2 7 N. & H. c. 13.



1864. CHASE LEAVES THE CABINET. 469

named next, and confirmed by his colleagues of the Senate
without hesitation or a reference. Fessenden was chairman
of the Senate Committee on Finance, a statesman of splen
did renown and unsullied honor; physical robustness was
his only possible failing for a post so onerous, but though
averse to taking the responsibility, he overcame his first
impulse to decline, and yielded to flattering solicitations.
Chase, at the close of June, retired in consequence from
office, the greatest financial director this country had known
since Hamilton; like that earliest of official predecessors,
he did not remain to complete the erection, but planned as
architect and laid broad the foundation. 1

Chase and his friends charged that Lincoln s managers
had procured an early convention, so as to forestall compe
tition and force his selection. " Few," wrote Chase, " except
those already committed to him will consider themselves
bound by a predetermined nomination." 2 Even after the
Baltimore convention had done its work and dissolved, lie-
publican disaffection festered for a while and factional dis
content was shown in high quarters. We have seen Lincoln
feeling his way towards Southern reconstruction in his open
ing message to Congress by offering amnesty. No discordant
voice was raised when that message was read, but 1S64
administration men in the two Houses seemed to be February-
of one mind, and conservatives and radicals vied with "gust-
one another in praising the document. But Henry Winter
Davis in the House showed a covert hostility. 3 Procuring
the reference of this portion of the message to a special
committee, of which he was made chairman, he reported in
February a bill for keeping Southern rehabilitation within
the control of Congress, and supported it in an able speech.
His bill meant to check the military reconstruction begun
in Tennessee and Louisiana, and to prevent its extension to
other revolting States. Congress, and Congress alone, as
representatives of the people, he contended, had the power

1 9 N. & H. c. 4.

2 Warden, 593.

3 It is said that he bore a grudge against the President for preferring
Montgomery Blair to himself as a Cabinet adviser from Maryland.



470 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAK, CHAP. II.

to revive the reign of order in all that insurgent territory
which had placed itself outside of legitimate authority.
"Until, therefore, Congress recognize a State government
organized under its auspices, there is no government in the
rebel States except the authority of Congress." l

In view of later events, the challenge here made de
serves attention. But Davis s bill went to the limbo of
abortive legislation. It passed the House towards the close
of the session, little discussed, and in the Senate Wade of
Ohio called it up on the 1st of July, taking the same line
of argument in its support. Amendments in this latter
branch carried the bill into conference, whence it emerged
to reach finally the President, as he sat in the Capitol
approving bills, scarcely an hour before the session was to
close. Lincoln laid the parchment aside, unwilling to sur
render absolutely to its postulates, at the same time desirous
to avoid a quarrel; the session closed at noon, and the bill
failed for want of his signature. To pacify radical Repub
licans, who, for one cause or another, were much exasper
ated by this pocket veto, the President issued, on the 8th
of July, a proclamation commending the general plan of
this bill as very proper, but announcing his unwillingness
to be inflexibly committed to any one scheme. The danger
that Southern States might be readmitted with local slavery,
which this bill would have forbidden, Lincoln meant to
dispel by constitutional amendment without raising at all
that troublesome question whether rebellious States were
in or out of the Union during the war. It is " a merely
metaphysical question," he had lately remarked, "and one
unnecessary to be forced into discussion." His avoidance
of so mischievous an issue was accepted by the great mass
of Republican voters. But Wade and Davis were so indig
nant at seeing their work brought to naught, that they issued
through the press, in early August, a joint manifesto de
nouncing the President in violent language for encroaching
upon the domain of Congress; and they insinuated, what
was wholly unfair, that he meant to reconstruct the South,

1 9 N. & H. c. 5.



