is no good reason, 
 however, to doubt the sincerity of the letter. It appears 
 to have correctly expressed McClellan's ultra-conservative 
 views. Nor are we disposed to dispute the claim of his 
 editor that it was composed without the aid of the poli- 
 ticians. 129 But how about their influence in the matter? 
 The friendly overtures of prominent Democrats, on the 
 one hand, and the hostility of Radical Republicans, on 
 the other, must have given McClellan's mind a distinctly 
 political bias. If he did not openly respond to proffers 
 of party leadership, he felt called upon, apparently, to 
 declare himself concerning party questions, in a form 
 available for future reference. At all events, the writing 
 of the famous letter when his military fortunes were on 
 the ebb looks decidedly, whatever else may be said on the 
 subject, like the proceeding which a certain astute politi- 
 cian of later distinction described in a memorable phrase, 
 as casting an anchor to windward. 
 
 Of course the President took no public notice of the sin- 
 gular document which he brought home in his pocket. So 
 far was he from heeding the General's solemn warnings 
 threats, some writers have called them that, within 
 eight days after his return, Mr. Lincoln had determined 
 upon emancipation, and had signed the drastic Confisca- 
 tion Act. 130 In one particular, however, he seemingly 
 adopted McClellan's counsel. The four months that had 
 elapsed since the Chief Executive and his war minister
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 401 
 
 undertook to handle the armies in the field, without a mili- 
 tary expert in supreme command, had left the President, 
 at least, in no doubt as to the unwisdom of the step. For 
 some weeks he had contemplated the selection of ageneral- 
 in-chief, and almost immediately after the historic lesson 
 at Harrison's Landing, he decided upon the man ; but to 
 his mentor's chagrin, the appointment read, " Henry W. 
 Halleck," not " George B. McClellan." 131 How deep this 
 cut may be inferred from one of the little private notes 
 to Mrs. McClellan. " You ask me," it ran, " whether I 
 advised the President to appoint Halleck. The letter of 
 which I sent you a copy is all that ever passed on the 
 subject, either directly or indirectly ; not another word 
 than is there written. We never conversed on the subject. 
 I was never informed of his views or intentions, and even 
 now have not been officially informed of the appointment. 
 I only know it through the newspapers. In all these 
 things the President and those around him have acted so 
 as to make the matter as offensive as possible." 132 Hardly 
 less agreeable was one of the new Chief's earliest duties. 
 On the day after his arrival at Washington, 133 Mr. Lin- 
 coln hurried him to the camp on the Peninsula, in order 
 that he might determine, by personal observation, what 
 was best to be done with the Army of the Potomac. 
 
 Halleck found McClellan eager for a new campaign 
 against Richmond, along the line of the river on which 
 the column rested. There, according to its commander, 
 and later events corroborated him, "the fate of the 
 Union should be decided." With all the facts before us, 
 we now realize that McClellan's plan was correct. But 
 who could have guessed it from his faulty data ? For the 
 evil genius of miscalculation, which had pursued him from 
 the beginning, still bedeviled his counsels. He told the 
 General-in-Chief that the force opposed to him outnum- 
 bered the Army of the Potomac .by over 100,000 men. 
 The figures were out of all reason. This imaginary pre- 
 ponderance of gray-coats might perhaps be accounted for,
 
 402 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 in a way, by the vapors rising above the Chickahominy 
 swamps. The squadrons of spectral troopers, that from 
 time to time sweep over the Scotch moors, are no less real 
 than were those 100,000 Confederates. As a matter of fact, 
 the advantage lay on the northern side by some 12,800 
 men. 134 This Halleck, of course, did not know. He had to 
 decide, by the light of the figures laid before him, whether 
 such additional troops 20,000 in all as the President 
 had authorized him to promise, would constitute a suf- 
 ficient reenforcement. If this increase, so ran Mr. Lin- 
 coln's instructions, enabled McClellan to operate against 
 Richmond with a strong probability of success, the Penin- 
 sular campaign was to be renewed ; if not, the army was 
 to be withdrawn, and united with General John Pope's 
 recently formed command, in front of Washington. 135 
 Anxious as McClellan was to go forward, he would not 
 say that the chances, even when improved by those 20,000 
 men, were in his favor. He declared himself " willing to 
 try it," but dwelling upon the imaginary odds, on the op- 
 posing side, he pleaded for heavier reinforcements. These 
 Halleck could not give. And what he learned from the 
 other officers, whom he consulted at Harrison's Landing, 
 hardly improved the outlook ; for they were about evenly 
 divided in their opinions as to whether the army should 
 advance or retreat. Under these circumstances, it is not 
 to be wondered at that the General-in-Chief, upon his 
 return to Washington, added his voice to the counsels 
 of the powerful group soldiers, cabinet ministers, and 
 representatives, who were urging the President to recall 
 McClellan. That officer now lost the last vestige of his 
 influence with Mr. Lincoln, and the President no longer 
 hesitated to give the fateful order. 
 
 McClellan's instructions to return from the Peninsula 
 caused him, as he said, " the greatest pain " he had " ever 
 experienced." The bitterness of his mortification at this 
 inglorious finish to the campaign was heightened not a 
 little by a sincere belief that the contemplated movement
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 403 
 
