IN MEMORY

OF

ANNA MARSHALL

PURCHASED FROM FUNDS PRESENTED TO

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

BY HER FORMER STUDENTS



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The Life of
Abraham Lincoln

Volume Four






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Copyright, 1895, 1896, 1898, 1899
By The S. S. McClure Co.



Copyright, 1900
By Doubleday & McClure Co.



Copyright, 1900
By McClure, Phillips & Co.



•.



CONTENTS



Dolume jfour

CHAPTER PAGE

XXIX. Lincoln's Work in the Winter of 1864-65— His Second

Inauguration ..... . . . 1

XXX. The End of the War 26

XXXI. Lincoln's Funeral 41

Appendix 59



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS



IDolume ifour

Abraham Lincoln — New Photo

Gen. Sherman .....

Lincoln Receiving Visitors in White House

Equestrian Statue of Lincoln

Lincoln in 1864 — Brady ....

Lincoln in 1864 (hitherto unpublished) .
Last Portrait of Lincoln
Programme, Ford's Theatre
Last Bit of Lincoln Writing .
Chair in which Lincoln was Shot .
House in which Lincoln Died
Watching Dying President .
Funeral Car ... ...

Reward for Lincoln's Assassin
Capture of Wilkes Booth







PAGB


Frontispiece






facing 4






facing 8






facing 12






facing 16






facing 18






facing 28






facing 32






33






facing 34






facing 38






facing 40






facing 44






facing 52






facing 56



THE LIFE

OP

ABRAHAM LINCOLN



CHAPTER XXIX

Lincoln's work in the winter of 1864-65 — his second

inauguration

Out of the election Lincoln got profound satisfaction.
He had striven to his utmost to let the people know what he
was trying to do — this overwhelming vote for him coming
after the dire discouragement of the summer, proved that
they understood him and were with him. " I am deeply
thankful to God for this approval of the people," he told a
band of serenaders. But there was something beside personal
triumph in his reflections on the elections. Since the be-
ginning of the war Lincoln had repeatedly told the people
that Republican institutions were at stake. In his first ad-
dress to Congress, July 4. 1861, he said : " Our popular gov-
ernment has often been called an experiment. Two points
in it our people have already settled — the successful estab-
lishing and the successful administering of it. One still re-
mains — its successful maintenance against a formidable in-
ternal attempt to overthrow it."

Three years of internal war had not been able to unseat
the government. But what would be the effect of a presiden-
tial election added to war ? The warmest friends of repub-
lican institutions feared that the strain would be too great.

" It has long been a grave question," said Lincoln
a few days after the election. " whether any government,
not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong
enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies. On
this point the present rebellion brought our republic to a

CO 1



2 LIFE OF LINCOLN

severe test, and a presidential election occurring in regular
course during the rebellion, added not a little to the strain.
"If the loyal people united were put to the utmost of
their strength by the rebellion, must they not fail when
divided and partially paralyzed by a political war among
themselves? But the election was a necessity. We cannot
have free government without elections; and if the rebel-
lion could force us to forego or postpone a national elec-
tion, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and
ruined us. * * * But the election, along with its in-
cidental and undesirable strife, has done good too. It has
demonstrated that a people's government can sustain a na-
tional election in the midst of a great civil war. Until now,
it has not been known to the world that this was a possi-
bility."

Another fact vital to Mr. Lincoln's policy was proved by
the election. The North was far from exhaustion in " the
most important branch of national resources— that of liv-
ing men."

* While it is melancholy to reflect,'" the President
said in his December address to Congress, " that the war
had filled so many graves, and carried mourning to so
many hearts, it is some relief to know that compared with
the surviving, the fallen have been so few. While corps,
and divisions, and brigades, and regiments have formed,
and fought, and dwindled, and gone out of existence, a great
majority of the men who composed them are still living.
The same is true of the naval service. The election returns
prove this. So many voters could not else be found. The
States regularly holding elections, both now and four years
ago . . . cast 3,982,011 votes now, against 3,870,222
cast then; showing an aggregate now of 3,982,011. To
this is to be added 33,762 cast now in the new States of
Kansas and Nevada, which States did not vote in i860; thus
swelling the aggregate to 4,015,773, and the net increase
during the three years and a half of war, to 145,551. . . .
To this again should be added the number of all" soldiers in
the field from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey,



HIS WORK IN THE WINTER OF 1864-5 3

Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, and California, who by the laws
of those States could not vote away from their homes, and
which number cannot be less than 90,000. Nor yet is this all.
The number in organized Territories is triple now what it
was four years ago, while thousands, white and black, join
us as the national arms press back the insurgent lines. So
much is shown, affirmatively and negatively by the election.
" It is not material to inquire how the increase has been
produced, or to show that it would have been greater but
for the war, which is probably true. The important fact
remains demonstrated that we have more men now than we
had when the war began ; that we are not exhausted, nor in
process of exhaustion; that we are gaining strength, and
may, if need be, maintain the contest indefinitely. This as
to men. Material resources are now more complete and
abundant than ever."

