Initial news reports in the North conveyed an impression of great Union victories, especially after a breakthrough at the Confederate “mule shoe” salient at Spotsylvania and the capture of three thousand men of Stonewall Jackson’s old division on May 12. GLORIOUS NEWS…IMMENSE REBEL LOSSES, blared headlines in the usually restrained New York Times. “The Virginia campaign approaches a Glorious consummation,” added the New York Herald. The New York Tribune proclaimed that “Lee’s Army as an effective force has practically ceased to exist” and LIBERTY—UNION—PEACE were nigh.21
Lincoln feared that such extravagant claims would boomerang if the news turned out to be too good to be true—which it soon did. “The people are too sanguine,” he told Noah Brooks, who had become a quasi-official presidential spokesman. “They expect too much at once…. I wish when you write and speak to people you would do all you can to correct the impression that the war in Virginia will end right off victoriously.”22
Sure enough, in the third week of May both the news and the public mood began to turn sour. The two auxiliary campaigns in Virginia that Grant had designed to “hold a leg” while the Army of the Potomac did the skinning had failed. Advancing up the Shenandoah Valley, Franz Sigel’s small army was defeated by an even smaller Confederate force at New Market on May 15; some of those Confederate troops were then able to reinforce Lee. The advance of Benjamin Butler’s Army of the James against Petersburg and the railroad north to Richmond was also frustrated by Butler’s tentativeness and quarrels with his subordinates, and the effective fighting of a Confederate force commanded by Pierre G. T. Beauregard that defeated Butler on May 16 in the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff, seven miles south of Richmond. The Federals retreated to a defensive position across the narrow neck of land between the James and Appomattox Rivers just north of Petersburg. The Confederates constructed their own entrenchments across the neck where the Army of the James, in Grant’s words, was “as completely shut off from further operations directly against Richmond as if it had been in a bottle strongly corked.”23 Beauregard sent several thousand men to reinforce Lee.
While this was going on, Union wounded from the Wilderness and Spotsylvania arrived by the thousands daily at military hospitals in Washington. The shock of these casualties—thirty thousand killed and wounded in two weeks—brought home the cost of the war more than ever before. “The carnage has been unexampled,” wrote Attorney General Edward Bates in his diary. Elizabeth Blair Lee, whose husband was an acting rear admiral, one brother a major general with Sherman and the other postmaster general, wrote that “the lines [of] ambulances & the moans of the poor suffering men were too much for my nerves.”24
As anxious relatives scanned the casualty lists in Northern newspapers and read about Butler’s and Sigel’s defeats, the Northern mood grew “despondent and bad.”25 It grew worse as Grant’s attack at Cold Harbor on June 3 achieved nothing but seven thousand Union casualties in an hour. A series of assaults on Confederate defenses at Petersburg on June 15–18 cost another twelve thousand Union losses with apparently nothing to show for them except the prospect of a long siege. Even in Georgia the advance of Sherman some seventy miles during May also stalled twenty miles short of Atlanta in June.
Lincoln’s concern changed from one of dampening excessive Northern optimism in May to one of stemming the steep decline of morale in June. In a speech on June 16 at the fair in Philadelphia to raise money for the United States Sanitary Commission, the president acknowledged that “war, at best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and duration, is one of the most terrible…. It has carried mourning to almost every home, until it can almost be said that the ‘heavens are hung in black.’” Many were asking, “When is the war to end?” Lincoln wished he could answer, “Soon.” But it must and would end only in victory. “We accepted this war for an object, a worthy object, and the war will end when that object is attained. Under God, I hope it never will until that time. [Great cheering] General Grant said, I am going through on this line if it takes all summer [Cheers]…I say we are going through on this line if it takes three years more. [Cheers]”26
The Republican national convention renominated Lincoln almost unanimously on June 7. He had staved off an early challenge from Chase, who was the favorite of radical Republicans dissatisfied with the president’s reconstruction policy. But even after his renomination, Lincoln knew that his support from the radical wing of the party remained tenuous. On May 31 a splinter group of abolitionists and radical German Americans had nominated John C. Frémont for president. Frémont remained bitter toward Lincoln for removing him from his first command in 1861 and not giving him a third chance after he had resigned from his second in June 1862. Frémont’s challenge was a marginal one, however; the main danger to Lincoln’s standing in the party came from within it. If the war continued to go badly, portents of a movement for a new convention to nominate someone else might become a reality.