1864. LINCOLN S NEW CANDIDACY. 471

not only with slavery unimpaired, but so as to hold its
electoral votes in pledge at his ambitious dictation. 1



All this dissension, with Fremont s candidacy to make
further breach, and a military situation by no means up to
expectation, fanned the hopes of the Democratic managers,
whose party convention had been postponed to the last of
August. An address to the people, put forth by the oppo
sition of Congress, just before adjournment, charged Lincoln
with the engrossment of all power, with military interfer
ence in elections, with the creation already of bogus States. 2
Republicans were exposed to a rattling lire, not knowing
yet against whom to aim their own artillery. Chase s de
parture from the Treasury seemed to many the presage of
public bankruptcy. With United States securities down to
forty cents in gold upon the dollar, and drafting threatened
to commence upon the third million of Union soldiers,
a considerable fraction of Lincoln s own party adherents
found fault. Some complained that this administration
had been indifferent to peace and had not met advances
from Richmond to procure it. When so influential a jour
nalist as Greeley was found promoting such false ideas, the
President sent him upon a special peace mission to self-
styled Southern envoys at Niagara Falls, 8 and by another
experiment towards Richmond through two good citizens 4
he gave public proof that the Davis government would con
sent to no terms short of final independence.

Despondency darkened as the day of the Democratic con
vention drew near, and the foe to be fought still lurked
unseen. " At this period," as Lincoln himself described it,
" we had no adversary and seemed to have no friends." lie-
publican canvassers in New York reported that unless some

1 9 N. & H. c. 5 ; Am. Cycl. 1864, 307.

2 Am. Cycl. 1864, 793.

3 For details (July), see 9 N. & H. c. 8 ; Am. Cycl. 1864, 780-784.

4 Colonel James F. Jaquess ami James F. Gilmore ("Edmund
Kirke"), the author. 9 N. & II. c. 9; Am. Cycl. 1864, 779. These
held two personal interviews with Jefferson Davis which were fruitless.



472 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. II.

bold step could be promptly taksn, all was lost and Lin
coln s reelection impossible. The President, preparing him
self for the defeat then expected, took a characteristic
course to nerve his administration for a last duty towards
the Republic. On the 23d of August he secretly wrote on
a sheet of paper, to the effect that between the election and
instalment of his successor he would seek to cooperate in
a final effort to save the Union ; then folding and pasting
the sheet, so that its contents might not be read, he procured
each member of his Cabinet to indorse the paper, and laid
it aside in his desk. That successor he then felt would
be McClellan. 1



McClellan had, indeed, been the prominent candidate on
the opposition side, and various efforts during the last twelve
months to draw him out in support of Lincoln s adminis
tration and its policy, had failed. On the 29th of August
the Democratic convention assembled at Chicago. Two
distinct and prominent elements composed this political
gathering ; one of " War Democrats/ 7 mostly from New
York and the East, who worked for a war candidate, and
the other of " Peace Democrats " at the Northwest, who were
reckless of all things save to end this war on one basis or
another, and whose chief spokesman was Vallandigham, now
home from Canada and permitted to remain at large. Will
iam Bigler of Pennsylvania, once its governor, was tem
porary chairman of this convention, and Governor Seymour
of New York its permanent one. Vallandigham was placed
upon the Committee of Resolutions, whose chairman, James
Guthrie, reported, with the rest of the platform, a paragraph
of this refugee s own drafting. It was carried against vio
lent opposition in the committee room, but the convention
adopted all the resolutions without debate, being chiefly
intent upon nominations. The platform contained other-



1 This curious instrument of pledge, Lincoln, after the election was
over, brought out from his desk, in the midst of his rejoicing Cabinet
officers, and, cutting it open, revealed its contents. 9 N. & H. 251.



1864. McCLELLAN NAMED AT CHICAGO. 473

wise the platitudes to have been expected a general avowal
of devotion to the Union and sympathy with the soldiers,
sailors, and prisoners of war, fierce denunciation of arbitrary
arrests, of military usurpation and interference at the polls,
of test oaths and the like ; but the plank forced in by Val-
landigham s faction was the damnatory one. 1 McClellan,
though plainly the favorite of the convention, was not satis
factory to all ; a two-thirds vote being essential, craven can
didates were proposed, and a sharp discussion arose touching
McClellan s arrests in Maryland. But when, on the 31st of
the month, a ballot was taken, McClellan received more than
his needful two-thirds, which rose before the result was
declared to 202, against 23 for Thomas H. Seymour of Con
necticut; and then, on Vallandigham s motion, the choice
was made unanimous. George H. Pendleton of Ohio was
added as Vice-President to the ticket, after a second ballot,
Guthrie and other competitors having withdrawn. 2

McClellan, while willing enough to accept the nomination,
was too loyal a soldier, too high-minded, and withal too wise
an interpreter of the times, to load himself with the abject
proposals of the peace faction. He, like the delegates from
his own vicinity, felt that in the platform of this convention
was the poison of disaster; and he took the contradictory
course of repudiating that platform while taking the candi
dacy which came with it. " The Union," he announced in
his letter of acceptance, " must be preserved at all hazards.

