Finally, knowing that the public would ultimately be the judge of the administration"s actions on the home front, Lincoln began drafting a doc.u.ment that would put the complex matter of military arrests into perspective. He had contemplated the subject for months, but his delineation of his ideas a.s.sumed new urgency with the public outrage at the arrest of Vallandigham. "Often an idea about it would occur to me which seemed to have force and make perfect answer to some of the things that were said and written about my actions," he later told a visitor. "I never let one of those ideas escape me, but wrote it on a sc.r.a.p of paper." Now he would have to cobble those sc.r.a.ps into a cogent argument that the American public would accept.
Furthermore, Lincoln needed the proper forum in which to present his ideas. It came in late May, when a meeting of New York Democrats pa.s.sed a set of resolutions condemning his military arrests as unconst.i.tutional. Lincoln"s extensive response to the Democratic resolutions took "less time than any other of like importance" because he had already "studied it from every side." In early June, the president read his draft to the cabinet. "It has vigor and ability," a delighted Welles noted. Blair advised the president to emphasize that "we are Struggling against a Conspiracy to put down popular Govt." Blair realized that Lincoln had often reiterated this theme, but as Thomas Hart Benton used to say, the "ding dong" proved to be "the best figure in Rhetoric."
The finished letter, addressed to New York Democrat Erastus Corning, was released to the New York Tribune on June 12. Conceding that in ordinary times, military arrests would be unconst.i.tutional, Lincoln reminded his critics that the Const.i.tution specifically provided for the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus "in cases of Rebellion or Invasion." He went on to say that Vallandigham was not arrested for his criticism of the administration but "because he was laboring, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertions from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it."
Pointing out that "long experience has shown that armies can not be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death," Lincoln posed a question that was soon echoed by supporters everywhere: "Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feelings, till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy, that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptable government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert."
The president"s letter garnered extravagant praise throughout the North. "It is full, candid, clear and conclusive," the New York Times affirmed. Even Democrats were impressed. While Edward Everett told Lincoln he would not have advocated Vallandigham"s arrest, he considered the president"s "defence of the step complete." Supporters were thrilled. "It is a grand doc.u.ment, strong, plain, simple, without one sparkle of tinsel ornament," Stoddard enthused, "yet dignified as becomes the ruler of a great people when the nation is listening to what he says. It should be printed in every Northern paper, and read by every citizen." In fact, Lincoln took every step to ensure that his words would shape public opinion. Printed in a great variety of formats, the letter eventually reached an astonishing 10 million people in their homes and workplaces, on isolated farms and in the cities. And as the American people absorbed the logic of Lincoln"s argument, popular sentiment began to shift.
WITH THE APPROACH OF SUMMER, the tempers of the cabinet ministers grew shorter. Welles noted with disapproval that Stanton attended only half the cabinet meetings and said little when present. "Not unfrequently he has a private conference with the President in the corner of the room, or with Seward in the library," griped Welles. Seward, too, would turn up when a session commenced, speak privately with the president, then leave his son, Fred Seward, to represent his department. Stanton, who claimed he would never raise "any important question, when an a.s.sistant is present," was infuriated. Blair, frustrated by the superior access granted Seward and Stanton, often lingered after cabinet meetings in hopes of a private word with Lincoln.
"At such a time as this, it would seem there should be free, full and constant intercourse and interchange of views," fumed Welles. Bates, also discontented, agreed. "There is now no mutual confidence among the members of the Govt.-and really no such thing as a C.[abinet] C.[ouncil]," he grumbled. "The more ambitious members, who seek to control-Seward-Chase-Stanton-never start their projects in C. C. but try first to commit the Prest., and then, if possible, secure the apparent consent of the members." Chase found the lack of collective deliberation demeaning. "But how idle it seems to me to speculate on Military affairs!" he complained to David Dudley Field. "The President consults only Stanton & Halleck in the management of the War. I look on from the outside and, as well as I can, furnish the means." If he were president, Chase a.s.sured Congressman Garfield, surely he "would have a system of information which should at least keep my Secretary of the Treasury advised of every thing of importance."
