The Republican National Convention met at Chicago on the sixteenth of May. It was attended by immense numbers, and its action was regarded with profound and universal solicitude. The platform of the Convention affirmed the devotion of the party to the union of the States and the rights of the States; denounced the new dogma that the Const.i.tution carried slavery into the Territories; declared freedom to be their normal condition; denied the power of Congress or of a Territorial Legislature to give legal existence to slavery in any territory; branded as a crime the reopening of the African slave trade; condemned the heresy of Know-Nothingism, and demanded the pa.s.sage of a Homestead law. The principles of the party were thus broadly stated and fully re-affirmed, and the issues of the canva.s.s very clearly presented. The leading candidates were Seward and Lincoln, who pretty evenly divided the Convention, and thus created the liveliest interest in the result. The friends of Mr.
Seward had unbounded confidence in his nomination, and their devotion to his fortunes was intense and absolute. The radical anti-slavery element in the party idolized him, and longed for his success as for a great and coveted national blessing. The delegates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, representing a superficial and only half-developed Republicanism, labored with untiring and exhaustless zeal for the nomination of Mr. Lincoln, fervently pleading for "Success rather than Seward." Henry S. Lane and Andrew G. Curtin, then candidates for Governor in the States of Indiana and Pennsylvania, respectively, were especially active and persistent, and their appeals were undoubtedly effective. When Seward was defeated many an anti-slavery man poured out his tears over the result, while deploring or denouncing the conservatism of old fossil Whiggery, which thus sacrificed the ablest man in the party, and the real hero of its principles. Time, however, led these men to reconsider their estimate both of Seward and Lincoln, and convinced them that the action of the convention, after all, was for the best. On the second ballot Hamlin was nominated for Vice President over Clay, Banks, Hickman, and others, and the Republican campaign thus auspiciously inaugurated.
The canva.s.s for Douglas was prosecuted with remarkable energy and zeal. He was himself the great leader of his party on the stump, and his efforts evinced singular courage, audacity, and will. It soon became evident, however, that his election was impossible; but this did not cool his ardor or relax his efforts. He kept up the fight to the end; and after his defeat, and when he saw the power that had destroyed him organizing its forces for the destruction of the Union, he espoused the side of his country, and never faltered in his course. But as to slavery he seemed to have no conscience, regarding it as a matter of total moral indifference, and thus completely confounding the distinction between right and wrong.
During the closing hours of his life he probably saw and lamented this strange infatuation; and he must, at all events, have deplored the obsequious and studied devotion of a life-time to the service of a power which at last demanded both the sacrifice of his country and himself. The canva.s.s for Lincoln was conducted by the ablest men in the party, and was marked by great earnestness and enthusiasm.
It was a repet.i.tion of the Fremont campaign, with the added difference of a little more contrivance and spectacular display in its demonstrations, as witnessed in the famous organization known as the "Wide-Awakes." The doctrines of the Chicago platform were very thoroughly discussed, and powerfully contributed to the further political education of the people. The speeches of Mr. Seward were singularly able, effective and inspiring, and he was the acknowledged leader of his party and the idol of the Republican ma.s.ses everywhere.
This was the day of his glory, and nothing yet foreshadowed the political eclipse which awaited him in the near future. The triumph of the Republicans in this struggle was not, however, final. A great work yet remained to be done. A powerful anti-slavery party had at last appeared, as the slow creation of events and the fruit of patient toil and endeavor; but it had against it a popular majority of nearly a million. Both Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States disputed its authority and opposed its advance. The President-elect could not form his cabinet without the leave of the Senate, which was controlled by slavery, nor could he set the machinery of his Administration in motion, at home or abroad, through the exercise of his appointing power, without the consent of his political opponents. As Mr. Seward declared in the Senate, "he could not appoint a minister or even a police agent, negotiate a treaty or procure the pa.s.sage of a law, and could hardly draw a musket from the public a.r.s.enal to defend his own person." The champions of slavery had no dream of surrender, and no excuse whatever for extreme measures; and with moderate counsels and the prudent economy of their advantages, they were the undoubted masters of their own fortunes for indefinite years to come. But their extravagant and exasperating demands, and the splendid madness of their latter day tactics as ill.u.s.trated in their warfare against Douglas, were the sure presages of their overthrow. There was method in their madness, but it was the method of self-destruction. This was made still more strikingly manifest during the months immediately preceding the inauguration of Mr.
Lincoln. The Republicans, notwithstanding their great victory, so recoiled from the thought of sectional strife that for the sake of peace they were ready to forego their demand for the Congressional prohibition of slavery in the Territories. They were willing to abide by the Dred Scott decision and the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave law. They even proposed a Const.i.tutional amendment which would have made slavery perpetual in the Republic; but the pampered frenzy of the slave oligarchy defied all remedies, and hurried it headlong into the b.l.o.o.d.y conspiracy which was to close forever its career of besotted lawlessness and crime.