Approved by the people, convinced that the institutions
of the country had successfully resisted the worst strain
which could be given them, inexhaustible resources at his
command, Lincoln took up his task. To put an end to
the armed resistance to the union was the first duty. This
had got to be done by war not by negotiation. He put it
plainly to Congress in December:

" On careful consideration of all the evidence accessi-
ble, it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the
insurgent leader could result in any good. He would ac-
cept nothing short of severance of the Union — precisely
what we will not and cannot give. His declarations to this
effect are explicit and oft repeated. He does not attempt
to deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive our-
selves. He cannot voluntarily re-accept the Union ; we can-
not voluntarily yield it. Between him and us the issue
is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can
only be tried by war, and decided by victorv. Tf we yield,
we are beaten ; if the Southern people fail him, he is beaten.
Either way it would be the victory and defeat following
war."



4 LIFE OF LINCOLN

By this time the boundaries of the Confederacy had been
so narrowed, their territory so divided by invading armies
that it seemed to all observers that they must soon yield.
The Mississippi was open and the territory on each side
practically under federal control. Louisiana was under
military government. Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee
were so cleared of troops that they had produced fair crops.
Three ports, Norfolk, Fernandina and Pensacola, were
opened on December I to commercial intercourse except-
ing of course " persons, things and information contra-
band of war." Grant held Lee and the bulk of the Con-
federate army at Richmond. Sherman who had taken
Atlanta in August had marched three hundred miles di-
rectly through the Confederate country destroying every-
thing as he went. Nobody knew just then where he would
come out but it was certain he could be counted on to
hold the Confederate force under Johnston in check. Be-
sides the armies under Lee and Johnston there were other
smaller forces holding positions, but it was evident that
if Lee and Johnston were defeated, the surrender of these
smaller forces was inevitable. The Confederate navy, too,
had been destroyed by this time. The task seemed short,
yet such was the courage, the resourcefulness, the audacity
in attack and defense which the Confederates had shown
from the beginning of the war that Mr. Lincoln was the
last man in the North to relax efforts. Although he had
an army of nearly a million men enrolled at the time of his
re-election, on December 19, he called for 300,000 volunteers
to serve for one, two or three years.

A week after this call Sherman " came out " and pre-
sented the country Savannah as a Christmas gift. The
letter Lincoln wrote him, is worthy to be placed beside the
one he wrote to Grant after Vicksburg:




GENERAL SHERMAN IN [865. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRADY.



T



HIS WORK IN THE WINTER OF 1864-5 5

Executive Mansion,
Washington, December 26, 1864.

My Dear General Sherman:

Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift, the capture
of Savannah.

When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic
coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you
were the better judge, and remembering that " nothing
risked, nothing gained/' I did not interfere. Now, the
undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours; for I
believe none of us went further than to acquiesce.

And taking the work of General Thomas into the count,
as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not
only does it afford the obvious and immediate military ad-
vantages ; but in showing to the world that your army could
be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new
service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old oppos-
ing force of the whole, — Hood's army, — it brings those who
sat in darkness to see a great light. But what next ?

I suppose it will be safe if I leave General Grant and
yourself to decide.

Please make my grateful acknowledgments to your whole
army — officers and men.

Yours very truly,

A. Lincoln.

Although the great majority of the country agreed with
Mr. Lincoln that the issue between North and South " could
only be tried by war, and decided by victory," advocates of
peace conferences still nagged the President, begging that
if they were allowed to go South or if commissioners from
the South were allowed to come North everything could
be adjusted. Among these peace-makers was Francis P.
Blair, Sr. He knew the South well, he believed honestly
enough, no doubt, that mediation would be successful.
Finally at the end of December the president gave him a



6 LIFE OF LINCOLN

pass through the lines. Blair saw President Davis and from
him received a letter saying that if Blair would promise
that a confederate commissioner, minister or other agent
would be received by President Lincoln he would appoint
one at once " with a view to secure peace to the two coun-
tries."

Mr. Lincoln answered :

" You having shown me Mr. Davis's letter to you of
the 1 2th instant, you may say to him that I have con-
stantly been, am now, and shall continue ready to receive
any Lgent whom he, or any other influential person now
resisting the national authority, may informally send to
me, with the view of securing peace to the people of our
one common country."