This murky political situation impinged on a thorny command problem in the Army of the James. It concerned Benjamin Butler. This former Democrat, who had supported Jefferson Davis for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1860, was one of the most remarkable political chameleons of the age. Having been commissioned a major general of volunteers so early in the war, as a way of mobilizing Democrats for the war effort, Butler outranked almost all other generals still in the army in 1864. More than once Lincoln must have rued that early appointment. But in 1861 Butler’s success in getting troops to Washington and his initiative in securing Baltimore seemed to have justified it. His invention of the “contraband” designation for Confederate-owned slaves made him something of a hero to antislavery Republicans and began Butler’s migration toward the radical wing of that party. His efficient but heavy-handed administration of occupied Louisiana in 1862—and especially his organization of black regiments there before the administration sanctioned this policy—expanded his radical credentials.
But reports of corruption, of trading with the enemy, and of harassing foreign consuls in New Orleans caused Lincoln to replace Butler with General Banks in December 1862. The president was surprised, and perhaps dismayed, by the political fallout from Butler’s removal. The paunchy, squint-eyed general had built a strong constituency among Republicans while retaining support from the prowar wing of the Democratic Party. Lincoln felt compelled to find a new command for him. In the fall of 1863 the president appointed him head of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, where he also became commander of the newly formed Army of the James.27
The “bottling up” of that army after its defeat in the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff led to recriminations between Butler and his two corps commanders, Quincy Gillmore and William F. Smith. The latter was the same Smith who had worked to undermine Burnside in December 1862 and whom Lincoln had transferred to the Western theater. There he had come under Grant’s command at Chattanooga and had impressed Grant with his ability. Gillmore was an artillery expert whose guns had compelled the surrender of Fort Pulaski in 1862 and had pulverized Fort Sumter to rubble in 1863. Grant put these two professionals in command of the two corps of the Army of the James in the hope that they would provide the necessary leadership to compensate for Butler’s lack of combat experience—but it did not work out that way. There was plenty of blame to share among the three generals for their failure, and they soon began quarreling with one another.
Grant had to intervene. When the Army of the Potomac invested Petersburg in June 1864, the Army of the James was in effect integrated with it under Grant’s overall leadership. Because of Butler’s seniority, however, he would command the whole if Grant was absent. Considering this possibility unacceptable, Grant asked Halleck on July 1 to have the president transfer Butler to another theater. That would be easier said than done, Halleck told Grant. He proposed an alternative that might be described as the Banks solution: Kick Butler upstairs as a department administrator, as with Banks in Louisiana, and put Smith in field command of the troops
. Grant initially liked the idea, and Lincoln reluctantly approved the order on July 7.
At some point in the next few days, however, Grant changed his mind and had the order quashed. He had become disillusioned with Smith, who possessed an unfortunate tendency to criticize everyone, including Meade and even Grant himself. Having learned about the political sensitivity of shelving Banks, Grant may have realized that doing the same with Butler was even more problematic. Some of Salmon P. Chase’s former supporters had turned their attention to Butler as a possible presidential nominee who could attract War Democrats as well as disaffected Republicans if the deteriorating military situation caused Lincoln’s candidacy to collapse. The president may have conveyed to Grant the political danger of alienating Butler (if so, documentation is lacking). Or Grant may have figured it out on his own. In any event Butler and Smith could not get along. One of them would have to go, and Grant decided to send Smith packing. An amused officer on General Meade’s staff commented: “Thus did Smith the Bald try the Macchiavelli against Butler the cross-eyed, and got floored in the first round.”28
LINCOLN HAD PLENTY of other worries besides Butler in that ill-starred month of July 1864. Despite the behind-the-scenes intrigues among Republicans, the greater threat to his reelection—and to the war effort—was the surging strength of the Democratic Party. The peace wing of that party thrived on the growing public conviction that the war was a failure. And more than anything else, Gen. Jubal Early’s raid to the outskirts of Washington in mid-July fed that conviction.
