ABRA HAM  LINCOLN: 
with  large  reenforeements  and  supplies.     Our  troops 
adly  clothed,  poorly  fed,  and  imperfectly  supplied 
I  nts.   None  of  them  have  as  yet  been  paid. 
Two  days  later  Lyon  wrote: 
If  it  is  the  intention  to  give  up  the  West,  let  it  be 
so;  it  can  only  be  the  victim  of  imbecility  or  malice, 
■•■.ill  cripple  us  if  he  can.   Cannot  you  stir  up  this 
matter  and  secure  us  relief?  See  Fremont,  if  he  has 
arrived.   The  want  of  supplies  has  crippled  me  so  that 
and  I  do  not  know  when  lean.   Every- 
thing seems  to  combine  against  me  at  this  point.    Stir 
dr.  \ 
Lyon's  innuendoes  against  the  Administra- 
tion and  against  General  Scott  were  alike  un- 
just. Both  were  eager  to  aid  him, but  there  was 
here,  as  elsewhere,  a  limit  to  possibilities.    It 
Fremont  who  needed  stirring  up.  Ap- 
pointed by  the  President  on  July  i,  he  had 
not  even  sent  his  official  acceptance  till  the 
1 6th,  the  day  before  Lyon  wrote  this  appeal; 
and,  after  final  and  emphatic  urging  by  Post- 
master-General Blair,  it  was  the  25th  before 
he  entered  on  his  duties  at  St.  Louis.  Three 
special  messengers  from  Lyon  awaited  him 
on  his  arrival,  and  repeated  the  tale  of  need 
and  of  danger.  But  Fremont  listened  languidly 
and  responded  feebly.  Urgent  calls  indeed 
came  to  him  from  other  quarters.  As  already 
btated,  Cairo  was  represented  to  be  seriously 
threatened,  and  he  had  chosen  first  to  insure 
its  safety.  He  had  the  means,  by  a  judicious 
rearrangement  of  his  forces,  to  have  aided  ef- 
fectually both  these  exposed  points.  Under 
the  critical  conditions  fully  pointed  out  to 
him.  he  could  at  least  have  recalled  Lyon 
and  assisted  his  safe  withdrawal  to  his  railroad 
base  at  Rolla.  But  he  neither  recalled  him 
nor  substantially  reenforced  him.  Two  regi- 
ments were  set  in  motion  toward  him,  but  it 
proved  the  merest  feint  of  help.  No  supplies 
and  no  troops  reached  Lyon  in  season  to  be 
of  the  slightest  service.  Lyon's  danger  lay  in 
a  junction  of  the  various  rebel  leaders  just 
beyond  the  Arkansas  line.    The  Confederate 
xnment  had  sent  Brigadier-General  Mc- 
Culloch  to  conciliate  or  conquer  the  Indian 
Territory  as   events  might  dictate,  and  had 
1  him  three  regiments — one  from  Louisi- 
ana, one  from  Texas,  and  one  from  Arkansas 
—  for  the  work.   Finding  it  bad  policy  for  the 
mt  to  occupy  the  Indian  Territory,  he 
hovered  about  the  border  with  permission  to 
move  into  either  Kansas  or  Missouri. 
Even  before  Polk's  ambitious  programme 
was  found  to  be  impracticable,  McCulloch 
made  haste  to  organize  a  campaign  on  his 
own  a<  count.  On  July  30  he  reported  that  he 
was  on  his  way  toward  Springfield  with  his  own 
*  Schofield  to  Harding,  July  15,  1S61.  War  Records, 
t  Lyon  to  Harding,  July  17,  1861.    War  Records. 
brigade  of  3200  troops,  the  command  of  Gen- 
eral Pearce,  with  2500  Arkansas  State  troops, 
and  the  somewhat  heterogeneous  gathering 
of  Missourians  under  Price,  which  he  thought 
could  furnish  about  7000  effective  men,  gener- 
ally well  mounted,  but  badly  commanded,  and 
armed  only  with  common  rifles  and  shotguns. 
It  was  the  approach  of  this  large  force  which 
had  given  Lyon  such  uneasiness,  and  with  good 
cause.  Moving  steadily  upon  him,  they  soon 
approached  so  near  that  his  position  became 
critical.  His  own  command  had  dwindled  to 
less  than  five  thousand  effective  men;  the 
combined  enemy  had  nearly  treble  that  num- 
ber of  effectives,  and  probably  more  than 
three  to  one,  counting  the  whole  mass.  If  he 
remained  stationary,  they  would  slowly  en- 
velop and  capture  him.  If  he  attempted  to 
retreat  through  the  120  miles  of  barren  mount- 
ainous country  which  lay  between  him  and 
Rolla,  they  would  follow  and  harass  him  and 
turn  his  retreat  into  a  rout.  Counting  to  the 
last  upon  reenforeements  which  did  not  come, 
he  had  allowed  events  to  place  him  in  an 
untenable  position. 
As  a  final  and  desperate  resource,  and  the 
only  one  to  save  his  army,  he  resolved  to 
attack  and  cripple  the  enemy.  As  at  Bull 
Run,  and  as  so  often  happens,  both  armies, 
on  the  evening  of  August  9,  were  under 
orders  to  advance  that  night  and  attack  each 
other.  Some  showers  of  rain  in  the  evening 
caused  McCulloch  temporarily  to  suspend  his 
order;  but  Lyon's  little  army,  moving  at 
nightfall,  marched  ten  miles  south  of  Spring- 
field to  Wilson's  Creek.  At  midnight  they 
halted  for  a  brief  bivouac.  Dividing  into  two 
columns  they  fell  upon  the  enemy's  camp  at 
daylight,  Sigel,  with  1200  men  and  a  battery, 
marching  against  their  right  flank,  in  an  en- 
endeavor  to  get  to  the  rear,  while  Lyon  in  per- 
son led  the  remaining  3700  men,  with  two 
batteries,  to  a  front  attack  against  their  left 
center.  The  movement  was  a  most  daring  one, 
and  the  conflict  soon  became  desperate.  Sigel's 
attack,  successful  at  first,  was  checked,  his  de- 
tachment put  to  flight,  and  5  of  his  6  guns  cap- 
tured and  turned  against  Lyon. 
Lyon,  on  the  contrary,  by  an  impetuous 
advance,  not  only  quickly  drove  the  enemy 
out  of  their  camp,  but  gained  and  occupied  a 
strong  natural  position,  which  he  held  with 
brave  determination.  His  mixed  force  of  reg- 
ulars and  volunteers  fought  with  admirable 
cooperation.  McCulloch,  confident  in  his 
overwhelming  numbers,  sent  forward  line  after 
line  of  attack,  which  Lyon's  well-posted  reg- 
ular batteries  threw  back.  The  forenoon  was 
already  well  spent  when  a  final  unusually 
heavy  assault  from  the  enemy  was  thus  re- 
pulsed, largely  by  help  of  the  inspiriting  per-
A    HISTORY. 
sonal  example  of  Lyon  himself,  who  led  some 
fragments  of  reserves  in  a  bayonet  charge.  The 
charge  ended  the  conflict;  but  it  also  caused 
the  fall  of  the  commander,  who,  pierced  by 
a  ball,  almost  immediately  expired.  It  was 
his  fourth  wound  received  in  the  action. 
Though  the  battle  was  substantially  won, 
Sturgis,  upon  whom  the  command  devolved, 
deemed  it  too  hazardous  to  attempt  to  hold 
the  field,  and  a  retreat  to  Springfield  was 
agreed  upon  by  a  council  of  officers.  An 
unmolested  withdrawal  was  effected  in  the 
afternoon,  and  upon  further  consultation  a 
definite  retreat  upon  Rolla  was  begun  the  fol- 
lowing day.  As  Lyon  had  anticipated,  the 
enemy  was  too  much  crippled  to  follow.  The 
Union  forces  had  223  killed,  721  wounded, and 
291  missing.  The  Confederate  loss  was  265 
killed,  800  wounded,  and  30  missing. 
The  battle  of  Wilson's  Creek,  the  death  of 
Lyon,  and  the  retreat  of  the  army  to  Rolla 
turned  public  attention  and  criticism  sharply 
upon  Fremont's  department  and  administra- 
tion, and  that  commander  was  suddenly 
awakened  to  his  work  and  responsibility.  He 
now  made  haste  to  dispatch  reinforcements 
to  Rolla,  and  sent  urgent  telegrams  for  help 
to  Washington  and  to  the  governors  of  the 
neighboring  free  States.  His  new  energy  par- 
took a  little  too  much  of  the  character  of  a 
panic.  He  declared  martial  law  in  the  city 
of  St.  Louis,  and  began  an  extensive  system 
of  fortifications;  which,  together  with  direc- 
tions to  fortify  Rolla,  Jefferson  City,  and  sev- 
eral other  places,  pointed  so  much  to  inaction, 
and  a  defensive  policy,  as  to  increase  rather 
than  allay  public  murmur. 
His  personal  manners  and  methods  excited 
still  further  and  even  deeper  dissatisfaction. 
A  passion  for  display  and  an  inordinate  love 
of  power  appeared  to  be  growing  upon  him. 
He  had  established  his  headquarters  in  an 
elegant  mansion  belonging  to  a  wealthy  se- 
cessionist ;  his  personal  staff  consisted  largely 
of  foreigners,  new  to  the  country,  and  unfa- 
miliar with  its  language  and  laws.  Their  fan- 
tastic titles  and  gay  trappings  seemed  devised 
for  show  rather  than  substantial  service.  He 
organized  a  special  body-guard.  Sentinels 
and  subordinates  unpleasantly  hedged  the 
approach  to  his  offices.  Instead  of  bringing 
order  into  the  chaotic  condition  of  military 
business,  he  was  prone  to  set  method  and 
routine  at  defiance,  issuing  commissions  and 
directing  the  giving  out  of  contracts  in  so 
irregular  a  way  as  to  bring  a  protest  from  the 
proper  accounting  officers  of  the  Government. 
Though  specially  requested  by  the  President 
to  cooperate  with  the  provisional  governor, 
he  continued  to  ignore  him.  A  storm  of  com- 
plaint soon  arose  from   all  except  the   little 
knot  of  flatterers  who  abused  his  favor  and 
the  newspapers  that  were  thriving  on  his 
patronage.  The  Unionists  of  Missouri  be- 
came afraid  that  he  was  neglecting  the 
present  safety  of  the  State  for  the  future 
success  of  his  intended  Mississippi  expedi- 
tion, and  wild  rumors  even  floated  in  the  air 
of  a  secret  purpose  to  imitate  the  scheme  of 
Aaron  Burr  and  set  up  an  independent  dic- 
tatorship in  the  West.* 
Reports  came  to  President  Lincoln  from 
multiplied  sources,  bringing  him  a  flood  of 
embarrassment  from  the  man  to  whom  he  had 
looked  with  such  confidence  for  administra- 
tive aid  and  military  success.  It  was  his 
uniform  habit,  when  he  had  once  confided 
command  and  responsibility  to  an  individual, 
to  sustain  him  in  the  trust  to  the  last  possible 
degree.  While  he  heard  with  pain  the  cumu- 
lating evidence  of  Fremont's  unfitness,  instead 
of  immediately  removing  him  from  command, 
he  sought  rather  to  remedy  the  defect.  In  this 
spirit  he  wrote  the  following  letter  to  General 
Hunter,  which  letter  peculiarly  illustrates  his 
remarkable  delicacy  in  managing  the  personal 
susceptibilities  of  men : 
My  Dear  Sir  :  General  Fremont  needs  assistance 
which  it  is  difficult  to  give  him.  He  is  losing  the  con- 
fidence of  men  near  him,  whose  support  any  man  in 
his  position  must  have  to  be  successful.  His  cardinal 
mistake  is  that  he  isolates  himself,  and  allows  nobody 
to  see  him ;  and  by  which  he  does  not  knowo\vhat  is  go- 
ing on  in  the  very  matter  he  is  dealing  with.  He  needs 
to  have  by  his  side  a  man  of  large  experience.  Will  you 
not,  for  me,  take  that  place  ?  Your  rank  is  one  grade 
too  high  to  be  ordered  to  it ;  but  will  you  not  serve 
the  country  and  oblige  me  by  taking  it  voluntarily  ?  t 
With  this  letter  of  the  President,  Postmas- 
ter-General Blair — hitherto  Fremont's  warm 
personal  friend  —  and  Meigs,  the  quartermas- 
ter-general of  the  army,  went  to  St.  Louis,  to 
make  a  brief  inspection  and  report  of  matters, 
and  to  give  friendly  advice  and  admonition  to 
the  commander  of  the  Department  of  the' West. 
While  they  were  on  their  way,  Mrs.  Fremont 
was  journeying  toward  Washington,  bearing 
her  husband's  reply  to  a  letter  from  the  Presi- 
dent sent  him  by  special  messenger  about  a 
week  before. 
Her  mind  was  less  occupied  with  the  sub- 
ject of  the  missive  she  bore  than  with  the 
portent  of  a  recent  quarrel  which  the  general 
had  imprudently  allowed  to  grow  up  between 
Colonel  Frank  Blair  and  himself.  Blair  had 
finally  become  convinced  of  Fremont's  inca- 
pacity, and  in  public  print  sharply  criticised 
his  doings.  Indeed,  the  quarrel  soon  pro- 
gressed so  far  that  Fremont  placed  him  under 
arrest;  then  Blair  preferred  formal  charges 
against  the  general  for  maladministration,  and 
*  Meigs,  Diary.  MS. 
t  Lincoln  to  Hunter,  Sept.  9,  1861.  Unpublished  MS.
joS 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
the  general  in  turn  entered  formal  counter- 
charges  against  Blair. 
Arrived  at  her  destination  ]\Irs.  Fremont 
took  the  opportunity,  in  her  interview  with  Mr. 
Lincoln,  to  justify  General  Fremont  in  all  he 
had  done,  and  to  denounce  his  accusers  with 
impetuous  earnestness.  She  even  asked  for 
copies  of  confidential  correspondence  con- 
cerning her  husband's  personal  embroilment. 
In  these  circumstances  it  was  no  light  task 
for  Mr.  Lincoln  to  be  at  once  patient,  polite, 
and  just:  yet  the  following  letter  will  testify 
that  he  accomplished  even  this  difficult  feat: 
Washington,  D.  C,  Sept.  12,  1S61. 
Mrs.  General  Fremont. 
My  DEAR  Madam:  Your  two  notes  of  to-day  are 
before  me.  I  answered  the  letter  you  bore  me  from 
al  Fremont,  on  yesterday,  and  not  hearing  from 
you  during  the  day,  I  sent  the  answer  to  him  by  mail. 
It  is  not  exactly  correct,  as  you  say  you  were  told  by 
the  elder  Mr.  Blair,  to  say  that  I  sent  Postmaster- 
General  Blair  to  St.  Louis  to  examine  into  that  de- 
partment and  report.  Postmaster-General  Blair  did 
tli  my  approbation,  to  see  and  converse  with 
ral  Fremont  as  a  friend.  I  do  not  feel  authorized 
to  furnish  you  with  copies  of  letters  in  my  possession, 
without  the  consent  of  the  writers.  No  impression 
lias  been  made  on  my  mind  against  the  honor  or  integ- 
rity of  General  Fremont,  and  I  now  enter  my  protest 
against  being  understood  as  acting  in  any  hostility 
towards  him.  Your  obedient  servant, 
A.  Lincoln.* 
It  will  be  interesting  to  read  in  addition  a 
graphic,  verbal  recapitulation  of  these  inci- 
dents, made  by  President  Lincoln  in  a  confi- 
dential evening  conversation  with  a  few  friends 
in  the  Executive  office  a  little  more  than  two 
years  afterward,  and  which  one  of  his  secre- 
taries recorded  : 
The  Blairs  have  to  an  unusual  degree  the  spirit  of 
clan.  Their  family  is  a  close  corporation.  Frank  is 
their  hope  and  pride.  They  have  a  way  of  going  with 
a  rush  for  anything  they  undertake ;  especially  have 
Montgomery  and  the  old  gentleman.  When  this  war 
first  began  they  could  think  of  nothing  but  Fremont; 
they  expected  everything  from  him,  and  upon  their 
earnest  solicitation  he  was  made  a  general  and  sent  to 
ouri.  I  thought  well  of  Fremont.  F^ven  now  I 
think  well  of  hisimpulses.  I  only  think  he  is  the  prey 
of  v.  icked  and  designing  men,  and  I  think  he  has  abso- 
lutely ;  0  military  capacity.  He  went  to  Missouri  the 
pet  and  proteg6  of  the  Blairs.  At  first  they  corre- 
sponded with  him  and  with  Frank,  who  was  with  him, 
fully  and  confidentially,  thinking  his  plans  and  his 
ts  would  accomplish  great  things  for  the  country. 
f  the  tone  of  Frank's  letters  changed.  It  was  a 
change  from  confidence  to  doubt  and  uncertainty. 
They  aded  with  atone  of  sincere  sorrow  and 
of  fear  that  Fremont  would  fail.  Montgomery  showed 
them  to  me,  and  we  were  both  grieved  at  the  prospect. 
Soon  came  the  news  that  Fremont  had  issued  his 
emancipation  order,  and  had  set  up  a  bureau  of  aboli- 
tion, giving  free  papers,  and  occupying  his  time  appar- 
ently with  little  else.  At  last,  at  my  suggestion, 
Montgomery  Blair  went  to  Missouri  to  look  at  and 
talk  over  matters.  He  went  as  the  friend  of  Fremont. 
He  passed,  on  the  way,  Mrs.  Fremont,  coming  to  see 
me.  She  sought  an  audience  with  me  at  midnight,  and 
tasked  me  so  violently  with  many  things,  that  I  had  to 
exercise  all  the  awkward  tact  I  have  to  avoid  quarrel- 
ing with  her.  She  surprised  me  by  asking  why  their 
enemy,  Montgomery  Blair,  had  been  sent  to  Missouri. 
She  more  than  once  intimated  that  if  General  Fremont 
should  decide  to  try  conclusions  with  me,  he  could  set 
up  for  himself. t 
MILITARY    EMANCIPATION. 
Not  only  President  Lincoln,  but  the  coun- 
try at  large  as  well,  was  surprised  to  find,  in 
the  newspapers  of  August  30,  a  proclamation 
from  the  commander  of  the  Department  of 
the  West  of  startling  significance.  The  ex- 
planations of  its  necessity  and  purpose  were 
altogether  contradictory,  and  its  mandatory 
orders  so  vaguely  framed  as  to  admit  of 
dangerous  variance  in  interpretation  and  en- 
forcement. Reciting  the  disturbed  condition 
of  society,  and  defining  theboundaries  of  army 
occupation,  it  contained  the  following  impor- 
tant decrees : 
Circumstances,  in  my  judgment  of  sufficient  urgency, 
render  it  necessary  that  the  commanding  general 
of  this  department  should  assume  the  administrative 
powers  of  the  State.  ...  In  order,  therefore,  to 
suppress  disorder,  to  maintain  as  far  as  now  practica- 
ble the  public  peace,  and  to  give  security  and  protec- 
tion to  the  persons  and  property  of  loyal  citizens,  I  do 
hereby  extend  and  declare  established  martial  law 
throughout  the  State  of  Missouri.  .  .  .  All  persons 
who  shall  be  taken  with  arms  in  their  hands  within 
these  lines  shall  be  tried  by  court-martial,  and,  if  found 
guilty,  will  be  shot.  The  property,  real  and  personal, 
of  all  persons  in  the  State  of  Missouri  directly 
proven  to  have  taken  an  active  part  with  their  enemies 
in  the  field  is  declared  to  be  confiscated  to  the  public 
use,  and  their  slaves,  if  any  they  have,  are  hereby  de- 
clared freemen.  .  .  .  The  object  of  this  declaration 
is  to  place  in  the  hands  of  the  military  authorities  the 
power  to  give  instantaneous  effect  to  existing  laws, 
and  to  supply  such  deficiencies  as  the  conditions  of  war 
demand.  But  this  is  not  intended  to  suspend  the 
ordinary  tribunals  of  the  country,  where  the  law  will 
be  administered  by  the  civil  officers  in  the  usual  man- 
ner, and  with  their  customary  authority,  while  the 
same  can  be  peaceably  exercised.  \ 
Despite  its  verbiage  and  confusion  of  sub- 
jects, it  was  apparent  that  this  extraordinary 
document  was  not  a  measure  of  military  pro- 
tection, but  a  political  manoeuvre.  Since  the 
first  movement  of  the  armies  the  slavery 
question  had  become  a  subject  of  new  and 
vital  contention,  and  the  antislavery  drift  of 
public  opinion  throughout  the  North  was  un- 
mistakably manifest.  There  was  no  room  for 
doubt  that  General  Fremont,  apprehensive 
about  his  loss  of  prestige  through  the  disaster 
to  Lyon  and  the  public  clamors  growing  out 
of  his  mistakes  and  follies  in  administration, 
had  made  this  appeal  to  the  latent  feeling  in 
the  public  mind  as  a  means  of  regaining  his 
waning  popularity.  Full  confirmation  was  af- 
forded by  his  immediately  convening  under  his 
*  Unpublished  MS. 
t  Unpublished  MS. 