1 "Resolved, That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the
sense of the American people, that, after four years of failure to restore
the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretence
of a military necessity, or war power higher than the Constitution, the
Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty
and private right alike trodden down and the material prosperity of
the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the
public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation
of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States, or
other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable mo
ment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the
States."

2 9 N. & H. c. 11 ; Am. Cycl. 1864, 793. This convention adjourned,
not sine die, but subject to future call.



474 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CIIAI>. II.

I could not look in the face of my gallant comrades of the
army and navy, who have survived so many bloody battles,
and tell them that their labors and the sacrifice of so many
of our slain and wounded brethren had been in vain, that we
had abandoned that Union for which we have so often
perilled our lives." : These were noble words, but they
would have sounded nobler still had he declined consist
ently both nomination and platform together.



That sinking of the heart which the Union party had ex
perienced before the Chicago gathering a symptom whose
diagnosis fails frequently, since much of the danger may be
imaginary vanished when battle-field and opponents were
plainly revealed. At once began the marshalling of the
hosts for a short and sharp campaign, under skilful political
managers on either side. Superfluous candidates were thrust
out, the opposing lists were opened, and the voting array
tended to one or other of the two diametrically opposed.
The breeze of opinion, so long stagnant, began to blow favor
ably to the administration ; and military victories, such as
the midsummer had not brought, dispersed before November
the gathering gloom by new sunshine.

This was the first Presidential contest, within the memory
of our voters, that eliminated slavery from the canvass ; for,
though "thorough" was the word inscribed upon emancipa
tion s banner, no open issue was made against that policy by
Democratic opponents, nor did slavery as an institution find
defenders. This was, moreover, the sole Presidential election,
thus far in our history, from which a large fraction of the
American people stood self-excluded; and the first, since
the downfall of the Whig party, where no third platform
and third Presidential candidate kept conservatives together
against the extremes of one or another section. Each party
present, that of Lincoln and that of McClellan, made strong
exertion to draw over the respectable residue of the doubt
ful to its side ; and in the various ratification meetings

1 9 N. & H. c. 11.



1804. PARTY LINES DRAWN. 475

which followed, all through the two months canvass, local
managers placed programmes and resolution drafts in the
hands of eminent private citizens, inviting them to preside
or take some other leading part. The same course was pur
sued in making up the State electoral tickets ; thus Horace
Greeley, now pacilied, was a Lincoln elector at large in
New York State ; in Massachusetts the conservative Win-
throp headed the list on the McClellan side, while Everett
took the corresponding place of honor on the Republican
ticket, to perform the last public function of his life.

As old Northern Whigs now parted company forever, so,
too, did Northern abolitionists. Wendell Phillips, to whom
a destructive policy was the breath of life, Ave have seen
pointing his spectral artillery at Cleveland against the
President, and hailing the superficial Fremont for his hero.
But Garrison, with far sounder discretion, fell into step
with the embattled host and its champion that practically
accomplished the crusade he had preached and prayed for.
Attending in June as a spectator the convention which met
in Baltimore, this chief of apostles made a visit to Washing
ton, and at the White House and in the Senate chamber was
handsomely received. 1



It was a strong and convincing argument on the Union.
Republican side that the logic of events demanded Abraham
Lincoln for another Presidential term. Four years before,
he had been elected, but the South refused to submit ; in its
pride that errant section hoped now to see him defeated;
but should the loyal people of the Union reaffirm their
previous choice, disloyal resistance would drop nerveless. 2
All three Presidential conventions, obedient to sentiment,
had tendered the public gratitude to those brave soldiers
and sailors who fought to reestablish the Union ; but Lin
coln s reelection, as lines were now drawn, gave the only
real assurance that this fight would be maintained under



1 4 Garrison, c. 3. And see 9 N. & H. c. 11 ; Am. Cycl. 1864, 798.