More strongly than Chase, Blair decried the lack of more formal meetings, attributing the cabinet"s failings to the machinations of Seward and Stanton. They had also been responsible, he believed, for Lincoln"s unwillingness to replace Halleck, whom Blair despised, and restore McClellan. In Blair"s mind, both Seward and Chase were "scheming for the succession. Stanton would cut the President"s throat if he could." Blair"s hatred for Stanton was so virulent that he refused to set foot in the War Department, the primary source of military information. Talking with Welles one evening at the depot, Blair admitted that Lincoln"s behavior puzzled him. "Strange, strange," he exclaimed, "that the President who has sterling ability should give himself over so completely to Stanton and Seward."
Certainly, Lincoln was not oblivious to the infighting of his colleagues. He remained firmly convinced, however, that so long as each continued to do his own job well, no changes need be made. Moreover, he had no desire for contentious cabinet discussions on tactical matters, preferring to rely on the trusted counsel of Seward and Stanton. Still, he understood the resentment this provoked in neglected members of his administration; and through many small acts of generosity, he managed to keep the respect and affection of his disgruntled colleagues.
Recognizing Blair"s desire for more personal influence, Lincoln kept his door open to both Monty and his father. Monty Blair, despite his frustrations, was ultimately loyal and had accomplished marvels as postmaster general, utterly transforming a primitive postal system without letter carriers, mailboxes on streets, or free delivery. Modernizing the postal service was particularly important for the soldiers, who relied on letters, newspapers, and magazines from home to sustain morale. To this end, Blair created a special system of army post offices, complete with army postmasters and stamp agents. His innovations provided the means for soldiers to send mail without postage so long as the recipient paid three cents on delivery of each letter. Even when foul weather and muddy roads made the delivery of mails to the army camps nearly impossible, inordinate efforts allowed the mail to get through.
Lincoln was also careful to reserve time for private conversation with Welles. He would often catch up with his "Neptune" on the pathway leading from the White House to the War and Navy Departments or call him aside as they awaited news in the telegraph office. In his written correspondence, the president was equally thoughtful. When he felt compelled to issue Welles an order regarding the instructions of naval officers at neutral ports, he a.s.sured Welles that "it is not intended to be insinuated that you have been remiss in the performance of the arduous and responsible duties of your Department, which I take pleasure in affirming has, in your hands, been conducted with admirable success."
So, in the end, the feuding cabinet members, with the exception of Chase, remained loyal to their president, who met rivalry and irritability with kindness and defused their tensions with humor. A particularly bitter argument arose between Chase and Monty Blair when Blair claimed that the Fugitive Slave Law still applied in loyal states and should be employed to return a runaway to his owner; Chase demanded instead that the slave be placed into military service. Lincoln mediated the dispute, a.s.suring them both that this very issue had long bedeviled him. "It reminded him," Welles recorded in his diary, "of a man in Illinois who was in debt and terribly annoyed by a pressing creditor, until finally the debtor a.s.sumed to be crazy whenever the creditor broached the subject. I, said the President, have on more than one occasion, in this room when beset by extremists on this question, been compelled to appear to be very mad."
During another tense session, Lincoln cited the work of the humorist Orpheus Kerr, which he especially relished, even though it often lampooned him and the members of the cabinet. "Now the hits that are given to you, Mr. Welles or to Chase I can enjoy, but I dare say they may have disgusted you while I was laughing at them. So vice versa as regards myself."
WHILE WORKING TO SUSTAIN the spirits of his cabinet, Lincoln also tried to soothe the incessant bickering and occasional resentment among his generals. Learning that William Rosecrans, headquartered in Nashville, had taken umbrage at a note he had sent, Lincoln replied at once. "In no case have I intended to censure you, or to question your ability," he wrote. "I frequently make mistakes myself, in the many things I am compelled to do hastily." He had merely intended to express concern over Rosecrans"s action regarding a particular colonel. And when Lincoln felt compelled to remove General Samuel Curtis from command in Missouri, he a.s.sured him that his removal was necessary only "to somehow break up the state of things in Missouri," where Governor Gamble headed one quarreling faction and Curtis another. "I did not mean to cast any censure upon you, nor to indorse any of the charges made against you by others. With me the presumption is still in your favor that you are honest, capable, faithful, and patriotic."