 would be a blunder. He protested against the retreat 
 iu a despatch which has been deservedly praised. Still, 
 Halleck's reply, it must be said, seemed equally cogent ; 
 and what was more to the purpose, it directed his subor- 
 dinate to obey orders, " with all possible promptness." 136 
 Whether McClellan did so or not is one of the doubtful 
 questions which have grown out of his much debated 
 doings. It took him somewhat over three weeks to re- 
 move the troops with their material from the James to 
 the Potomac. " Gross mismanagement," said one contem- 
 porary critic in the Army of the Potomac. " No human 
 power could prevent delays in such a delicate operation," 
 said another. 137 Wide as this difference of opinion was, it 
 still divides historians of the Peninsular campaign; but 
 happily there is no need of rehearsing the whole stale 
 controversy here. He would be a wise man, moreover, 
 who could, with the information now available, determine 
 just what degree of blame attaches to the General com- 
 manding. That he appeared culpably slow, at the time, 
 to Halleck and the administration, is not surprising. In 
 their feverish anxiety to reenforce Pope, against whom 
 the enemy was massing, they doubtless expected too 
 much of McClellan ; while he, eating his heart out with 
 disappointment, failed to respond in that spirit of single- 
 minded obedience to which they were clearly entitled. 
 Halleck showered him with telegraphic appeals to hasten. 
 He invariably answered, in effect, that the movement was 
 progressing with all reasonable despatch, but he contin- 
 ued his protests. " It is not possible," declared a typical 
 message, " for any one to place this army where you wish 
 it, ready to move, in less than a month. If Washington 
 is in danger now, this army can scarcely arrive in time to 
 save it. It is in much better position to do so from here 
 than from Acquia." 138 Once, indeed, he came dangerously 
 near to expressing these protests in action. Just a week 
 after the order to withdraw, a letter meant for the eyes of 
 his wife told a singular story.
 
 4 o 4 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 " I hope to be ready to-morrow afternoon," it ran, "to 
 move forward in the direction of Richmond. I will try 
 to catch or thrash Longstreet, and then, if the chance 
 offers, follow into Richmond while they are lamming away 
 at Pope. It is in some respects a desperate step, but it 
 is the best I can do for the nation just now ; and I would 
 rather even be defeated than retreat without an effort to 
 relieve Washington in the only way at all possible. . . . 
 I half apprehend that they will be too quick for me in 
 Washington, and relieve me before I have the chance of 
 making the dash. If so, well and good. I am satisfied 
 that the dolts in Washington are bent on my destruction, 
 if it is possible for them to accomplish it." A postscript 
 to this letter added : 
 
 "I received a very harsh and unjust telegram from 
 Halleck this morning. . . . Under the circumstances I 
 feel compelled to give up the idea of my intended attack 
 upon Richmond, and must retrace my steps." 139 
 
 The fate of eminent commanders who have disobeyed 
 under somewhat similar circumstances may have come to 
 the fore in McClellan's well-stocked recollections of mili- 
 tary history ; or the despatch, which had so nettled him, 
 may have brought the General to his senses. It read : 
 
 " The enemy is crossing the Rapidan in large force. 
 They are fighting General Pope to-day; there must be 
 no further delay in your movements. That which has 
 already occurred was entirely unexpected and must be 
 satisfactorily explained. Let not a moment's time be lost, 
 and telegraph me daily what progress you have made in 
 executing the order to transfer your troops." 14 
 
 Though McClellan complied, he answered sharply 
 enough. For, by this time, Halleck, and Pope as well, 
 had been relegated to his black book. They were in 
 accord with Lincoln and Stanton. That if there had 
 been no other reasons was enough to render them con- 
 temptible, in his eyes. He took no pains, moreover, to 
 hide the feeling ; while his private correspondence evinces
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 405 
 
 how strained relations had become between the adminis- 
 tration and the captain of its principal army. If MeClel- 
 lan moved, as he claimed, "with the utmost rapidity 
 possible," appearances certainly failed to do him justice. 
 So far, indeed, had they gone against him, during these 
 weeks of suspense and recrimination, that when at last he 
 got his troops back to the Potomac, he was, as far as his 
 superiors were concerned, the most discredited officer in 
 the whole command. 
 
 McClellan's removal now seemed inevitable. But who 
 should succeed him ? To this question the President gave 
 prayerful consideration, for upon its answer might hinge 
 the fate of the Union. He looked about him, as indeed he 
 had been looking many anxious weeks, to find some sign 
 of the coming man. His quest was thus far, however, 
 in vain. " A great captain," said one of the old drama- 
 tists, " is the chiefest gift of Providence to a nation." He 
 might have added, " and the rarest." At all events, the 
 Lord seemed to have withheld his bounty in this direction 
 from the people of the North. Two prominent Generals, 
 Ambrose E. Burnside, McClellan's intimate friend, and 
 Ethan Allen Hitchcock, a talented soldier on duty at the 
 War Department, are known to have in turn declined the 
 command. Both of them shrank from a post which they 
 deemed, not without reason, beyond their powers ; and 
 the field-marshal's batons still lay unrevealed in the camp- 
 chests of the few officers who really were equal to the 
 task. Until one of these great captains could be distin- 
 guished from among a host of epauleted heroes, Lincoln 
 did not see his way clear to McClellan's retirement. It 
 was when the matter presented this aspect, no doubt, that 
 Halleck promised the General command of all the forces 
 in Virginia, as soon as they should become united. 141 At 
 the same time, McClellan's opponents, eager to get rid of 
 him at any price, proclaimed Pope the rising sun of the 
 army's hope ; and urged the President to appoint their 
 latest favorite to McClellan's place. This Mr. Lincoln
 
 4 o6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 would gladly have done, but the new-comer, though he 
 had given a good account of himself in a limited western 
 field, had still to prove his mettle on the larger theater 
 of Virginian operations. So the President determined to 
 test Pope before letting go of McClellan ; and the man- 
 ner in which he set about this delicate proceeding was 
 peculiarly Lincolnian. McClellan should not be removed 
 from the Army of the Potomac, but the Army of the Po- 
 tomac should be removed from him. It was to be merged, 
 part by part, into the Army of Virginia, so that Pope 
 might fight the impending campaign before Washington, 
 at the head of the combined forces. If the new man won, 
 the problem of commanders would be solved ; if he lost, 
 the old chief would still be available. 
 