Early’s raid had begun when Lee detached his corps from the Army of Northern Virginia in mid-June to drive away a Union force threatening Lynchburg. Gen. David Hunter had replaced Franz Sigel as commander of Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley. Hunter advanced toward Lynchburg but retreated into West Virginia when confronted by Early’s corps. Seeing an open road north to the Potomac, Early seized it, crossed into Maryland, and marched on Washington after pushing aside a cobbled-together Union blocking force in the Battle of Monocacy, near Frederick, on July 9.
Here was a stunning reversal of the fortunes of war. Instead of capturing Richmond by the Fourth of July, as many optimistic Northerners had anticipated two months earlier, they saw a Confederate force of fifteen thousand men threatening Washington. Grant had combed most of the heavy artillery regiments out of the Washington defenses and converted them into infantry to make up the large losses in the Army of the Potomac. As Early approached the capital on July 10, therefore, almost the only soldiers in the extensive fortifications that ringed the city were convalescents from army hospitals and hastily mobilized emergency militia.
Grant and Halleck had initially discounted Early’s threat. Grant even denied for several days that Early’s corps had been detached from the main army. Not until July 6 did Halleck acknowledge that “the invasion is of a pretty formidable character.” In response Grant sent from Petersburg a division of the Sixth Corps and some cavalry, which fought at Monocacy on July 9. They slowed Early by a day. On July 10 Lincoln asked Grant to leave enough troops to hold the siege lines on the Richmond/Petersburg front and to bring the rest to Washington. The president’s purpose was not only the defense of the capital. Once again he saw in a Confederate invasion an opportunity to trap the invaders before they could get back home. He wanted Grant to “make a vigorous effort to destroy the enemy’s force in this vicinity. I think there is really a fair chance to do this if the movement is prompt.”29
Grant replied that he could not come himself but would send the rest of the Sixth Corps plus a division of the Army of the Gulf (Nineteenth Corps) that was already on its way from Louisiana. As advance units of the Sixth Corps began arriving on July 11, Lincoln went personally to Fort Stevens north of the city, where they were skirmishing with Early’s troops. The six-foot-four-inch president wearing his top hat made a large target as he peered over the parapet at enemy sharpshooters. As John Hay recorded the incident, “A soldier roughly ordered him to get down or he would have his head knocked off.”30
By tradition this soldier was Capt. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a thrice-wounded veteran who was serving as a staff officer for Sixth Corps commander Gen. Horatio Wright. “Get down, you fool,” Holmes reportedly said, not realizing in the excitement of the moment that he was speaking to the president. There is no definitive evidence either for or against the story that Holmes was the man who ordered Lincoln to get down. The next day, as the Sixth Corps was preparing to drive Early away, Lincoln returned to Fort Stevens. A Union officer was shot while standing close to the president. This time General Wright himself ordered Lincoln to take cover (more politely than Holmes).31
Even as Early was probing the Washington defenses, Lincoln’s “only concern,” according to John Hay, was “whether we can bag or destroy this force in our front.” The president urged General Wright to pursue the retreating enemy and cut them off before they could retreat across the Potomac. But it did not happen. Wright’s pursuit was too slow, and on July 14 Lincoln sarcastically told Hay: “Wright telegraphs that he thinks the enemy are all across the Potomac but that he has halted & sent out an infantry reconnaissance, for fear he might come across the rebels & catch some of them.”32 By coincidence it was exactly a year earlier that Lincoln had written his unsent letter to General Meade deploring the escape of the Army of Northern Virginia across the same river after Gettysburg.
