Some professional army officers did in fact tend to think of war as “something autonomous” and deplored the intrusion of politics into military matters. Soon after he came to Washington as general-in-chief in August 1862, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck began complaining (privately) about “political wire-pulling in military appointments…. I have done everything in my power here to separate military appointments and commands from politics, but really the task is hopeless.” If the “incompetent and corrupt politicians,” he told another general, “would only follow the example of their ancestors, enter a herd of swine, run down some steep bank and drown themselves in the sea, there would be some hope of saving the country.”11
But Lincoln could never ignore the political context in which decisions about military strategy were made. Like French premier Georges Clemenceau a half century later, he knew that war was too important to be left to the generals. In a highly politicized and democratic society where the mobilization of a volunteer army was channeled through state governments, political considerations inevitably shaped the scope and timing of military strategy and even of operations. As leader of the party that controlled Congress and most state governments, Lincoln as commander in chief constantly had to juggle the complex interplay of policy, national strategy, and military strategy.
The slavery issue provides an example of this interplay. The goal of preserving the Union united the Northern people, including border-state Unionists. The issue of slavery and emancipation divided them. To maintain maximum support for the war, Lincoln initially insisted that it was a war solely for preservation of the Union and not a war against slavery. This policy required both a national and a military strategy of leaving slavery alone. But the slaves refused to cooperate. They confronted the administration with the problem of what to do with the thousands of “contrabands” who came within Union lines. As it became increasingly clear that slave labor sustained the Confederate economy and the logistics of Confederate armies, Northern opinion moved toward the idea of making it a war against slavery. By 1862 a national and military strategy that targeted enemy resources—including slavery—emerged as a key weapon in the Union arsenal. With the Emancipation Proclamation and the Republican commitment to a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery, the policy of a war for Union and freedom came into harmony with the national and military strategies of striking against the vital Confederate resource of slave labor. Lincoln’s skillful management of this contentious process was a crucial part of his war leadership.
In the realm of military strategy and operations, Lincoln initially deferred to General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, a hero of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War. But Scott’s advanced age, poor health, and lack of energy made it clear that he could not run this war. His successor, Gen. George B. McClellan, proved an even greater disappointment to Lincoln. Nor did Gens. Henry W. Halleck, Don Carlos Buell, John Pope, Ambrose E. Burnside, Joseph Hooker, or William S. Rosecrans measure up to initial expectations. Their shortcomings compelled Lincoln to become in effect his own general-in-chief as well as commander in chief during key campaigns. Lincoln sometimes even became involved in operations planning and offered astute suggestions to which his generals should perhaps have paid more heed.
Even after Ulysses S. Grant became general-in-chief in March 1864, Lincoln maintained a significant degree of strategic oversight—especially concerning events in the Shenandoah Valley during the late summer of 1864. The president did not become directly involved at the tactical level—though he was sorely tempted to do so when Gen. George G. Meade hesitated to attack Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, trapped with its back to the Potomac River after Gettysburg. At all levels of policy, strategy, and operations, however, Lincoln was a hands-on commander in chief who persisted through a terrible ordeal of defeats and disappointments to final triumph—and tragedy—at the end. Here is that story.
1
THE QUEST FOR A STRATEGY, 1861
FROM THE moment of his election as president on November 6, 1860, Lincoln confronted issues of policy and strategy even though he would not take office for almost four months. The South Carolina legislature immediately called a convention to take the state out of the Union. Within six weeks six more legislatures in the lower South had done the same. Each convention voted by a substantial margin to secede. As they did so, their militias seized federal forts, arsenals, and other property. In February 1861, a month before Lincoln’s inauguration, delegates from these seven states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a new nation they called the Confederate States of America. Lame-duck president James Buchanan maintained that secession was unconstitutional, but wrung his hands and said that he could not do anything about it. Spokesmen for the eight upper-South and border slave states still in the Union threatened also to go out if the government tried to “coerce” the seceded states.
Without power to do anything before he took office, Lincoln nevertheless began to explore what his options would be when he legally became commander in chief on March 4, 1861. “Ours should be a government of fraternity,” he acknowledged in conversations with his private secretary John Nicolay in November and December 1860. “The necessity of keeping the Government together by force” was an “ugly point.” Still, “the very existence of a general and national government implies the legal power, right, and duty of maintaining its own integrity.” The president-elect insisted that “the right of a State to secede is not an open or debatable question…. It is the duty of a President to execute the laws and maintain the existing Government. He cannot entertain any proposition for dissolution or dismemberment.”1
Lincoln never deviated from these principles. But the hard question was how to carry them into practice. In December he sent word to General-in-Chief Scott through congressmen and other leaders in Washington to be prepared to retake any forts seized by secessionist militia. When rumors reached Lincoln that President James Buchanan had ordered Maj. Robert Anderson, commander of the U.S. garrison at Fort Moultrie, on the shore of Charleston Bay, to evacuate the fort, the angry president-elect exclaimed: “If that is true, they ought to hang him!”2 The rumor was not true, but several days later Anderson moved the garrison to Fort Sumter, situated on an artificial island in the bay and much more secure from attack than Fort Moultrie.