X  Fremont,  Proclamation. 
War  Records.
A   HISTORY. 
proclamation  a  military  commission  to  hear  evi- 
dence, and  beginning  to  issue  personal  deeds 
of  manumission  to  slaves.*  The  proceeding 
strongly  illustrates  his  want  of  practical  sense : 
the  delay  and  uncertainty  of  enforcement  under 
this  clumsy  method  would  have  rendered  the 
theoretical  boon  of  freedom  held  out  to  slaves 
rare  and  precarious,  if  not  absolutely  imprac- 
ticable. As  soon  as  an  authentic  text  of  the 
proclamation  reached  President  Lincoln,  he 
wrote  and  dispatched  the  following  letter : 
Washington,  D.  C,  Sept.  2,  1861. 
Major-General  Fremont. 
My  Dear  Sir  :  Two  points  in  your  proclamation 
of  August  30  give  me  some  anxiety  : 
First.  Should  you  shoot  a  man,  according  to  the 
proclamation,  the  Confederates  would  very  certainly 
shoot  our  best  men  in  their  hands  in  retaliation ;  and 
so,  man  for  man,  indefinitely.  It  is,  therefore,  my 
order  that  you  allow  no  man  to  be  shot  under  the 
proclamation  without  first  having  my  approbation  or 
consent. 
Second.  I  think  there  is  great  danger  that  the  clos- 
ing paragraph,  in  relation  to  the  confiscation  of  prop- 
erty and  the  liberating  slaves  of  traitorous  owners, 
will  alarm  our  Southern  Union  friends  and  turn  them 
against  us  ;  perhaps  ruin  our  rather  fair  prospect  for 
Kentucky.  Allow  me,  therefore,  to  ask  that  you  will, 
as  of  your  own  motion,  modify  that  paragraph  so  as 
to  conform  to  the  first  and  fourth  sections  of  the  act 
of  Congress  entitled,  "  An  act  to  confiscate  property 
used  for  insurrectionary  purposes,"  approved  August 
6,  1861,  and  a  copy  of  which  act  I  herewith  send  you. 
This  letter  is  written  in  a  spirit  of  caution,  and  not 
of  censure.    I  send  it  by  special  messenger,  in  order 
that  it  may  certainly  and  speedily  reach  you. 
Yours  very  truly, 
A.   LlNCOLN.t 
It  was  the  reply  to  the  above  which  the 
general  sent  to  Washington  by  the  hand  of 
Mrs.  Fremont,  and  which  contained  a  very 
lame  apology  for  the  dictatorial  and  precipi- 
tate step  he  had  taken.    He  wrote : 
Trusting  to  have  your  confidence,  I  have  been  leav- 
ing it  to  events  themselves  to  show  you  whether  or 
not  I  was  shaping  affairs  here  according  to  your  ideas. 
The  shortest  communication  between  Washington  and 
St.  Louis  generally  involves  two  days,  and  the  em- 
ployment of  two  days  in  time  of  war  goes  largely 
towards  success  or  disaster.  I  therefore  went  along 
according  to  my  own  judgment,  leaving  the  result  of 
my  movements  to  justify  me  with  you.  And  so  in 
regard  to  my  proclamation  of  the  30th.  Between  the 
rebel  armies,  the  Provisional  Government,  and  home 
traitors,  I  felt  the  position  bad  and  saw  danger.  In 
the  night  I  decided  upon  the  proclamation  and  the 
form  of  it.  I  wrote  it  the  next  morning  and  printed  it 
the  same  day.  I  did  it  without  consultation  or  advice 
with  any  one,  acting  solely  with  my  best  judgment  to 
serve  the  country  and  yourself,  and  perfectly  willing 
to  receive  the  amount  of  censure  which  should  be 
thought  due  if  I  had  made  a  false  movement.  This  is 
as  much  a  movement  in  the  war  as  a  battle,  and  in 
going  into  these  I  shall  have  to  act  according  to  my 
judgment  of  the  ground  before  me,  as  I  did  on  this 
occasion.  If,  upon  reflection,  your  better  judgment 
still  decides  that  I  am  wrong  in  the  article  respecting 
*  "  Rebellion  Record." 
t  War  Records. 
the  liberation  of  slaves,  I  have  to  ask  that  you  will 
openly  direct  me  to  make  the  correction.  The  implii  d 
censure  will  be  received  as  a  soldier  always  shorn 
reprimand  of  his  chief.  If  I  were  to  retract  of  my  own 
accord,  it  would  imply  that  I  myself  though!  it  wrong, 
and  that  I  had  acted  without  the  reflection  which  the 
gravity  of  the  point  demanded.  But  1  did  not.  I  acted 
with  full  deliberation,  and  upon  the  certain  conviction 
that  it  was  a  measure  right  and  necessary,  and  1  think 
so  still.  In  regard  to  the  other  point  of  the  proclama- 
tion to  which  you  refer,  I  desire  to  say  that  I  do  not 
think  the  enemy  can  either  misconstrue  or  urge  any- 
thing against  it,  or  undertake  to  make  unusual  retalia- 
tion. The  shooting  of  men  who  shall  rise  in  arms 
against  an  army  in  the  military  occupation  of  a  country 
is  merely  a  necessary  measure  of  defense,  and  entirely 
according  to  the  usages  of  civilized  warfare.  The 
article  does  not  at  all  refer  to  prisoners  of  war,  and 
certainly  our  enemies  have  no  ground  for  requiring 
that  we  should  waive  in  their  benefit  any  of  the  ordi- 
nary advantages  which  the  usages  of  war  allow  to  us.  + 
Fremont  thus  chose  deliberately  to  assume 
a  position  of  political  hostility  to  the  Presi- 
dent. Nevertheless  Mr.  Lincoln,  acting  still 
in  his  unfailing  spirit  of  dispassionate  fairness 
and  courtesy,  answered  as  follows: 
Washington,  Sept.   11,  1861. 
Major-General  John  C.  Fremont. 
Sir  :  Yours  of  the  8th  in  answer  to  mine  of  the  2d 
instant  is  just  received.  Assuming  that  you,  upon  the 
ground,  could  better  judge  of  the  necessities  of  your 
position  than  I  could  at  this  distance,  on  seeing  your 
proclamation  of  August  30  I  perceived  no  general  ob- 
jection to  it.  The  particular  clause,  however,  in  relation 
to  the  confiscation  of  property  and  the  liberation  of 
slaves  appeared  to  me  to  be  objectionable  in  its  non- 
conformity to  the  act  of  Congress  passed  the  6th  of 
last  August  upon  the  same  subjects  ;  and  hence  I  wrote 
you,  expressing  my  wish  that  that  clause  should  be 
modified  accordingly.  Your  answer,  just  received,  ex- 
presses the  preference  on  your  part  that  I  should  make 
an  open  order  for  the  modification,  which  I  very  cheer- 
fully do.  It  is  therefore  ordered  that  the  said  clause  of 
said  proclamation  be  so  modified,  held,  and  construed 
as  to  conform  to,  and  not  to  transcend,  the  provisions 
on  the  same  subject  contained  in  the  act  of  Congress 
entitled,  "  An  act  to  confiscate  property  used  for  insur- 
rectionary purposes,"  approved  August  6,  1861,  and 
that  said  act  be  published  at  length,  with  this  order. 
Your  obedient  servant, 
A.  Lincoln. § 
As  might  have  been  expected,  Fremont's 
proclamation  of  military  emancipation,  and 
Lincoln's  order  revoking  it,  produced  a  fresh 
and  acrimonious  discussion  of  the  slavery  ques- 
tion. The  incident  made  the  name  of  Fremont 
a  rallying  cry  for  men  holding  extreme  anti- 
slavery  opinions,  and  to  a  certain  extent  raised 
him  to  the  position  of  a  new  party  leader. 
The  vital  relation  of  slavery  to  the  rebellion 
was  making  itself  felt  to  a  degree  which  the 
great  body  of  the  people,  so  long  trained  to  a 
legal  tolerance  of  the  evil,  could  not  yet  bring 
themselves  to  acknowledge.  Men  hitherto 
conservative  and  prudent  were  swept  along  by 
the  relentless  logic  of  the  nation's  calamity 
t  Fremont  to  Lincoln,  Sept.  8,  1S61.    War  Records. 
$  War  Records.
;-rc 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
point  whore  they  were  ready  at  once  to 
ept  and  defend  measures  of  even  the  last 
for  the  nation's  preservation. 
With  admirable  prudence  Lincoln  himself 
ed  nothing  to  the  public  discussion,  but  a 
lential  letter  written  to  a  conservative 
•  proved  and  defended  Fremont's 
n  will  be  found  of  enduring  interest. 
Execu  iivi;  Mansion, 
Washington,  Sept.  22,  1861. 
O.  i  I.  Browning. 
My   Dear  Sir:   Yours  of  the  17th  is  just  received; 
and    coming   from    vou,   I    confess  it  astonishes  me. 
That  you  should  object  to  my  adhering  to  a  law,  which 
you    had    assisted  in  making,  and  presenting  to  me, 
ban  a  month  before,  is  odd  enough.     But  this  is 
a  very  small  part.     General  Fremont's  proclamation, 
confiscation  of  property,  and  the  liberation  of 
urely  political,  and  not  within  the  range  of 
1   r  law  or  necessity.     If  a  commanding  general 
finds  a  necessity  to  seize  the  farm  of  a  private  owner, 
for  a  pasture,  an  encampment,  or  a  fortification,  he  has 
the   right  to  do  so,  and  to  so  hold  it,  as  long  as  the 
necessity  lasts  ;  and  this  is  within  military  law,  because 
within  military  necessity.      But  to  say  the  farm  shall 
no  longer  belong  to  the  owner,  or  his  heirs  forever, 
and  this,  as  well  when  the  farm  is  not  needed  for  mili- 
tary purposes  as  when  it  is,  is  purely  political,  without 
the   savor  of  military  law   about  it.      And  the   same 
is  true  of  slaves.     If  the  general  needs  them  he  can 
seize  them  and  use  them,  but  when  the  need  is  past,  it 
is  not  for  him  to  fix  their  permanent  future  condition. 
That  must  be  settled  according  to  laws  made  by  law- 
makers,   and    not   by   military   proclamations.      The 
proclamation    in     the   point    in    question    is    simply 
•'dictatorship."     It  assumes  that  the  general  may  do 
anything  he  pleases  —  confiscate  the  lands  and  free  the 
:s  of loyal  people,  as  well  as  of  disloyal  ones.     And 
going  the  whole  figure,  I  have  no  doubt,  would   be 
opular,  with   some   thoughtless   people,   than 
it  which   has  been  done!     But    I    cannot   assume 
reckless  position,  nor  allow  others  to  assume  it 
on  rny  responsibility. 
You  speak  of  it  as  being  the  only  means  of  saving 
the  Government.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  itself  the  sur- 
render of  the  Government.  Can  it  be  pretended  that  it 
is  any  longer  the  Government  of  the  United  States  — 
any  government  of  constitution  and  laws  —  wherein 
or  a  president  may  make  permanent  rules 
j  by  proclamation  ? 
t  say  Congress  might  not,  with  propriety, 
law  on  the  point,  just  such  as  General  Fremont 
proclaimed.    I  do  not  say  I  might  not,  as  amember  of 
■>■'■  for  it.    What   I  object  to  is,  that  I,  as 
'•xpressly  or  impliedly  seize  and  exer- 
cise the  permanent  legislative  functions  of  the  Govern - 
. 
ouch  as  to  principle.    Now  as  to  policy.     No 
doubt  the   thing  was   popular  in  some  quarters,  and 
>uld  have  been  more  so  if  it  had  been  a  general  dec- 
laration of  emancipation.     The  Kentucky  legislature 
would  not  budge  till  that  proclamation  was  modified; 
and  General  Andei  on  telegraphed  me  that  on  the  news 
Fremont  having  actually  issued   deeds  of 
manumission,  a  whole  company  of  our  volunteers  threw 
"heir  arms  and  disbanded.    I  was  so  assured  as 
to  think  it  probable  that  the  very  arms  we  had  fur- 
nished Kentucky  would  be  turner]  against  us.    I  think 
tucky  is  nearly  the  same  as  to  lose  the  whole- 
game.    K<  cannot  hold  Missouri,  nor, 
as  I  think,  Maryland.    These  all  against  us,  and  the 
job  on  our  hands  i     too  large  for  us.    We  would  as 
well  consent  to  separation  at  once,  including  the  sur- 
render of  this  capital.    On  the  contrary,  if  you  will  give 
up  your  restlessness  for  new  positions,  and  back  me 
manfully  on  the  grounds  upon  which  you  and  other 
kind  friends  gave  me  the  election,  and  have  approved 
in  my  public  documents,  we  shall  go  through  trium- 
phantly. 
You  must  not  understand  I  took  my  course  on  the 
proclamation  becazisc  of  Kentucky.  I  took  the  same 
ground  in  a  private  letter  to  General  Fremont  before 
I  heard  from  Kentucky. 
You  think  I  am  inconsistent  because  I  did  not  also 
forbid  General  Fremont  to  shoot  men  under  the  proc- 
lamation. I  understand  that  part  to  be  within  military 
law,  but  I  also  think,  and  so  privately  wrote  General 
Fremont,  that  it  is  impolitic  in  this,  that  our  adversaries 
have  the  power,  and  will  certainly  exercise  it,  to  shoot 
as  many  of  our  men  as  we  shoot  of  theirs.  I  did  not 
say  this  in  the  public  letter,  because  it  is  a  subject  I 
prefer  not  to  discuss  in  the  hearing  of  our  enemies. 
There  has  been  no  thought  of  removing  General 
Fremont  on  any  ground  connected  with  his  proclama- 
tion, and  if  there  lias  been  any  wish  for  his  removal  on 
any  ground,  our  mutual  friend  Sam.  Glover  can  prob- 
ably tell  you  what  it  was.  I  hope  no  real  necessity  for 
it  exists  on  any  ground.    .    .    . 
Your  friend,  as  ever, 
A.  Lincoln.* 
The  reader  will  not  fail  to  note  that  the 
argument  of  this  letter  seems  diametrically 
opposed  to  the  action  of  the  President,  when, 
exactly  one  year  later,  he  issued  his  prelimi- 
nary Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  as  well 
as  to  that  of  the  final  one,  on  the  first  day  of 
January,  1863.  Did  Mr.  Lincoln  change  his 
mind  in  the  interim  ?  The  answer  is  two-fold. 
He  did  not  change  his  mind  as  to  the  princi- 
ple; he  did  change  his  mind  as  to  the  policy 
of  the  case. 
Rightly  to  interpret  Mr.  Lincoln's  language 
we  must  imagine  ourselves  in  his  position,  and 
examine  the  question  as  it  presented  itself  to 
his  mind.  Congress,  by  the  act  of  August  6, 
1 86 1,  had  authorized  him  to  cause  property 
used  or  employed  in  aid  of  insurrection  to  be 
"  seized,  confiscated,  and  condemned  " ;  pro- 
viding, however,  that  such  condemnation 
should  be  by  judicial  proceeding.  He  saw 
that  Fremont  by  mere  proclamation  assumed 
to  confiscate  all  property,  both  real  and  per- 
sonal, of  rebels  in  arms,  whether  such  prop- 
erty had  been  put  to  insurrectionary  use  or 
not,  and,  going  a  step  further,  had  annexed  a 
rule  of  property,  by  decreeing  that  their  slaves 
should  become  free.  This  assumption  of  au- 
thority Lincoln  rightly  defined  as  "  simply 
dictatorship,"  and  as  being,  if  permitted,  the 
end  of  constitutional  government.  The  case 
is  still  stronger  when  we  remember  that  Fre- 
mont's proclamation  began  by  broadly  assum- 
ing "  the  administrative  powers  of  the  State"; 
that  its  declared  object  was  mere  individual 
punishment,  and  the  measure  a  local  police 
regulation  to  stippress  disorder  and  maintain 
the  peace;  also  that  it  was  to  operate  through- 
out Missouri,  as  well  within  as  without  the  j
*MS.  Also  printed  in  "Proceedings  of  Illinois  Bar 
Association,  1882,"  pp.  40,  41.
A    HISTORY. 
301 
portions  of  the  State  under  his  immediate 
military  control.  Military  necessity,  therefore, 
could  not  be  urged  in  justification.  The  act 
was  purely  administrative  and  political. 
The  difference  between  these  extra-military 
decrees  of  Fremont's  proclamation  and  Lin- 
coln's acts  of  emancipation  is  broad  and  es- 
sential. Fremont's  act  was  one  of  civil  admin- 
istration, Lincoln's  a  step  in  an  active  military 
campaign;  Fremont's  was  local  and  individual, 
Lincoln's  national  and  general;  Fremont's 
partly  within  military  lines,  Lincoln's  alto- 
gether beyond  military  lines;  Fremont's  an 
act  of  punishment,  Lincoln's  a  means  of  war; 
Fremont's  acting  upon  property,  Lincoln's 
acting  upon  persons.  National  law,  civil 
and  military,  knew  nothing  of  slavery,  and 
did  not  protect  it  as  an  institution.  It  only 
tolerated  State  laws  to  that  effect,  and  only 
dealt  with  fugitive  slaves  as  "persons  held 
to  service."  Lincoln  did  not,  as  dictator, 
decree  the  abrogation  of  these  State  laws; 
but  in  order  to  call  persons  from  the  mili- 
tary aid  of  the  rebellion  to  the  military  aid 
of  the  Union,  he,  as  Commander-in-Chief, 
armed  by  military  necessity,  proclaimed  that 
persons  held  as  slaves  within  rebel  lines 
should  on  a  certain  day  become  free  unless 
rebellion  ceased. 
Thus  no  real  distinction  of  principle  exists 
between  his  criticism  of  Fremont's  proclama- 
tion and  the  issuing  of  his  own.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  marked  and  acknowledged 
change  of  policy  between  the  date  of  the 
Browning  letter  and  the  date  of  his  prelimi- 
nary Emancipation  Proclamation.  In  Septem- 
ber, 1 86 1,  he  stood  upon  the  position  laid  down 
in  the  Chicago  platform;  upon  that  expressed 
in  the  constitutional  amendment  and  indorsed 
in  his  inaugural ;  upon  that  declared  by  Con- 
gress in  July,  in  the  Crittenden  resolution, 
namely :  that  the  General  Government  would 
not  interfere  directly  or  indirectly  with  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery  in  the  several  States.  This 
policy  Lincoln  undertook  in  good  faith  to 
carry  out,  and  he  adhered  to  it  so  long  as  it 
was  consistent  with  the  safety  of  the  Govern- 
ment. His  Browning  letter  is  but  a  reaffirma- 
tion of  that  purpose.  At  the  time  he  wrote  it 
military  necessity  was  clearly  against  military 
emancipation,  either  local  or  general.  The  rev- 
ocation of  Fremont's  decree  saved  Kentucky 
to  the  Union,  and  placed  forty  thousand  Ken- 
tucky soldiers  in  the  Federal  army.  But  one 
year  after  the  date  of  the  Browning  letter,  the 
situation  was  entirely  reversed.  The  Richmond 
campaign  had  utterly  failed;  Washington  was 
menaced;  the  country  was  despondent;  and 
military  necessity  now  justified  the  policy  of 
general  military  emancipation. 