Despite Lincoln"s diplomacy, the quarrels in Missouri continued, eliciting a note from Governor Gamble complaining that the language in one of Lincoln"s published letters had been "grossly offensive" to him. When Hay presented the note to Lincoln, he was told "to put it away." Lincoln explained to Gamble that as he was "trying to preserve [his] own temper, by avoiding irritants, so far as practicable," he had decided not to read what his secretary had described as a "cross" letter. Having made his point, Lincoln a.s.sured the wounded Gamble: "I was totally unconscious of any malice, or disrespect towards you, or of using any expression which should offend you."
Lincoln"s patience had its limits, however. When Major General Robert H. Milroy railed about "the blind unreasoning hatred" of Halleck that he claimed had supposedly led to his suspension from command, Lincoln was unyielding. "I have scarcely seen anything from you at any time, that did not contain imputations against your superiors," Lincoln replied. "You have constantly urged the idea that you were persecuted because you did not come from West-Point, and you repeat it in these letters. This, my dear general, is I fear, the rock on which you have split."
Likewise, when Rosecrans grumbled that his request for a predated commission to secure a higher rank had been denied, Lincoln was unsympathetic: "Truth to speak, I do not appreciate this matter of rank on paper, as you officers do. The world will not forget that you fought the battle of "Stone River" and it will never care a fig whether you rank Gen. Grant on paper, or he so, ranks you."
As he was forced to deal with quarreling generals on almost every front, it is little wonder that Lincoln developed such respect and admiration for Ulysses S. Grant. Steadily and uncomplainingly, Grant had advanced toward Vicksburg, the Confederate stronghold whose capture would give the Union control of the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy. By the middle of May, after five successive victories, Grant had come within striking distance of Vicksburg. After two direct a.s.saults against John Pemberton"s forces failed on May 19 and May 22, he settled into a siege designed to starve the Confederates out.
"Whether Gen. Grant shall or shall not consummate the capture of Vicksburg," Lincoln wrote a friend on May 26, "his campaign from the beginning of this month up to the twenty second day of it, is one of the most brilliant in the world." During the troubling weeks with Hooker"s army in the East, news from Grant"s army in the West had sustained Lincoln. In March, Stanton had sent Charles Dana, the newspaperman who would later become a.s.sistant secretary of war, to observe General Grant and report on his movements. Dana had developed a powerful respect for Grant that was evident in his long, detailed dispatches. Lincoln"s own estimation of his general steadily increased as reports revealed a terse man of character and action. Requesting that General Banks join forces with him in the final drive to open the Mississippi, Grant a.s.sured Banks that he "would gladly serve under him as his superior in rank or simply cooperate with him for the benefit of the common cause if he should prefer that course."
Despite his growing regard for Grant, there were instances that required Lincoln to intervene with his most successful general. In a misguided effort to stop peddlers from illegally profiteering in cotton in areas penetrated by Union armies, Grant had issued an order expelling "the Jews, as a cla.s.s," from his department. The discriminatory order, which contained no provision for individual hearings or trials, forced all Jewish people to depart within twenty-four hours, leaving horses, carriages, and other valuables behind.
When a delegation of Jewish leaders approached Lincoln, it was clear that he was not fully informed about the matter. He responded to their plight with a biblical allusion: "And so the children of Israel were driven from the happy land of Canaan?" The delegation leader answered: "Yes, and that is why we have come unto Father Abraham"s bosom, asking protection." Lincoln replied quickly: "And this protection they shall have at once." He took his pen and wrote a note to Halleck, ordering immediate cancellation of the order. Halleck reluctantly complied after a.s.suring Grant that "the President has no objection to your expelling traitors and Jew peddlers, which, I suppose, was the object of your order; but, as it in terms proscribed an entire religious cla.s.s, some of whom are fighting in our ranks, the President deemed it necessary to revoke it."