Meanwhile two powerful editorials appeared in the Illinois Daily State Journal, a Springfield newspaper that spoke for Lincoln—in fact, he may have written them. If South Carolina tried to resist the collection of customs revenue at its ports, “any resistance on her part will lead to war…. The laws of the United States must be executed…. Disunion by armed force is treason, and treason must be put down at all hazards…. If ten thousand armed men are necessary to execute the laws of Congress within a State,” so be it.3
There was one problem with all of this tough talk: There were nowhere near ten thousand federal troops available. The garrison at Fort Sumter totaled about eighty soldiers. The whole U.S. Army numbered only sixteen thousand men, and most of them were scattered at frontier posts up to three thousand miles from Charleston. And Lincoln was acutely aware that a third of their officers were from the South, including a disproportionate number of high-ranking officers. As a loyal captain had informed Lincoln in October 1860, the secretary of war and the general-in-chief (Winfield Scott, who was, however, unquestionably loyal) were Virginians; every one of the chiefs of military bureaus in Washington was a Virginian or married to one; the colonels of four of the five cavalry and dragoon regiments were Southerners; and the commanders of three of the army’s most important geographical departments were Virginians.4 Virginia was still in the Union at the end of 1860, but its political leaders had made it clear that any hint of carrying out the kind of “coercion” that Lincoln and his associates were discussing would drive it into secession.
Lincoln was loath to take such threats seriously. He believed that an underlying Unionism remained strong in slave states—even those that had seceded. On his way to Washington in
February 1861 he gave numerous short speeches. Their main thrust was an effort to calm passions in both North and South and to convince Southerners that he intended no threat to slavery in their states. But the president-elect kept alive the military option—to the clear approval of his audiences. At Indianapolis he asked the crowd: If the government “simply insists upon holding its own forts, or retaking those forts that belong to it, [cheers] or the enforcement of the laws of the United States in the collection of duties upon foreign importations, [renewed cheers]…would any or all of these things be coercion?” At Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Lincoln tried to assure those who deplored the prospect of war that “there will be no blood shed unless it be forced upon the Government. The Government will not use force unless force is used against it…. I shall endeavor to preserve the peace of this country so far as it can possibly be done, consistently with the maintenance of the institutions of the country.”5
Those who noted the qualifying clauses in these sentences may not have been reassured. And their doubts would have been greater if they heard the following words in a second speech that Lincoln delivered in Harrisburg, to the General Assembly: “It is not with any pleasure that I contemplate the possibility that a necessity may arise in this country for the use of the military arm. [Applause].” At the New Jersey capital in Trenton, after recalling the heroic sacrifices of soldiers in the Revolution, Lincoln hinted that another war might be necessary to save the nation to which they had given birth. “I shall do all that may be in my power to promote a peaceful settlement of all our difficulties,” Lincoln said eleven days before his inauguration. “But it may be necessary to put the foot down firmly.” The New York Tribune reporter who took down this speech interjected that “here the audience broke out in cheers so loud and long that for some moments it was impossible to hear Mr. L’s voice.” Lincoln was finally able to continue: “And if I do my duty, and do right, you will sustain me, will you not? [Loud cheers, and cries of “Yes,” “Yes,” “We will.”]”6
While he was making these speeches, Lincoln had his forthcoming inaugural address very much on his mind. He knew that every word would be scrutinized as if with a microscope for clues to his intentions. He had written a draft in Springfield before departing for Washington. He showed it to Secretary of State–designate William H. Seward, whom Lincoln had edged out for the presidential nomination, and to Orville Browning, a close friend who would soon become a senator from Illinois. Both urged Lincoln to modify one of the key sentences in his draft, which stated: “All the power at my disposal will be used to reclaim the property and places which have fallen; to hold, occupy and possess these, and all other property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties on imports; but beyond what may be necessary for these, there will be no invasion of any State.” Believing that these bellicose words would drive the upper South into secession and ruin any hope of bringing out the supposed latent Unionism in Confederate states, Seward recommended striking out the whole sentence. Lincoln was unwilling to go that far, but he did adopt Browning’s suggestion to delete the reference to retaking federal property and instead to say simply that the administration would “hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government.”7
Many people in the South would have perceived this change as a distinction without a difference. On the day of Lincoln’s inauguration the government held only Fort Sumter; Fort Pickens on an island off the port of Pensacola; and two minor forts in the Florida Keys. Fort Sumter had long since become the flash point of possible war. Confederate artillery ringed the bay with dozens of big guns ranged on the thick brick walls of the fort. To “hold, occupy and possess” Sumter and probably Pickens would require large reinforcements if the Confederate government decided to back demands for their surrender with force.