CHAPTER IX.
THE NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR.
Visit to Mr. Lincoln--Closing months of Mr. Buchanan"s Administration --Efforts to avoid war--Character of Buchanan--Lincoln"s Inauguration --His war policy--The grand army of office seekers--The July session of Congress--The atmosphere of Washington--Battle of Bull Run-- Apologetic resolve of Congress--First confiscation act--Regular session of Congress--Secretary Cameron--Committee on the conduct of the war--Its conference with the President and his Cabinet-- Secretary Stanton and General McClellan--Order to march upon Mana.s.sas.
Early in January, 1861, I paid a visit to Mr. Lincoln at his home in Springfield. I had a curiosity to see the famous "rail splitter,"
as he was then familiarly called, and as a member-elect of the Thirty-seventh Congress I desired to form some acquaintance with the man who was to play so conspicuous a part in the impending national crisis. Although I had zealously supported him in the canva.s.s, and was strongly impressed by the grasp of thought and aptness of expression which marked his great debate with Douglas, yet as a through-going Free Soiler and a member of the radical wing of Republicanism, my prepossessions were against him. He was a Kentuckian, and a conservative Whig, who had supported General Taylor in 1848, and General Scott four years later, when the Whig party finally sacrificed both its character and its life on the altar of slavery. His nomination, moreover, had been secured through the diplomacy of conservative Republicans, whose morbid dread of "abolitionism" unfitted them, as I believed, for leadership in the battle with slavery which had now become inevitable, while the defeat of Mr. Seward had been to me a severe disappointment and a real personal grief. The rumor was also current, and generally credited, that Simon Cameron and Caleb B. Smith were to be made Cabinet Ministers, in recognition of the important services rendered by the friends of these gentlemen in the Chicago Convention. Still, I did not wish to do Mr. Lincoln the slightest injustice, while I hoped and believed his courage and firmness would prove equal to the emergency.
On meeting him I found him far better looking than the campaign pictures had represented. His face, when lighted up in conversation, was not unhandsome, and the kindly and winning tones of his voice pleaded for him like the smile which played about his rugged features. He was full of anecdote and humor, and readily found his way to the hearts of those who enjoyed a welcome to his fireside.
His face, however, was sometimes marked by that touching expression of sadness which became so generally noticeable in the following years. On the subject of slavery I was gratified to find him less reserved and more emphatic than I expected. The Cabinet rumor referred to was true. He felt bound by the pledges which his leading friends had made in his name pending the National Convention; and the policy on which he acted in these and many other appointments was forcibly ill.u.s.trated on a subsequent occasion, when I earnestly protested against the appointment of an incompetent and unworthy man as Commissioner of Patents. "There is much force in what you say," said he, "but, in the balancing of matters, I guess I shall have to appoint him." This "balancing of matters" was a source of infinite vexation during his administration, as it has been to every one of his successors; and its most deplorable results have been witnessed in the a.s.sa.s.sination of a president. Upon the whole, however, I was much pleased with our first Republican Executive, and I returned home more fully inspired than ever with the purpose to sustain him to the utmost in facing the duties of his great office.
The closing months of Mr. Buchanan"s Administration were dismal and full of apprehension. One by one the slaveholding States were seceding from the Union. The President, in repeated messages, denied their right to secede, but denied also the right of the Government to coerce them into obedience. It should be remembered, to his credit, that he did insist upon the right to enforce the execution of the laws in all the States, and earnestly urged upon Congress the duty of arming him with the power to do this; but Congress, much to its discredit, paid no attention to his wishes, leaving the new Administration wholly unprepared for the impending emergency, while strangely upbraiding the retiring President for his non-action. For this there could be no valid excuse. The people of the Northern States, now that the movement in the South was seen to be something more than mere bl.u.s.ter, were equally alarmed and bewildered. The "New York Herald" declared that "coercion, if it were possible, is out of the question." The "Albany Argus" condemned it as "madness." The "Albany Evening Journal" and many other leading organs of Republicanism, East and West, disowned it, and counseled conciliation and further concessions to the demands of slavery. The "New York Tribune" emphatically condemned the policy of coercion, and even after the cotton States had formed their Confederacy and adopted a provisional Government, it declared that "whenever it shall be clear that the great body of the Southern people have become conclusively alienated from the Union and anxious to escape from it, we will do our best to forward their views." The "Tribune" had before declared that "whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in.
