Read Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief Page 33


  35. Lincoln to Grant, Sept. 12, 1864, Basler, Collected Works, 7:548; Grant to Lincoln, Sept. 13, 1864, Lincoln Papers; Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, 2 vols. (New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885–86), 2:583.

  36. James W. Forsyth to John D. Stevenson, Sept. 19, 1864, O.R. 43, ii:124.

  37. Lincoln to Sheridan, Sept. 20, 1864, Basler, Collected Works, 8:13.

  38. Grant to Halleck, July 14, 1864, O.R. 40, iii:223; Sheridan to Grant, Oct. 7, 1864, O.R. 43, i:30–31.

  39. Lincoln to Sheridan, Oct. 22, 1864, Basler, Collected Works, 8:73–74.

  40. McPherson, Political History of the United States, 420.

  41. Ovid L. Futch, History of Andersonville Prison (Gainesville, Fla.: University of Florida Press, 1968), 43; William Marvel, Andersonville: The Last Depot (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 147–49.

  42. H. Brewster to Edwin M. Stanton, Sept. 8, 1864, Samuel White to Lincoln, Sept. 12, 1864, O.R., series 2, vol. 7, pp. 787, 816.

  43. Basler, Collected Works, 7:500.

  44. Benjamin Butler to Robert Ould, Aug. 27, 1864, O.R., series 2, vol. 7, p. 691. This letter was published in the New York Times, Sept. 6, 1864, and also printed as a leaflet by the government for general circulation.

  45. Lee to Grant, Oct. 1, 1864, Grant to Lee, Oct. 2, Lee to Grant, Oct. 3, Grant to Lee, Oct. 3, O.R., series 2, vol. 7, pp. 906–7, 909, 914.

  46. William C. Davis, Lincoln’s Men: How President Lincoln Became Father to an Army and a Nation (New York: The Free Press, 1999); Thomas P. Lowry, Don’t Shoot That Boy: Abraham Lincoln and Military Justice (Mason City, Iowa: Savas Publishing, 1999).

  47. Delos Lake to his mother, July 12, Nov. 1, 1864, Lake Papers, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.; Henry Kauffman to Katherine Kreitzer, Oct. 15, 1864, in David McCordick, ed., The Civil War Letters (1861–1865) of Private Henry Kauffman (Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1991), 89.

  48. Henry Crydenwise to his parents, Oct. 25, 1864, Crydenwise Papers, Woodruff Library, Emory University; Connecticut soldier quoted in Bruce Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1957), 303.

  49. John Berry to Samuel L. M. Barlow, Aug. 24, 1864, Barlow Papers, Huntington Library.

  50. Basler, Collected Works, 8:149, 151.

  51. Dunbar Rowland, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and Speeches, 10 vols. (Jackson, Miss.: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1923), 6:386.

  52. These quotations are from Sherman’s letters and telegrams to Grant (with citations also to Grant’s replies), in O.R. 39, iii:3, 63–64, 161, 202, 576, 594–95, 660.

  53. Stanton to Grant, Oct. 12, 13, 1864, Grant to Sherman, Nov. 2, 1864, ibid., iii:222, 239, 595.

  54. Stanton to Grant, Dec. 2, 1864, ibid., 45, ii:15–16.

  55. Grant to Thomas, Dec. 2, 6, 8, Thomas to Grant, Dec. 2, 6, Stanton to Grant, Dec. 7, 1864, ibid., 45, ii:17–18, 70, 97.

  56. Grant to Stanton, Dec. 7, 1864, ibid., 97.

  57. Grant to Halleck, Dec. 8, 9, 1864, Halleck to Grant, Dec. 8, 9, Thomas to Halleck, Dec. 9, 11, 12, 14, Halleck to Thomas, Dec. 14, Grant to Thomas, Dec. 9, 11, ibid., 45, ii:96, 115–16, 143, 168, 180; David Homer Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office (New York: The Century Co., 1907), 312–18.

  58. Lincoln to Thomas, Dec. 16, 1864, Basler, Collected Works, 8:169.

  59. John Sherman to Alexander McClure, Jan. 29, 1892, in McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times (Philadelphia: Times Publishing Co., 1892), 238n.; Sherman to Lincoln, Dec. 22 (dated Dec. 25 from Fort Monroe), Lincoln Papers.