 This explains the anomalous situation in which McClel- 
 lan found himself, at Alexandria, during the closing days 
 of August. He had reminded Halleck, as soon as he 
 reached the Potomac, of that promise to place all the 
 troops under his orders ; but Halleck was too busy, per- 
 haps, to answer. Then he begged the President, as well 
 as the General-in-Chief, to have his status at least defined. 
 "Tell me what you wish me to do," pleaded the despatch 
 to Lincoln, " and I will do all in my power to accomplish 
 it. I wish to know what my orders and authority are. I 
 ask for nothing, but will obey whatever orders you give." 142 
 In the President's brief answer this important question 
 was again ignored. It received no more attention, in fact, 
 than was vouchsafed to a request, which McClellan had 
 previously made, that "a handsome order" issue from 
 Washington, thanking the Army of the Potomac for its 
 services on the Peninsula. Lincoln was obviously in no 
 mood for tossing bouquets at McClellan. The President's 
 sole concern with the "Young Napoleon," at this time, 
 must have been to get his troops away from him in season 
 to reenforce Pope, whose second Bull Run campaign now 
 rapidly developed. Corps after corps was detached from 
 McClellan, amidst a cross-fire of impatient telegrams,
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 407 
 
 until, as he pathetically reported, every fighting man to 
 the very guard around his camp had gone. 143 Then at 
 last came the answer to those repeated requests for offi- 
 cial light on the eclipsed commander's position. "Gen- 
 eral McClellan," proclaimed an order from the War 
 Department, " commands that portion of the Army of 
 the Potomac that has not been sent forward to General 
 Pope's command." 144 This piece of seeming irony, in 
 which, however, we discern rather the sober operation of 
 Mr. Lincoln's plan, added not a little to McClellan 's 
 discomfiture. A spectacle for gods and men, the chief 
 so lately of a hundred thousand veterans sat idle in his 
 tent, stripped of all but a fleeting shadow of his splendid 
 authority. Declining to issue a countersign for this 
 mockery of an army, he bore himself with what dig- 
 nity his trying situation admitted of, until the cannon- 
 ading in a far-away battle echoed through the deserted 
 camp. Only a soldier can fathom the depths to which 
 that noise stirred McClellan. He telegraphed to Hal- 
 leek : 
 
 " I cannot express to you the pain and mortification I 
 have experienced to-day in listening to the distant sound 
 of the firing of my men. As I can be of no further use 
 here, I respectfully ask that, if there is a probability of 
 the conflict being renewed to-morrow, I may be permitted 
 to go to the scene of battle with my staff, merely to be 
 with my own men, if nothing more ; they will fight none 
 the worse for my being with them. If it is not deemed 
 best to entrust me with the command even of my own 
 army, I simply ask to be permitted to share their f;ite on 
 the field of battle. Please reply to this to-night." 145 
 
 On the following day the General-in-Chief responded : 
 
 " I cannot answer without seeing the President, as 
 General Pope is in command, by his orders, of the 
 department." 146 
 
 McClellan's humiliation was complete. He realized, we 
 venture to say, as nearly as any nineteenth century leader
 
 408 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 could realize, how King Saul felt on awaking to find the 
 skirt of his robe cut off. 
 
 What especially chagrined McClellan was the destina- 
 tion of his troops. It must, indeed, have seemed hard that 
 the army, which his skilful and loving care had brought 
 to a high degree of effectiveness, should be marched away 
 from him to swell the forces of an obnoxious rival. For 
 in this light he regarded Pope. That officer had assumed 
 command with a flourish of trumpets and a rattle of innu- 
 endoes, at which the whole Army of the Potomac, from 
 Major-Gene ral McClellan down to Private John Doe, 
 took grave offence. 147 If, therefore, any lack of enthu- 
 siasm marked their manner of supporting him, it is not 
 surprising. Articles of War may impose obedience upon 
 a soldier, to the last ditch ; but the clause which shall 
 compel his affection for a commander has still to be de- 
 vised. That is, of course, the commander's lookout ; and 
 Pope, vigorous, gallant captain though he was, had tact- 
 lessly cut himself off from reaching the hearts of these 
 men. They had no confidence in him from the begin- 
 ning. Their opinion was probably summed up by Mc- 
 Clellan when he wrote in one of his private letters : 
 
 " I see that the Pope bubble is likely to be suddenly 
 collapsed. Stonewall Jackson is after him, and the young 
 man who wanted to teach me the art of war will, in less 
 than a week, either be in full retreat or badly whipped." 148 
 
 Believing that "Mr. Pope," as he sometimes called 
 him, would inevitably be repulsed, McClellan, with a view 
 to protecting the Capital, had not forwarded his troops 
 from Alexandria as promptly as Halleck's urgent de- 
 spatches required. Part of the delay, to be sure, was 
 due to inadequate means of transportation, and ill-will 
 towards Pope in not an entirely negligible quantity; 
 but the idea of a reserve for the defence of Washington 
 appears to have finally determined McClellan's course. 
 After a lively interchange of messages, he had appealed 
 from the General-in-Chief to the President. This was
 
 409 
 
 rank insubordination. Franklin's corps was kept marking 
 time, halfway on the road, and Pope was actually fight- 
 ing the Second Battle of Bull Run, when McClellan tele- 
 graphed to Lincoln : 
 
 " I am clear that one of two courses should be adopted : 
 first, to concentrate all our available forces to open 
 communication with Pope ; second, to leave Pope to get 
 out of his scrape, and at once use all our means to make 
 the Capital perfectly safe. No middle course will now 
 answer." 149 
 
 The President immediately confirmed Halleck's order, 150 
 and McClellan obeyed ; but obedience came too late. By 
 the time Franklin reached the scene of action, Pope, 
 severely defeated, was in retreat. 
 