Whatever  temporary  popularity  Fremont 
Vol.  XXXVI.— 43. 
gained  with  antislavery  people  by  his  procla- 
mation was  quickly  neutralized  by  the  occur- 
rence of  a  new  military  disaster  in  his  depart- 
ment. The  battle  of  Wilson's  Creek  and  the 
retreat  of  the  Union  army  to  Rolla  left  the 
Confederate  forces  master  of  south-west  Mis- 
souri. The  junction  of  rebel  leaders,  however, 
which  had  served  to  gain  that  advantage  was 
of  short  duration.  Their  loosely  organized  and 
badly  supplied  army  was  not  only  too  much 
crippled  to  follow  the  Union  retreat,  but  in  no 
condition  to  remain  together.  Price,  as  major- 
general  of  Missouri  State  forces,  had  only 
temporarily  waived  his  rank  and  consented 
to  serve  under  McCulloch,  holding  but  a 
brigadier-general's  commission  from  Jefferson 
Davis.  Both  the  disagreement  of  the  leaders 
and  the  necessities  of  the  troops  almost  imme- 
diately compelled  a  separation  of  the  rebel 
army.  General  Pearce  with  his  Arkansas 
State  forces  returned  home,  and  General 
McCulloch  with  his  three  Confederate  regi- 
ments also  marched  back  into  Arkansas,  tak- 
ing up  again  his  primary  task  of  watching 
the  Indian  Territory.  General  Price  held 
his  numerous  but  heterogeneous  Missouri  fol- 
lowers together,  and,  busying  himself  for  a 
time  in  gathering  supplies,  started  back  in 
a  leisurely  march  northward  from  Spring- 
field toward  the  Missouri  River.  The  strong 
secession  feeling  of  south-western  Missouri 
rapidly  increased  his  force,  liberally  furnished 
him  supplies,  and  kept  him  fully  informed  of 
the  numbers  and  location  of  the  various 
Union  detachments.  There  were  none  in  his 
line  of  march  till  he  neared  the  town  of  Lex- 
ington, on  the  Missouri  River.  The  rebel 
governor,  Jackson,  had  recently  convened  the 
rebel  members  of  his  legislature  here,  but  a 
small  Union  detachment  sent  from  Jefferson 
City  occupied  the  place,  dispersing  them  and 
capturing  their  records,  and  the  great  seal  of 
the  State,  brought  by  the  governor  in  his  flight 
from  the  capital.  About  the  1st  of  September 
the  Union  commander  at  Jefferson  City  heard 
of  the  advance  of  Price,  and  sent  forward  the 
Chicago  Irish  Brigade  under  Colonel  Mulligan 
to  reenforce  Lexington,  with  directions  to  for- 
tify and  hold  it.  Mulligan  reached  Lexington 
by  forced  marches,  where  he  was  soon  joined 
by  the  Union  detachment  from  Warrensburg 
retreating  before  Price.  The  united  Federal 
force  now  numbered  2800  men,  with  8  guns 
Price  pushed  forward  his  cavalry,  and  made  a 
slight  attack  on  the  12th,  but  was  easily  re- 
pulsed and  retired  to  await  the  arrival  of  his 
main  body,  swelled  by  continual  accessions  to 
some  20,000  with  13  guns;  and  on  the  18th 
he  again  approached  and  formally  laid  siege 
to  Lexington. 
Mulligan  made  good  use  of  this  interim,
$02 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN; 
gathering  provisions  and  forage,  casting  shot, 
making  ammunition  for  his  guns,  and  inclosing 
the  college  building  and  the  hill  on  which  it 
I,  an  area  oi  some  fifteen  acres,  with  a 
strong  line  oi  breastworks.  Trice  began  his  at- 
tack on  the  1 8th,  but  foi  two  days  made  little 
headway.  Slowly,  however,  he  gained  favor- 
able positions  ;  his  sharp-shooters,  skilled  rifle- 
men ot  the  frontier,  drove  the  Federals  into 
their  principal  redan,  cut  off  their  water  supply 
by  gaining  and  occupying  the  river  shore,  and 
finally  adopted  the  novel  and  effective  expe- 
dient oi  using  movable  breastworks,  by  gradu- 
allv  rolling  forward  bales  of  wet  hemp.  On 
September  20.  alter  fifty-two  hours  of  gallant 
defense,  Mulligan's  position  became  untena- 
ble. The  reinforcements  he  had  a  right  to 
expect  did  not  come,  his  water  cisterns  were 
exhausted,  the  stench  from  dead  animals  bur- 
dened the  air  about  his  fort.  Some  one  at 
length,  without  authority,  displayed  a  white 
flag,  and  Price  sent  a  note  which  asked, 
••  Colonel,  what  has  caused  the  cessation  of 
the  light?"  Mulligan's  Irish  wit  was  equal 
to  the  occasion,  and  he  wrote  on  the  back  of 
it.  "  General,  I  hardly  know,  unless  you  have 
surrendered.''  The  pleasantry  led  to  a  formal 
parley;  and  Mulligan,  with  the  advice  of  his 
officers,  surrendered.* 
The  uncertainty  which  for  several  days  hung 
over  the  fate  of  Lexington,  and  the  dramatic 
incidents  of  the  fight,  excited  the  liveliest  in- 
terest throughout  the  West.  Newspaper  dis- 
cus>ion  soon  made  it  evident  that  this  new 
Union  loss  might  have  been  avoided  by  rea- 
sonable prudence  and  energy  on  the  part  of 
Fremont,  as  there  were  plenty  of  disposable 
troops  at  various  points,  which,  during  the  slow 
approach  and  long-deferred  attack  of  Price, 
1  ould  have  been  hurried  to  Mulligan's  support. 
There  were  universal  outcry  and  pressure  that 
at  least  the  disaster  should  be  retrieved  by  a 
prompt  movement  to  intercept  and  capture 
Price  on  his  retreat.  Fremont  himself  seems 
to  have  felt  the  sting  of  the  disgrace,  for,  re- 
porting the  surrender,  he  added  : 
•1  am  taking  the  field  myself,  and  hope  to 
destroy  the  enemy,  either  before  or  after  the 
junction  of  forces  under  McCulloch.  Please 
notify  the  President  immediately." 
••  Your    dispatch  of  this  day  is  received," 
>nded  General    Scott.     "The    President 
1    are  hastening  to  the  scene  of 
>n ;    his    words    are,  'he  expects  you  to 
r  the  disaster  at  Lexington  without  loss 
of  tin 
This  hope  was  not  destined  to  reach  a  ful- 
fillment. Price  almost  immediately  retreated 
southward  from  Lexington  with  his  captured 
booty,  among  which  the  pretentious  great  seal 
*"  Rebellion    Record." 
of  the  State  figures  as  a  conspicuous  item  in 
his  report.  On  September  24  Fremont  pub- 
lished his  order,  organizing  his  army  of  five 
divisions,  under  Pope  at  Boonville,  McKinstry 
at  Syracuse,  Hunter  at  Versailles,  Sigel  at 
Georgetown,  Asboth  at  Tipton.  On  paper  it 
formed  a  respectable  show  of  force,  figuring  as 
an  aggregate  of  nearly  39,000  ;  in  reality  it  was 
at  the  moment  well-nigh  powerless,  being- 
scattered  and  totally  unprepared  for  the  field. 
Fremont's  chronic  inattention  to  details,  and 
his  entire  lack  of  methodical  administration, 
now  fully  revealed  themselves.  Even  under 
the  imperative  orders  of  the  general,  nearly  a 
month  elapsed  before  the  various  divisions 
could  be  concentrated  at  Springfield;  and  they 
were  generally  in  miserable  plight  as  to  trans- 
portation, supplies,  and  ammunition.  Amidst 
a  succession  of  sanguine  newspaper  reports 
setting  forth  the  incidents  and  great  expecta- 
tions of  Fremont's  campaign,  the  convincing 
evidence  could  not  be  disguised  that  the 
whole  movement  would  finally  prove  worth- 
less and  barren. 
Meanwhile,  acting  on  his  growing  solicitude, 
President  Lincoln  directed  special  inquiry, 
and  about  the  13th  of  October  the  Secretary 
of  War,  accompanied  by  the  Adjutant-Gen- 
eral of  the  Army,  reached  Fremont's  camp  at 
Tipton.  His  immediate  report  to  the  Presi- 
dent confirmed  his  apprehension.  Secretary 
Cameron  wrote : 
I  returned  to  this  place  last  night  from  the  headquar- 
ters of  General  Fremont  at  Tipton.  I  found  there  and 
in  the  immediate  neighborhood  some  40,000  troops, 
with  1  brigade  (General  McKinstry's)  in  good  con- 
dition for  the  field  and  well  provided  ;  others  not  ex- 
hibiting good  care,  and  but  poorly  supplied  with 
munitions,  arms,  and  clothing.  I  had  an  interview 
with  General  Fremont,  and  in  conversation  with  him 
showed  him  an  order  for  his  removal.  He  was  very 
much  mortified,  pained,  and,  I  thought,  humiliated. 
He  made  an  earnest  appeal  to  me,  saying  that  he  had 
come  to  Missouri,  at  the  request  of  the  Government,  to 
assume  a  very  responsible  command,  and  that  when  he 
reached  this  State  he  found  himself  without  troops  and 
without  any  preparation  for  an  army;  that  he  had  ex- 
erted himself,  as  he  believed,  with  great  energy,  and 
had  now  around  him  a  fine  army,  with  everything  to 
make  success  certain  ;  that  he  was  now  in  pursuit  of 
the  enemy,  whom  he  believed  were  now  within  his 
reach ;  and  that  to  recall  him  at  this  moment  would 
not  only  destroy  him,  but  render  his  whole  expendi- 
ture useless.  In  reply  to  this  appeal,  1  told  him  that  I 
would  withhold  the  order  until  my  return  to  Wash- 
ington, giving  him  the  interim  to  prove  the  reality  of 
his  hopes  as  to  reaching  and  capturing  the  enemy, 
giving  him  to  understand  that,  should  he  fail,  he  must 
give  place  to  some  other  officer.  He  assured  me  that,, 
should  he  fail,  he  would  resign  at  once. 
It  is  proper  that  I  should  state  that  after  this  con- 
versation I  met  General  Hunter,  who,  in  very  distinct 
terms,  told  me  that  his  division  of  the  army,  although 
then  under  orders  to  march,  and  apart  of  his  command 
actually  on  the  road,  could  not  be  put  in  proper  condi- 
tion for  marching  for  a  number  of  days.  To  a  question 
I  put  to  him,  "whether  he  believed  General  Fremont 
fit  for  the  command,"  he  replied  that  he  did  not  think
A    HISTORY. 
3°3 
that  he  was ;  and  informed  me  that  though  second  in 
command,  he  knew  nothing  whatever  of  the  purposes 
or  plans  of  his  chief.* 
The  opinion  of  another  division  commander, 
General  Pope,  was  freely  expressed  in  a  letter 
of  the  previous  day,  which  Hunter  also  exhib- 
ited to  the  Secretary: 
I  received  at  I  o'clock  last  night  the  extraordinary 
order  of  General  Fremont  for  a  forward  movement  of 
his  whole  force.  The  wonderful  manner  in  which  the 
actual  facts  and  condition  of  things  here  are  ignored 
stupefies  me.  One  would  suppose  from  this  order  that 
divisions  and  brigades  are  organized,  and  are  under 
immediate  command  of  their  officers  ;  that  transporta- 
tion is  in  possession  of  all;  that  every  arrangement 
of  supply  trains  to  follow  the  army  has  been  made  ; 
in  fact,  that  we  are  in  a  perfect  state  of  preparation  for 
a  move. 
You  know,  as  well  as  I  do,  that  the  exact  reverse 
is  the  fact ;  that  neither  brigades  nor  divisions  have 
been  brought  together,  and  that  if  they  were  there  is 
not  transportation  enough  to  move  this  army  one  hun- 
dred yards  ;  that,  in  truth,  not  one  solitary  prepara- 
tion of  any  kind  has  been  made  to  enable  this  advance 
movement  to  be  executed.  I  have  never  seen  my  di- 
vision, nor  do  I  suppose  you  have  seen  yours.  I  have 
no  cavalry  even  for  a  personal  escort,  and  yet  this  or- 
der requires  me  to  send  forward  companies  of  pioneers 
protected  by  cavalry.  Is  it  intended  that  this  order  be 
obeyed,  or  rather,  that  we  try  to  obey  it,  or  is  the  or- 
der only  designed  for  Washington  and  the  papers  ? 
.  .  .  .  I  went  to  Jefferson  City,  the  last  time  I  saw 
you,  for  the  express  purpose  of  getting  transportation 
for  my  division,  and  explained  to  General  Fremont 
precisely  what  I  have  said  above.  How  in  the  face  of 
the  fact  that  he  knew  no  transportation  was  furnished, 
and  that  Kelton  has  none,  he  should  coolly  order  such 
a  movement,  and  expect  it  to  be  made,  I  cannot  under- 
stand on  any  reasonable  or  common-sense  hypothesis. 
Another  letter  to  the  President  from  a  more 
cautious  and  conservative  officer,  General  Cur- 
tis, exercising  a  local  command  in  St.  Louis, 
gave  an  equally  discouraging  view  of  the 
situation : 
Your  Excellency's  letter  of  the  7th  inst.,  desiring 
me  to  express  my  views  in  regard  to  General  Fremont 
frankly  and  confidentially  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  was 
presented  by  him  yesterday,  and  I  have  complied  with 
your  Excellency's  request.  .  .  .  Matters  have  gone 
from  bad  to  worse,  and  I  am  greatly  obliged  to  your 
Excellency's  letter,  which  breaks  the  restraint  of  mili- 
tary law,  and  enables  me  to  relieve  myself  of  a  painful 
silence.  In  my  judgment  General  Fremont  lacks  the 
intelligence,  the  experience,  and  the  sagacity  necessary 
to  his  command.  I  have  reluctantly  and  gradually 
been  forced  to  this  conclusion.  His  reserve  evinces 
vanity  or  embarrassment,  which  I  never  could  so  far 
overcome  as  to  fully  penetrate  his  capacity.  He  would 
talk  of  plans,  which,  being  explained,  only  related  to 
some  move  of  a  general  or  some  dash  at  a  shadow, 
and  I  am  now  convinced  he  has  no  general  plan. 
Forces  are  scattered  and  generally  isolated  without 
being  in  supporting  distance  or  relation  to  each  other, 
and  when  I  have  expressed  apprehension  as  to  some, 
I  have  seen  no  particular  exertion  to  repel  or  relieve, 
till  it  was  too  late.  I  know  the  demand  made  on  him 
for  force  everywhere  is  oppressive  ;  but  remote  posts 
have  improperly  stood  out,  and  some  still  stand,  invit- 
ing assault,  without  power  to  retreat,  fortify,  or  reen- 
*  Cameron  to  Lincoln,  Oct.  14,  186] 
MS. 
Unpublished 
force.  Our  forces  should  be  concentrated,  with  the 
rivers  as  a  base  of  operation  ;  and  these  rivers  and 
railroads  afford  means  for  sudden  and  salutary  assaults 
on  the  enemy.  .  .  .  The  question  you  propound, 
"  Ought  General  Fremont  to  be  relieved  from  or  re- 
tained in  his  present  command?"  seems  easily  an- 
swered. It  is  only  a  question  of  manner  and  time. 
Public  opinion  is  an  element  of  war  which  must  not 
be  neglected.  ...  It  is  not  necessary  to  be  pre- 
cipitate. A  few  days  are  not  of  vast  moment,  but  the 
pendency  of  the  question  and  discussion  must  not  be 
prolonged.  Controversies  in  an  army  are  almost  as 
pernicious  as  a  defeat,  t 
Thus  the  opinions  of  three  trained  and  ex- 
perienced army  officers,  who  had  every  means 
of  judging  from  actual  personal  observation, 
coincided  with  the  general  drift  of  evidence 
which  had  come  to  the  President  from  civilian 
officials  and  citizens,  high  and  low.  Fremont 
had  frittered  away  his  opportunity  for  useful- 
ness and  fame;  such  an  opportunity,  indeed,  as 
rarely  comes  to  men.  He  had  taken  his  com- 
mand three  months  before  with  the  universal 
good-will  of  almost  every  individual,  every  sub- 
ordinate, every  official,  every  community  in 
his  immense  department.  In  his  brief  incum- 
bency he  not  only  lost  the  general  public  con- 
fidence, but  incurred  the  special  displeasure  or 
direct  enmity  of  those  most  prominent  in  in- 
fluence or  command  next  to  him,  and  without 
whose  friendship  and  hearty  cooperation  suc- 
cess was  practically  impossible. 
Waiting  and  hoping  till  the  last  moment, 
President  Lincoln  at  length  felt  himself  forced 
to  intervene.  On  the  24th  of  October,  just 
three  months  after  Fremont  had  assumed  com- 
mand, he  directed  an  order  to  be  made  that 
Fremont  should  be  relieved  and  General  Hun- 
ter be  called  temporarily  to  take  his  command. 
This  order  he  dispatched  by  the  hand  of  a 
personal  friend  to  General  Curtis  at  St.  Louis, 
with  the  following  letter : 
Washington,  Oct.  24,  1861. 
Brigadier-General  S.  R.  Curtis. 
Dear  Sir:  On  receipt  of  this,  with  the  accompany- 
ing inclosures,  you  will  take  safe,  certain,  and  suitable 
measures  to  have  the  inclosure  addressed  to  Major- 
General  Fremont  delivered  to  him  with  all  reasonable 
dispatch,  subject  to  these  conditions  only,  that  if,  when 
General  Fremont  shall  be  reached  by  the  messenger, — 
yourself  or  any  one  sent  by  you, —  he  shall  then  have, 
in  personal  command,  fought  and  won  a  battle,  or  shall 
then  be  actually  in  a  battle,  or  shall  then  be  in  the 
immediate  presence  of  the  enemy  in  expectation  of  a 
battle,  it  is  not  to  be  delivered,  but  held  for  further 
orders.  After,  and  not  till  after,  the  delivery  to  Gen- 
eral Fremont,  let  the  inclosure  addressed  to  General 
Hunter  be  delivered  to  him. 
Your  obedient  servant, A.  Lincoln.} 
It  will  be  seen  that  the  conditions  attend- 
ing the  delivery  of  this  order  were  somewhat 
peculiar.  If  General  Fremont  had  just  won 
a  battle,  or  were  on  the  eve  of  righting  one, 
t  Curtis  to  Lincoln,  Oct.  12,  1861.    MS. 
t  War  Records.
-; 
ABRAHAM  LIXCOLX 
then  both  justice  to  himself,  and  more  espe- 
cially the  risk  or  gain  to  the  Union  cause, 
it  inexpedient  to  make  a  sudden 
change  in  command.  But  the  question  also 
had  another  and  possibly  serious  aspect.  Amid 
all  his  loss  of  prestige  and  public  confidence, 
Fremont   had  retained  the  clamorous  adhe- 
and  noisy  demonstrative  support  of  three 
act  elements.    First,  a  large  number  of 
rs  to  whom  he  had  given  irregular  com- 
missions, issued  by  himself,  "  subject  to  the 
approval  of  the  President."  These  commis- 
sions for  the  moment  gave  their  holders  rank, 
pay,  and  power;  and  to  some  of  them  he  had 
med  extraordinary  duties  and  trusts  under 
special  instructions,  regardless  of  proper  mili- 
tary usage  and  method.  The  second  class 
was  the  large  and  respectable  German  popu- 
lation of  St.  Louis,  and  other  portions  of 
Missouri,  forming  the  nucleus  of  the  radical 
faction  whose  cause  he  had  especially  es- 
poused. The  third  class  comprised  the  men 
of  strong  antislavery  convictions  throughout 
the  Union  who  hailed  his  act  of  military 
emancipation  with  unbounded  approval.  The 
first  class  composed  about  his  person  a  clique 
of  active  sycophants,  wielding  power  and  dis- 
pensing patronage  in  his  name;  the  other  two 
supplied  a  convenient  public  echo.  Out  of 
such  surroundings  and  conditions  there  began 
to  come  a  cry  of  persecution  and  a  vague  hum 
of  insubordination,  coupled  with  adulations  of 
the  general.  Some  of  his  favorites  talked  im- 
prudently of  defiance  and  resistance  to  author- 
ity ;  *  occasional  acts  of  Fremont  himself  gave 
a  color  of  plausibility  to  these  mutterings. 
He  had  neglected  to  discontinue  the  expen- 
sive fortifications  and  barracks  when  directed 
to  do  so  by  the  Secretary  of  War.  Even  since 
the  President  ordered  him  to  modify  his  proc- 
lamation, he  had  on  one  occasion  personally 
directed  the  original  document  to  be  printed 
and  distributed.    Several  of  his  special   ap- 
tees  were  stationed  about  the  city  of  St. 