We hope never to live in a Republic whereof one section is pinned to the other by bayonets." It is true, that it justified the secession of the Southern States as a revolutionary right; but although these States defended it as a const.i.tutional one, the broader and higher ground of Mr. Greeley necessarily gave powerful aid and comfort to their movement. In the meantime, great meetings in Philadelphia and New York strongly condemned the Abolitionists, and urged the most extravagant additional concessions to slavery for the sake of peace. On the 12th of January Mr. Seward made his great speech in the Senate, declaring that he could "afford to meet prejudice with conciliation, exaction with concession which surrenders no principle, and violence with the right hand of peace." He was willing to give up Congressional prohibition of slavery in the Territories, enforce the Fugitive Slave law, and perpetuate slavery in our Republic by amending the Const.i.tution for that purpose.
The Crittenden compromise, which practically surrendered everything to slavery, only failed in the Senate by one vote, and this failure resulted from the non-voting of six rebel senators, who were so perfectly devil-bent upon the work of national dismemberment that they would not listen to any terms of compromise, or permit their adoption. The Peace Congress, a.s.sembled for the purpose of devising some means of national pacification, agreed upon a series of measures covering substantially the same ground as the Crittenden compromise, while both Houses of Congress agreed to a const.i.tutional amendment denying any power to interfere with slavery "until every State in the Union, by its individual State action, shall consent to its exercise." The feverish dread of war which prevailed throughout the Northern States was constantly aggravated by multiplying evidences of slaveholding desperation. The general direction of public opinion pointed to the Abolitionists as the authors of these national troubles, while the innocent and greatly-abused slaveholders were to be petted and placated by any measures which could possibly serve their purpose. Indeed, the spirit of Northern submission had never, in the entire history of the anti-slavery conflict, been more strikingly exhibited than during the last days of the Thirty- sixth Congress, when the Capital of the Republic was threatened by armed treason, and the President-elect reached Washington in a disguise which baffled the a.s.sa.s.sins who had conspired against his life. To the very last the old medicine of compromise and conciliation seemed to be the sovereign hope of the people of the free States; and although it had failed utterly, and every offer of friendship and peace had been promptly spurned as the evidence of weakness or cowardice, they clung to it till the guns of Fort Sumter roused them from their perilous dream.
The inauguration of the President was awaited with great anxiety and alarm. The capture of Washington by the rebels was seriously apprehended, and had undoubtedly been meditated. The air was filled with rumors respecting the a.s.sa.s.sination of the President, and the stories told of the various methods of his taking off would have been amusing if the crisis had not been so serious. General Scott took all the precautions for the preservation of the peace which the small force at his command, and the District militia, enabled him to do. The day was beautiful, and the procession to the Capitol quite imposing. Mr. Lincoln and ex-President Buchanan entered the Senate chamber arm in arm; and the latter was so withered and bowed with age that in contrast with the towering form of Mr. Lincoln he seemed little more than half a man. The crowd which greeted the President in front of the east portico of the Capitol was immense, and has never been equaled on any similar occasion with the single exception of General Garfield"s inauguration. Mr. Lincoln"s voice, though not very strong or full-toned, rang out over the acres of people before him with surprising distinctness, and was heard in the remotest parts of his audience. The tone of moderation, tenderness, and good-will, which marked his address, made an evident impression, and the most heartfelt plaudits were called forth by the closing pa.s.sage:
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though pa.s.sion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection.
The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of union, when again touched, as they surely will be, by the better angels of their nature."
But as an offering of friendship and fair dealing to the South, this speech failed of its purpose as signally as all kindred endeavors had done from the beginning. The "Richmond Enquirer"
and "Whig," the "Charleston Mercury," and other leading organs of secession, denounced the inaugural, and seemed to be maddened by the very kindliness of its tone and the moderation of its demands.
Their purpose was disunion and war, and every pa.s.sing day multiplied the proofs that no honorable escape from this fearful alternative was possible.