 McClellan's phrase, "leave Pope to get out of his 
 scrape," was unfortunate. It appeared to confirm the 
 charges of treachery in the Army of the Potomac, that 
 were now showered upon the President. According to 
 these charges, McClellan's apathy in withdrawing from 
 the Peninsula had been duplicated at Alexandria ; he had 
 diverted most of his troops from Pope, while those who 
 did reach that officer gave him half-hearted service ; the 
 rank and file were demoralized by factious sympathy for 
 " Little Mac " ; his favorite lieutenants had dishonorably 
 failed the new commander, on the battle-field, and so forth, 
 through the whole catalogue of disloyalty. As many of 
 the stories came to Lincoln from Stanton, Halleck, or 
 Pope, they lost nothing in the telling. It is not strange, 
 therefore, that at last he too thought ill if not indeed 
 the worst of McClellan's conduct. " He has acted badly 
 towards Pope," said the President sadly, on the last day 
 of Second Bull Run ; " he really wanted him to fail." ' 51 
 So impressed, in fact, was Mr. Lincoln with these reports 
 of disaffection, that when McClellan, at Halleck's call, 
 presented himself in Washington, shortly after the battle, 
 nothing would content the President but a despatch from 
 the General to his friends in the Army of the Potomac,
 
 4 io LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 asking them to give Pope their cordial support. Precisely 
 to what extent McClellan, McClellan's officers, or Mc- 
 Clellan's troops were remiss will probably never be known. 
 Out of their relation to this disastrous campaign grew the 
 most stubbornly contested military quarrel left over from 
 the war. Forty years of controversy have not brought the 
 discussion down to the final word, but they have sufficed 
 to work a reversal of our harshest judgments. Time, 
 passing soothing fingers over partisan animosities, leaves 
 us clear-eyed to see that McCleUan, Porter, Griffin, and 
 the rest were guiltless whatever may have been their 
 shortcomings of the most serious charges laid at their 
 door. Nevertheless, during the closing days of August, in 
 the battle summer of 1862, every circumstance seemed to 
 condemn them ; and not a few of the leading men in 
 Washington shared Pope's opinion that " the greatest 
 criminal " of all was McClellan. 
 
 How far some members of the cabinet carried their in- 
 dignation was detailed in a previous chapter. We have 
 seen how they sought to bring about McClellan's dismissal 
 in disgrace from the army ; how fierce became the demand, 
 in certain other quarters, for his punishment, and how 
 signally all these efforts failed. Those who wanted to 
 crush him had still to reckon with Lincoln. That the 
 President would stand in their way seemed inexplicable. 
 Why should he interpose to save a general who had flouted 
 him, whose unsoldierly conduct had, to all appearances, 
 sacrificed a campaign, whose failures had embarrassed 
 the administration, and whose successes, if he achieved 
 any, might menace its very existence, at the polls? To 
 cashier McClellan, then, out of hand, would doubtless 
 have placed him under a cloud from which he could hardly 
 have emerged in time to trouble Lincoln's political peace 
 of mind. But the President, shrewd tactician though he 
 was, did not fight that wav. In the crisis produced by the 
 disaster at Manassas, his thoughts were neither of revenge, 
 of discipline, nor yet of personal ambition. Towering
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 411 
 
 gaunt and hollow-eyed above the little-big men who clam- 
 ored around him, he saw through the fog of their intrigues 
 and recriminations the one thing needful to be done at 
 once. As soon as the retreating army reached the defences 
 of Washington, it would have to be faced about to protect 
 the Capital against the victorious Confederates. Who, 
 Lincoln asked himself, was to rally the dispirited and, in 
 fact, disorganized troops, Halleck ? The General-in- 
 Chief had recently shirked lesser responsibilities ; and 
 when the news of Pope's overthrow reached headquarters, 
 he had, in a condition bordering on collapse, summoned 
 McClellan to his aid. 152 No, Halleck was clearly not the 
 man. Pope? The trumpet upon which he had sounded 
 the advance so stridently, as he rode to the war, must have 
 been lost in the melee ; for he was returning without it. 
 The despondent tone of certain official despatches, as he 
 approached Washington, 153 to say nothing of his increased 
 unpopularity with the army, put him as plainly out of the 
 question. From that army, itself, the President received 
 his answer. Most of the officers and men who had been 
 on the Peninsula called for their old commander. They 
 trusted, indeed loved him with a devotion such as has 
 been lavished upon few generals. Caesar, Turenne, Conde, 
 Napier, Napoleon all swayed the affections of their 
 armies amidst inspiring victories ; McClellan had won 
 the hearts of his soldiers without great triumph*, and, 
 remarkable to relate, he held their confidence in spite of 
 severe reverses. When to this is added that he had, thus 
 far, shown himself to be the most capable organizer and 
 best defensive officer on the Union side, we see the wis- 
 dom of what followed. Mr. Lincoln, brushing aside his 
 advisers, without even telling them his purpose, deter- 
 mined upon McClellan's reinstatement. 
 
 Early on the morning of September 2, the President, 
 accompanied by Halleck, went to McClellan's house, and 
 asked him to take command of all the returning troops, 
 for the defence of Washington. 154 The General promptly
 
 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 assented. His courteous behavior during the interview 
 made it none the less trying to Mr. Lincoln, who, we re- 
 member, had but a few days before subjected McClellan 
 to a " sort of snubbing," as the President phrased it, with 
 a view to his dismissal as soon as a new general could be 
 found to take his place. It was somewhat humiliating, 
 therefore, to call upon him now for help. At the same 
 time, Lincoln, with unique foresight, had kept McClellan 
 in a position from which he might be recalled to the 
 command as easily as he had been deprived of it ; while 
 the President's bearing toward him, through all these 
 vexations, had rarely been otherwise than cordial, So the 
 General met his visitors fully halfway, and immediately 
 on their departure, entered upon his new duties, with all 
 the enthusiasm of which he was capable. 
 
 The restoration of McClellan was, as far as Lincoln's 
 civil supporters were concerned, the most unpopular act 
 of his administration. It aroused a storm of disapproval 
 that would have shaken a less masterful man, but the 
 President stood firm. The fiercest opposition, as we have 
 seen, was in his own political family ; and the turbulent 
 cabinet meeting which followed the appointment has 
 been fully described elsewhere. What Lincoln said to his 
 excited ministers, therefore, need not be repeated here. 
 He, himself, summarized it later, in these two pithy sen- 
 tences : 
 
 " There is no one in the army who can man these forti- 
 fications and lick these troops of ours into shape half as 
 well as he can." " We must use the tools we have ; if he 
 cannot fight, himself, he excels in making others ready 
 to fight." 
 