Louis,  "so  they  should  control  every  fort, 
arsenal,  and  communication,  without  regard 
to  <(> mrnanding  officers  or  quartermasters."! 
ns  naturally  arose,  and  were  publicly 
expressed,  that  lie  would  not  freely  yield  up  his 
mand;  or,  if  not  actually  resisting  superior 
authority,  that  he  might  at  least,  upon  some 
•xt.  temporarily  prolong  his  power. 
Ther  course,  no  danger  that   he 
cou!'  fully  defy  the  orders  of  the  Pres- 
*.    The  bulk  of  his  army,  officers  and  sol- 
'!  o  remove  Mr.  Fremont  will  be  n  great  wrong,  as 
the  necessary  investigation  following  it  will  prove.  It 
will  make  immense  confusion,  and  require  all  his 
control  over  his  friends  and  the  army  to  get  them  to 
do  as  he  will, —  accept  it  as  an  act  of  authority,  not  of 
justice, —  but  in  time  of  war  it  is  treason  to  question 
authority.    To  leave  him  here  without  money,  without 
diers,  would  have  spurned  such  a  proposition. 
But  the  example  of  delay  or  doubt,  any  shadow 
of  insubordination,  would  have  had  an  ex- 
tremely pernicious  effect  upon  public  opinion. 
General  Curtis  therefore  sent  a  trusted  bearer 
of  dispatches,  who,  by  an  easy  stratagem, 
entered  Fremont's  camp,  gained  a  personal 
audience,  and  delivered  the  official  order  of 
removal.  Duplicates  of  the  President's  letters 
were  at  the  same  time,  and  with  equal  care, 
dispatched  to  the  camp  of  General  Hunter, 
at  a  considerable  distance,  and  he  traveled 
all  night  to  assume  his  new  duties.  When  he 
reached  Fremont's  camp,  on  the  following 
day,  he  learned  that  ostensible  preparations 
had  been  made  and  orders  issued  for  a  battle, 
on  the  assumption  that  the  enemy  was  at 
Wilson's  Creek  advancing  to  an  attack.  Tak- 
ing command,  Hunter  sent  a  reconnaissance 
to  Wilson's  Creek,  and  obtained  reliable  evi- 
dence that  no  enemy  whatever  was  there  or 
expected  there.  Fremont  had  been  duped  by 
his  own  scouts ;  for  it  is  hardly  possible  to 
conceive  that  he  deliberately  arranged  this 
final  bit  of  theatrical  effect. 
The  actual  fact  was  that  while  Price, 
retreating  southward,  by  "  slow  and  easy 
marches,''^  kept  well  beyond  any  successful 
pursuit,  his  army  of  twenty  thousand  which  had 
captured  Lexington  dwindled  away  as  rapidly 
as  it  had  grown.  His  movement  partook  more 
of  the  nature  of  a  frontier  foray  than  an  organ- 
ized campaign :  the  squirrel-hunters  of  western 
Missouri,  whose  accurate  sharp-shooting  drove 
Mulligan  into  his  intrenchments  to  starvation 
or  surrender,  returned  to  their  farms  or  their 
forest  haunts  to  await  the  occasion  of  some 
new  and  exciting  expedition ;  the  whole  pres- 
ent effort  of  General  Price,  now  at  the  head  of 
only  10,000  or  12,000  men,  being  to  reach  an 
easy  junction  with  McCulloch  on  the  Arkansas 
border,  so  that  their  united  force  might  make 
a  successful  stand,  or  at  least  insure  a  safe 
retreat  from  the  Union  army. 
President  Lincoln,  however,  did  not  intend 
that  the  campaign  to  the  south-west  should 
be  continued.  Other  plans  were  being  dis- 
cussed and  matured.  With  the  order  to  super- 
sede Fremont  he  also  sent  the  following 
letters,  explaining  his  well-considered  views 
and  conveying  his  express  directions : 
Washington,  Oct.  24,  1861. 
JJkigadier-General  S.  R.  Curtis. 
My  Dear  Sir:  Herewith  is  a  document  —  half 
letter,  half  order  —  which,  wishing  you  to  see,  but  not 
the  moral  aid  of  the  Government,  is  treason  to  the 
people.  I  cannot  find  smoother  phrases,  for  it  is  the 
death  struggle  of  our  nationality,  and  no  time  for  fair 
words.  [Mrs.  Fremont  to  Lamon,  St.  Louis,  Oct.  20, 
1861.    Unpublished  MS.] 
t  Curtis  to  Lincoln,  Nov.  I,  1861.    MS. 
%  Price,  Official  Report.    War  Records.
BY  TELEPHONE. 
305 
to  make  public,  I  send  unsealed.  Please  read  it,  and 
then  inclose  it  to  the  officer  who  may  be  in  command 
of  the  Department  of  the  West  at  the  time  it  reaches 
him.  I  cannot  now  know  whether  Fremont  or  Hun- 
ter will  then  be  in  command. 
Yours  truly, 
A.  Lincoln.* 
Washington,  Oct.  24,  1861. 
To  the   Commander   of   the    Department   of 
the  West. 
Sir  :  The  command  of  the  Department  of  the  West 
having  devolved  upon  you,  I  propose  to  offer  you  a 
few  suggestions.  Knowing  how  hazardous  it  is  to 
bind  down  a  distant  commander  in  the  field  to  specific 
lines  and  operations,  as  so  much  always  depends  on  a 
knowledge  of  localities  and  passing  events,  it  is  in- 
tended, therefore,  to  leave  a  considerable  margin  for 
the  exercise  of  your  judgment  and  discretion. 
The  main  rebel  army  (Price's)  west  of  the  Missis- 
sippi is  believed  to  have  passed  Dade  County  in  full 
retreat  upon  north-western  Arkansas,  leaving  Missouri 
almost  freed  from  the  enemy,  excepting  in  the  south- 
east of  the  State.  Assuming  this  basis  of  fact,  it  seems 
desirable,  as  you  are  not  likely  to  overtake  Price,  and 
are  in  danger  of  making  too  long  a  line  from  your  own 
base  of  supplies  and  reinforcements,  that  you  should 
give  up  the  pursuit,  halt  your  main  army,  divide  it  into 
two  corps  of  observation,  one  occupying  Sedalia  and 
the  other  Rolla,  the  present  termini  of  railroad;  then 
recruit  the  condition  of  both  corps  by  reestablishing 
and  improving  their  discipline  and  instructions,  per- 
fecting their  clothing  and  equipments,  and  providing 
less  uncomfortable  quarters.  Of  course  both  railroads 
must  be  guarded  and  kept  open,  judiciously  employ- 
ing just  so  much  force  as  is  necessary  for  this.  From 
these  two  points,  Sedalia  and  Rolla,  and  especially  in 
judicious  cooperation  with  Lane  on  the  Kansas  bor- 
der, it  would  be  so  easy  to  concentrate  and  repel  any 
army  of  the  enemy  returning  on  Missouri  from  the 
south-west  that  it  is  not  probable  any  such  attempt  to 
return  will  be  made  before  or  during  the  approaching 
cold  weather.  Before  spring  the  people  of  Missouri 
will  probably  be  in  no  favorable  mood  to  renew  for 
next  year  the  troubles  which  have  so  much  afflicted 
*  War  Records. 
t  Townsend  to  Curtis,  Nov.  6,  1861.   War  Records. 
%  McCulloch  to  Cooper,  Nov.  19, 1861.  War  Records. 
m  TELEP 
and  impoverished  them  during  this.  If  you  adopt  this 
line  of  policy,  and  if,  as  I  anticipate,  you  will  see  no 
enemy  in  great  force  approaching,  you  will  have  a 
surplus  of  force,  which  you  can  withdraw  from  these 
points  and  direct  to  others,  as  may  be  needed,  the 
railroads  furnishing  ready  means  of  reinforcing  their 
main  points,  if  occasion  requires.  Doubtless  local 
uprisings  will  for  a  time  continue  to  occur,  but 
can  be  met  by  detachments  and  local  forces  of  our  own, 
and  will  ere  long  tire  out  of  themselves.  While,  as 
stated  in  the  beginning  of  the  letter,  a  large  discretion 
must  be  and  is  left  with  yourself,  I  feel  sure  that  an 
indefinite  pursuit  of  Price,  or  an  attempt  by  this  long 
and  circuitous  route  to  reach  Memphis,  will  be  ex- 
haustive beyond  endurance,  and  will  end  in  the  loss 
of  the  whole  force  engaged  in  it. 
Your  obedient  servant, 
A.  Lincoln.* 
The  change  of  command  occasioned  nei- 
ther trouble  nor  danger.  Fremont  himself 
acted  with  perfect  propriety.  He  took  leave 
of  his  army  in  a  brief  and  temperate  address, 
and  returned  to  St.  Louis,  where  he  was  wel- 
comed by  his  admirers  with  a  public  meeting 
and  eulogistic  speeches.  The  demonstration 
was  harmless  and  unimportant,  though  care 
had  been  taken  to  send  authority  to  General 
Curtis  to  repress  disorder,  and  specially  to 
look  to  the  safety  of  the  city  and  the  arsenal,  t 
In  accordance  with  the  policy  outlined  by 
the  President,  General  Hunter  soon  drew 
back  the  Federal  army  from  Springfield  to 
Rolla,  and  the  greater  part  of  it  was  trans- 
ferred to  another  field  of  operations.  Hear- 
ing of  this  retrograde  movement,  McCulloch 
rapidly  advanced,  and  for  a  season  occupied 
Springfield.  One  of  the  distressing  effects  of 
these  successive  movements  of  contending 
forces  is  described  in  a  sentence  of  his  re- 
port, "The  Union  men  have  nearly  all  fled 
with  the  Federal  troops,  leaving  this  place 
almost  deserted."  $ 
/m 
7  was  a  suggestion  of  Haw- 
thorne's—  was  it  not?  — 
that  in  these  more  modern 
days  Cupid  has  no  doubt 
discarded  his  bow  and  ar- 
row in  favor  of  a  revolver. 
There  are  ladies  of  a  beauty 
so  destructive  that  in  their 
presence  the  little  god  would  find  a  Gatling 
gun  his  most  useful  weapon.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  the  son  of  Venus  does  not  disdain  the  latest 
inventions  of  Vulcan  for  the  use  of  Mars,  and 
that  he  slips  off  his  bandage  whenever  he  goes 
forth  to  replenish  his  armory.  Lovers  are  quick 
Vol..  XXXVL—  44. 
tpfollow  his  example,  and  the  house  of  love 
has  all  the  modern  improvements.  Nowadays 
the  sighing  swain  may  tryst  by  telegraph  and 
the  blushing  bride  must  elope  by  the  lightning- 
express  ;  and  if  ever  there  were  an  Orlando 
in  the  streets  of  New  York,  he  would  have  to 
carve  his  Rosalind's  name  on  the  telegraph 
poles. 
If  the  appliances  of  modern  science  had 
been  at  the  command  of  Cupid  in  the  past  as 
they  are  in  the  present,  the  story  of  many  a 
pair  of  famous  lovers  would  be  other  than  it 
is.  Leander  surely  would  not  have  set  out  to 
swim  to  his  mistress  had  international  storm- 
warnings  been  sent  across  the  Atlantic,  which 
Hero  could  have   conveyed  to  him  by  the
Cable    Company.     Paris 
g  it  never  h  scot-free  with  the 
Helen  if  I  rted  husband  and  mon- 
arch had  been  able  :o  pursue  the  fugitive 
once  in  uht.  the  Menelaus. 
e  been  a  subscriber  to 
the  Verona  Telephone  Ass  wrthy 
:ld  have  been  able  to  ring  up  Romeo 
and  to  warn  him  that  the  elixir  of  death  which 
Juliet  had  taken  was  but  a  temporary  narcotic. 
and  then  might  Romeo  find  that 
Beaul 
in  thy  lips  and  in  thy  cheeks. 
And  death's  pale  flag  is  not  advanced  there. 
II. 
As  the  centuries  succeed  one  another,  so- 
becomes  more  complicated  and  science 
':>ps  in  all  directions:    thus  is  an  equi- 
librium maintained,  and  the  modern  lover  is 
aided  by  the  appliances  of  science  as  he  is 
hampered  by  the  intricacies  of  society.    Even 
ir,  that  final  triumph  of  the  ama- 
teur swindler,  and  the  telephone,  that  unpoetic 
adjunct  of  the  shop  and  the  office,  can  be  forced 
to  do  love's      Lding  and  to  serve  as  instruments 
in  the  cunning  hands  of  Cupid. 
ung  ladies  who  were  spending 
dde  hotel  a:  Sandy 
Beach  resolved  to  get  up  a  fair  for  the  benefit 
of  the  3  .■"  for  the  Supply  of  Missionaries 
to  Cannibal  Countries,  they  hadno  more  hearty 
helper  than  Mr.  Samuel  Brassey.  a  young 
d  recently  graduated  from  Columbia 
College.  He  was  alert,  energetic,  ingenious, 
and  untiring:  and  when  at  last  the  fair  w  - 
opened  the  young  ladies  declared  that 
not  know  what  they  would  have    done 
without  him.    He  it  was  who  helped  to  deco- 
-  he  ball-room,  and  to  arrang  -  a  mart 
for  the  vending  of  unc  .  trifles.    1 
•  h  o  devised  the  J  apan 
n,  and  suggested  that  this  portly  and  im- 
lg  dame  should   appear   in  a    Japai 
.    He  it  was  who  aided  the  tnwe 
hen    under    Mrs.    Martins 
_-rly  wing,  to  set  up  their  stands  —  the 
Well,  where   Miss    Rebecca  drew  lemonade 
for  even-  one  that  thirsted  ;  the  Old  Curiosity 
a  helter- 
orts  and  ends;  and  the  Indian 
.  in  the  dark  recesses  of  which  Miss 
ra,  in  the  garb  of  Pocahontas. 
fortu 
Cassandra,  who  was  the  eldest  and 
most  austere  of  the  three  Miss  Pettito. 
suggested  certain  predictions  for  certain  young 
men  and  maidens  who  were  sure  to  apply  to 
the  soothsayer, —  predictions  which  seemed 
to   her  sufficiently  vague  and  oracular,  but 
BY  TELEPHOXE. 
which  chanced  to  be  pertinent  enough  to  ex- 
cite the  liveliest  emotions  when  they  were 
imparted  to  the  applicants.  For  Miss  Nelly 
he  wrote  out  many  autographs  of  many  famous 
persons,  from  Julius  Caesar  and  Cleopatra  to 
Queen  Elizabeth  and  George  Washington; 
the  signatures  of  Shakspere,  of  which  there 
were  a  dozen,  he  declared  to  be  eminently 
characteristic,  as  no  two  were  spelled  alike ;  and 
the  sign-manual  of  Confucius  he  authorized 
her  to  proclaim  absolutely  unique,  as  he  had 
copied  it  from  the  only  tea-  hest  in  the  hotel. 
To  him  also  the  sirens  of  the  bazar  owed  their 
absolute  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  giving 
no  change.  Furthermore,  he  elaborated  a 
novel  reversal  of  the  principle  of  a  reduction 
king  a  quantity:  the  autographs  at  the 
Old  Curiosity  Shop,  the  glasses  of  attenuated 
lemonade  at  the  well,  and  the  little  fans  at  the 
Japanese  tea-stall  were  all  twenty-five  cents 
each,  three  for  a  dollar.  This  device  alone 
stamped  him  as  ayoungmanwithamostprom- 
ising  head  for  business  :  and  so  Mr.  Martin  de- 
clared him,  after  asking  if  the  autographs  were 
genuine  and  being  promptly  offered  a  "  written 
guarantee  from  the  maker.'" 
From  these  details  it  will  be  seen  that  Mr. 
Samuel  Brassey  was  on  most  friendly  terms, 
not  to  say  familiar,  with  Mrs.  Martin  and  with 
her  charges,  the  three  Miss  Pettitoes.  He  was 
equally  frank  and  open  with  all  the  other 
young  ladies  in  the  hore:.  except,  it  may  be, ... 
with  Miss  Bessy  Martin.  In  his  relations  with  i
Mrs.   Martin's  handsome  niece   a  persistent 
server  might  have  detected  a  constraint 
often  cast  aside  and  often  recurring.  The  rest 
of  the  girls  met  him  with  the   sincerity  and  I
the  tmthinkinsr  cordiality  which  are  marked; 
characteristics  of  the  young  women  of  Amer-  ■ 
ica,  especially  when  they  chance  to  be  at  a  \
summer  hotel.  So  indeed  did  Mis-  Martin. — 
but  to  her  his  bearing  was  different.    Towards  i
the  others  he  was  kindly     To  her  he  was  de- 
voted and  yet  reserved  at  nines,  as  though; 
under  luless.   The  least  bashful  of  young  men  i
ordinarily,  in  her  presence  he  found  himself 
shy  and  not  always  able  to  compel  his  tongiM 
to  do  his  bidding.  If  she  looked  at  him  —  and 
as  a  pleasant-faced  young  fellow  —  he 
found    himself  wondering   whether   he    was 
blushing  or  not.     Out  of  her  sight  he   was 
often  miserable:  and  under  her  eyes  he  suf- 
fered an  exquisite  agony.     He  hovered  ; 
her  as  though  he  had  words  of  the  deepest 
import  trembling  on  his  tongue,  but  when  he 
sat  by  her  side  on  the  piazza,  or  danced  a 
Virginia  reel  opposite  to  her  of  a  Saturday 
night,  or  walked  with   her   to  church    of  a 
Sunday  morning,  he  had  nothing  to  say  for 
himself. 
Whether  or   not   Miss  Martin   had  noted
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:    A    HISTORY.* 
LINCOLN    AND    McCLELLAN. 
BY    JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND    JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 
THE    ARMY    OF    THE    POTOMAC. 
N  the  day  after  the  battle 
of  Bull  Run,  General  Mc- 
I  Clellan  was  ordered  to 
Washington.  He  arrived 
there  on  the  26th  of  July, 
and  the  next  day  assumed 
command  of  the  division 
soon  reduced  the  place  to  perfect  order,  which 
was  never  again  disturbed  during  the  war.  De- 
serters were  arrested,  stragglers  sent  back  to 
their  regiments,  and  the  streets  rendered  more 
quiet  and  secure  than  those  of  most  cities  in 
profound  peace. 
A  great  army  was  speedily  formed.  The 
50,000  that  General  McClellan  found  in 
Washington  were  reenforced  by  the  stalwart 
of  the  Potomac,  compris-  men  of  the  North  as  fast  as  steam  could  bring 
ing  the  troops  in  and  around  Washington  on  them  by  water  or  land.    Nothing  like  it  had 
both  banks  of  the  river.  In  his  report  he  says :  ever  before  been  seen  on  the  continent.    The 
t.,  ,     .  „      .  f    ,      ,       .*  errand  total  of  officers  and  men  of  the  regu- 
There    were  about  50,000  infantry,  less  than  1000  f  ,     c  .  .        ,    "         e 
cavalry,  and  650  artillerymen,  with  9  imperfect  field-  lar  army  before   the    war   consisted  of  17,000 
batteries  of  30  pieces.   .   .    .    There  was  nothing   to  souls.    On  the  27th  of  October,  exactly  three 
prevent  the  enemy  shelling  the  city  from  heights  within 
easy  range,  which  could  be  occupied  by  a  hostile 
column  almost  without  resistance.  Many  soldiers  had 
deserted,  and  the  streets  of  Washington  were  crowded 
with  straggling  officers  and  men,  absent  from  their 
stations  without  authority,  whose  behavior  indicated 
the  general  want  of  discipline  and  organization. t 
This  picture  is  naturally  drawn  in  the  dark- 
est colors,  but  the  outlines  are  substantially 
months  after  General  McClellan  assumed 
command,  he  reported  an  aggregate  of  strength 
for  the  army  under  him  of  168,318,  of  which 
there  were,  he  said,  present  for  duty  147,695  ;  t 
and  he  reported  several  other  bodies  of  troops 
en  route  to  him.  The  Adjutant-General's 
report,  three  days  later,  shows  present  for  duty 
with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  inclusive  of 
accurate.  There  was  great  need  of  everything  troops  in  the  Shenandoah,  on  the  Potomac, 
which  goes  to  the  efficiency  of  an  army.  There  and  at  Washington,  162,737,  with  an  aggre- 
was  need  of  soldiers,  of  organization,  of  drill,  gate  present  and  absent  of  198,238.  This  vast 
of  a  young  and  vigorous  commander  to  give  army  was  of  the  best  material  the  country 
impulse  and  direction  to  the  course  of  affairs,  could  afford.  The  three-months'  regiments — 
All  these  wants  were  speedily  supplied,  which  were,  as  a  rule,  imperfectly  organized 
The  energy  of  the  Government  and  the  patriot-  and  badly  officered,  their  officers  being,  to  a 
ism  of  the  North  poured  into  the  capital  a  great  extent,  the  product  of  politics  and  per- 
constant  stream  of  recruits.  These  were  taken  sonal  influence — had  been  succeeded  by  the 
in  hand  by  an  energetic  and  intelligent  staff,  volunteer  army  of  three-years'  men,  which 
assigned  to  brigades  and  divisions,  equipped  contained  all  the  best  elements  of  the  militia, 
and  drilled,  with  the  greatest  order  and  celer-  with  very  desirable  additions.  Only  the  most 
ity.  The  infantry  levies,  on  their  first  arrival,  able  of  the  militia  generals,  those  whom  the 
were  sent  to  the  various  camps  in  the  suburbs,  President  had  recognized  as  worthy  of  per- 
and  being  there  formed  into  provisional  bri-  manent  employment,  returned  to  the  field 
gades  were  thoroughly  exercised  and  instructed  after  the  expiration  of  their  three-months' 
before  being  transferred  to  the  forces  on  the  service.  The  militia  organization  of  brigades 
other  side  of  the  river.  These  provisional  bri-  and  divisions  had  of  course  disappeared.  The 
gades  were  successively  commanded  by  Gener-  governors  of  the  States  organized  the  regi- 
als  Fitz  John  Porter,  Ambrose  E.  Burnside,    ments,  and  appointed  regimental  and  company 
officers  only.    The  higher  organization  rested 
with  the  President,  who  also  had  the  appointing 
of  general  and  staff  officers.   A  most  valuable 
element  of  the  new  army  was  the  old  regular 
organization,  largely  increased  and  improved 
by  the  addition  of  eleven  regiments,  constitut- 
t  McClellan,  Report,  p.  9.  %  ibid.,  p.  7.       ing  two  divisions  of  two  brigades  each.    This 
*  Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hav,  1886.     All  rights  reserved. 