Lincoln was also confronted by continuing rumors of Grant"s relapse into excessive drinking. Tales of drunkenness were not confined to Grant. Elizabeth Blair heard that during the Battle of Chancellorsville, Hooker "was drunk all the time," while Bates was told that "General H.[alleck] was a confirmed opium-eater," a habit that contributed to his "watery eyes" and "bloated" appearance. In Grant"s case, the gossip reached Lincoln by way of the puritanical Chase, who had received a letter from Murat Halstead. The respected journalist warned Chase that Grant was "most of the time more than half drunk, and much of the time idiotically drunk."
In fact, Lincoln and Stanton had already heard similar complaints. After dispatching investigators to look into General Grant"s behavior, however, they had concluded that his drinking did not affect his unmatched ability to plan, execute, and win battles. A memorable story circulated that when a delegation brought further rumors of Grant"s drinking to the president, Lincoln declared that if he could find the brand of whiskey Grant used, he would promptly distribute it to the rest of his generals!
WHILE THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG tightened in the West, a deceptive quiet settled on the Rappahannock. After visiting Hooker"s headquarters in mid-May, Senators Wade and Chandler told Lincoln that the pickets on both sides of the river had resumed "their old pastime of bandying wit and repartee..."I say Yank," shouted over one of the Rebels, "where is fightin" Joe Hooker, now?" "Oh, he"s gone to Stonewall Jackson"s funeral," shouted "Yank" in reply."
During this interlude on the Eastern front, Seward accompanied Frances and f.a.n.n.y back to Auburn, where they were planning to spend the summer. For a few precious days, he entertained old friends, caught up on his reading, and tended his garden. The sole trying event was the decision to fell a favorite old poplar tree that had grown unsound. Frances could not bear to be present as it was cut, certain that she "should feel every stroke of the axe." Once it was over, however, she could relax in the beautiful garden she had sorely missed during her prolonged stay in Washington. On June 1, when Seward boarded the train to return to the capital, f.a.n.n.y wrote that their home seemed "very lonely" without him.
No sooner had Seward departed Auburn than Frances and f.a.n.n.y began hearing troubling rumors that Lee intended to invade Washington, Maryland, or Pennsylvania. "We have again been anxious about Washington," f.a.n.n.y told her father. "Although I don"t consider myself a protection, Washington seems safer to me when I am there." Rea.s.suring his daughter, Seward noted that during his stay in Auburn, he, too, had remained "in constant uneasiness" over all manner of rumors that proved groundless upon his return to the capital. "Certainly the last thing that any one here thinks of, now-a-days, is an invasion of Washington."
On Monday, June 8, Mary and Tad left the capital for a two-week vacation in Philadelphia, where they took a suite at the Continental Hotel. After they had gone, Welles spoke with Lincoln about a "delicate" matter concerning Mary. In the aftermath of Willie"s death the previous year, she had canceled the weekly Marine Band summer concerts on the White House lawn. Welles warned that if the public were deprived of the entertainment for yet another season, the "grumbling and discontent" of the previous summer would only increase. Lincoln hesitated at first. Willie had loved the weekly concerts with their picniclike festivities, but "Mrs. L. would not consent, certainly not until after the 4th of July." When Welles persisted, Lincoln finally agreed to let him do whatever he "thought best." That night, most likely unsettled by the conversation about Willie, Lincoln had a nightmare about Tad"s recently acquired revolver. "Think you better put "Tad"s" pistol away," he wired Mary the next morning. "I had an ugly dream about him."
In the days that followed, reports that Lee"s army was heading north through the Shenandoah Valley to invade Maryland and Pennsylvania multiplied. On June 15, Seward sent a telegram to his son Will, suggesting he had better cut short his leave to return to his regiment in Washington. "Oh! what a disappointment!" f.a.n.n.y lamented. Will had just arrived in Auburn for a twenty-day sojourn with both his own family and Jenny"s. Many plans would be canceled, including "a double family pic-nic to the Lake." Writing to Frances that same day, Seward sought to set her mind at ease. Though it now seemed certain that Lee had crossed the Rappahannock, she must "not infer that there is any increase of danger for any of us in this change." On the contrary, "the near approach of battles toward us brings disadvantages to the enemy, and adds to our strength."