The policy of the new Administration prior to the attack upon Sumter forms perhaps the most remarkable chapter in the history of the war. All the troubles of the previous Administration were now turned over to Mr. Lincoln, and while no measures had been provided to aid him in their settlement the crisis was constantly becoming more imminent. The country was perfectly at sea; and while all hope of reconciliation was fading from day to day, Mr. Seward insisted that peace would come within "sixty days." His optimism would have been most amusing, if the salvation of the country had not been at stake. The President himself not only still hoped, but believed, that there would be no war; and notwithstanding all the abuse that had been heaped upon Mr. Buchanan by the Republicans for his feeble and vacillating course, and especially his denial of the right of the government to coerce the recusant States, the policy of the new Administration, up to the attack upon Sumter, was identical with that of his predecessor. In Mr. Seward"s official letter to Mr. Adams, dated April 10, 1861, he says the President "would not be disposed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs (the secessionists), namely, that the Federal Government could not reduce the seceding States to obedience through conquest, even though he were disposed to question that proposition. But in fact the President willingly accepts it as true. Only and imperial and despotic Government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the State. * * * The President, on the one hand, will not suffer the Federal authority to fall into abeyance, nor will he, on the other hand, aggravate existing evils by attempts at coercion, which must a.s.sume the direct form of war against any of the revolutionary States." These are very remarkable avowals, in the light of the absolute unavoidableness of the conflict at the time they were made; and they naturally tended to precipitate rather than avert the threatened catastrophe. It will not do to say that Secretary Seward spoke only for himself, and not for the Administration; for the fact has since been established by the evidence of other members of the Cabinet that Mr. Lincoln, while he had great faith in Mr. Seward at first, was always himself the President. No member of it was his dictator. I do not say that he endorsed all Mr. Seward"s peculiar views, for the latter went still further, as the country has since learned, and favored the abandonment of Fort Sumter and other Southern forts, as a part of a scheme of pacification looking to an amendment to the Const.i.tution in the interest of slavery. During this early period Mr. Chase himself, with all his anti-slavery radicalism and devotion to the Union, became so far the child of the hour as to deprecate the policy of coercion and express his belief that if the rebel States were allowed to go in peace they would soon return. But "war legislates," and the time had now come when nothing else could break the spell of irresolution and blindness which threatened the Union even more seriously than armed treason itself.
Notwithstanding this strange epoch of Republican feebleness and indecision, the warfare against Mr. Buchanan was never intermitted.
It had been prosecuted with constantly increasing vigor since the year 1856, and had now become so perfectly relentless and overwhelming that he was totally submerged by the waves of popular wrath; and for twenty odd years no political resurrection has been thought possible. Although his personal integrity was as unquestionable as that of John C. Calhoun or George III, and his private life as stainless, yet his public character has received no quarter from his enemies and but little defense from his friends. One of his most formidable critics, writing long years after the war, describes him as "hungry for regard, influence, and honor, but too diminutive in intellect and character to feel the glow of true ambition--a man made, so to speak, to be neither loved nor hated, esteemed nor despised, slighted nor admired; intended to play an influential part in the agitation of parties, and by history to be silently numbered with the dead, because in all his doings there was not a single deed; a man to whom fate could do nothing worse than place him at the helm in an eventful period." While there is a measure of truth in this picture, I believe any fair-minded man will p.r.o.nounce it over-drawn, one-sided, and unjust, after reading the recently published life of Mr. Buchanan by George Ticknor Curtis, dealing fully with his entire public career in the clear, cold light of historic facts. The most p.r.o.nounced political foe of Mr.
Buchanan can not go over the pages of this elaborate and long-delayed defense without modifying some of his most decided opinions; but one thing remains obviously true, and that is in dealing with the question of slavery Mr. Buchanan was wholly without a conscience.
The thought seems never to have dawned upon him that the slave was a man, and therefore ent.i.tled to his natural rights. In a public speech on the ninth of July, 1860, defining his position, and referring to the Dred Scott decision, he says: "It is to me the most extraordinary thing in the world that this country should now be distracted and divided because certain persons at the North will not agree that their brethren at the South should have the same rights in the Territories which they enjoy. What would I, as a Pennsylvanian, say or do, supposing any one was to contend that the Legislature of any Territory could outlaw iron or coal within the Territory? The principle is precisely the same. The Supreme Court of the United States has decided, what was known to us all to have been the existing state of affairs for fifty years, that slaves are property. Admit that fact, and you admit everything."
In this pa.s.sage, as in all that he has written on the subject of slavery, humanity is totally ignored. The right of property in man is just as sacred to him, "as a Pennsylvanian," as the right of property in iron or coal. He unhesitatingly accepts the Dred Scott decision as law, which the moral sense of the nation and its ablest jurists p.r.o.nounced a nullity. Mr. Jefferson, in speaking of slavery, said he trembled for his country, and declared that one hour of bondage is fraught with more misery than whole ages of our colonial oppression. Such a sentiment in the mouth of Mr.
Buchanan would have been as unnatural as a voice from the dead.
He saw nothing morally offensive in slavery, or repugnant to the principles of Democracy. He reverenced the Const.i.tution, but always forgot that its compromises were agreed to in the belief that the inst.i.tution was in a state of decay, and would soon wear out its life under the pressure of public opinion and private interest.
Throughout his public life he never faltered in his devotion to the South, joining hands with alacrity in every measure which sought to nationalize her sectional interest. The growing anti-slavery opinion of the free States, which no power could prevent, and the great moral currents of the times, which were as resistless as the tides of the sea, had no meaning for him, because the Democracy he believed in had no foundation in the sacredness of human rights.