 Such reasoning was unassailable, and McClellan's harsh- 
 est ministerial critics bowed to the President's will. When 
 that meeting adjourned, Mr. Lincoln had not only averted 
 a cabinet crisis, but he had, at the same time, strength- 
 ened his executive authority over all its members. How 
 different this was from his military relations, the Presi
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 413 
 
 dent realized keenly. Discussing his surrender of Sep- 
 tember 2, after the event, he confided to a friend that the 
 restoration of McClellan was the most painful duty of his 
 official life. " There has been," he said to another, " a 
 design, a purpose in breaking down Pope, without regard 
 to the consequences to the country, that is atrocious. It 
 is shocking to see and know this, but there is no remedy 
 at present. McClellan has the army with him." Pointing 
 out, moreover, in these private talks, how the General's 
 incessant faultfinding had impaired the confidence of the 
 troops in the administration, and how culpably that officer 
 had contributed, generally speaking, to the demoraliza- 
 tion which he was now counted upon to correct, Lincoln 
 conceded that his course in recalling McClellan was a 
 good deal like "curing the bite with the hair of the dog." 
 Yet during this brief period of panic, not to say insub- 
 ordination, the civil power, as the President explained, 
 seemed under military subjection ; and Commander-in- 
 Chief though he was, he could find no way out but that of 
 placing the factious commander again in the saddle. 158 
 
 The rapidity with which McClellan restored the morale 
 of his now delighted troops amply justified Lincoln's 
 course. It was not the President's purpose, however, to 
 entrust him with another campaign ; and the command 
 in the field was again offered to Burnside. That pheno- 
 menally modest officer declined the offer as before. De- 
 claring himself incompetent to lead so large a force, he 
 warmly repeated his opinion that McClellan " could com- 
 mand the Army of the Potomac better than any other 
 general in it." The question was still unsettled when news 
 came that Lee purposed crossing the Upper Potomac into 
 Maryland. To oppose him, Lincoln ordered an immediate 
 advance and, under the pressure of events, committed the 
 movement what alternative had he? to McClellan. 
 " Again I have been called upon to save the country," 
 wrote the General, in his grandiose style. " The case is 
 desperate, but with God's help I will try unselfishly to
 
 4 i4 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 do my best, and, if He wills it, accomplish the salvation 
 of the nation." 157 As McClellan departed for the front, 
 however, he disclosed a change of heart in one respect, 
 at least. " The feeling of the government towards me," 
 reads a farewell telegram to his wife, " I am sure, is kind 
 and trusting. I hope, with God's blessing, to justify the 
 great confidence they now repose in me, and will bury the 
 past in oblivion." 158 His brief sojourn on the mourners' 
 bench had evidently been not without its chastening effect ; 
 but this submissive mood, as we shall see, wore off all too 
 quickly. 
 
 No sooner was McClellan well into the Maryland cam- 
 paign than his old quarrel with the administration broke 
 out afresh. He won the battles of South Mountain and 
 A ntietam, to his great credit be it said, with the men who, 
 less than three weeks before, had fled in defeat from the 
 very army which now gave way before them ; but his ex- 
 cessive caution held him back from vigorously following 
 up an advantage that, in the grasp of a more intrepid 
 general, might have led to the total overthrow of the Con- 
 federate host. When he telegraphed, therefore, to Wash- 
 ington that Lee had been driven back over the Potomac 
 into Virginia, the President's joy was flecked with disap- 
 pointment. For Mr. Lincoln, in the hope of a decisive 
 campaign at last, had recently urged McClellan not to let 
 the enemy " get off without being hurt " ; 159 and his con- 
 gratulatory despatch after South Mountain had closed 
 with the entreaty, " Destroy the rebel army if possible." ieo 
 That it was possible, even the General's military eulogists 
 for the most part concede. In fact, the Confederates were 
 several days later so badly shattered at Antietam, that it 
 needed but a single well-directed blow, within the follow- 
 ing twenty-four hours, to crush them. 161 Yet McClellan 
 turned what should have been an overwhelming victory 
 into almost a drawn battle. Commanding three men to 
 Lee's two, he fatally overrated, as of old, his opponent's 
 strength, and allowed the adroit Southerner to escape, over
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 415 
 
 "a very deep and difficult ford," 16S without further damage. 
 Important as was McClellan's service to the Union in 
 heading off this invasion of the Northern States, his failure 
 to reap the full fruits of victory aroused indignant criti- 
 cism throughout the country. On every hand, men count- 
 ing the cost declared Antietam to have been the bloodiest 
 day of the war ; and aghast at its slaughter, they severely 
 blamed the Federal commander because what he did fell 
 so far short of what he might have done. 
 
 Those who desired McClellan's removal now besieged 
 the President with all their old-time vigor. Lincoln gave 
 them scant encouragement ; yet how closely he kept his 
 accounts with the General checked up may be gathered 
 from a few remarks made by him to one of the political 
 friends who urged that officer's dismissal. 
 