2 3 Seward, 196.



476 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAll. CHAP. II.

auspices of success. Political leaders of the Confederacy
watched, in fact, this canvass with the most eager interest,
building their last hopes of independence or national com
promise upon McClellan s candidacy. Stephens, the most
accommodating of those leaders, declared his regret that an
out-and-out peace man had not been nominated at Chicago
upon its peace platform. But the platform itself, as he saw,
was for ceasing hostilities, for opening negotiations ; and
hence he presumed that those electing McClellan would try
by negotiation to restore the Union, otherwise conceding a
peaceful separation. A convention called by the consent of
both governments ought, he thought, to recognize the sover
eignty of each separate State as fundamental. 1

Both President and Vice-President of this Southern Con
federacy had long since conceded that Lincoln s proclama
tion of freedom was irrevocable ; that it utterly destroyed
all prospect of a restored Union, with slavery as formerly,
so far as that candidate was concerned. 2 But Davis was
stubbornly resolved to fight to the bitter end for Southern
independence ; and all means, all resources, that could yet
be reached, he had brought within his tenacious grasp,
crushing State rights at the South and individual liberty
by military process. His martial obstinacy was shared by
many other West Point graduates, now high in civil or mili
tary influence. 3 But Stephens, more of a philosopher, saw,
like others of his own State of Georgia, that constitutional
liberty, at the South, while protecting itself at one point,
was in peril at another, and he labored to pacify. " The
great majority of masses, both North and South," he
observed in 1863, " are true to the cause of their side ; a
large majority on both sides are tired of the war, want
peace. But as we do not want peace without independence,
so they do not want peace without Union." 4



1 Johnston s Stephens, 469, 473. 2 Ib. 432.

3 " We will fight you to the death ! " wrote Hood to Sherman pas
sionately this September ; "better die a thousand deaths than submit
to live under you or your negro allies ! " 2 Sherman, 124.

4 Stephens, 435. The Confederate Congress, February, 1864, had



1863. THE PRECEDING ELECTIONS. 477

Following those reverses at the polls which our adminis
tration bore in the autumn of 1862, the peace faction of this
Union, active, inveterate, and unscrupulous, had availed
itself of every draft, of every disaster in the field,
to strengthen its opposition. But Lincoln pursued
his duty unflinchingly, while a double pressure bore upon
him which in a measure neutralized itself ; that of radicals
among his own followers, who reproached him as too con
servative, too lenient with the enemy, and that of the con
servatives, who denounced him as too radical, too severe.
To steer midway, as he did, and yet advance onward, was
doubtless the wiser course in a revolution. Efforts for
peace, feeble on either side, followed those mid-term elec
tions. Both Henry S. Foote, in the Richmond House of
Representatives, and Garrett Davis, in the Senate at Wash
ington, introduced resolutions for a conference which were
laid on the table. 1 But in June, 1863, Stephens was per
mitted by his government to go to Washington and propose
a negotiation, just at the time when Vicksburg was despaired
of, while Lee s invasion threatened a recompense. The aim
of the Southern Vice-President, as he admitted, was not so
much to act upon the Lincoln government, as to influence
the Northern people, who, he imagined, were, like himself,
in growing distress over a centralizing despotism which
threatened their liberties. Stephens reached Hampton Roads
at an inopportune time, for Gettysburg had just been fought
and Vicksburg s surrender was announced from the distant
West. President Lincoln refused him a safe-conduct within
the Union line ; for military matters, was his response, the
usual military channels would suffice, and civil negotiations
could not assume that the Confederacy was a government
to be treated with. 2

The Vicksburg and Gettysburg victories of 1863 were an
argument for Lincoln s policy in the local canvass more
potent than many discussions ; and in the turning tide of



formally suspended habeas corpus, enumerating a variety of causes.
7 N. & II. c. 2.

i 7 N. & II. c. 13. 2 2 Stephens s War, 503, 780 ; 7 N. & H. c. 13.