Mr. Lincoln, in spite of the troubled state of the country, was obliged to encounter an army of place-seekers at the very beginning of his administration. I think there has been nothing like it in the history of the Government. A Republican member of Congress could form some idea of the President"s troubles from his own experience. I fled from my home in the later part of February, in the hope of finding some relief from these importunities; but on reaching Washington I found the business greatly aggravated. The pressure was so great and constant that I could scarcely find time for my meals, or to cross the street, and I was obliged to give my days and nights wholly to the business, hoping in this way I should be able in a while to finish it; but it constantly increased. I met at every turn a swarm of miscellaneous people, many of them looking as hungry and fierce as wolves, and ready to pounce upon members as they pa.s.sed, begging for personal intercession, letters of recommendation, etc. During my stay in Washington through the months of March and April, there was no pause in this business.
After Fort Sumter had been taken and the armory at Harper"s Ferry had been burned; after a Ma.s.sachusetts regiment had been fired on in pa.s.sing through Baltimore, and thirty thousand men were in Washington for defensive purposes; after the President had called for seventy-five thousand volunteers, and the whole land was in a blaze of excitement, the scuffle for place was unabated, and the pressure upon the strength and patience of the President unrelieved.
This was not very remarkable, considering the long-continued monopoly of the offices by the Democrats; but it jarred upon the sentiment of patriotism in such a crisis, and to those who were constantly brought face to face with it, it sometimes appeared as if the love of office alone const.i.tuted the animating principle of the party.
When Congress a.s.sembled in special session on the Fourth of July, the atmosphere of the Northern States had been greatly purified by the attack on Fort Sumter. The unavoidableness of war was now absolute, and the tone of the President"s message was far bolder and better than that of his inaugural. The policy of tenderness towards slavery, however, still revealed itself, and called forth the criticism of the more radical Republicans. They began to distrust Mr. Seward, who no longer seemed to them the hero of principle they had so long idolized, while his growing indifference to the virtue of temperance was offensive to many. He impressed his old anti-slavery friends as a deeply disappointed man, who was in danger of being morally lost. Their faith was even a _little_ shaken in Secretary Chase. Of course, they did not believe him false to his long-cherished anti-slavery convictions, but he was amazingly ambitious, and in the dispensation of his patronage he seemed anxious to make fair weather with some of his old conservative foes, while apparently forgetting the faithful friends who had stood by him from the very beginning of his career, and were considered eminently fit for the positions they sought. The rumor was afloat that even Charles Sumner was urging the claims of Mr.
Crittenden to a place on the Supreme Bench, as a means of conciliating the State of Kentucky. Washington was largely a city of secessionists, and the departments of the Government were plentifully supplied by sympathizers with treason, while the effort put forth at this session to dislodge them was not responded to by the Administration.
What became known as the Border State policy was beginning to a.s.sert itself everywhere, and was strikingly ill.u.s.trated in the capture of fugitive slaves and their return to their rebel masters by our commanding generals, and by reiterated and gratuitous disavowals of "abolitionism" by prominent Republicans.
But the war spirit was fully aroused, and active preparations were on foot for an advance upon the enemy. The confidence in General Scott seemed to be unbounded, and I found everybody taking it for granted that when the fight began our forces would prove triumphantly victorious. On the day before the battle of Bull Run I obtained a pa.s.s from General Scott, intending to witness the engagement, believing I could do so, of course, with perfect safety, as our army would undoubtedly triumph. I had a very strong curiosity to see a great battle, and was now gratified with the prospect of doing so; but a lucky accident detained me. The battle was on Sunday, and about eleven o"clock at night I was roused from my slumber by Col. Forney, who resided on Capitol Hill near my lodgings, and who told me our army had been routed, and that the rebels were marching upon the capital and would in all probability capture it before morning. No unmiraculous event could have been more startling.
I was perfectly stunned and dumbfounded by the news; but I hastened down to the Avenue as rapidly as possible, and found the s.p.a.ce between the Capitol and the Treasury Building a moving ma.s.s of humanity. Every man seemed to be asking every man he met for the latest news, while all sorts of rumors filled the air. A feeling of mingled horror and despair appeared to possess everybody. The event was so totally unlooked for, and the disappointment so terrible, that people grew suddenly sick at heart, and felt as if life itself, with all its interests and charms, had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from their grasp. The excitement, turmoil and consternation continued during the night and through the following day; but no one could adequately picture or describe it. Our soldiers came straggling into the city, covered with dirt and many of them wounded, while the panic which led to the disaster spread like a contagion through all cla.s.ses.