In similar fashion, Lincoln rea.s.sured Mary when a headline in a Northern paper blared: "Invasion! Rebel Forces in Maryland and Pennsylvania." "It is a matter of choice with yourself whether you come home," he told her. "I do not think the raid into Pennsylvania amounts to anything at all." When each day brought reports of further Confederate advances, however, Mary decided to rejoin her husband in Washington.
"The country, now, is in a blaze of excitement," Benjamin French recorded on June 18. "Some of the Rebel troops have crossed into the upper part of Pennsylvania, & the North is wide awake." While Welles worried that "something of a panic pervades the city," Lincoln remained quietly confident that the Union troops, fighting on home ground, would achieve the signal victory so long denied. Capitalizing on the intense patriotism inspired by the invasion, he called out a hundred thousand troops from the militias in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, and the new state of West Virginia.
"I should think this constant toil and moil would kill him," French marveled, yet the resilient president seemed "in excellent spirits." Inspired by Lincoln"s steadfast nature, French added, "the more I see of him the more I am convinced of his superlative goodness, truth, kindness & Patriotism."
In the tense atmosphere of Washington, the committee charged with planning the Fourth of July celebrations considered suspending their preparations. "Don"t you stop!" Mary Lincoln ordered White House secretary William Stoddard, promising to personally help make the anniversary celebrations a success. Reflecting her husband"s unruffled confidence, she a.s.sured Stoddard of her husband"s certainty that "the crisis has come and that all the chances are on our side. This move of Lee"s is all he could ask for."
Lincoln"s primary concern was that Hooker would again be "outgeneraled" by Lee. His worry escalated in the last weeks of June when he "observed in Hooker the same failings that were witnessed in McClellan after the Battle of Antietam. A want of alacrity to obey, and a greedy call for more troops which could not, and ought not to be taken from other points." When Hooker delivered a p.r.i.c.kly telegram asking to be relieved of command, Lincoln and Stanton replaced him with General George Meade, who had partic.i.p.ated in the Peninsula Campaign, Second Bull Run, and Chancellorsville. The surprising move distressed Chase. He had long championed Hooker and had recently returned from spending the day with him in the field. When Lincoln informed his cabinet that the change was already accomplished, Welles noted that "Chase was disturbed more than he cared should appear." The following day, Chase wrote to Kate, who was in New York. "You must have been greatly astonished for the relieving of General Hooker; but your astonishment cannot have exceeded mine."
THREE DAYS LATER, in Pennsylvania, the three-day Battle of Gettysburg began. "The turning point of the whole war seems to be crowding itself into the present," wrote John Nicolay. "It seems almost impossible to wait for the result. Hours become days and days become months in such a suspense." If Lee achieved victory at Gettysburg, he could move on to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. His aura of invincibility might, it was feared, eventually lead the British and French to recognize the independence of the Confederacy and bring the war to an end.
Telegraph service from the front was "poor and desultory," according to operator David Bates. Lincoln remained a constant fixture in the telegraph office, resting fitfully on the couch. At intervals, Stanton, Seward, Welles, and Senators Sumner and Chandler drifted in and out. Senator Chandler would "never forget the painful anxiety of those few days when the fate of the nation seemed to hang in the balance; nor the restless solicitude of Mr. Lincoln, as he paced up and down the room, reading dispatches, soliloquizing, and often stopping to trace the map which hung on the wall." Sketched on the map were the generals and places that would later be engraved in history: James Longstreet and George Pickett, Winfield Hanc.o.c.k and Joshua Chamberlain, Little Round Top and Cemetery Ridge.