478 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR CHAP. II

public confidence, the peace party was submerged at the
various State elections which followed in the fall of that
year. Pennsylvania reflected Curtin as governor by over
15,000 majority, against Judge Woodward, who in a State
case had pronounced the enrolment act unconstitutional,
and because of that decision was made the candidate of the
opposition; another judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsyl
vania lost his reelection for assenting -to that opinion. In
Ohio, Vallandigham for governor was overwhelmed at the
ballot box ; New York, indignant over the draft riots and
those who palliated them, chose a State ticket of minor
officials against the Seymour candidates. A breezy and
admirable letter from Abraham Lincoln to an Illinois mass-
meeting, which was held at Springfield in August, gave
strong inspiration to that autumn s canvass ; for, honest,
plain-spoken, logical, and with its points put in his unique
and characteristic style, that letter declared him unflinching
in purpose, both as to the war itself and the policy he had
chosen to adopt for striking the fetters from the slave.
Upon the whole that election result in 1868 was highly
encouraging ; and Lincoln set the precedent of nationalizing
New England s Thanksgiving Day, by proclaiming a cele
bration in November over the victories gained for the
Union cause. 1

That same tide of military success, which held back
through the spring and summer of 18G4, was sure, whenever
it came, to settle favorably to the administration and the
Union-Republican cause this more portentous Presidential
issue. It came ; but had heavy disaster come instead, the
November result at the polls might have been quite dif
ferent.

SECTION IX.

GRANT GENERAL-IN-CHIEF.

Immediately following Grant s great victory at Chatta
nooga, a bill was introduced in Congress to revive the grade



1 3 Seward, 194 ; 7 N. & H. c. 13.



1864. GRADE OF LIEUTENANT-GENERAL. 479

of lieutenant-general of the army. Officers in Confederate
service bore already the title; but only twice before had
that exalted military rank been conferred by the peace-loving
Congress of the United States once, as a crowning mark
of honor upon Washington, when war with France was
thought imminent ; and, once again, after the lapse of more
than half a century, upon Winiield Scott, as con- 1S(U
queror of Mexico. Scott s distinction was by February-
brevet only, nor was Washington s more than ^
honorary, as he chose to regard it, while conscious that he
could not live to take the field again. Here, however, it
was proposed for the first time to crown thus an American
and loyal general in the midst of his active service, as aid
and inducement to finishing a war successfully. On this
account, and because of its despotic temptation and the
disappointment that lesser military promotions had already
brought to the Union, Congress hesitated to revive in the
army at such a time so supreme an honor. But the bill
finally passed on the 26th of February, and three days
later received the Executive approval. It empowered the
President to appoint a lieutenant-general from among the
major-generals most distinguished for courage, skill, and
ability. Grant was the person understood to be fixed upon
for that exceptional mark of public confidence ; and it was
Grant s devoted friend and fellow-townsman, Washburne of
Illinois, who had introduced that measure in the House and
worked hardest for its passage. On the 1st of March, the
day after he had signed the bill, Lincoln nominated Ulysses
S. Grant to the Senate for this new honor, and his nomina
tion was promptly and cheerfully confirmed. 1

Grant, on the 3d of March, was ordered, through the War
Department, to report at Washington, in person, as early as
practicable, and receive his commission. He started from
Nashville for the national capital the very next day, mean
ing at the outset to accept no command which would require
him to make headquarters in Washington a purpose to
which Sherman adjured him with characteristic prejudice to



8 N. & II. c. 13.



480 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. 11

stand fast. " Leave the Atlantic slope to its own destiny, "
was the tenor of his friendly advice, .< and let Halleck and
the rest at Washington take there the buffets of political
intrigue which they are better qualified to endure, while you
keep for yourself and your old comrades the better conquest
of the Mississippi Valley. " With such dim forecast of his
future, the new Lieutenant-general took his train eastward
unpretentiously, little heeding the shouts and exultation
which greeted him on his way. Reaching Washington on
the evening of the 8th of March, he registered quietly at
Willard s Hotel, and about half-past nine attended a recep