On the day following this battle Congress met as usual, and undoubtedly shared largely in the general feeling. A little before the battle General Mansfield had issued an order declaring that fugitive slaves would under no circ.u.mstances whatever be permitted to reside or be harbored in the quarters and camps of the troops serving in his department; and now, both Houses of Congress promptly and with great unanimity and studious emphasis declared that the purpose of the war was not the "conquest" or "subjugation" of the conspirators who were striking at the Nation"s life, or the overthrow of their "established inst.i.tutions," but to defend "the supremacy of the Const.i.tution," and to "preserve the Union"; and that "as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease."
To through-going anti-slavery men this seemed like an apology for the war, and a most ill-timed revival of the policy of conciliation, which had been so uniformly and contemptuously spurned by the enemy.
It failed utterly of its purpose, and this historic resolve of Congress was only useful to the rebels, who never failed to wield it as a weapon against us, after the teaching of events had compelled us to make slavery the point of attack. The Confiscation Act of the 6th of August was regarded as a child of the same sickly ancestry. The section of the Act making free the slaves employed against us by the rebels in their military operations was criticised as a bribe to them to fight us, rather than a temptation to espouse our cause. If they engaged in the war at all, they were obliged to do so as our enemies; but if they remained at home on their plantations in the business of feeding the rebel armies, they would have the protection of both the loyal and Confederate Governments.
The policy of both parties to the struggle was thus subordinated to the protection of slavery.
But on the 31st of August a new war policy was inaugurated by the proclamation of General Fremont, giving freedom to the slaves of rebels in his department. It was greeted by the people of the Northern States with inexpressible gladness and thanksgiving. The Republican press everywhere applauded it, and even such Democratic and conservative papers as the "Boston Post," the "Detroit Free Press," the "Chicago Times," and the "New York Herald" approved it. During the ten days of its life all party lines seemed to be obliterated in the fires of popular enthusiasm which it kindled, and which was wholly unprecedented in my experience. I was then on the stump in my own State, and I found the ma.s.ses everywhere so wild with joy, that I could scarcely be heard for their shouts.
As often as I mentioned the name of "Fremont," the prolonged hurrahs of the mult.i.tude followed, and the feeling seemed to be universal that the policy of "a war on peace principles" was abandoned, and that slavery, the real cause of the war, was no longer to be the chief obstacle to its prosecution.
But in the midst of this great exultation and joy the President annulled the proclamation because it went beyond the Confiscation Act of the 6th of August, and was offensive to the Border States.
It was a terrible disappointment to the Republican ma.s.ses, who could not understand why loyal slaveholders in Kentucky should be offended because the slaves of rebels in Missouri were declared free. From this revocation of the new war policy, dated the pro- slavery reaction which at once followed. It balked the popular enthusiasm which was drawing along with it mult.i.tudes of conservative men. It caused timid and halting men to become cowards outright.
It gave new life to slavery, and encouraged fiercer a.s.saults upon "abolitionism." It revived and stimulated Democratic sympathy for treason wherever it had existed, and necessarily prolonged the conflict and aggravated its sorrows; while it repeated the ineffable folly of still relying upon a policy of moderation and conciliation in dealing with men who had defiantly taken their stand outside of the Const.i.tution and laws, and could only be reached by the power of war.
When Congress met in December, the policy of deference to slavery still continued. The message of the President was singularly dispa.s.sionate, deprecating "radical and extreme measures," and recommending some plan of colonization for the slaves made free by the Confiscation Act. Secretary Cameron, however, surprised the country by the avowal of a decidedly anti-slavery war policy in his report; but in a discussion in the House early in December, on General Halleck"s "Order No. Three," I took occasion to expose his insincerity by referring to his action a little while before in restoring to her master a slave girl who had fled to the camp of Colonel Brown, of the Twentieth Indiana regiment, who had refused to give her up. On the nineteenth of December, a joint select Committee on the Conduct of the War was appointed, composed of three members of the Senate and four members of the House. The Senators were B. F. Wade, of Ohio; Z. Chandler, of Michigan, and Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee; and the House members were John Covode, of Pennsylvania; M. F. Odell, of New York; D. W. Gooch, of Ma.s.sachusetts, and myself. The committee had its birth in the popular demand for a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and less tenderness toward slavery; and I was gratified with my position on it because it afforded a very desirable opportunity to learn something of the movements of our armies and the secrets of our policy.