After inconclusive fighting on the first day, a dispatch from Meade on Thursday night, July 2, reported that "after one of the severest contests of the war," the rebels had been "repulsed at all points." Still, given recent reversals and the protracted uncertainty in the present, everyone held their breath. As of 9 p.m. the following night, the New York Times reported, "no reliable advices have been received here from the Pennsylvania battlefield. It is generally felt that this is the crisis of the war. Intense anxiety prevails." At midnight, a messenger handed Welles a telegram from a Connecticut editor named Byington, who had left the battlefield a few hours earlier and reported that "everything looked hopeful." Welles a.s.sured Lincoln that Byington was "reliable," but the hours of uncertainty continued until shortly after dawn, July 4, when a telegram from Meade reported that the battle had been successfully concluded. The rebels were withdrawing after severe losses. Casualties were later calculated at 28,000, nearly a third of Lee"s army.
General Abner Doubleday described the tenacious fighting, which cost 23,000 Union lives, "as being the most desperate which ever took place in the world." He told a reporter that "nothing can picture the horrors of the battlefield around the ruined city of Gettysburg. Each house, church, hovel, and barn is filled with the wounded of both armies. The ground is covered with the dead."
On the morning of the Fourth of July, Lincoln issued a celebratory press release that was carried by telegram across the country. For young f.a.n.n.y Seward, waiting anxiously in Auburn, the day had started as "the gloomiest Fourth" she had ever known. "No public demonstration here-No ringing of bells." Everything changed in the late afternoon when the "extra" arrived, carrying the tidings of victory. Fireworks were set off to glorify simultaneously the country"s independence and the long-awaited victory.
In New York City, George Templeton Strong exulted in the colorful newspaper accounts of Lee"s retreat. "The results of this victory are priceless," he wrote. "Government is strengthened four-fold at home and abroad. Gold one hundred and thirty-eight today, and government securities rising. Copperheads are palsied and dumb for the moment at least."
Triumphant news from Vicksburg followed on the heels of victory at Gettysburg. Grant"s forty-six-day siege had finally forced Pemberton to surrender his starving troops. Welles had received the first tiding that Vicksburg had surrendered to Grant in a dispatch from Admiral David Porter. The bespectacled, "slightly fossilized" Welles hurried to the White House, dispatch in hand. Reaching the room where Lincoln was talking with Chase and several others, Welles reportedly "executed a double shuffle and threw up his hat by way of showing that he was the bearer of glad tidings." Lincoln affirmed that "he never before nor afterward saw Mr. Welles so thoroughly excited as he was then."
The elated president "caught my hand," recorded Welles, "and throwing his arm around me, exclaimed: "what can we do for the Secretary of the Navy for this glorious intelligence-He is always giving us good news. I cannot, in words, tell you my joy over this result. It is great, Mr. Welles, it is great!"" With the fall of Vicksburg, as Linclon later said, "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."
Dana described the surrender in a telegram to Stanton the next day. "The rebel troops marched out and stacked arms in front of their works while Genl. Pemberton appeared for a moment with his staff upon the parapet of the central post.... No troops remain outside-everything quiet here. Grant entered the city at 11 o"clock and was rec"d by Pemberton," whom he treated with great "courtesy & dignity." Dana estimated the number of prisoners, for whom rations were being distributed, to be about thirty thousand.
Lincoln expressed his joyful appreciation to Grant in a remarkable letter. "I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country," he began. He conceded that while he had approved most of the general"s maneuvers during the long struggle, he had harbored misgivings over Grant"s decision to turn "Northward East of the Big Black" instead of joining General Banks. "I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong."
Word of Vicksburg"s surrender unleashed wild celebrations throughout the North. In Washington, a large crowd, led by the 34th Ma.s.sachusetts Regimental Band, formed at the National Hotel and marched to the White House to congratulate the president. Lincoln appeared before the cheering mult.i.tude, revealing the preliminary thoughts that would coalesce in his historic Gettysburg Address. "How long is it-eighty odd years-since on the Fourth of July for the first time in the history of the world a nation, by its representatives, a.s.sembled and declared as a self-evident truth that "all men are created equal."" He went on to recall the signal events that had shared the anniversary of the nation"s birth, beginning with the twin deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4, and ending with the Union"s twin victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg on the same day. "Gentlemen," the president declared, "this is a glorious theme, and the occasion for a speech, but I am not prepared to make one worthy of the occasion." Instead, he spoke of the "praise due to the many brave officers and soldiers who have fought in the cause of the Union."