An uneasy truce had existed for almost two months at both Charleston and Pensacola as the Buchanan administration came to an end on March 4. But on Lincoln’s first full day in office it became clear that the status quo could not last much longer. A letter from Major Anderson landed on the new president’s desk informing him that the Sumter garrison would run out of provisions in a month or six weeks.8 Lincoln had to make his first—and one of his most important—decisions as commander in chief. Would he keep his inaugural vow to “hold, occupy and possess” at the risk of starting a war that might drive the rest of the slave states into the Confederacy? Or would he heed the advice of the Southern Unionists, Northern conservatives, and his own secretary of state—who considered himself the “premier” of Lincoln’s administration—and withdraw the troops to preserve the peace?
The withdrawal option was extremely distasteful to Lincoln—and to a majority of his party. Nevertheless he apparently explored the option, in return for a significant quid pro quo. The largest and most strategically situated slave state was Virginia. When Lincoln arrived in Washington, a Virginia convention was meeting in Richmond to decide whether to secede. The rest of the upper South would undoubtedly follow its example. In these circumstances Lincoln met with two Virginia delegates to a “Peace Convention” in Washington a week before his inauguration. According to his own recollection and those of others, he offered to withdraw the troops from Fort Sumter if the Richmond convention would dissolve without seceding. Several weeks later Lincoln reportedly repeated the offer to a delegate from the Richmond convention, saying that “a State for a fort is no bad business.” The Virginians, however, said they had no power to make such a commitment, and the proposed deal—if there was one—fell through. Whether Lincoln made such a proposal, and would have carried it out, must remain forever moot.9
The question of a state for a fort apart, Lincoln seemed to have only two options: Pull out, or send in reinforcements and supplies to hold the fort. The countervailing pressures on the new president to do one or the other were so intense that he suffered sleepless nights, severe headaches, and one morning he keeled over in a faint as he tried to get out of bed.10 During all this time Lincoln also had to cope with swarms of office seekers and patronage-hunting politicians who infested the White House day and night. Looking back in July on those weeks, Lincoln told Senator Orville Browning that “of all the trials I have had since I came here, none begin to compare with those I had between the inauguration and the fall of Fort Sumpter. They were so great that could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”11
Lincoln’s trials began when he consulted General-in-Chief Scott about the bombshell letter from Major Anderson stating that he could not hold out for more than six weeks. Scott’s advice depressed the president. “I now see no alternative but a surrender,” wrote the general, because “we cannot send the third of the men in several months, necessary to give them relief…. Evacuation seems almost inevitable…if indeed the worn-out garrison be not assaulted and carried in the present week.”12 Lincoln was reluctant to accept this counsel. The next day John Hay, the president’s second private secretary, whose opinions often reflected those of his boss, wrote an anonymous editorial in the New York World hinting that Lincoln would refuse to evacuate any of the forts still held by the U.S. Army.13 The president convened his first cabinet meeting on March 9, at which General Scott reportedly said that it would require twenty-five thousand troops and six months or more of preparations to reinforce Fort Sumter. Lincoln asked Scott to put that estimate in writing, which he did.14
By this time Lincoln had begun to suspect that Scott’s professional opinion was colored by his political convictions. Although loyal, Scott was after all a Virginian who deplored the possibility of fratricidal war in which his native state would become a battleground. He was willing to make large concessions to avert such a calamity. Scott was also influenced by Seward, who had been one of his advisers when the general ran for president (and lost) in 1852. Seward was working behind Lincoln’s back leaking information to the press and assuring (through an intermediary) Confederate commissioners that Fort Sumter would
soon be evacuated. On March 11 Scott went so far as to draft, on his own authority, an order to Major Anderson to “engage suitable water transportation, & peacefully evacuate Fort Sumter so long and gallantly held.” Scott submitted the draft to Secretary of War Simon Cameron, who placed it in Lincoln’s hands. The president’s reaction was not recorded but can be imagined. Needless to say, the order was never issued.15
As the pressures for and against the evacuation of Fort Sumter continued to mount, Lincoln ordered the reinforcement of Fort Pickens so that if he ultimately decided to abandon Sumter, at least one contested symbol of national sovereignty would be maintained. This order miscarried and had to be sent again in April. But Sumter was a far more potent symbol; on its fate hinged the issues of Union or disunion, war or peace. On March 15 Lincoln asked his seven cabinet officers to submit written opinions on the question of evacuating or reinforcing Sumter. Five of them, led by Seward, recommended withdrawal in order to preserve the peace, calm passions, and provide time for Southern Unionism to reassert itself. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase supported reinforcement if it would not provoke war—a rather fatuous recommendation under the circumstances. Only Postmaster General Montgomery Blair unequivocally opposed evacuation, because it would “convince the rebels that the administration lacks firmness and will.” Instead of encouraging Southern Unionists it would discourage them, strengthen the hold of Confederates on Southern opinion, and cause foreign nations to recognize the Confederacy as a fait accompli. To give up the fort meant giving up the Union.16