 " I am now," said he, " stronger with the Army of the 
 Potomac than McClellan. The supremacy of the civil 
 power has been restored, and the Executive is again mas- 
 ter of the situation. The troops know that if I made a 
 mistake in substituting Pope for McClellan, I was capable 
 of rectifying it by again trusting him. They know, too, 
 that neither Stanton nor I withheld anything from him 
 at Antietam, and that it was not the administration, but 
 their own former idol, who surrendered the just results 
 of their terrible sacrifices and closed the great fight as a 
 drawn battle, when had he thrown Porter's corps of fresh 
 men and other available troops upon Lee's army, he 
 would inevitably have driven it in disorder to the river 
 and captured most of it before sunset." 183 
 
 McClellan, it goes without saying, gave abundant rea- 
 sons for not seizing this golden opportunity. His troops, 
 we are told, were "overcome by fatigue," provisions, 
 forage, and ammunition had to be distributed, certain 
 divisions were " somewhat demoralized," reinforcements 
 were expected, there was no " absolute assurance of suc- 
 cess," and so on. Yet all this fails to explain why his 
 victorious force, in much better condition than the pitia-
 
 4 i 6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 bly ragged, half -starved army which it had just defeated, 
 could not pursue where Lee's war-worn soldiers fled. As 
 a matter of fact, fortune favored the Union arms, at this 
 juncture, in every respect but one that of generalship. 
 McClellan insisted upon the necessity of reorganizing and 
 resting the army before advancing. His demands, more- 
 over, for fresh troops, equipments, supplies, and what not, 
 were painfully reminiscent of the delays that had brought 
 his previous campaign to naught. The impatience of the 
 government began to show itself again in the despatches 
 from headquarters, to which McClellan responded with 
 something of his former asperity. Consoling himself, 
 meanwhile, in familiar letters, as of old, he wrote home : 
 
 " I am tired of fighting against such disadvantages, 
 and feel that it is now time for the country to come to my 
 help and remove these difficulties from my path. If my 
 country men will not open their eyes and assist themselves, 
 they must pardon me if I decline longer to pursue the 
 thankless avocation of serving them. ... I feel that I 
 have done all that can be asked in twice saving the 
 country. If I continue in its service, I have at least the 
 right to demand a guarantee that I shall not be inter- 
 fered with. I know I cannot have that assurance so long 
 as Stan ton continues in the position of Secretary of War 
 and Halleck as General-in-Chief." 164 
 
 Yet the writer's persistent inaction after Antietain 
 rendered interference of some sort from Washington im- 
 perative. So, at all events, thought the President, as he 
 presented himself in McClellan's camp on October 1, a 
 fortnight from the day of the battle, to find out for him- 
 self where the trouble lay. 
 
 During this visit, which lasted three days, the General 
 found ample opportunity to defend his course. He flat- 
 tered himself that Lincoln affable as ever became 
 " fully satisfied " with what had been done. The Presi- 
 dent "more than once assured me," says McClellan, " that 
 he was fully satisfied with my whole course from the be-
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 417 
 
 ginning ; that the only fault he could possibly find was 
 that I was perhaps too prone to be sure that everything 
 was ready before acting, but that my actions were all 
 right when I started." 165 But an anecdote related by one 
 of the presidential party throws rather a different light 
 upon the situation. Early on the morning of their second 
 day in camp, Lincoln took a stroll with his friend, the 
 Hon. O. M. Hatch of Illinois. As they stood upon the 
 summit of a near-by hill, and looked down over the city 
 of white tents, among which the men were beginning their 
 daily duties, the President, waving his hand toward the 
 scene, said in a low, earnest voice : 
 
 " Hatch, Hatch, what is all this ? " 
 
 " Why, Mr. Lincoln," answered his companion, " this 
 is the Army of the Potomac." 
 
 The President hesitated a moment, and then said in a 
 louder tone : 
 
 "No, Hatch, no. This is General McClellan's body- 
 guard." m 
 
 How far Mr. Lincoln was from being satisfied may be 
 still further inferred from one of his first military orders 
 after returning to Washington. " The President directs," 
 telegraphed Halleck on October 6, "that you cross the 
 Potomac and give battle to the enemy, or drive him south. 
 Your army must move now, while the roads are good." 167 
 On the following day, to emphasize the urgency of imme- 
 diate action, the General-in-Chief wrote : 
 
 *' The country is becoming very impatient at the want 
 of activity of your army, and we must push it on. I am 
 satisfied that the enemy are falling back toward Rich- 
 mond. We must follow them and seek to punish them. 
 There is a decided want of legs in our troops. They 
 have too much immobility, and we must try to remedy 
 the defect." m Still McClellan did not move. It was 
 partly to find out why, that the Confederate General, 
 "Jeb" Stuart, crossed the Potomac, with a division of 
 cavalry, a few days later. His reconnoissance developing
 
 4 i 8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 into a raid across Maryland and Pennsylvania, he rode 
 entirely around McClellan's army, and, despite Union 
 attempts to head him off, recrossed the river unharmed. 
 Stuart had subjected Napoleon's namesake to this humil- 
 iation once before, on the Peninsula ; but the second raid 
 was especially galling, as it took place on northern terri- 
 tory. Lincoln must have been smarting under the ridicule 
 evoked by the affair, when, shortly afterward, one of a 
 group who were chatting familiarly with him asked: 
 
 " Mr. President, what about McClellan ? " 
 
 Without looking at his questioner, Mr. Lincoln drew 
 an imaginary circle and said deliberately : 
 
 " When I was a boy we used to play a game, three times 
 round and out. Stuart has been round him twice ; if he 
 goes round him once more, gentlemen, McClellan will be 
 out." 169 
 
 The General himself, ascribing Stuart's success to a 
 lack (/ horses for the Federal cavalry, telegraphed that 
 unless this deficiency was supplied, there would be con- 
 stant danger of similar expeditions. To which Halleck 
 curtly replied : 
 
 " The President has read your telegram, and directs me 
 to suggest that if the enemy had more occupation south 
 of the river, his cavalry would not be so likely to make 
 raids north of it." 17 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's peremptory order to advance was a week 
 old. Every day had seemed to furnish McClellan with 
 fresh reasons for not obeying it. The fine autumn season 
 was slipping by, and the Potomac still separated him from 
 his rapidly recruiting enemy. Another effort to drive the 
 General forward now came by special messenger, in one 
 of the President's characteristic letters. It read : 
 