  60. Lincoln to Sherman, Dec. 26, 1864, Basler, Collected Works, 8:181–82.

  61. Sherman’s campaign report, Jan. 1, 1865, O.R. 44, p. 13.

  62. Lincoln to Cuthbert Bullitt, July 28, 1862, Lincoln to August Belmont, July 31, 1862, Basler, Collected Works, 5:346, 350; the remark about Sherman taking off the bear’s hide is quoted by several authors, most notably Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative. Red River to Appomattox (New York: Random House, 1974), 864. I have not been able to trace it back to the original source.

  63. Lincoln to Grant, Dec. 28, 1864, Basler, Collected Works, 8:187; Grant to Lincoln, Dec. 28, 1864, O.R. 42, iii:1087; Grant to Stanton, Jan. 4, 1865, Halleck to Grant, Jan. 7, 1865, O.R. 46, ii:29, 60.

  64. Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: National Publishing Co., 1868–70), 2:619.

  65. Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins, ed., The Journals of Josiah Gorgas, 1857–1878 (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1995), 147–49, entries of Jan. 6 and 18, 1865.

  66. Davis to Blair, Jan. 12, 1865, Lincoln to Blair, Jan. 18, 1865, Basler, Collected Works, 8:275–76. Emphasis added.

  67. William C. Cooper, Jr., Jefferson Davis, American (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 510–11.

  68. Basler, Collected Works, 8:277–81.

  69. Grant to Stanton, Feb. 2, 1865, ibid., 282.

  70. “Memorandum of the Conversation at the Conference in Hampton Roads,” in John A. Campbell, Reminiscences and Documents Relating to the Civil War During the Year 1865 (Baltimore: John Murphy, 1877), 11–17; Seward to Charles Francis Adams, Feb. 7, 1865, O.R. 46, ii:471–73; Stephens, Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, 1:598–619. The best study of the Hampton Roads Conference is William C. Harris, “The Hampton Roads Peace Conference: A Final Test of Lincoln’s Presidential Leadership,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 21 (2000), 31–61.

  71. Basler, Collected Works, 8:279.

  72. Stephens, Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, 2:613.

  73. In his account Stephens maintained that Lincoln had urged him to persuade the Georgia legislature to take the state out of the war and to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment prospectively, to take effect in five years. Stephens either misunderstood or deliberately distorted Lincoln’s words. The president was too good a lawyer to suggest any such absurdity as a “prospective” ratification of a constitutional amendment. Lincoln had just played a leading part in getting Congress to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, and he was using his influence to get every Republican state legislature as well as those of Maryland, Missouri, and Tennessee to ratify it. Stephens, Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, 2:611–12. See also Harris, “Hampton Roads Peace Conference,” 51.

  74. Richmond Examiner, Feb. 6, 1865; Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, 6:465–67.

  75. Basler, Collected Works, 8:330–31.

  76. Ibid., 332–33.

  77. David Dixon Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1885), 294.

  78. Ibid., 295; T. Morris Chester’s dispatches to the Philadelphia Press, in that newspaper, April 11 and 12, 1865.

  79. Lincoln to Weitzel, April 6, 1865, Basler, Collected Works, 8:389.

  80. For documentation of this matter, see ibid., 386–89, 405–8.

  81. Ibid., 399–405.

  82. “Impeachment of the President,” 40th Cong., 1st sess., 1867, H. Rep. 7, 674, quoted in William Hanchett, The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1983). A similar version is quoted in Michael W. Kauffman, American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies (New York: Random House, 2004), 210.

  EPILOGUE

  1. Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 9 vols. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953–55), 5:421; Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger, eds., Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay (Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997), 217–18, entry of July 4, 1864.

  2. Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wallace 2.

  INDEX

  Alexandria

  Anaconda Plan

  Anderson, Robert

  Antietam, Battle of

  Arkansas

  army, Union:

  regular army

  size by April 1862

&n
bsp; See also black soldiers; officers

  Army of the Cumberland

  Army of the Gulf

  Army of the James

  Army of the Ohio

  Army of the Potomac:

  in second half of 1861

  going into winter quarters

  in Lincoln’s strategic plan of December

  McClellan given command of

  McClellan made general-in-chief as well as commander of

  in first half of 1862

  Battle of Seven Pines

  enthusiasm before Richmond

  in Lincoln’s Special Order No. 1

  in McClellan’s Urbana plan

  Peninsula campaign

  practice march to abandoned Confederate works

  reorganization into corps

  in second half of 1862

  Battle of Antietam

  Battle of Fredericksburg

  crossing Potomac after Antietam

  on Emancipation Proclamation

  Halleck’s order to combine with Pope’s army

  hard-war policy supported in

  Lincoln’s offer of command to Burnside in July

  Lincoln’s popularity in

  Lincoln’s reinforcement after Seven Days

  Lincoln’s review after Seven Days

  reor ganization after Second Bull Run

  Second Battle of Bull Run

  supplies as impediment to

  in first half of 1863

  Battle of Chancellorsville

  Hooker appointed commander of

  Lincoln’s visit in April

  Meade appointed commander of

  morale after Fredericksburg

  Mud March

  in second half of 1863

  Battle of Gettysburg

  confronting Lee in Virginia after Gettysburg

  Lincoln considering giving Grant command of

  reinforcements sent to Rosecrans from

  in first half of 1864

  in Grant’s coordinated strategy

  in Grant’s original strategy

  Meade left in command by Grant

  Overland campaign

  Lincoln’s wrong appointments to

  support for McClellan in

  Army of the Tennessee

  Army of Virginia

  Atlanta

  Baltimore

  Banks, Nathaniel P.:

  Battle of Cedar Mountain

  on Corps d’Afrique

  in Grant’s coordinated strategy for 1864

  Grant’s desire to remove from command

  as Grant’s superior in Mississippi Valley

  Lincoln and Halleck wanting him to unite with Grant

  Lincoln’s praise of

  in McClellan’s Harpers Ferry operation

  Mobile campaign urged by

  as political general

  in Pope’s Army of Virginia

  Red River campaign of

  replacing Butler in Louisiana

  in Shenandoah Valley campaign

  Texas campaign of

  Bates, Edward

  Beauregard, Pierre G. T.

  black soldiers

  emancipation cause aided by

  Lincoln on use of

  massacres of

  in Petersburg mine explosion and assault,

  and prisoner exchanges

  and promise of freedom

  Blair, Francis Preston, Sr.

  Blair, Frank, Jr.

  Blair, Montgomery:

  Emancipation Proclamation opposed by

  evacuation of Fort Sumter opposed by

  and Fox’s proposal to reinforce Fort Sumter

  and Frémont

  and opposition to secession in Missouri

  on Scott’s envelopment strategy

  blockade of Southern ports

  blockade running

  Booth, John Wilkes

  border states:

  and black soldiers

  and Emancipation Proclamation

  and Frémont’s emancipation policy

  hard-war policy opposed in

  Lincoln’s desire to abolish slavery in

  Lincoln’s efforts to prevent secession of

  threatening secession if Lincoln uses coercion

  See also Kentucky; Maryland; Missouri

  Bragg, Braxton:

  Battle of Chickamauga

  Battle of Stones River

  Chattanooga evacuated by

  Chattanooga fortified against Buell

  driven from Chattanooga by Grant

  Kentucky campaign of 1862

  reinforced by Longstreet

  Rosecrans ordered to go after

  Rosecrans’s campaigns of 1863 against

  Browning, Orville:

  on Frémont’s emancipation policy

  Lincoln’s confidences to

  on Lincoln’s sadness in July 1862

  Buell, Don Carlos:

  in advance on Corinth

  attempt to liberate East Tennessee in 1862

  Battle of Perryville

  Battle of Shiloh

  and Bragg’s invasion of Kentucky

  on East Tennessee invasion of 1861

  failure to meet expectations

  Halleck’s comparison of Rosecrans to

  hard-war policy opposed by

  as lacking popularity with his soldiers

  Lincoln’s complaint about delays to

  and Lincoln’s concept of concentration in time

  Lincoln’s General Order No. 1 for forcing into action

  Lincoln’s removing from command

  Lincoln’s urging to follow up Perryville

  maneuver and siege strategy of

  uniting with Grant at Pittsburgh Landing

  Bull Run, First Battle of

  Bull Run, Second Battle of

  Burnside, Ambrose E.:

  administrative failures of

  army command declined by

  Battle of Fredericksburg

  failure to meet expectations

  generals’ scheming against

  at Halleck-McClellan discussions of July 1862

  Knoxville taken by

  Lincoln’s postponement of decision on