Vol.  XXXVI.—  56. 
and  Silas  Casey.  The  cavalry  and  the  artillery, 
as  they  arrived,  reported  respectively  to  Gen- 
erals George  Stoneman  and  William  F.  Barry, 
chiefs  of  those  arms.  Colonel  Andrew  Porter 
was  made  Provost- Marshal  of  Washington,  and
394 
ABRAHAM  LIXCOLN: 
created  a  great  many  additional  vacancies, 
which  were  filled  partly  from  the  old  army 
and  partly  from  civil  life,  giving  to  the  service  a 
large  number  of  valuable  officers.   Two  classes 
ts  were  that  year  graduated  from  the 
military  academy  at  West  Point,  many  of 
whom  became  useful  and  distinguished  in  the 
ilar  and  the  volunteer  service. 
In  brief,  for  three  months  the  Government 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  young  general 
more  than  a  regiment  a  day  of  excellent 
troops.  The  best  equipments,  the  best  arms, 
the  best  artillery,  the  most  distinguished  of 
the  old  officers,  the  most  promising  of  the 
young,  were  given  him.  The  armies  in  every 
other  part  of  the  country  were  stinted  to  sup- 
ply tins  most  important  of  all  the  departments; 
and  at  first  it  was  with  universal  popular  as- 
sent that  this  bountiful  provision  was  made 
for  him.  He  had  gained  for  the  country  the 
only  victory  it  had  yet  to  its  credit.  He  en- 
joyed a  high  character  for  military  learning 
and  science,  founded  upon  the  report  of  his 
friends.  He  was  capable  of  great  and  long- 
continued  industry  in  executive  affairs.  He 
was  surrounded  by  an  able  and  brilliant  staff, 
all  heartily  devoted  to  him,  and  inclined  to 
give  him  the  greater  share  of  the  credit  for 
their  own  work.  His  alert  and  gallant  bear- 
in  g,  as  he  rode  from  camp  to  camp  about 
Washington,  surrounded  by  a  company  of 
aides  in  uniforms  as  yet  untarnished  by  cam- 
paign life,  impressed  the  imagination  of  tour- 
and  newspaper  correspondents,  who  at 
once  gave  him,  on  this  insufficient  evidence, 
the  sobriquet  of  "  the  young  Napoleon."  In 
addition  to  these  advantages,  he  was  a  man  of 
extraordinary  personal  attractiveness;  stran- 
gers instinctively  liked  him,  and  those  who 
were  thrown  much  in  his  company  grew  very 
fond  of  him.  In  every  one,  from  the  President 
of  the  United  States  to  the  humblest  orderly 
who  waited  at  his  door,  he  inspired  a  remarka- 
ble affection  and  regard,  a  part  of  which  sprang, 
it  is  true,  from  the  intense  desire  prevalent  at 
the  time  for  success  to  our  arms,  which  nat- 
urally included  an  impulse  of  good-will  to 
our  foremost  military  leaders ;  but  this  impulse, 
in  the  case  of  General  McClellan,  was  given 
J  W.  T.  Sherman  writes  in  his  "Memoirs": 
■'■  I  McClellan  arrived.    .    .    .    Instead  of  coming 
.  as  we  expected,  he  took  a  house  in 
ngton,  and  only  came  over  from  time  to  time  to 
have  a  review  or  inspection.    .    .    .    August  was  pass- 
ing  and  troops  were   pouring  in  from    all  quarters; 
ral  McClellan  told  me  he  intended  to  organize  an 
army  of  100,000  men,  with   ioo  field  batteries,  and  I 
still  hoped  he  would  come  on  our  side  of  the  Potomac, 
pitch  his  tent,  and  prepare  for  real  hard  work,  but  his 
uarters  still  remained  in  a  house  in  Washington 
City.''    Vol.  I.,  pp.  jo,j,  192. 
To    show  how  differently  another  sort  of  general 
comprehended  the  duties  before  him  at  this  time,  we 
a  peculiar  warmth  by  his  unusually  winning 
personal  characteristics.  In  consequence  he 
was  courted  and  caressed  as  few  men  in  our 
history  have  been.  His  charm  of  manner, 
enhanced  by  his  rising  fame,  made  him  the 
idol  of  the  Washington  drawing-rooms;  and 
his  high  official  position,  his  certainty  of  speedy 
promotion  to  supreme  command,  and  the 
probability  of  great  political  influence  to  fol- 
low, made  him  the  target  of  all  the  interests 
and  ambitions  that  center  in  a  capital  in  time 
of  war.* 
He  can  hardly  be  blamed  if  this  sudden  and 
dazzling  elevation  produced  some  effect  upon 
his  character  and  temper.  Suddenly,  as  by  a 
spell  of  enchantment,  he  had  been  put  in  com- 
mand of  one  of  the  greatest  armies  of  modern 
times;  he  had  become  one  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous figures  of  the  world ;  his  portrait  had 
grown  as  familiar  as  those  of  our  great  historic 
worthies;  every  word  and  act  of  his  were  taken 
up  and  spread  broadcast  by  the  thousand 
tongues  of  publicity.  He  saw  himself  treated 
with  the  utmost  deference,  his  prejudices  flat- 
tered, and  his  favor  courted  by  statesmen  and 
soldiers  twice  his  age.  We  repeat  that  he  can 
hardly  be  blamed  if  his  temper  and  character 
suffered  in  the  ordeal. 
He  has  left  in  his  memoirs  and  letters  un- 
questionable evidence  of  a  sudden  and  fatal 
degeneration  of  mind  during  the  months  he 
passed  in  Washington  in  the  latter  half  of 
186 1. 1  At  first  everything  was  novel  and  de- 
lightful. On  the  27th  of  July  he  wrote:  "I 
find  myself  in  a  new  and  strange  position 
here;  President,  Cabinet,  General  Scott,  and 
all  deferring  to  me.  By  some  strange  opera- 
tion of  magic  I  seem  to  have  become  the  power 
of  the  land."  Three  days  later  he  wrote: 
"  They  give  me  my  way  in  everything,  full 
swing  and  unbounded  confidence.  .  .  .  Who 
would  have  thought  when  we  were  married 
that  I  should  so  soon  be  called  upon  to  save 
my  country  ?  "  A  few  days  afterward :  "  I 
shall  carry  this  thing  on  en  grand  and  crush 
the  rebels  in  one  campaign."  By  the  9th  of 
August  his  estimate  of  his  own  importance 
had  taken  such  a  morbid  development  that 
he  was  able  to  say:    "  I  would  cheerfully  take 
give  another  sentence  from  Sherman's  "  Memoirs  "  : 
"  I  organized  a  system  of  drills,  embracing  the  evolu- 
tions of  the  line,  all  of  which  was  new  to  me,  and  I 
had  to  learn  the  tactics  from  books ;  but  I  was  con- 
vinced that  we  had  a  long,  hard  war  before  us,  and 
made  up  my  mind  to  begin  at  the  very  beginning  to 
prepare  for  it." 
t  "  McClellan's  Own  Story,"  p.  82.  Wc  should  hesi- 
tate to  print  these  pathetic  evidences  of  McClellan's 
weakness  of  character,  contained  as  they  are  in  private 
letters  to  his  family,  if  they  had  not  been  published  by 
Mr.  W.  C.  Prime,  with  a  singular  misconception  of  their 
true  bearing,  as  a  basis  for  attacking  the  administra- 
tion of  Mr.  Lincoln.
A    HISTORY. 
Z(J$ 
the  dictatorship  and  agree  to  lay  down  my 
life  when  the  country  is  saved  "  ;  yet  he  added 
in  the  same  letter,*  "  I  am  not  spoiled  by  my 
unexpected  new  position."  This  pleasing 
delirium  lasted  only  a  few  weeks,  and  was 
succeeded  by  a  strange  and  permanent  hal- 
lucination upon  two  points :  one  was  that  the 
enemy,  whose  numbers  were  about  one-third 
his  own,  vastly  exceeded  his  army  in  strength ; 
and  the  other,  that  the  Government  —  which 
was  doing  everything  in  its  power  to  support 
him  —  was  hostile  to  him  and  desired  his  de- 
struction. On  the  1 6th  of  August  he  wrote  : 
"  I  am  here  in  a  terrible  place ;  the  enemy 
have  from  three  to  four  times  my  force ;  the 
President,  the  old  general,  can  not  or  will  not 
see  the  true  state  of  affairs."  He  was  in  terror 
for  fear  he  should  be  attacked,  in  doubt  whether 
his  army  would  stand.  "  If  my  men  will  only 
fight  I  think  I  can  thrash  him,  notwithstand- 
ing the  disparity  of  numbers.  ...  I  am 
weary  of  all  this."  Later  on  the  same  day  he 
wrote  with  exultation  that  "  a  heavy  rain  is 
swelling  the  Potomac;  if  it  can  be  made  im- 
passable for  a  week,  we  are  saved."  All  through 
the  month  he  expected  battle  "  in  a  week." 
By  the  end  of  August  his  panic  passed  away; 
he  said  he  was  "  ready  for  Beauregard,"  and  a 
week  later  began  to  talk  of  attacking  him. 
By  this  time  he  had  become,  to  use  his  own 
language,  "  disgusted  with  the  Administration 
— perfectly  sick  of  it."  f  His  intimate  friends 
and  associates  were  among  the  political  op- 
ponents of  the  men  at  the  head  of  affairs,  and 
their  daily  flatteries  had  easily  convinced  him 
that  in  him  was  the  only  hope  of  saving  the 
country,  in  spite  of  its  incapable  rulers.  He 
says  in  one  place,  with  singular  naivete,  that 
Mr.  Stanton  gained  his  confidence  by  pro- 
fessing friendship  for  himself  while  loading  the 
President  with  abuse  and  ridicule.  %  He  pro- 
fessed especial  contempt  for  the  President; 
partly  because  Mr.  Lincoln  showed  him  "  too 
much  deference." §  In  October  he  wrote: 
"  There  are  some  of  the  greatest  geese  in  the 
Cabinet  I  have  ever  seen  —  enough  to  tax  the 
patience  of  Job."  In  November  his  disgust  at 
the  Government  had  become  almost  intoler- 
able :  "  It  is  sickeningin  the  extreme,  and  makes 
me  feel  heavy  at  heart,  when  I  see  the  weak- 
ness and  unfitness  of  the  poor  beings  who  con- 
trol the  destinies  of  this  great  country."  The 
affair  of  Mason  and  Slidell,  with  which  he 
had  no  concern,  and  upon  which  his  advice 
was  not  asked,  agitated  him  at  this  time.  He 
feels  that  his  wisdom  alone  must  save  the 
country  in  this  crisis ;  he  writes  that  he  must 
spend  the  day  in  trying  to  get  the  Government 
to  do  its  duty.  He  does  not  quite  know  what 
its  duty  is — but  must  first  "go  to  Stanton's 
to  ascertain  what  the  law  of  nations  "  has  to 
say  on  the  matter,  Stanton  being  at  this  time 
his  friend,  and,  as  he  thinks,  Lincoln's  oppo- 
nent. He  had  begun  already  to  rank  the 
President  as  among  his  enemies.  He  was  in 
the  habit  of  hiding  at  Stanton's  when  he  had 
serious  work  to  do,  "  to  dodge,"  as  he  said, 
"  all  enemies  in  the  shape  of  '  browsing ' 
Presidents,"  etc.  "  I  am  thwarted  and  de- 
ceived by  these  incapables  at  every  turn."  || 
He  soon  began  to  call  and  to  consider  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  as  his  own.  He  assumed 
the  habit,  which  he  never  relinquished,  of  ask- 
ing that  all  desirable  troops  and  stores  be  sent 
to  him.  Indeed,  it  may  be  observed  that  even 
before  he  came  to  Washington  this  tendency 
was  discernible.  While  he  remained  in  the 
West  he  was  continually  asking  for  men  and 
money.  But  when  he  came  to  the  Potomac 
he  recognized  no  such  need  on  the  part  of  his 
successor,  and  telegraphed  to  Governor  Denni- 
son  to  "  pay  no  attention  to  Rosecrans's  de- 
mand "  for  reinforcements.  f[  In  the  plan  of 
campaign  which  he  laid  before  the  President 
on  the  4th  of  August,  1861,  which  was,  in  gen- 
eral objects  and  intentions,  very  much  the 
same  plan  already  adopted  by  General  Scott 
and  the  Government,  he  assigned  the  scantiest 
detachments  to  the  great  work  of  conquering 
the  Mississippi  Valley;  20,000,  he  thought, 
would  be  enough,  with  what  could  be  raised 
in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  "  to  secure  the 
latter  region  and  its  railroads,  as  well  as  ulti- 
mately to  occupy  Nashville" — while  he  de- 
manded for  himself  the  enormous  aggregate 
of  273,000  men.**  He  wanted  especially  all 
the  regular  troops ;  the  success  of  operations 
elsewhere,  he  said,  was  relatively  unimportant 
compared  with  those  in  Virginia.  These  views 
of  his  were  naturally  adopted  by  his  immedi- 
ate associates,  who  carried  them  to  an  extent 
probably  not  contemplated  by  the  general. 
They  seemed  to  regard  him  as  a  kind  of 
tribune,  armed  by  the  people  with  powers 
independent  of  and  superior  to  the  civil  au- 
thorities. On  the  20th  of  August  his  father- 
in-law,  Colonel  R.  B.  Marcy,  being  in  New 
York,  and  not  satisfied  with  what  he  saw  in 
the  way  of  recruitment,  sent  General  McClel- 
lan  a  telegram  urging  him  "  to  make  a  positive 
and  unconditional  demand  for  an  immediate 
draft  of  the  additional  troops  you  require." 
"  The  people,"  he  says,  "  will  applaud  such  a 
course,  rely  upon   it."     The   general,  seeing 
*"  McClellan's  Own  Story,"  p.  85.  If  McClellan  to    Dennison,  Aug.    12,    1S61.     War 
t  Ibid.,  p.  168.  $  Ibid.,  p.  91.  Records. 
X  Ibid.,  p.  152.  j|  Ibid.,  p.  177.  **  McClellan  to  Lincoln.     War  Records.
396 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
nothing  out  of  the  way  in  this  explosive  com- 
munication of  his  staff-officer,  sent  it  to  the 
etary  of  War  with  this  indorsement: 
mel  Mare}'  knows  what  he  says,  and  is 
o{  the  coolest  judgment  *' :  and  recommended 
that  his  suggestion  be  carried  into  effect.  All 
this  time  every  avenue  of  transportation  was 
filled  with  soldiers  on  their  way  to  Washing- 
ton. 
In  connection  with  his  delusion  as  to  the 
number  of  the  enemy  in  front  of  him,  it  grew 
a  fixed  idea  in  his  mind  that  all  the  best 
troops  and  all  the  officers  of  ability  in  the 
army  should  be  placed  under  his  orders.  On 
the  8th  oi  September  he  wrote  a  remarkable 
letter  to  the  Secretary  of  War  embodying 
these  demands.  He  begins,  in  the  manner 
which  at  an  early  day  became  habitual  with 
him  and  continued  to  the  end  of  his  military  ca- 
reer, by  enormously  exaggerating  the  strength 
of  the  enemy  opposed  to  him.  He  reports 
his  own  force,  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of 
Washington,  at  85,000,  and  that  of  the  enemy 
at  130,000,  which  he  says  is  alow  estimate, 
and  draws  the  inevitable  conclusion  that  "  this 
army  should  be  reenforced  at  once  by  all  the 
disposable  troops  that  the  East  and  West  and 
North  can  furnish.  ...  I  urgently  recom- 
mend," he  says,  "  that  the  whole  of  the  regu- 
lar army,  old  and  new,  be  at  once  ordered  to 
report  here,"  with  some  trifling  exceptions. 
He  also  demands  that  the  choicest  officers  be 
assigned  to  him,  especially  that  none  of  those 
recommended  by  him  be  sent  any  where  else.* 
Most  of  these  requests  were  granted,  and 
General  McClellan  seems  to  have  assumed  a 
sort  of  proprietary  right  over  every  regiment 
that  had  once  come  under  his  command. 
When  General  T.  W.  Sherman's  expedition 
about  sailing  for  the  South,  he  made  an 
earnest  request  to  the  Government  for  the  79th 
New  York  Highlanders.  The  matter  being 
referred  to  General  McClellan,  he  wrote  in  the 
•  peremptory  tone  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment, forbidding  the  detachment  of  those 
•  I  will  not  consent,"  he  says  roundly, 
'•  to  one  other  man  being  detached  from  this 
army  for  that  expedition.  I  need  far  more 
than  I  now  have,  to  save  this  country.  .  .  . 
It  is  the  task  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  to 
de<  ide  the  question  at  issue." t  The  President 
rebuke,  and  telegraphed  to  Gen- 
eral Sherman  that  he  had  promised  General 
McClellan  "not  to  break  his  army  here  with- 
out his  consent."! 
Such  an  attitude  towards  the  military  and 
civil  authorities  is  rarely  assumed  by  a  gen- 
eral so  young  and  so  inexperienced,  and  to 
sustain  it  requires  a  degree  of  popular  strength 
and  confidence  which  is  only  gained  by  rapid 
and  brilliant  successes.  In  the  case  of  General 
McClellan  the  faith  of  his  friends  and  of  the 
Government  had  no  nourishment  for  a  long 
time  except  his  own  promises,  and  several 
incidents  during  the  late  summer  and  autumn 
made  heavy  drafts  upon  the  general  confidence 
which  was  accorded  him. 