 " You remember my speaking to you of what I called 
 your over-cautiousness. Are you not over-cautious when 
 you assume that you cannot do what the enemy is con- 
 stantly doing ? Should you not claim to be at least his 
 equal in prowess, and act upon the claim ? As I under-
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 419 
 
 stand, you telegraphed General Halleck that you cannot 
 subsist your army at Winchester unless the railroad from 
 Harper's Ferry to that point be put in working order. 
 But the enemy does now subsist his army at Winchester, 
 at a distance nearly twice as great from railroad trans- 
 portation as you would have to do without the railroad 
 last named. . . . Again, one of the standard maxims of 
 war, as you know, is to ' operate upon the enemy's com- 
 munications as much as possible without exposing your 
 own.' You seem to act as if this applies against you, but 
 cannot apply in your favor. Change positions with the 
 enemy, and think you not he would break your communi- 
 cation with Richmond within the next twenty-four hours ? 
 You dread his going into Pennsylvania ; but if he does so 
 in full force, he gives up his communications to you abso- 
 lutely, and you have nothing to do but to follow and ruin 
 him. If he does so with less than full force, fall upon and 
 beat what is left behind all the easier. Exclusive o ( f the 
 water-line, you are now nearer Richmond than the enemy 
 is by the route that you can and he must take. Why can 
 you not reach there before him, unless you admit that he 
 is more than your equal on a march ? His route is the arc 
 of a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as 
 good on yours as on his. ... If he should move north- 
 ward, I would follow him closely, holding his communi- 
 cations. If he should prevent our seizing his communica- 
 tions and move toward Richmond, I would press closely 
 to him, fight him if a favorable opportunity should pre- 
 sent, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the 
 inside track. I say * try ' ; if we never try, we shall never 
 succeed. If he makes a stand at Winchester, moving 
 neither north nor south, I would fight him there, on the 
 idea that if we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage 
 of coming to us, we never can when we bear the wastage 
 of going to him. This proposition is a simple truth, and 
 is too important to be lost sight of for a moment. In 
 coming to us he tenders us an advantage which we should
 
 420 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 not waive. We should not so operate as to merely drive 
 him away. As we must beat him somewhere or fail finally, 
 we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far away. If 
 we cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, 
 he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond. 
 . . . When at length running for Richmond ahead of 
 him enables him to move this way, if he does so, turn and 
 attack him in rear. But I think he should be engaged 
 long before such point is reached. It is all easy if our 
 troops march as well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say 
 they cannot do it. This letter is in no sense an order." 1T1 
 
 McClellan answered briefly that he would advance as 
 soon as his troops were in suitable condition. Some such 
 result we have reason to know was expected by Mr. 
 Lincoln. Before the letter left his hands, he confided a 
 fear to Vice-President Hamliu that it would do no good, 
 and that he would soon be compelled to retire McClellan. 
 
 And now came another soul-trying period of recrimi- 
 nation. The General commanding the army refused to 
 move because the horses and supplies, which he inces- 
 santly demanded, did not arrive in sufficient quantities. 
 The General-in-Chief replied that they were forwarded 
 with all possible speed, that no armies in the world had 
 been better cared for on a campaign, and that no such 
 lack of things existed, at any time, as would justify Mc- 
 Clellan in not obeying the President's order to advance. 
 Lincoln himself, as the controversy grew warmer, was 
 betrayed by the " cheerless, almost hopeless prospect " 
 of accomplishing anything, into several caustic little 
 messages. 172 They stung McClellan into everything but 
 action. " If you could know," he wrote to his wife, " the 
 mean character of the despatches I receive, you would boil 
 over with anger. When it is possible to misunderstand, 
 and when it is not possible ; whenever there is a chance 
 of a wretched innuendo, then it comes." 173 A less self- 
 centered man would have read his danger in all this. 
 McClellan had eyes only for that " ideal completeness of
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 421 
 
 preparation," which he now again, as on previous occa- 
 sions, strove to attain at the expense of more important 
 military considerations. He still refused to see that Lee's 
 army was incomparably worse off than his. It would, in 
 all likelihood, have made no difference to him had he 
 seen it; for McClellan was by temperament incapable 
 of grasping the full significance of Napoleon's maxim, 
 "The commander who allows himself to be guided by 
 the commissaries will never stir, and all his expeditions 
 will fail." That this expedition, at all events, would fail, 
 seemed inevitable. The situation suggested to Lincoln 
 one of his little stories, which he told to a friend of the 
 General, who called at the White House. 
 
 " McClellan's tardiness," said he, " reminds me of a fel- 
 low in Illinois who had studied law, but had never tried 
 a case. He was sued, and, not having confidence in his 
 ability to manage his own case, employed a lawyer to 
 manage it for him. He had only a confused idea of the 
 meaning of law terms, but was anxious to make a display 
 of learning, and, on the trial, constantly made sugges- 
 tions to his lawyer, who paid but little attention to him. 
 At last, fearing that his lawyer was not handling the 
 opposing counsel very well, he lost all his patience, and 
 springing to his feet cried out : * Why don't you go at 
 him with a fi. fa., a demurrer, a cajrias, a surrebutter, 
 or a ne exeat, or something ; and not stand there like a 
 nudum pactum, or a non est ? ' " 174 
 
 Whether the parable reached McClellan, as the Presi- 
 dent doubtless intended, deponent saith not ; but it is of 
 record that " Little Mac's " inertia gave way, at last, under 
 Lincoln's persistent goad. Suddenly, on the 2Gth of Octo- 
 ber, with many supplies still undistributed, reinforcements 
 not yet up, and preparations as planned generally incom- 
 plete, the army was put in motion. A week later, on No- 
 vember 2, McClellan announced to the President that his 
 entire force had crossed the river, and would forthwith 
 advance upon the enemy.
 