The band played some patriotic airs, and the crowd pressed on to the War Department, where Stanton paid generous tribute to General Grant. Although several more speeches followed and songs were played, the people had not exhausted their euphoria. Marching to Lafayette Square, they joined another throng at Seward"s house, cheering for the secretary to appear. The indefatigable Seward happily obliged, delivering a long, animated speech tracing the conflict from its troubled early days to its recent triumphs, which, he a.s.sured them, foretold "the beginning of the end."
The following day, little work was accomplished in the offices of government. In every building, Noah Brooks reported, the official bulletins were read "over and over again," producing "cheer upon cheer from the crowds of officers and clerks." On the streets, "Union men were shaking hands wherever they met, like friends after a long absence," while the Copperheads had "retired to their holes like evil beasts at sunrise."
The joyous occasion was marred for the Lincolns by a serious carriage accident that took place on the second day of the Gettysburg battle. As Rebecca Pomroy related the events, the Lincolns were returning to the White House from the Soldiers" Home. Lincoln was riding on horseback while Mary followed behind in their carriage. The night before, presumably targeting the president, an unknown a.s.sailant had removed the screws fastening the driver"s seat to the body of the carriage. When the vehicle began to descend from a winding hill, the seat came loose, throwing the driver to the ground. Unable to restrain the runaway horses, Mary tried to leap from the carriage. She landed on her back, hitting her head against a sharp stone. The wound was dressed at a nearby hospital, but a dangerous infection set in that kept her incapacitated for several weeks. With the Battle of Gettysburg in full swing, Lincoln was unable to minister to Mary"s needs. He brought Mrs. Pomroy to the Soldiers" Home to nurse his wife round the clock. Robert Lincoln believed that his mother "never quite recovered from the effects of her fall," which exacerbated the debilitating headaches that she already endured.
IN THE WAKE OF the triumphs at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Lincoln antic.i.p.ated a quick end to the rebellion. General Meade, he told Halleck, had only to "complete his work, so gloriously prosecuted thus far, by the literal or substantial destruction of Lee"s army." In the days that followed, both Halleck and Lincoln urged Meade to go after Lee, to attack him vigorously, to capture his army before he could escape into Virginia. Robert Lincoln later said that his father had sent explicit orders to Meade "directing him to attack Lee"s army with all his force immediately, and that if he was successful in the attack, he might destroy the order, but if he was unsuccessful he might preserve it for his vindication." The order has never been found. If Meade did receive it, he nonetheless failed to move against Lee. As the days pa.s.sed, Lincoln began "to grow anxious and impatient."
Lincoln"s worst fears were realized on July 14, when he received a dispatch from Meade reporting that Lee"s army had escaped his grasp by successfully crossing the Potomac at Williamsport, Maryland, into Virginia. At the cabinet meeting that day, Stanton was reluctant to share the news, though his face clearly revealed that he "was disturbed, disconcerted." Welles recorded that, when asked directly if Lee had escaped, "Stanton said abruptly and curtly he knew nothing of Lee"s crossing. "I do," said the President emphatically, with a look of painful rebuke to Stanton." Lincoln revealed what he had learned and suggested that the cabinet meeting be adjourned. "Probably none of us were in a right frame of mind for deliberation," Welles wrote. Certainly, he added, the president "was not."
Lincoln caught up with Welles as his navy secretary was leaving and walked with him across the lawn. His sorrow that Lee had once again managed to escape was palpable. "On only one or two occasions have I ever seen the President so troubled, so dejected and discouraged," Welles wrote. "Our Army held the war in the hollow of their hand & they would not close it," Lincoln said later. "We had gone through all the labor of tilling & planting an enormous crop & when it was ripe we did not harvest it."