From  the  beginning  of  hostilities  the  block- 
ade of  the  Potomac  River  below  Washington 
was  recognized  on  both  sides  as  a  great  ad- 
vantage to  be  gained  by  the  Confederates, 
and  a  great  danger  to  be  guarded  against  by 
the  national  Government.  For  a  while  the 
navy  had  been  able  to  keep  the  waters  of  the 
river  clear  by  the  employment  of  a  few  pow- 
erful light-draft  steamers;  but  it  soon  became 
evident  that  this  would  not  permanently  be  a 
sufficient  protection,  and  even  before  the  bat- 
tle of  Bull  Run  the  Navy  Department  sug- 
gested a  combined  occupation,  by  the  army 
and  the  navy,  of  Mathias  Point,  a  bold  and 
commanding  promontory  on  the  Virginia  side, 
where  the  Potomac,  after  a  horse-shoe  bend  to 
the  east,  flows  southward  again  with  its  width 
greatly  increased.  On  the  20th  of  August 
the  Navy  Department  renewed  its  importuni- 
ties to  the  War  Department  to  cooperate  in 
the  seizure  of  this  most  important  point,  which 
was  "absolutely  essential  to  the  unobstructed 
navigation  of  the  Potomac."  §  Eleven  days 
later  these  suggestions  were  still  more  press- 
in  gly  presented,  without  effect.  In  October, 
however,  when  rebel  batteries  were  already 
appearing  at  different  points  on  the  river,  and 
when  it  was  in  contemplation  to  send  to  Port 
Royal  the  steamers  which  had  been  policing 
the  Potomac,  an  arrangement  was  entered 
into  between  the  army  and  the  navy  to  occupy 
Mathias  Point.  Orders  were  sent  to  Captain 
Craven  to  collect  at  that  place  the  necessary 
boats  for  landing  a  force  of  4000  men.  He 
waited  all  night  and  no  troops  appeared.  Cap- 
tain Fox,  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
who  had  taken  a  great  deal  of  interest  in  the 
expedition,  went  in  deep  chagrin  to  the  Presi- 
dent, who  at  once  accompanied  him  to  Gen- 
eral McClellan's  quarters  to  ask  some  expla- 
nation of  this  failure.  The  general  informed 
him  that  he  had  become  convinced  it  would 
not  be  practicable  to  land  the  troops,  and  that 
he  had  therefore  not  sent  them.  Captain  Fox 
assured  him  that  the  navy  would  be  responsi- 
ble for  that;  and,  after  some  discussion,  it  was 
concluded  that  the  troops  should  go  the  next 
*  McClellan  to  Cameron.     War  Records, 
t  McClellan   to   Thomas  A.  Scott,  Oct.    17, 
War  Record-.. 
X  Lincoln    to    Sherman,    October    18,    1861.     War 
1861.     Records. 
§  Welles  to  Cameron.     War  Records.
A    HISTORY. 
397 
night.  Captain  Craven  was  again  ordered  to 
be  in  readiness ;  the  troops  did  not  go.  Craven 
came  to  Washington  in  great  agitation,  threw 
up  his  command,  and  applied  for  sea-serv- 
ice, on  the  ground  that  his  reputation  as  an 
officer  would  be  ruined  by  the  closing  of  the 
river  while  he  was  in  command  of  the  flotilla.* 
The  vessels  went  out  one  by  one;  the  rebels 
put  up  their  batteries  at  their  leisure,  and  the 
blockade  of  the  river  was  complete.  When 
General  McClellan  was  examined  as  to  this 
occurrence  by  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct 
of  the  War,  he  did  not  remember  the  specific 
incidents  as  recited  by  Captain  Fox,  and  as 
reported  above,  but  said  he  never  regarded 
the  obstruction  of  the  Potomac  as  of  vital  im- 
portance; its  importance  was  more  moral 
than  physical.t 
General  McClellan  was  perhaps  inclined  to 
underrate  moral  effects.  The  affair  at  Ball's 
Bluff,  which  occurred  on  the  21st  of  October, 
produced  an  impression  on  the  public  mind 
and  affected  his  relations  with  the  leading- 
spirits  in  Congress  to  an  extent  entirely  out 
of  proportion  to  its  intrinsic  importance. 
He  had  hitherto  enjoyed  unbounded  pop- 
ularity. The  country  saw  the  army  rapidly 
growing  in  numbers  and  improving  in  equip- 
ment and  discipline,  and  was  content  to  allow 
the  authorities  their  own  time  for  accomplish- 
ing their  purposes.  The  general  looked  for- 
ward to  no  such  delays  as  afterward  seemed 
to  him  necessary.  He  even  assumed  that  the 
differences  between  himself  and  Scott  arose 
from  Scott's  preference  "  for  inaction  and  the 
defensive."  %  On  the  10th  of  October  he  said 
to  the  President :  "  I  think  we  shall  have  our 
arrangements  made  for  a  strong  reconnais- 
sance about  Monday  to  feel  the  strength  of 
the  enemy.  I  intend  to  be  careful  and  do  as 
well  as  possible.  Don't  let  them  hurry  me,  is 
all  I  ask."  The  President,  pleased  with  the 
prospect  of  action,  replied:  "  You  shall  have 
your  own  way  in  the  matter,  I  assure  you."§ 
On  the  1 2th  he  sent  a  dispatch  to  Mr.  Lin- 
coln from  the  front,  saying  that  the  enemy 
was  before  him  in  force,  and  would  probably 
attack  in  the  morning.  "  If  they  attack,"  he 
added,  "  I  shall  beat  them."  ||  Nothing  came 
of  this.  On  the  16th  the  President  was,  as 
usual,  at  headquarters  for  a  moment's  conver- 
sation with  General  McClellan,  who  informed 
him  that  the  enemy  was  massing  at  Manassas, 
and  said  that  he  was  "  not  such  a  fool  as  to 
buck  against  that  place  in  the  spot  designated 
by  the  rebels."  But  he  seemed  continually  to 
be  waiting  merely  for  some  slight  additional 
*  Report  Committee  on  Conduct  of  the  War.  G.  V. 
Fox,  Testimony. 
t  Report  Committee  on  Conduct  of  the  War.  Mc- 
Clellan, Testimony. 
increment  of  his  force,  and  never  intending 
any  long  postponement  of  the  offensive;  while 
he  was  apparently  always  ready,  and  even  de- 
sirous, for  the  enemy  to  leave  their  works  and 
attack  him,  being  confident  of  defeating  them. 
In  this  condition  of  affairs,  with  all  his  force 
well  in  hand,  he  ordered,  on  the  19th  of  Oc- 
tober, that  General  McCall  should  march  from 
his  camp  at  Langley  to  Dranesville,  to  cover 
a  somewhat  extensive  series  of  reconnaissances 
for  the  purpose  of  learning  the  position  of  the 
enemy,  and  of  protecting  the  operations  of  the 
topographical  engineers  in  making  maps  of 
that  region.  The  next  day  he  received  a  dis- 
patch from  General  Banks's  adjutant-general, 
indicating  that  the  enemy  had  moved  away 
from  Leesburg.  This  information  turned  out  to 
be  erroneous;  but  upon  receiving  it  General 
McClellan  sent  a  telegram  to  General  Stone 
at  Poolesville  informing  him  that  General 
McCall  had  occupied  Dranesville  the  day  be- 
fore and  was  still  there,  that  heavy  recon- 
naissances would  be  sent  out  the  same  day  in 
all  directions  from  that  point,  and  directing 
General  Stone  to  keep  a  good  lookout  upon 
Leesburg,  to  see  if  that  movement  had  the 
effect  to  drive  them  away.  "  Perhaps,"  he  adds, 
"  a  slight  demonstration  on  your  part  would 
have  the  effect  to  move  them."^[  General 
McClellan  insists  that  this  order  contemplated 
nothing  more  than  that  General  Stone  should 
make  some  display  of  an  intention  to  cross,  and 
should  watch  the  enemy  more  closely  than 
usual.  But  General  Stone  gave  it  a  much 
wider  range,  and  at  once  reported  to  General 
McClellan  that  he  had  made  a  feint  of  cross- 
ing at  Poolesville,  and  at  the  same  time  started 
a  reconnoitering  party  towards  Leesburg  from 
Harrison's  Island,  and  that  the  enemy's  pickets 
had  retired  to  their  intrenchments.  Although 
General  McClellan  virtually  holds  that  this 
was  in  effect  a  disobedience  of  his  orders,  he  did 
not  direct  General  Stone  to  retire  his  troops — 
on  the  contrary,  he  congratulated  him  upon 
the  movement ;  but  thinking  that  McCall 
would  not  be  needed  to  cooperate  with  him, 
he  ordered  the  former  to  fall  back  from  Dranes- 
ville to  his  camp  near  Prospect  Hill,  which 
order,  though  contradicted  by  later  instruc- 
tions which  did  not  reach  him  until  his  return 
to  Langley,  was  executed  during  the  morning 
of  the  21st.  But  while  McCall,  having  com- 
pleted his  reconnaissance,  was  marching  at 
his  leisure  back  to  his  camp,  the  little  detach- 
ment which  General  Stone  had  sent  across  the 
river  had  blundered  into  battle. 
A  careful  reading  of  all  the  accounts  in  the 
X  "  McClellan's  Own  Story,"  p.  170. 
§  T.  H.,  Diary. 
||  Ibid. 
f"  McClellan,  Report,  p.  32.
9« 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
archives  of  the  War  Department  relating  to 
this  affair  affords  the  best  possible  illustra- 
tion of  the  lack  of  discipline  ami  intelligent 
rg  nization  prevailing  at  that  time  in  both 
armies.  The  reports  of  the  different  command- 
ers  seem  hardly  to  refer  to  the  same  engage- 
mem  :  each  side  enormously  exaggerates  the 
strength  ot  the  enemy,  and  the  descriptions 
of  the  carnage  at  critical  moments  of  the  fight 
read  absurdly  enough  when  compared  with 
the  meager  official  lists  of  killed  and  wounded. 
We  will  briefly  state  what  really  took  place. 
On  the  evening  of  the  20th  General  Gor- 
man made  a  demonstration  of  crossing  at 
Edwards  Ferry,  and  a  scouting  party  of  the 
20th  Massachusetts  crossed  from  Harrison's 
Island  and  wentto  within  about  a  mile  of  Lees- 
burg,  returning  with  the  report  that  they  had 
found  a  small  camp  of  the  enemy  in  the  woods. 
General  Stone  then  ordered  Colonel  Charles 
Devens.  commanding  the  20th  Massachusetts, 
to  take  four  companies  of  his  regiment  over 
in  the  night  to  destroy  this  camp  at  day- 
1  reak.  Colonel  Devens  proceeding  to  execute 
this  order  found  that  the  report  of  the  scout- 
ing party  was  erroneous,  and  reporting  this 
fact  waited  in  the  woods  for  further  orders. 
General  Stone  sent  over  a  small  additional 
detachment  which  he  afterward  reenforcedby 
a  larger  body,  the  Avhole  being  in  command 
of  Colonel  E.  D.  Baker  of  the  California  regi- 
ment—  a  Senator  from  Oregon,  an  officer  of 
the  highest  personal  and  political  distinction, 
and,  as  we  have  already  related,  not  without 
experience  in  the  Mexican  war.  General 
Stone  had  now  evidently  resolved  upon  a  re- 
connaissance in  force,  and  in  case  an  engage- 
ment should  result  he  confidently  expected 
Colonel  Baker  to  drive  the  enemy  from  his 
front,  at  which  juncture  General  Stone  ex- 
pected to  come  in  upon  their  right  with  Gor- 
man's troops,  which  he  was  pushing  over  at 
I .  .  rirds  Ferry,  and  capture  or  rout  the  en- 
tire command.  He  gave  Colonel  Baker  dis- 
( retionary  authority  to  advance  or  to  retire 
after  crossing  the  river,  as  circumstances  might 
seem  to  dictate. 
(  olonel  Baker  entered  upon  the  work  as- 
signed to  him  with  the  greatest  enthusiasm 
and  intrepidity.  The  means  of  transportation 
lamentably  inadequate;  but  working  en- 
ergetically, though  w  ithout  system,  the  greater 
part  of  the  troops  assigned  for  the  service 
were  at  last  got  over,  and.  Baker  took  com- 
mand on  the  field  a  little  after  2  o'clock.  The 
battle  was  already  lost,  though  the  brave  and 
high-spirited  orator  did  not  suspect  it,  any 
more  than  did  General  Stone,  who,  at  Edwards 
Ferry,  was  waiting  for  the  moment  to  arrive 
when  he  should  attack  the  enemy's  right  and 
convert  his  defeat  into  rout.    Colonel  Devens, 
who  had  been  skirmishing  briskly  with  con- 
tinually increasing  numbers  of  the  Confeder- 
ates all  the  morning,  had  by  this  time  fallen 
back  in  line  with  Baker's,  Lee's,  and  Cogs- 
well's regiments,  and  a  new  disposition  was 
made  of  all  the  troops  on  the  ground  to  re- 
sist the  advancing  enemy.  The  disposition 
was  as  bad  as  it  could  well  be  made ;  both 
flanks  were  exposed,  and  the  reserves  were 
placed  in  an  unprotected  position  immediately 
in  rear  of  the  center,  where  they  were  shot 
down  without  resistance,  and  were  only  dan- 
gerous to  their  comrades  in  front  of  them. 
Colonel  Baker,  whose  bravery  marked  him 
for  destruction,  was  killed  about  4  o'clock, 
being  struck  at  the  same  moment  by  several 
bullets  while  striving  to  encourage  his  men, 
and  after  a  brief  and  ineffectual  effort  by 
Colonel  Cogswell  to  move  to  the  left,  the  Na- 
tional troops  retreated  to  the  river  bank. 
They  were  closely  followed  by  the  Confeder- 
ates; the  wretched  boats  into  which  many  of 
them  rushed  were  swamped;  some  strong 
swimmers  reached  the  Maryland  shore,  some 
were  shot  in  the  water,  a  large  number  threw 
their  arms  into  the  stream  and,  dispersing  in 
the  bushes,  escaped  in  the  twilight;  but  a 
great  proportion  of  the  entire  command  was 
captured.  The  losses  on  the  Union  side 
were  10  officers  and  39  enlisted  men  killed, 
15  officers  and  143  enlisted  men  wounded, 
26  officers  and  688  enlisted  men  missing.* 
The  Confederate  loss  in  killed  and  wounded 
was  almost  as  great — 36  killed  and  117 
wounded.* 
As  soon  as  the  news  of  the  disaster  began 
to  reach  General  Stone,  he  hurried  to  the 
right,  where  the  fugitives  from  the  fight  were 
arriving,  did  what  he  could  to  reestablish 
order  there,  and  sent  instructions  to  Gorman 
to  intrench  himself  at  Edwards  Ferry  and  act 
on  the  defensive.  General  Banks  arrived  with 
reinforcements  at  3  o'clock  in  the  morning  of 
the  2 2d  and  assumed  command.  The  Confed- 
erates made  an  attack  upon  Gorman  the  same 
day  and  were  easily  repulsed;  but  General 
McClellan,  thinking  "that  the  enemy  were 
strengthening  themselves  at  Leesburg,  and 
that  our  means  of  crossing  and  recrossing 
were  very  insufficient,"  withdrew  all  the  troops 
to  the  Maryland  side.f  It  seems  from  the 
Confederate  reports  that  he  was  mistaken  in 
concluding  that  the  enemy  were  strengthening 
themselves;  they  were  also  getting  out  of 
harm's  way  as  rapidly  as  possible.  General 
Evans,  their  commander,  says: 
Finding  my  brigade  very  much  exhausted,  I  left 
Colonel  Barksdale  with   his  regiment,  with  2  pieces 
*  War  Records. 
t  McClellan  to  Secretary  of  War.    War  Records.
A    HISTORY. 
399 
of  artillery  and  a  cavalry  force,  as  a  grand  guard,  and 
I  ordered  the  other  3  regiments  to  fall  back  towards 
Carter's  Mills  to  rest  and  to  be  collected  in  order.* 
The  utter  inadequacy  of  means  for  cross- 
ing was  of  course  a  sufficient  reason  to  justify 
the  cessation  of  active  operations  at  that  time 
and  place. 
Insignificant  as  was  this  engagement  in  it- 
self, it  was  of  very  considerable  importance  in 
immediate  effect  and  ultimate  results.  It  was 
the  occasion  of  enormous  encouragement  to 
the  South.  The  reports  of  the  Confederate  offi- 
cers engaged  exaggerated  their  own  prowess, 
and  the  numbers  and  losses  of  the  National 
troops  tenfold.  General  Beauregard,  in  his 
congratulatory  order  of  the  day,  claimed 
that  the  result  of  this  action  proved  that  no 
disparity  of  numbers  could  avail  anything  as 
against  Southern  valor  assisted  by  the  "  mani- 
fest aid  of  the  God  of  battles."  f  It  will  prob- 
ably never  be  possible  to  convince  Confederate 
soldiers  that  here,  as  at  Bull  Run,  the  num- 
bers engaged  and  the  aggregate  killed  and 
wounded  were  about  equal  on  both  sides  —  a 
fact  clearly  shown  by  the  respective  official 
records.  At  the  North  the  gloom  and  afflic- 
tion occasioned  by  the  defeat  were  equally 
out  of  proportion  to  the  event.  Among  the 
killed  and  wounded  were  several  young  men 
of  brilliant  promise  and  distinguished  social 
connections  in  New  England,  and  the  useless 
sacrifice  of  their  lives  made  a  deep  impression 
upon  wide  circles  of  friends  and  kindred. 
The  death  of  Colonel  Baker  greatly  affected 
the  public  mind.  He  had  been  little  known 
in  the  East  when  he  came  as  Senator  from 
Oregon,  but  from  the  moment  that  he  began 
to  appear  in  public  his  fluent  and  impas- 
sioned oratory,  his  graceful  and  dignified 
bearing,  a  certain  youthful  energy  and  fire 
which  contrasted  pleasantly  with  his  silver 
hair,  had  made  him  extremely  popular  with 
all  classes.  He  was  one  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
dearest  friends  ;  he  was  especially  liked  in  the 
Senate  ;  he  was  one  of  the  most  desirable  and 
effective  speakers  at  all  great  mass-meetings. 
A  cry  of  passionate  anger  went  up  from  every 
part  of  the  country  over  this  precious  blood 
wasted,  this  dishonor  inflicted  upon  the  Na- 
tional flag. 
The  first  and  most  evident  scape-goat  was, 
naturally  enough,  General  Stone.  He  cannot  be 
acquitted  of  all  blame,  even  in  the  calmest  re- 
view of  the  facts  ;  there  was  a  lack  of  prepara- 
tion for  the  fight,  a  lack  of  thorough  supervision 
after  it  had  begun.  But  these  were  the  least  of 
the  charges  made  against  him.  The  suspicions 
which  civil  war  always  breeds,  and  the  calum- 
nies resulting  from  them,  were  let  loose  upon 
*  Evans  to  Jordan,  Oct.  3,  1861.     War  Records, 
t  Beauregard,  Orders,  Oct.  23,  1861.  War  Records. 
him.  They  grew  to  such  proportions  by  con- 
stant repetition,  during  the  autumn  and  winter 
following,  that  many  people  actually  thought 
he  was  one  of  a  band  of  conspirators  in  the 
Union  army  working  in  the  interest  of  rebel- 
lion. This  impression  seized  upon  the  minds 
of  some  of  the  most  active  and  energetic  men 
in  Congress,  friends  and  associates  of  Colonel 
Baker.  They  succeeded  in  convincing  the 
Secretary  of  War  that  General  Stone  was 
dangerous  to  the  public  welfare,  and  on  the 
28th  of  January  an  order  was  issued  from  the 
War  Department  to  General  McClellan  direct- 
ing him  to  arrest  General  Stone.  He  kept  it 
for  several  days  without  executing  it;  but  at 
last,  being  apparently  impressed  by  the  evi- 
dence of  a  refugee  from  Leesburg  that  there 
was  some  foundation  for  the  charges  made 
by  the  committee  of  Congress,  he  ordered  the 
arrest  of  General  Stone,  saying  at  the  same 
time  to  the  Secretary  of  War  that  the  case 
was  too  indefinite  to  warrant  the  framing 
of  charges.^  The  arrest  was  made  without 
consulting  the  President.  When  Mr.  Stanton 
announced  it  to  him  the  President  said :  "  I 
suppose  you  have  good  reasons  for  it;  and 
having  good  reasons,  I  am  glad  I  knew  noth- 
ing of  it  until  it  was  done."  General  Stone  was 
taken  to  Fort  Lafayette,  where  he  remained 
in  confinement  six  months ;  he  was  then  re- 
leased and  afterward  restored  to  duty,  but 
never  received  any  satisfaction  to  his  repeated 
demands  for  reparation  or  trial. 
For  the  moment,  at  least,  there  seemed  no 
disposition  to  censure  General  McClellan  for 
this  misfortune.  Indeed,  it  was  only  a  few  days 
after  the  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff  that  he  gained 
his  final  promotion  to  the  chief  command  of 
the  armies  of  the  United  States.  A  brief  re- 
view of  his  relations  to  his  predecessor  may 
be  necessary  to  a  proper  understanding  of  the 
circumstances  under  which  he  succeeded  to 
the  supreme  command. 