It is evident from the letters of the two leaders that
neither yielded on the essential point at issue. Jefferson
Davis recognized " two countries," Abraham Lincoln " one
common country." The upshot of Mr. Blair's mediation
was that President Davis sent three commissioners, Alex-
ander H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter and John A. Camp-
bell, all members of the Confederate government, to Grant's
headquarters for conference. Lincoln sent Seward to meet
the commissioners with instructions that three things were
indispensable to mediation :

1. The restoration of the national authority through-
out all the States.

2. No receding by the executive of the United States
on the slavery question from the position assumed thereon
in the late annual message to Congress, and in preceding
documents.

3. No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the
war and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the gov-
ernment.



HIS WORK IN THE WINTER OF 1864-5 7

Before Seward had met the commission Lincoln decided
to join him and a meeting was arranged at Fortress Mon-
roe, the Confederate envoys being conducted to the steamer
River Queen where Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward were
quartered.

The meeting of the men, all of them acquaintances in
earlier days, was cordial and they began and ended their
conference in an entirely friendly mood. But from the
outset it was evident that nothing would come of it. There
was but one way to end the war, Mr. Lincoln told them
frankly, and that was for those who were resisting the
laws of the Union to cease their resistance. He would
grant no armistice — would in no way recognize the States —
so long as they were in arms. He would make no promises
as to reconstruction after the war had ceased until they
had given him a pledge of reunion and of cessation of resist-
ance. Mr. Hunter attempted to argue this point with him.
There was precedent, he said, for an executive entering into
agreement with persons in arms against public authority.
Charles I. of England repeatedly recognized the people
in arms against him in this way. " I do not profess to be
posted in history," replied Mr. Lincoln. " On all such
matters I will turn you over to Seward. All I distinctly
recollect about the case of Charles is that he lost his head."

But while Lincoln held firmly to what he regarded as
the essentials to peace, he did not hesitate to give the com-
missioners some very good advice. " If I resided in Geor-
gia, with my present sentiments," Mr. Stephens reports
him as saying, " I'll tell you what I would do if I were in
your place. I would go home and get the Governor of
the State to call the legislature together, and get them to
recall all the State troops from the war; elect senators and
members to Congress, and ratify this constitutional amend-
ment prospectively, so as to take effect — say in five years.



8 LIFE OF LINCOLN

Such a ratification would be valid, in my opinion. I have
looked into the subject, and think such a prospective ratifi-
cation would be valid. Whatever may have been the views
of your people before the war, they must be convinced now
that slavery is doomed. It cannot last long in any event,
and the best course, it seems to me, for your public men
to pursue would be to adopt such a policy as will avoid,
as far as possible, the evils of immediate emancipation.
This would be my course, if I were in your place."

And so the Hampton Roads conference ended without
other result than a renewed confirmation of what Lincoln
had contended from the beginning of the agitation for
peace measures — that the South would never grant until
defeated what he claimed as vital to any negotiation — a
recognition of the Union.

It was understood by the country that Mr. Lincoln's re-
election meant not only a continuation of the war but the
emancipation of the slaves by a constitutional amendment.
The Emancipation Proclamation was never intended by
the president for anything but a military measure. He
had been careful to state this in delivering it and when
called upon to retract it by a large body of the North be-
cause it turned the war into a contest to " free negroes,"
he had gone to great pains to explain his view. Thus in
a letter written in August '63 to his political friends in
Illinois, he said :

1 You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and per-
haps would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitu-
tional. I think differently. I think the Constitution invests
its commander-in-chief with the law of war in time of war.
The most that can be said — if so much — is that slaves are
property. Is there — has there ever been — any question
that by the law of war, property, both of enemies and
friends, may be taken when needed ? And is it not needed




PRESIDENT LINCOLN RECEIVING VISITORS AT UN. WHITE HOUSE.



HLS WORK IN THE WINTER OF 1864-5 9

whenever taking it helps us, or hurts the enemy?' Armies,
the world over, destroy enemies' property when they can-
not use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the
enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their power to
help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a few things
regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions
are the massacre of vanquished foes and non-combatants,
male and female.

" But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not
valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is
valid, it cannot be retracted any more than the dead can
be brought to life. Some of you profess to think its re-
traction would operate favorably for the Union. Why bet-
ter after the retraction than before the issue. There was
more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion
before the proclamation issued; the last one hundred days
of which passed under an explicit notice that it was com-
ing, unless averted by those in revolt returning to their
allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably
for us since the issue of the proclamation as before. I
know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others,
that some of the commanders of our armies in the field, who
have given us our most important successes, believe the
emancipation policy and the use of the colored troops con-
stitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion, and that
at least one of these important successes could not have
been achieved when it was but for the aid of black soldiers.
Among the commanders holding these views are some who
have never had any affinity with what is called Abolition-
ism, or with Republican party politics, but who hold them
purely as military opinions. I submit these opinions as
being entitled to some weight against the objections often
urged that emancipation and arming the blacks are unwise
as military measures, and were not adopted as such in good
faith.