Responsibility for the Union forces pursuing Early was fragmented among Wright, Hunter (whose Eighth Corps had returned from West Virginia), and the commanders of the Washington and Baltimore defenses. The logical person to take charge and coordinate these forces was General Halleck. But as Hay accurately noted, “There seems to be no head about this whole affair. Halleck hates responsibility: hates to give orders.” The usually mild-mannered Edward Bates undoubtedly expressed Lincoln’s sentiments also when he lamented: “Alas! for the impotence or treachery of our military leaders! The raiders have retired across the Potomac, with all their booty safe! Nobody seems disposed to hinder them.” On July 15 Bates recorded that “I spoke my mind, very plainly,” to Lincoln and three other cabinet members “about the ignorant imbecility of the late military operations, and my contempt for Genl. Halleck.” Nobody disagreed with him.33
Lincoln tried to cut through this military red tape by combining the four military departments under a single commander. Grant suggested Gen. William B. Franklin for the position, but Halleck knew that the president would never accept this McClellan protégé who had done so much to undermine Burnside. Grant then suggested Meade, who seemed to have outlived his usefulness as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln undoubtedly agreed—in principle at least. But as a practical matter he vetoed this idea because in the current depression of public opinion the transfer of Meade would only intensify the demoralization. Recalling the post-Gettysburg Meade, Lincoln also doubted whether he was the right man to chase down and destroy Early. So on July 27 Lincoln issued an order placing Halleck himself temporarily in charge of the merged departments. Aware of Halleck’s shortcomings, however, the president telegraphed Grant to meet him at Fort Monroe on July 31 for a personal conference to decide on a long-term solution of the mess.34
Before this meeting took place, two more disasters occurred, both on July 30, that caused a further plunge in Northern morale. On that date Jubal Early’s cavalry rode into Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, demanded a ransom of five hundred thousand dollars, and burned down the town when its residents could not comply. Two hundred miles away near Petersburg, soldiers of the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania set off a gunpowder mine that blew a huge hole in the Confederate line. But Union commanders bungled the subsequent assault through the gap. The Confederates sealed it off with a counterattack that inflicted four thousand casualties on the Union forces (including several dozen black soldiers who were shot after they had surrendered). Grant watched the fiasco of this failed attack, and reported disconsolately to Washington: “It was the saddest affair I have witnessed in the wa
r. Such opportunity for carrying fortifications I have never seen and do not expect again to have.”35
Neither Lincoln nor Grant could have been in a good mood when they met on July 31 for a discussion that lasted five hours. No record was made of their conversation. Lincoln may have come as close as he ever did to chewing out Grant for all the failures that had occurred during the past six weeks.36 Whatever else happened at this meeting, one thing is clear: The commander in chief and general-in-chief agreed to put the young but hard-driving commander of the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry, Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, in charge of the newly created Middle Military Division (later called the Army of the Shenandoah). The day after this meeting Grant telegraphed Halleck that he was sending Sheridan for “temporary duty whilst the enemy is being expelled from the border…. I want Sheridan put in command of all the troops in the field, with instructions to put himself south of the enemy [Early had given signs of moving north across the Potomac again] and follow him to the death.”37
Because General Hunter outranked Sheridan and Grant had not clarified their relationship, Halleck quibbled and delayed in carrying out this order. An exasperated Lincoln telegraphed Grant on August 3: “I have seen your despatch in which you say ‘I want Sheridan put in command of all the troops in the field…to put himself South of the enemy, and follow him to the death.’” Lincoln liked the sound of this. “But please look over the despatches you may have received from here, even since you made that order, and discover, if you can, that there is any idea in the head of anyone here, of ‘putting our army South of the enemy’ or of ‘following him to the death’ in any direction. I repeat to you it will neither be done or attempted unless you watch it every day, and hour, and force it.”38