Their  intercourse,  at  first  marked  by  great 
friendship,  had  soon  become  clouded  by  mis- 
understandings. The  veteran  had  always  had 
a  high  regard  for  his  junior,  had  sent  him 
his  hearty  congratulations  upon  his  appoint- 
ment to  command  the  Ohio  volunteers,  and 
although  he  had  felt  compelled  on  one  occa- 
sion to  rebuke  him  for  interference  with  mat- 
ters beyond  his  jurisdiction^  their  relations 
remained  perfectly  friendly,  and  the  old  gen- 
eral warmly  welcomed  the  young  one  to 
Washington.  But  once  there,  General  Mc- 
Clellan began  to  treat  the  General-in-Chief 
with  a  neglect  which,  though  probably  unin- 
tentional, was  none  the  less  galling.  On  the 
8th  of  August,   General  McClellan  sent  to 
X  McClellan  to  Stone,  Dec.  5,  1S62.    War  Records. 
$  War  Records.
40-? 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
General  Scott  a  letter*  to  the  effect  that  he 
.  v  ed  the  capital  "  not  only  insecure,"  but 
"  in  imminent  danger."   As  General  McClel- 
ad  never  personally  communicated  these 
views   to   his   chief,  but   had,  as   Scott   says, 
••  pro]  agated  them  in  high  quarters,"  so  that 
had  come  indirectly  to  the  old  general's 
.  his  temper,  which  was  never  one  of  the 
meekest,  quite  gave  way,  and  declining  to  an- 
swer General  McClellan's  letter,  he  addressed 
ogry  note  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  scout- 
ing t]  of  Washington  being  in  danger, 
calling  attention  to  "the  stream  of  new  regi- 
ments pouring  in  upon  us,"  complaining  bit- 
terly of  the  reticence  and  neglect  with  which 
imior  treated  him,  and  begging  the  Presi- 
dent, as  soon  as  possible,  to  retire  him  from  the 
active  command  of  the  army,  for  which  his  age, 
his  wounds,  and  hisinrirmities  had  unfitted  him. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  greatly  distressed  by  this 
altercation  between  the  two  officers.  He  pre- 
vailed upon  General  McClellan  to  write  him 
a  conciliatory  note,  withdrawing  the  letter  of 
the  Sth  ;  and  armed  with  this,  he  endeavored  to 
soothe  the  irritation  of  Scott,  and  to  induce 
him  to  withdraw  his  angry  rejoinder  of  the 
9th.  But  youth,  sure  of  itself  and  the  future, 
forgives  more  easily  than  age;  and  Scott  re- 
fused, respectfully  but  firmly,  to  comply  with 
the  President's  request.  He  waited  two  days 
and  wrote  again  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  giv- 
ing his  reasons  for  this  refusal.  He  believed 
General  McClellan  had  deliberately,  and  with 
the  advice  of  certain  members  of  the  Cabinet, 
offended  him  by  the  letter  in  question,  and 
letter  deserves  a  careful  reading.  It  is  ex- 
tremely characteristic,  as  showing,  in  the  first  place, 
how  early  McClellan  began  to  exaggerate  the  number 
of  the  enemy  in  front  of  him,  and  how  large  were  his 
as  to  the  force  necessary  for  the  protection  of 
Washington  so  long  as  the  duty  of  protecting  the  capi- 
tal devolved  upon  him. 
H  ers  Division  of  the  Potomac, 
Washington,  Aug.  8,  1861. 
.-Gen.  Win  field  Scott, 
Commanding  U.  S.  Army. 
L  :   In  for  1  nation  from  various  sources  reach- 
ing me  to-day,  through  spies,  letters,  and  telegrams, 
ipressions,  derived  from  previous  ad- 
the  enemy  intend  attacking  our  positions 
on  the  other  si  le  of  the  river,  as  well  as  to  cross  the 
lac  north  of  us.    1  have  also  received  a  telegram 
from  a  reliable  agent  just  from  Knoxville,  Term.,  that 
are  still   passing  through  there 
I  am  induced  to  believe  that  the  enemy 
has  at  lea  men  in  front,  of  us.    Were  I  in 
Beauregard's  olace  with  that  force  at  my  disposal,  I 
would  attack  the  positions  on  the  other  side  of  the  Po- 
tomac, and  at  the  same  time  cross  the  river  above  this 
.  [feel  confident  that  our  present  army 
in  this  vicinity  is  entirely  insufficient  for  the  emer- 
gency, and  it  is  deficient  in  all  the  arms  of  the  service 
—  infantry,  artillery,  and  cavalry.  I  therefore  respect- 
fully and  most  earnestly  urge  that  the  garrisons  of  all 
places  in  our  rear  be  reduced  at  once  to  the  minimum 
absolutely  necessary  to  hold  them,  and  that  all  the 
that  for  the  last  week,  though  many  regiments 
had  arrived  and  several  more  or  less  impor- 
tant movements  of  troops  had  taken  place, 
General  McClellan  had  reported  nothing  to 
him,  but  had  been  frequently  in  conversation 
with  various  high  officers  of  the  Government. 
'•That  freedom  of  access  and  consultation," 
he  continued,  "  has,  very  naturally,  deluded 
the  junior  general  into  a  feeling  of  indiffer- 
ence towards  his  senior."  He  argues  that  it 
would  be  "  against  the  dignity  of  his  years  to 
be  filing  daily  complaints  against  an  ambitious 
junior,"  and  closes  by  reiterating  his  unfitness 
for  command. f 
The  two  generals  never  became  reconciled. 
The  bickerings  between  them  continued  for 
two  months,  marked  with  a  painful  and  grow- 
ing bitterness  on  the  part  of  Scott,  and  on  the 
part  of  McClellan  by  a  neglect  akin  to  con- 
tempt. The  elder  officer,  galled  by  his  sub- 
ordinate's persistent  disrespect,  published  a 
general  order  on  the  16th  of  September,  which 
he  says  was  intended  "  to  suppress  an  irregu- 
larity more  conspicuous  in  Major-General 
McClellan  than  in  any  other  officer,"  forbid- 
ding junior  officers  on  duty  from  corresponding 
with  their  superiors  except  through  inter- 
mediate commanders;  the  same  rule  apply- 
ing to  correspondence  with  the  President  and 
the  Secretary  of  War,  unless  by  the  President's 
request.  General  McClellan  showed  how  little 
he  cared  for  such  an  order  by  writing  two 
important  letters  to  the  Secretary  of  War 
within  three  days  after  it  was  issued.  On  the 
same  day  a  special  order  was  given  General 
troops  thus  made  available  be  forthwith  forwarded  to 
this  city ;  that  every  company  of  regular  artillery 
within  reach  be  immediately  ordered  here  to  be 
mounted;  that  every  possible  means  be  used  to  expe- 
dite the  forwarding  of  new  regiments  of  volunteers  to 
this  capital  without  one  hour's  delay.  I  urge  that  noth- 
ing be  left  undone  to  bring  up  our  force  for  the  defense 
of  this  city  to  100,000  men,  before  attending  to  any 
other  point.  I  advise  that  at  least  eight  or  ten  good 
Ohio  and  Indiana  regiments  may  be  telegraphed  for 
from  western  Virginia,  their  places  to  be  filled  at  once 
by  the  new  troops  from  the  same  States,  who  will  be 
at  least  reliable  to  fight  behind  the  intrenchments 
which  have  been  constructed  there.  The  vital  impor- 
tance of  rendering  Washington  at  once  perfectly  se- 
cure, and  its  imminent  danger,  impel  me  to  urge  these 
requests  with  the  utmost  earnestness,  and  that  not  an 
hour  be  lost  in  carrying  them  into  execution.  A  sense 
of  duty  which  I  cannot  resist  compels  me  to  state  that 
in  my  opinion  military  necessity  demands  that  the 
departments  of  North-eastern  Virginia,  Washington, 
the  Shenandoah,  Pennsylvania,  including  Baltimore, 
and  the  one  including  Fort  Monroe,  should  be  merged 
into  one  department,  under  the  immediate  control  of 
the  commander  of  the  main  army  of  operations,  and 
which  should  be  known  and  designated  as  such. 
Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 
Geo.  B.  McClellan, 
Major-  General,  Commanding. 
[War  Records.] 
t  Scott  to  the  President,  Aug.  12,1861.
A   HISTORY. 
401 
McClellan  to  report  to  army  headquarters  the 
number  and  position  of  troops  under  his  com- 
mand, to  which  order  he  paid  no  attention 
whatever.  General  Scott  felt  himself  helpless 
in  the  face  of  this  mute  and  persistent  disobe- 
dience, but  he  was  not  able  to  bear  it  in  si- 
lence. On  the  4th  of  October  he  addressed 
another  passionate  remonstrance  to  the  Sec- 
retary of  War,  setting  forth  these  facts,  asking 
whether  there  were  no  remedy  for  such  offenses, 
adverting  once  more  to  his  physical  infirmities, 
and  at  last  divulging  the  true  reason  why  he 
had  borne  so  long  the  contumely  of  his  junior — 
that  he  was  only  awaiting  the  arrival  of  Gen- 
eral Halleck,  whose  presence  would  give  him 
increased  confidence  in  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  and  thus  permit  him  to  retire.* 
On  the  31st  of  October  he  took  his  final  reso- 
lution, and  addressed  the  following  letter  to 
the  Secretary  of  War : 
For  more  than  three  years  I  have  been  unable, 
from  a  hurt,  to  mount  a  horse  or  to  walk  more  than  a 
few  paces  at  a  time,  and  that  with  much  pain.  Other 
and  new  infirmities  —  dropsy  and  vertigo  —  admonish 
me  that  repose  of  mind  and  body,  with  the  appliances 
of  surgery  and  medicine,  are  necessary  to  add  a  little 
more  to  a  life  already  protracted  much  beyond  the  usual 
span  of  man.  It  is  under  such  circumstances,  made 
doubly  painful  by  the  unnatural  and  unjust  rebellion 
now  raging  in  the  Southern  States  of  our  so  late  pros- 
perous and  happy  Union,  that  I  am  compelled  to  re- 
quest that  my  name  be  placed  on  the  list  of  army  officers 
retired  from  active  service.  As  this  request  is  founded 
on  an  absolute  right  granted  by  a  recent  act  of  Con- 
gress, I  am  entirely  at  liberty  to  say  it  is  with  deep 
regret  that  I  withdraw  myself,  in  these  momentous 
times,  from  the  orders  of  a  President  who  has  treated 
me  with  distinguished  kindness  and  courtesy,  whom  I 
know  among  much  personal  intercourse  to  be  patriotic, 
without  sectional  partialities  or  prejudices,  to  be  highly 
conscientious  in  the  performance  of  every  duty,  and 
of  unrivaled  activity  and  perseverance.  And  to  you, 
Mr.  Secretary,  whom  I  now  officially  address  for  the 
last  time,  I  beg  to  acknowledge  my  many  obligations 
for  the  uniform  high  consideration  I  have  received  at 
your  hands.* 
His  request  was  granted,  with  the  usual 
compliments  and  ceremonies,  the  President 
and  Cabinet  waiting  upon  him  in  person  at  his 
residence.  General  McClellan  succeeded  him 
in  command  of  the  armies  of  the  United 
States,  and  in  his  order  of  the  1st  of  Novem- 
ber he  praised  in  swelling  periods  the  war- 
worn veteran  f  whose  latest  days  of  service 
he  had  so  annoyed  and  embittered.  When  we 
consider  the  relative  positions  of  the  two  offi- 
cers — the  years,  the  infirmities,  the  well-earned 
glory  of  Scott,  his  former  friendship  and  kind- 
ness towards  his  junior;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  youth,  the  strength,  the  marvelous  good 
fortune  of  McClellan,  his  great  promotion,  his 
certainty  of  almost  immediate  succession  to  su- 
preme command — it  cannot  be  said  that  his 
demeanor  towards  his  chief  was  magnanimous. 
Although  General  Scott's  unfitness  for  com- 
VoL.  XXXVI.— 57. 
mand  had  become  obvious,  although  his  dispo- 
sition, which  in  his  youth  had  been  arrogant 
and  naughty,  had  been  modified  but  not  im- 
proved by  age  into  irascibility,  it  would  cer- 
tainly not  have  been  out  of  place  for  his  heir 
presumptive  to  dissemble  an  impatience  which 
was  not  unnatural,  and  preserve  some  appear- 
ance at  least  of  a  respect  he  did  not  feel 
Standing  in  the  full  sunshine,  there  was  some- 
thing due  from  him  to  an  old  and  illustrious  sol- 
dier stepping  reluctant  into  hopeless  shadow. 
The  change  was  well  received  in  all  parts 
of  the  country.  At  Washington  there  was  an 
immediate  feeling  of  relief.  The  President 
called  at  General  McClellan's  headquarters 
on  the  night  of  the  1st  of  November  and  gave 
him  warm  congratulations.  "  I  should  ftel 
perfectly  satisfied,"  he  said,  "  if  I  thought  that 
this  vast  increase  of  responsibility  would  not 
embarrass  you."  "It  is  a  great  relief,  sir," 
McClellan  answered.  "  I  feel  as  if  several 
tons  were  taken  from  my  shoulders  to-day.  I 
am  now  in  contact  with  you  and  the  Secre- 
tary. I  am  not  embarrassed  by  intervention." 
"  Very  well,"  said  the  President ;  "  draw  on 
me  for  all  the  sense  and  information  I  have. 
In  addition  to  your  present  command  the  su- 
preme command  of  the  army  will  entail  an 
enormous  labor  upon  you."  "  I  can  do  it  all," 
McClellan  quickly  answered.  %  Ten  days  later 
Blenker's  brigade  organized  a  torchlight  pro- 
cession, a  sort  of  Fackel-tanz,  in  honor  of  the 
event.  The  President,  after  the  show  was 
over,  went  as  usual  to  General  McClellan's, 
and  referring  to  the  Port  Royal  expedition 
thought  this  "  a  good  time  to  feel  the  enemy." 
"  I  have  not  been  unmindful  of  that,"  Mc- 
Clellan answered;  "we  shall  feel  them  to- 
morrow.'^ Up  to  this  time  there  was  no 
importunity  on  the  part  of  the  President  for 
an  advance  of  the  army,  although  for  several 
weeks  some  of  the  leading  men  in  Congress 
had  been  urging  it.  As  early  as  the  26th  of 
October,  Senators  Trumbull,  Chandler,  and 
Wade  called  upon  the  President  and  earnestly 
represented  to  him  the  importance  of  imme- 
diate action.  Two  days  later  they  had  an- 
other conference  with  the  President  and  Mr. 
Seward,  at  the  house  of  the  latter.  They  spoke 
with  some  vehemence  of  the  absolute  neces- 
sity for  energetic  measures  to  drive  the  enemy 
from  in  front  of  Washington.  The  President 
and  the  Secretary  of  State  both  defended  the 
general  in  his  deliberate  purpose  not  to  move 
until  he  was  ready.  The  zealous  senators  did 
not  confine  their  visits  to  the  civil  authorities. 
They  called  upon  General    McClellan  also, 
*  Scott  to  Cameron.     War  Records. 
t  McClellan,  Order,  Nov.  1,  1S61.    War  Records. 
%  J,  H.,  Diary,  Nov.  I,  1861. 
$ 'Ibid.,  Nov.  11,  1 86 1.
• 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
and  in  the  course  of  an  animated  conversa- 
tion Mi.  Wade  said  an  unsuccessful  battle  was 
preferable  to  delay;  a  defeat  would  be  easily 
red  by  the  swarming  recruits  —  a  thrust 
which  McClellan  neatly  parried  by  saying  he 
would  rather  have  a  tew  recruits  before  a  vic- 
tory than  a  good  many  after  a  defeat.*  There 
I  no  apparent  hostility  to  McClellan, 
even  among  "these  wretched  politicians/'  as 
he  calls  them.  Chi  the  contrary,  this  conference 
of  the  26th  was  not  inharmonious;  McClellan 
sent  I  General  Scott  as  the  obstacle  to 
imm<  ;ion,  and  skillfully  diverted  the 
of  the  senators  against  the  General-in- 
Chief,    lie  wrote  that  night: 
For  the  last  three  hours  I  have  been  at  Montgomery 
'-.  talking  with    Senators  YVa'le,  Trumbull,  and 
Chandler  about  war  matters.    They  will  make  a  des- 
e  effort  to-morrow  to  have  General  Scott  retired 
at  once  ;  until  this  is  accomplished,  lean  effect  but  lit- 
He  i<  ever  in  my  way,  and  I  am  sure  does 
not  desire  effective  action. t 
The  President,  while  defending  the  gener- 
als from  the  strictures  of  the  senators,  did  not 
conceal  from  McClellan  the  fact  of  their  ur- 
v.   He  told  him  it  was  a  reality  not  to  be 
out  of  the  account;  at  the  same  time  he 
was  not  to  fight  till  he  was  ready.    "  I  have 
everything  at  stake,'"  the  general  replied.  "  If 
I  fail,  I  will  never  see  you  again."    At  this 
I  there  was  no  question  of  more  than  a 
few  days'  delay. 
The  friendly  visits  of  the  President  to  army 
headquarters   were    continued  almost    every 
night  until  the  13th  of  November,  when  an 
incident  occurred  which  virtually  put  an  end 
to   them. I     On    that    evening    Mr.   Lincoln 
walked  across  the  street  as  usual,  accompanied 
ne  of  his  household,  to  the  residence  of 
the  Secretary  of  State,  and  after  a  short  visit 
there  both  of  them  went  to  General  McClel- 
lan's  house,  in  H  street.  They  were  there  told 
that  the  general  had  gone  to  the  wedding  of 
an  ofrirerand  would  soon  return.  They  waited 
nearly  an  hour  in  the  drawing-room,  when  the 
and,  without  paying    any 
to  the  orderly  who' told  him 
waiting  to  see  him,  went 
upstairs.    The  President,  thinking  his  name 
had  not  1  nounced  to  the  general,  again 
sent  a  servant  to  his  room  and  received  the  an- 
■  that  he  had  gone  to  bed.  Mr.  Lincoln 
attached  no. special  importance  to  this  incident, 
and,  so  far  as  we  know,  never  asked  nor  re- 
ceived any  explanation  of  it.  But  it  was  not 
unnatural  that  he  should  conclude  his  frequent 
visits  had  become  irksome  to  the  general,  and 
that  he  should  discontinue  them.  There  was 
no  cessation  of  their  friendly  relations,  though 
*J.  II.,  Diary,  Oct.  26,27,  1861.     }J.  II.,  Diary. 
•      McClellan's  Own  Story,"  p.  171.  ' 
after  this  most  of  their  conferences  were  held 
at  the  Executive  Mansion. 
On  the  20th  of  November  a  grand  review 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  took  place  at 
Upton's  Hill.  There  were  about  50,000  men 
in  line,  drawn  up  on  a  wide,  undulating  plain, 
which  displayed  them  to  the  best  advantage, 
and  a  finer  army  has  rarely  been  seen.  The 
President,  accompanied  by  Generals  McClel- 
lan and  McDowell,  and  followed  by  a  brilliant 
cavalcade  of  a  hundred  general  and  staff"  offi- 
cers, rode  up  and  down  the  entire  extent  of 
the  embattled  host.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  good 
horseman,  and  w?as  received  with  hearty  cheers 
by  the  troops,  thousands  of  whom  saw  him 
that  day  for  the  first  and  last  time.  The  re- 
viewing officers  then  took  their  stand  upon  a 
gentle  acclivity  in  the  center  of  the  plain,  and 
the  troops  filed  past  in  review  through  the 
autumnal  afternoon  until  twilight.  It  had  cer- 
tainly all  the  appearance  of  a  great  army  ready 
for  battle,  and  there  was  little  doubt  that  they 
would  speedily  be  led  into  action.  But  after  the 
review  drilling  was  resumed  ;  recruits  contin- 
ued to  pour  in,  to  be  assigned  and  equipped 
and  instructed.  The  general  continued  his  or- 
ganizing work;  many  hours  of  every  day  he 
passed  in  the  saddle,  riding  from  camp  to  camp 
with  tireless  industry,  until  at  last  he  fell  seri- 
ously ill,  and  for  several  weeks  the  army  rested 
almost  with  folded  hands  awaiting  his  recovery. 
EUROPEAN    NEUTRALITY. 
One  of  the  gravest  problems  which  beset 
the  Lincoln  administration  on  its  advent  to 
power  w7as  how  foreign  nations  would  deal 
with  the  fact  of  secession  and  rebellion  in  the 
United  States;  and  the  people  of  the  North 
endured  a  grievous  disappointment  when  they 
found  that  England  and  France  were  by 
active  sympathy  favorable  to  the  South,  this 
result  does  not  seem  strange  when  we  con- 
sider by  what  insensible  steps  the  news  from 
America  had  shaped  their  opinion. 