 422 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 But it was too late. Lee, with heavily recruited ranks, 
 again faced him. Most of the Union advantages, so dearly 
 bought at Antietam, were gone. One still remained, how- 
 ever, the inside track to Richmond ; and Mr. Lincoln, 
 while trying to get McClellan started, during the closing 
 days of October, had worried lest his dilatory tactics 
 should sacrifice that too. The President had then, in his 
 own mind, fixed a test whereby the General was to rise 
 or fall. If McClellan should cross the Potomac in time 
 to deal the Confederates a telling blow, all would be 
 well ; but if he allowed them to pass over the Blue Ridge, 
 so as to get between Richmond and the Army of the Poto- 
 mac, it would cost him his command. 175 Accordingly, when 
 it was reported in Washington that Lee had reached Cul- 
 peper Court House, orders were issued for McClellan's 
 removal 176 Late on the night of November 7, during a 
 driving snowstorm that appropriately linked the close of 
 his military career with the close of the beautiful autumn 
 weather which he had frittered away, the General was 
 deposed. An officer from the War Department, arriving 
 in camp with the still protesting Buruside, delivered this 
 message : 
 
 " By direction of the President of the United States, 
 it is ordered that Major-General McClellan be relieved 
 from the command of the Army of the Potomac, and 
 that Major-General Burnside take the command of that 
 army." 177 
 
 A supplementary message from Halleck read : 
 
 " Repair to Trenton, N. J., reporting on your arrival 
 at that place, by telegraph, for further orders." 178 
 
 With a subordination which surprised those who had 
 feared a coup d'etat, McClellan promptly turned the com- 
 mand over to his successor, and took an affectionate leave 
 of the army. 
 
 The rest is soon told. In McClellan's dismissal the 
 Democratic politicians found their opportunity. His 
 antagonism to Lincoln's policy, his personal grievances
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 423 
 
 against the government, his measure of fame as a mili- 
 tary hero, his popularity in the army, and his attractive 
 personality all combined to make him the available 
 candidate of the party. He was nominated at the Demo- 
 cratic National Convention, in the summer of 1864, to 
 contest the presidency with Mr. Lincoln, whom the Re- 
 publicans had again named for that office. The vital issue 
 between them was squarely made. Lincoln stood for the 
 preservation of the Union, by a vigorous prosecution of 
 the war and the extinction of slavery. McClellan declared 
 for a policy of conciliation and compromise, whereby peace 
 might be restored to the Union, without any impairment 
 of State rights. A spirited canvass followed. Its rancor 
 still lingers in the memory, if not in the blood, of those 
 who took part. At the outset, indications pointed, from 
 many directions, to McClellan's success. Even the demand 
 in the Democratic platform which he disavowed as going 
 too far for an immediate cessation of hostilities, on the 
 ground that the war was a failure, seemed to meet with 
 the momentary approval of the people. They were weary 
 of a struggle which had plunged almost every household 
 into mourning ; and the horror of Grant's terrible but 
 apparently futile losses, during the recent campaign from 
 the Rapidan to the James, was still uppermost in their 
 thoughts. A heavy weight of condemnation popular 
 discontent readily finds a scapegoat rested on the 
 administration. So wide-spread, indeed, did this feeling 
 become, that toward the end of the summer Lincoln's 
 prospects for reelection were gloomy in the extreme. 
 Some of his own party leaders intriguing against him 
 had, as we have seen, placed General John C. Fremont 
 in nomination; while those who remained loyal to him 
 entered upon the canvass with grave misgivings. The. 
 President, himself, sensed the omens of defeat. 
 
 But a seasoned campaigner like Lincoln could not, to 
 use his own expression, be easily " stampeded." All the 
 political sagacity, and tact in the management of men,
 
 424 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN 
 
 that characterized his previous contests were brought to 
 bear, with signal potency, upon this, the crowning con- 
 flict of his career. As President he maintained, it should 
 be said, a dignified attitude toward the canvass ; yet op- 
 portunities for making himself felt, at the critical junc- 
 tures, were not lacking. Fremont's withdrawal was soon 
 secured, influential Republican malcontents were brought 
 one after the other into line, local partisan differences in 
 divers places yielded to compromise, and steadily closing 
 ranks gave promise at last of a solid party vote. With 
 the opportune victories, meanwhile, of Farragut in Mobile 
 Bay, Sherman at Atlanta, and Sheridan in the Shenan- 
 doah valley, the tide of popular favor set strong in Lin- 
 coln's direction. His ability to make a successful end of 
 the war was no longer doubted by the people. They be- 
 came convinced, moreover, that Lincoln's election would 
 lead to peace, union, and the abolition of slavery ; but 
 that McClellan's election would as surely involve a sur- 
 render of some, if not all, the principles for which they 
 had poured out their blood and their treasure. Nations 
 do not deal in syllogisms, but give them time, and they 
 will arrive in their own way at essentially sound conclu- 
 sions. When the North registered its decision at the polls, 
 on November 8, Lincoln was elected by an overwhelm- 
 ing vote. A popular majority of almost half a million, 
 and States enough to cast 212 electoral votes, out of a 
 possible 233, gave him one of the notable triumphs in our 
 history. 179 McClellan received the 21 electoral votes of 
 New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky, two of which, it 
 should be said, were originally Slave States. With this 
 meagre consolation stake the Democratic candidate, his 
 military commission resigned, passed into the limbo, 
 already well tenanted, of ungratified presidential ambi- 
 tions. 
 
 Amidst the rejoicing over Lincoln's success, Secretary 
 Seward, addressing a public meeting, said : 
 
 " The election has placed our President beyond the pale
 
 THE YOUNG NAPOLEON 425 
 
 of human envy or human harm, as he is above the pale of 
 human ambition. Henceforth all men will come to see 
 him as we have seen him a true, loyal, patient, patriotic, 
 and benevolent man. Having no longer any motive to 
 malign or injure him, detraction will cease, and Abraham 
 Lincoln will take his place with Washington, and Frank- 
 lin, and Jefferson, and Adams, and Jackson among 
 the benefactors of the country and of the human race." 18 
 This noble utterance offered a felicitous close to an 
 unusually fierce campaign, but it erred, alas, in one partic- 
 ular. Lincoln was not beyond the pale of human harm. 
 In less than six months from the day of that triumph, the 
 man before whom leaders, great and small, had gone down 
 in unbroken succession, went down himself before the 
 only thing that ever wholly mastered him an assassin's 
 bullet.
 
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