" You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of
them seem willing to fight for you ; but no matter. Fight
you, then, exclusively, to save the Union. I issued the
proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union.
Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the



io LIFE OF LINCOLN

Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be
an apt time then for you to declare you will not fight to
free negroes.

" I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to
whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy,
to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to
you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever
negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just as much
less for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it
appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people,
act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us
if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives
for us they must be prompted by the strongest motive, even
the promise of freedom. And the promise, being made,
must be kept."

Mr. Lincoln believed that as soon as the war was over,
the proclamation would become void. Voters would have to
decide then what slaves it freed — whether only those who
had under it made an effort for their freedom and had
come into the Union lines or all of those in the States and
parts of States in rebellion at the time it was issued. Mr.
Lincoln inclined to the former view. But even if the latter
interpretation was decided on, there would still be many
slaves in the country — the institution if weakened would
still exist. It became plainer every day to him that some
measure must be devised removing finally and forever the
evil root from which the nation's long and sorrowful strug-
gle had grown. Slavery must end with the war. The
only complete and irrevocable method to attain this was
a constitutional amendment abolishing it forever. In De-
cember, 1863, an amendment of this character had been
proposed in the House and in the January after a similar
one in the Senate. The latter passed, but the House failed
to give the requisite two-thirds majority. Mr. Lincoln was
convinced nevertheless that the people if asked directly to



HIS WORK IN THE WINTER OF 1864-5 11

vote on the subject would approve the amendment and be-
fore the meeting of the Republican Convention in June,
'64, he sent for the chairman of the National Committee,
Senator Morgan of New York. " I want you," he said, " to
mention in your speech, when you call the convention to
order as its keynote, and to put into the platform, as the
keystone, the amendment of the Constitution abolishing and
prohibiting slavery forever." It was done, the third article
of the platform reading:

Resolved, That as slavery was the cause, and now con-
stitutes the strength, of this rebellion, and as it must be,
always and everywhere, hostile to the principles of repub-
lican government, justice and the national safety demand
its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the re-
public; and that while we uphold and maintain the acts
and proclamations by which the government, in its own
defense, has aimed a death-blow at this gigantic evil, we
are in favor, furthermore, of such an amendment to the
Constitution, to be made by the people in conformity with
its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the
existence of slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction of
the United States.

When in December '64 Lincoln addressed Congress for
the first time after his election he reminded them that the
people in electing him had voted for an amendment prohib-
iting slavery: —

"Although the present is the same Congress" (which
defeated the bill of Dec, '63) he said, li and nearly the
same members, and without questioning the wisdom or
patriotism of those who stood in opposition, I venture to
recommend the reconstruction and passage of the measure
at the present session. Of course the abstract question is
not changed, but an intervening election shows, almost cer-
tainly, that the next Congress will pass the measure if this
does not. Hence there is only a question of time as to



12 LIFE OF LINCOLN

when the proposed amendment will go to the States for
their action. And as it is to so go, at all events, may we
not agree that the sooner the better ? It is not claimed that
the election has imposed a duty on members to change their
views or their votes any further than as an additional ele-
ment to be considered, their judgment may be affected by
it. It is the voice of the people now for the first time
heard upon the question. In a great national crisis like
ours, unanimity of action among those seeking a common
end is very desirable — almost indispensable. And yet no
approach to such unanimity is attainable unless some defer-
ence shall be paid to the will of the majority, simply because
it is the will of the majority. In this case the common end
is the maintenance of the Union, and among the means to
secure that end, such will, through the election, is almost
clearly declared in favor of such constitutional amendment."

After the bill was introduced he followed its course with
greates* care working adroitly and constantly in its interests.
Its passage on January 31 was a genuine satisfaction to
him. " This finishes the job," he said joyfully, and that
night he said to a band of serenaders, that he thought the
measure was a very fitting if not an indispensable adjunct to
the winding up of the great difficulty. He wished the
reunion of all the States perfected, and so effected as to
remove all causes of disturbance in the future; and, to at-
tain this end, it was necessary that the original disturb-
ing cause should, if possible, be rooted out. He thought
all would bear him witness that he had never shrunk from
doing all that he could to eradicate slavery, by issuing an