On the sixth of January, by special request of the President, the committee met him and his Cabinet at the Executive Mansion, to confer about the military situation. The most striking fact revealed by the discussion which took place was that neither the President nor his advisers seemed to have any definite information respecting the management of the war, or the failure of our forces to make any forward movement. Not a man of them pretended to know anything of General McClellan"s plans. We were greatly surprised to learn that Mr. Lincoln himself did not think he had any _right_ to know, but that, as he was not a military man, it was his duty to defer to General McClellan. Our grand armies were ready and eager to march, and the whole country was anxiously waiting some decisive movement; but during the delightful months of October, November and December, they had been kept idle for some reason which no man could explain, but which the President thought could be perfectly accounted for by the General-in-Chief. Secretary Cameron said he knew nothing of any plan for a forward movement. Secretary Seward had entire confidence in General McClellan, and thought the demand of the committee for a more vigorous policy uncalled for. The Postmaster-General made no definite avowals, while the other members of the Cabinet said nothing, except Secretary Chase, who very decidedly sympathized with the committee in its desire for some early and decisive movement of our forces. The spectacle seemed to us very disheartening. The testimony of all the commanding generals we had examined showed that our armies had been ready to march for months; that the weather and roads had been most favorable since October; and that the Army of the Potomac was in a fine state of discipline, and nearly two hundred thousand strong, while only about forty thousand men were needed to make Washington perfectly safe. Not a general examined could tell why this vast force had so long been kept idle, or what General McClellan intended to do.
The fate of the nation seemed committed to one man called a "General- in-Chief," who communicated his secrets to no human being, and who had neither age nor military experience to justify the extraordinary deference of the President to his wishes. He had repeatedly appeared before the committee, though not yet as a witness, and we could see no evidence of his pre-eminence over other prominent commanders; and it seemed like a betrayal of the country itself to allow him to hold our grand armies for weeks and months in unexplained idleness, on the naked a.s.sumption of his superior wisdom. Mr.
Wade, as Chairman of the committee, echoed its views in a remarkably bold and vigorous speech, in which he gave a summary of the princ.i.p.al facts which had come to the knowledge of the committee, arraigned General McClellan for the unaccountable tardiness of his movements, and urged upon the Administration, in the most undiplomatic plainness of speech, an immediate and radical change in the policy of the war. But the President and his advisers could not yet be disenchanted, and the conference ended without results.
When General McClellan was placed at the head of our armies the country accepted him as its idol and hero. The people longed for a great captain, and on very inadequate grounds they a.s.sumed that they had found him, and that the business of war was to be carried on in earnest. But they were doomed to disappointment, and the popular feeling was at length completely reversed. The pendulum vibrated to the other extreme, and it is not easy to realize the wide-spread popular discontent which finally revealed itself respecting the dilatory movements of our forces. The people became inexpressibly weary of the reiterated bulletins that "all is quiet on the Potomac"; and the fact that General McClellan was in full sympathy with the Border State policy of the President aggravated their unfriendly mood. A majority of the members of the committee became morbidly sensitive, and were practically incapable of doing General McClellan justice. They were thoroughly discouraged and disgusted; but when Secretary Cameron left the Cabinet and Stanton took his place, their despondency gave place to hope. He had faith in the usefulness of the committee, and co-operated with it to the utmost. He agreed with us fully in our estimate of General McClellan, and as to the necessity of an early forward movement. We were delighted with him, and had perfect confidence in his integrity, sagacity and strong will. We worked from five to six hours per day, including the holiday season, and not excepting the Sabbath, going pretty thoroughly into the Bull Run disaster, the battle of Ball"s Bluff, and the management of the Western Department.
During the months of January and February, the committee made repeated visits to the President for the purpose of urging the division of the Army of the Potomac and its organization into army corps. We insisted upon this on the strength of the earnest recommendations of our chief commanders, and with a view to greater military efficiency; but the President said General McClellan was opposed to it, and would, he believed, resign his command in the alternative of being required to do it. Mr. Lincoln said he dreaded "the moral effect of this"; but in the latter part of February, he began to lose his faith in the General, and finally, after nearly two months of perseverance by the committee, he gave his order early in March, which General McClellan obeyed with evident hesitation and very great reluctance. A few days later the long-tried patience of the President became perfectly exhausted. He surprised and delighted the committee by completely losing his temper, and on the 11th relieved General McClellan from the command of all our forces except the Army of the Potomac. The rebels, in the meantime, had evacuated their works at Centreville and Mana.s.sas, and retreated with their munitions in safety. A majority of the committee at this time strongly suspected that General McClellan was a traitor, and they felt strengthened in this suspicion by what they afterward saw for themselves at Centreville and Mana.s.sas, which they visited on the thirteenth of March. They were certain, at all events, that his heart was not in the work. He had disregarded the President"s general order of the nineteenth of January, for a movement of all our armies, which resulted in the series of victories of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, etc., which so electrified the country. He had protested against the President"s order of the thirty-first of January, directing an expedition for the purpose of seizing a point upon the railroad southwest of Mana.s.sas Junction. He had opposed all forward movements of the Army of the Potomac, and resolutely set his face against the division of our forces into army corps, as urged by all our chief commanders. And he had again and again refused to co-operate with the navy in breaking up the blockade of the Potomac, while his order to move in the direction of the enemy at Centreville and Mana.s.sas was given after the evacuation of these points.
Our journey to Mana.s.sas was full of interest and excitement. About ten miles from Washington we came in sight of a large division of the Grand Army of the Potomac, which had started toward the enemy in obedience to the order of General McClellan. The forest on either side of the road was alive with soldiers, and their white tents were to be seen in all directions through the pine forests, while in the adjacent fields vast bodies of soldiers in their uniforms were marching and counter-marching, their bayonets glittering in the sunlight. Large bodies of cavalry were also in motion, and the air was filled with the sound of martial music and the blasts of the bugle. Soldiers not on drill were running races, playing ball, and enjoying themselves generally in every sort of sport.
The spectacle was delightfully exhilarating, and especially so to men just released from the dreary confinement and drudgery of their committee rooms.
CHAPTER X.
THE NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR (CONTINUED).
The wooden guns--Conference with Secretary Stanton--His relations to Lincoln--Strife between Radicalism and Conservatism--Pa.s.sage of the Homestead Law--Visit to the President--The Confiscation Act and rebel landowners--Greeley"s "prayer of twenty millions," and Lincoln"s reply--Effort to disband the Republican party--The battle of Fredericksburg and General Burnside--The Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation--Visit to Mr. Lincoln--General Fremont--Report of the War Committee--Visit to Philadelphia and New York--Gerrit Smith-- The Morgan Raid.
On approaching Centreville the first object that attracted our attention was one of the huge earthworks of the enemy, with large logs placed in the embrasures, the ends pointing toward us, and painted black in imitation of cannon. The earthworks seemed very imperfectly constructed, and from this fact, and the counterfeit guns which surmounted them, it was evident that no fight had been seriously counted on by the absconding forces. The substantial character of their barracks, bake-ovens, stables, and other improvements, confirmed this view; and on reaching Mana.s.sas we found the same cheap defenses and the same evidences of security, while the rebel forces were much less than half as great as ours, and within a day"s march from us. What was the explanation of all this? Why had we not long before, driven in the rebel pickets, and given battle to the enemy, or at least ascertained the facts as to the weakness of his position? Could the commander be loyal who had opposed all the previous forward movements of our forces, and only made this advance after the enemy had evacuated? These were the questions canva.s.sed by the members of the committee in their pa.s.sionate impatience for decisive measures, and which they afterward earnestly pressed upon the President as a reason for relieving General McClellan of his command. They were also greatly moved by the fact already referred to, that General McClellan had neglected and repeatedly refused to co-operate with the navy in breaking up the blockade of the Potomac, which could have been done long before according to the testimony of our commanders, while he had disobeyed the positive order of the President respecting the defenses of Washington by reserving only nineteen thousand imperfectly disciplined men for that service, through which the capital had been placed at the mercy of the enemy. Meanwhile the flame of popular discontent had found further fuel in the threats of McClellan to put down slave insurrections "with an iron hand," and his order expelling the Hutchinsons from the Army of the Potomac for singing Whittier"s songs of liberty. Of course I am not dealing with the character and capacity of General McClellan as a commander, but simply depicting the feeling which extensively prevailed at this time, and which justified itself by hastily accepting merely apparent facts as conclusive evidence against him.
On the 24th day of March, Secretary Stanton sent for the committee for the purpose of having a confidential conference as to military affairs. He was thoroughly discouraged. He told us the President had gone back to his first love as to General McClellan, and that it was needless 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. The Secretary arraigned the General"s conduct in the severest terms, particularizing his blunders, and branding them. He told us the President was so completely in the power of McClellan that he had recently gone to Alexandria in person to ask him for some troops from the Army of the Potomac for General Fremont, which were refused. He said he believed there were traitors among the commanders surrounding General McClellan, and if he had had the power he would have dismissed eight commanders when the wooden-gun discovery was made; and he fully agreed with us as to the disgraceful fact that our generals had not long before discovered, as they could have done, the real facts as to the rebel forces and their defences.
It was quite evident from these facts that Stanton, with all his force of will, did not rule the President, as the public has generally supposed. He would frequently overawe and sometimes browbeat others, but he was never imperious in dealing with Mr.
Lincoln. This I have from Mr. Watson, for some time a.s.sistant Secretary of War, and Mr. Whiting, while Solicitor of the War Department. Lincoln, however, had the highest opinion of Stanton, and their relations were always most kindly, as the following anecdote bears witness: A committee of Western men, headed by Lovejoy, procured from the President an important order looking to the exchange and transfer of Eastern and Western soldiers with a view to more effective work. Repairing to the office of the Secretary, Mr. Lovejoy explained the scheme, as he had before done to the President, but was met with a flat refusal.
"But we have the President"s order, sir," said Lovejoy.
"Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind?" said Stanton.
"He did, sir."