Europeans  were  at  first  prepared  to  accept 
the  disunion  threats  of  Southern  leaders  as 
mere  transient  party  bravado.  The  non- 
coercion  message  of  President  Buchanan, 
however,  was  in  their  eyes  an  indication  of 
serious  import.  Old  World  statesmanship  had 
no  faith  in  unsupported  public  sentiment  as  a 
lasting  bond  of  nationality.  The  experience 
of  a  thousand  years  teaches  them  that,  under 
their  monarchical  system,  governments  and 
laws  by  "  divine  right "  are  of  accepted 
and  permanent  force  only  when  competent 
physical  power  stands  behind  them  to  compel 
obedience.  Mr.  Buchanan's  dogma  that  the 
Federal  Government  had  no  authority  to 
keep  a  State  in  the  Union  wras  to  them,  in
A    HISTORY. 
403 
theory  at  least,  the  end  of  the  Government 
of  the  United  States.  When,  further,  they  saw 
that  this  theory  was  being  translated  into 
practice  by  acquiescence  in  South  Carolina's 
revolt;  by  the  failure  to  reenforce  Sumter; 
by  the  President's  quasi-diplomacy  with  the 
South  Carolina  commissioners  as  foreign 
agents ;  and  finally  by  his  practical  abdica- 
tion of  executive  functions,  in  the  message  of 
January  8,*  "  referring  the  whole  subject  to 
Congress,"  and  throwing  upon  it  all  "  the 
responsibility," —  they  naturally  concluded 
that  the  only  remaining  question  for  them  was 
one  of  new  relations  with  the  divided  States. 
From  the  election  of  Lincoln  until  three  days 
preceding  his  inauguration,  a  period  of  nearly 
four  months,  embracing  the  whole  drama  of 
public  secession  and  the  organization  of  the 
Montgomery  confederacy,  not  a  word  of  in- 
formation, explanation,  or  protest  on  these 
momentous  proceedings  was  sent  by  the 
Buchanan  cabinet  to  foreign  powers.  They 
were  left  to  draw  their  inferences  exclusively 
from  newspapers,  the  debates  of  Congress,  and 
the  President's  messages  till  the  last  day  of 
February,  1861,  when  Secretary  Black,  in  a 
diplomatic  circular,  instructed  our  ministers 
at  foreign  courts  "  that  this  Government  has 
not  relinquished  its  constitutional  jurisdiction 
within  the  territory  of  those  seceded  States 
and  does  not  desire  to  do  so,"  and  that  a 
recognition  of  their  independence  must  be 
opposed.  France  and  England  replied  courte- 
ously that  they  would  not  act  in  haste,  but 
quite  emphatically  that  they  could  give  no 
further  binding  promise. 
Mr.  Seward,  on  assuming  the  duties  of 
Secretary  of  State,  immediately  transmitted  a 
circular,  repeating  the  injunction  of  his  pred- 
ecessor and  stating  the  confidence  of  the 
President  in  the  speedy  restoration  of  the 
harmony  and  unity  of  the  Government.  Con- 
siderable delay  occurred  in  settling  upon  the 
various  foreign  appointments.  The  new  min- 
ister to  France,  Mr.  Dayton,  and  the  new 
minister  to  Great  Britain,  Mr.  Adams,  did 
not  sail  for  Europe  till  about  the  1st  of  May. 
Before  either  of  them  arrived  at  his  post, 
both  governments  had  violated  in  spirit  their 
promise  to  act  in  no  haste.  On  the  day  Mr. 
Adams  sailed  from  Boston,  his  predecessor, 
Mr.  Dallas,  yet  in  London,  was  sent  for  by 
Lord  John  Russell,  her  Britannic  Majesty's 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.  "  He  told  me," 
wrote  Mr.  Dallas,  "  that  the  three  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Southern  Confederacy  were 
here ;  that  he  had  not  seen  them,  but  was  not 
unwilling  to  do  so,  unofficially;  that  there 
existed  an  understanding  between  this  Gov- 
ernment and  that  of  France  which  would 
*  "  Globe,"  Jan.  9,  1861,  p.  294. 
lead  both  to  take  the  same  course  as  to 
recognition,  whatever  that  course  might  be." 
The  step  here  foreshadowed  was  soon  taken. 
Three  days  later  Lord  Russell  did  receive  the 
three  representatives  of  the  Southern  Confed- 
eracy; and  while  he  told  them  he  could  not 
communicate  with  them  "  officially,"  his  lan- 
guage indicated  that  when  the  South  could 
maintain  its  position  England  would  not  be 
unwilling  to  hear  what  terms  they  had  to 
propose.  When  Mr.  Adams  landed  in  Eng- 
land he  found,  evidently  to  forestall  his  arrival, 
that  the  Ministry  had  published  the  Queen's 
proclamation  of  neutrality,  raising  the  Con- 
federate States  at  once  to  the  position  and 
privilege  of  a  belligerent  power;  and  France 
soon  followed  the  example. 
In  taking  this  precipitate  action,  both  pow- 
ers probably  thought  it  merely  a  preliminary 
step :  the  British  ministers  believed  disunion 
to  be  complete  and  irrevocable,  and  were 
eager  to  take  advantage  of  it  to  secure  free 
trade  and  cheap  cotton ;  while  Napoleon 
III.,  Emperor  of  the  French,  already  har- 
boring far-reaching  colonial  designs,  ex- 
pected not  only  to  recognize  the  South,  but 
to  assist  her  at  no  distant  day  by  an  armed 
intervention.  For  the  present,  of  course,  all 
such  meditations  were  veiled  under  the  bland 
phraseology  of  diplomatic  regret  at  our  mis- 
fortune. The  object  of  these  pages  is,  how- 
ever, not  so  much  to  discuss  international 
relations  as  to  show  what  part  President  Lin- 
coln personally  took  in  framing  the  dispatch 
which  announced  the  answering  policy  of  the 
United  States. 
When  the  communication  which  Lord  Rus- 
sell made  to  Mr.  Dallas  was  received  at  the 
State  Department,  the  unfriendly  act  of  the 
English  Government,  and  more  especially  the 
half-insulting  manner  of  its  promulgation,  filled 
Mr.  Seward  with  indignation.  In  this  mood 
he  wrote  a  dispatch  to  Mr.  Adams,  which,  if 
transmitted  and  delivered  in  its  original  form, 
could  hardly  have  failed  to  endanger  the 
peaceful  relations  of  the  two  countries.  The 
general  tone  and  spirit  of  the  paper  were  ad- 
mirable; but  portions  of  it  were  phrased  with 
an  exasperating  bluntness,  and  certain  direc- 
tions were  lacking  in  diplomatic  prudence. 
This  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  the  irrita- 
tion under  which  he  wrote.  It  was  Mr.  Sew- 
ard's ordinary  habit  personally  to  read  his 
dispatches  to  the  President  before  sending 
them.  Mr.  Lincoln,  detecting  the  defects  of 
the  paper,  retained  it,  and  after  careful  scru- 
tiny made  such  material  corrections  and  altera- 
tions with  his  own  hand  as  took  from  it  all 
offensive  crudeness  without  in  the  least  low- 
ering its  tone,  but,  on  the  contrary,  greatly 
increasing  its  dignity.
4o4  ABRAHAM  LIXCOLN: 
seward's    original    dispatch,   showing   mr.  Lincoln's   corrections. 
[All  words  by  Lincoln  in  margin  or  in  text  are  in  italics.    All  matter  between  brackets  was  marked  out.] 
No.   10.  Department  of  State, 
Washington,  May  21st,  1861. 
Sir: 
Mr.  Dallas  in  a  brief  dispatch  of  May  2d  (No.  ^^)  tells  us  that  Lord 
John  Russell  recently  requested  an  interview  with  him  on  account  of  the 
solicitude  which  His  Lordship  felt  concerning  the  effect  of  certain  meas- 
ures represented  as  likely  to  be  adopted  by  the  President.  In  that  conver- 
sation the  British  Secretary  told  Mr.  Dallas  that  the  three  Representatives 
of  the  Southern  Confederacy  were  then  in  London,  that  Lord  John  Russell 
had  not  yet  seen  them,  but  that  he  was  not  unwilling  to  see  them 
unofficially.  He  farther  informed  Mr.  Dallas  that  an  understanding  exists 
between  the  British  and  French  Governments  which  would  lead  both  to 
take  one  and  the  same  course  as  to  recognition.  His  Lordship  then 
referred  to  the  rumor  of  a  meditated  blockade  by  us  of  Southern  ports,  and 
a  discontinuance  of  them  as  ports  of  entry.  Mr.  Dallas  answered  that  he 
knew  nothing  on  those  topics  and  therefore  could  say  nothing.  He  added 
that  you  were  expected  to  arrive  in  two  weeks.  Upon  this  statement 
Lord  John  Russell  acquiesced  in  the  expediency  of  waiting  for  the  full 
knowledge  you  were  expected  to  bring. 
Mr.  Dallas  transmitted  to  us  some  newspaper  reports  of  Ministerial 
explanations  made  in  Parliament. 
You  will  base  no  proceedings  on  parliamentary  debates  farther  than  to 
seek  explanations  when  necessary  and  communicate  them  to  this  Depart- 
Le.avc  out.  ment.     [We  intend  to  have  a  clear  and  simple  record  of  whatever  issue 
may  arise  between  us  and  Great  Britain.] 
The  President  [is  surprised  and  grieved]  regrets  that  Mr.  Dallas  did  not 
Leave  out.  be-  protest  against   the   proposed   unofficial  intercourse  between  the  British 
cause  it  does  not  Government  and  the  missionaries  of  the  insurgents,  [as  well  as  against  the 
appear  that  such  demand  for  explanations  made  by  the   British  Government].     It  is  due 
explanations  were  however  to  Mr.  Dallas  to  say  that  our  instructions  had  been  given  only 
demanded.  to  you  and  not  to  him,  and  that  his  loyalty  and  fidelity,  too  rare  in  these 
Leave  out.  times    [among    our  late    representatives   abroad    are   confessed    and]   are 
appreciated. 
Intercourse  of  any  kind  with  the  so-called  Commissioners  is  liable  to  be 
construed  as  a  recognition  of  the  authority  which  appointed  them.  Such 
intercourse  would  be  none  the  less  [wrongful]  hurtful  to  us,  for  being  called 
unofficial,  and  it  might  be  even  more  injurious,  because  we  should  have  no 
means  of  knowing  what  points  might  be  resolved  by  it.  Moreover,  un- 
official intercourse  is  useless  and  meaningless,  if  it  is  not  expected  to  ripen 
into  official  intercourse  and  direct  recognition.  It  is  left  doubtful  here 
whether  the  proposed  unofficial  intercourse  has  yet  actually  begun.  Your 
own  [present]  antecedent  instructions  are  deemed  explicit  enough,  and  it  is 
hoped  that  you  have  not  misunderstood  them.  You  will  in  any  event  desist 
from  all  intercourse  whatever,  unofficial  as  well  as  official  with  the  British 
Government,  so  long  as  it  shall  continue  intercourse  of  either  kind  with  the 
te  out.  domestic  enemies  of  this  country,  [confining  yourself  simply  to  a  delivery 
of  a  copy  of  this  paper  to  the  Secretary  of  State.     After  doing  this]*  you 
*  When    inter-   will  communicate  with  this  Department  and  receive  farther  directions. 
■'/have  Lord  John  Russell  has  informed  us  of  an  understanding  between  the 
fen  arrested  for  British  and  French  Governments  that  they  will  act  together  in  regard  to 
our  affairs.  This  communication  however  loses  something  of  its  value 
from  the  circumstance  that  the  communication  was  withheld  until  after 
knowledge  of  the  fact  had  been  acquired  by  us  from  other  sources.  We 
know  also  another  fact  that  has  not  yet  been  officially  communicated  to 
us,  namely  that  other  European  States  are  apprized  by  France  and  Eng- 
land of  their  agreement  and  are  expected  to  concur  with  or  follow  them  in 
whatever  measures  they  adopt  on  the  subject  of  recognition.  The  United 
States  have  been  impartial  and  just  in  all  their  conduct  towards  the  several
A    HISTORY.  405 
nations  of  Europe.  They  will  not  complain  however  of  the  combination 
now  announced  by  the  two  leading  powers,  although  they  think  they  had 
a  right  to  expect  a  more  independent  if  not  a  more  friendly  course  from 
each  of  them.  You  will  take  no  notice  of  that  or  any  other  alliance. 
Whenever  the  European  governments  shall  see  fit  to  communicate  directly 
with  us  we  shall  be  as  heretofore  frank  and  explicit  in  our  reply. 
As  to  the  blockade,  you  will  say  that  by  [the]  our  own  laws  fof  nature] 
and  the  laws  of  nature  and  the  laws  of  nations  this  government  has  a  clear 
right  to  suppress  insurrection.  An  exclusion  of  commerce  from  national 
ports  which  have  been  seized  by  the  insurgents,  in  the  equitable  form  of 
blockade,  is  a  proper  means  to  that  end.  You  will  [admit]  not  insist  that 
our  blockade  is  [not]  to  be  respected  if  it  be  not  maintained  by  a  competent 
force — but  passing  by  that  question  as  not  now  a  practical  or  at  least  an 
urgent  one  you  will  add  that  [it]  the  blockade  is  now  and  it  will  continue  to 
be  so  maintained,  and  therefore  we  expect  it  to  be  respected  by  Great 
Britain.  You  will  add  that  we  have  already  revoked  the  exequatur  of  a 
Russian  Consul  who  had  enlisted  in  the  Military  service  of  the  insurgents, 
and  we  shall  dismiss  or  demand  the  recall  of  every  foreign  agent,  Con- 
sular or  Diplomatic,  who  shall  either  disobey  the  Federal  laws  or  disown 
the  Federal  authority. 
As  to  the  recognition  of  the  so-called  Southern  Confederacy  it  is  not  to 
be  made  a  subject  of  technical  definition.  It  is  of  course  [quasi]  direct  recog- 
nition to  publish  an  acknowledgment  of  the  sovereignty  and  independence 
of  a  new  power.  It  is  [quasi]  direct  recognition  to  receive  its  ambassadors, 
Ministers,  agents,  or  commissioners  officially.  A  concession  of  belligerent 
rights  is  liable  to  be  construed  as  a  recognition  of  them.  No  one  of  these 
proceedings  will  [be  borne]  pass  [unnoticed]  unquestioned  by  the  United 
States  in  this  case. 
Hitherto  recognition  has  been  moved  only  on  the  assumption  that  the 
so-called  Confederate  States  are  de  facto  a  self-sustaining  power.  Now 
after  long  forbearance,  designed  to  soothe  discontent  and  avert  the  need 
of  civil  war,  the  land  and  naval  forces  of  the  United  States  have  been  put 
in  motion  to  repress  the  insurrection.  The  true  character  of  the  pre- 
tended new  State  is  at  once  revealed.  It  is  seen  to  be  a  Power  existing  in 
pronunciamento  only.  It  has  never  won  a  field.  It  has  obtained  no  forts 
that  were  not  virtually  betrayed  into  its  hands  or  seized  in  breach  of  trust. 
It  commands  not  a  single  port  on  the  coast  nor  any  highway  out  from  its 
pretended  Capital  by  land.  Under  these  circumstances  Great  Britain  is 
called  upon  to  intervene  and  give  it  body  and  independence  by  resisting  our 
measures  of  suppression.  British  recognition  would  be  British  intervention 
to  create  within  our  own  territory  a  hostile  state  by  overthrowing  this  Repub- 
lic itself.  [When  this  act  of  intervention  is  distinctly  performed,  we  from  that  [Leave  01/t.] 
hour  shall  cease  to  be  friends  and  become  once  more,  as  we  have  twice 
before  been  forced  to  be  enemies  of  Great  Britain.] 
As  to  the  treatment  of  privateers  in  the  insurgent  service,  you  will  say 
that  this  is  a  question  exclusively  our  own.  We  treat  them  as  pirates. 
They  are  our  own  citizens,  or  persons  employed  by  our  citizens,  preying 
on  the  commerce  of  our  country.  If  Great  Britain  shall  choose  to  recog- 
nize them  as  lawful  belligerents,  and  give  them  shelter  from  our  pursuit 
and  punishment,  the  laws  of  nations  afford  an  adequate  and  proper  rem- 
edy, [and  we  shall  avail  ourselves  of  it.  And  while  you  need  not  to  say  t/iis 
in  advance,  be  sure  that  you  say  nothing  inconsistent  with  it.] 
Happily,  however,  Her  Britannic  Majesty's  Government  can  avoid  all 
these  difficulties.  It  invited  us  in  1856  to  accede  to  the  declaration  of  the 
Congress  of  Paris,  of  which  body  Great  Britain  was  herself  a  member, 
abolishing  privateering  everywhere  in  all  cases  and  for  ever.  You  already 
have  our  authority  to  propose  to  her  our  accession  to  that  declaration.  If 
she  refuse  to  receive  it,  it  can  only  be  because  she  is  willing  to  become 
the  patron  of  privateering  when  aimed  at  our  devastation. 
These  positions  are  not  elaborately  defended  now,  because  to  vindicate 
them  would  imply  a  possibility  of  our  waiving  them.
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
We  arc  not  insensible  of  the   grave  importance  of  this  occasion.     We 
.    see  how,  upon  the  result  of  the  debate  in  which  we  are  engaged,  a  war 
-'  it   may  ensue  between  the  United  States,  and  one,  two,  or  even  more  Euro- 
pean nations.     War  in  any  case  is  as  exceptionable  from  the  habits  as  it 
s  is  revolting  from  the  sentiments  of  the  American  people.     But  if  it  come 
-    it  will  be  fully  seen  that  it  results  from  the  action  of  Great  Britain,  not  our 
\\andiwt  own,  that  Great  Britain  will  have  decided  to  fraternize  with  our  domestic 
[sic]  to  be  read  or  enemy,  either  without  waiting  to  hear  from  you  our  remonstrances,  and 
one.]    our  warnings,  or  after  having   heard  them.     War  in  defense  of  national 
life  is  not  immoral,  and  war  in   defense  of  independence  is  an  inevitable 
part  of  the  discipline  of  nations. 
The  dispute  will  be  between  the  European  and  the  American  branches 
of  the  British  race.  All  who  belong  to  that  race  will  especially  deprecate 
it,  as  they  ought.  It  may  well  be  believed  that  men  of  every  race  and 
kindred  will  deplore  it.  A  war  not  unlike  it  between  the  same  parties 
occurred  at  the  close  of  the  last  century.  Europe  atoned  by  forty  years 
of  suffering  for  the  error  that  Great  Britain  committed  in  provoking 
that  contest.  If  that  nation  shall  now  repeat  the  same  great  error  the 
social  convulsions  which  will  follow  may  not  be  so  long  but  they  will  be 
more  general.  When  they  shall  have  ceased,  it  will,  we  think,  be  seen, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  fortunes  of  other  nations,  that  it  is  not  the 
United  States  that  will  have  come  out  of  them  with  its  precious  Constitu- 
tion altered  or  its  honestly  obtained  dominion  in  any  degree  abridged. 
Great  Britain  has  but  to  wait  a  few  months  and  all  her  present  inconven- 
iences will  cease  with  all  our  own  troubles.  If  she  take  a  different  course 
she  will  calculate  for  herself  the  ultimate  as  well  as  the  immediate  conse- 
quences, and  will  consider  what  position  she  will  hold  when  she  shall  have 
forever  lost  the  sympathies  and  the  affections  of  the  only  nation  on  whose 
sympathies  and  affections  she  has  a  natural  claim.  In  making  that  calcu- 
lation she  will  do  well  to  remember  that  in  the  controversy  she  proposes 
to  open  we  shall  be  actuated  by  neither  pride,  nor  passion,  nor  cupidity, 
nor  ambition;  but  we  shall  stand  simply  on  the  principle  of  self-preserva- 
tion, and  that  our  cause  will  involve  the  independence  of  nations,  and  the 
rights  of  human  nature. 
I  am  Sir,  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 
Charles   Francis  Adams,  Esq..  etc.," etc.,  etc.  W.   H.   S. 
fit  is  quite  impossible  to  reproduce  in  type  rection  to  deliver  a  copy  of  it  to  the  British 
the  exact  form  of  the  manuscript  of  the  dis-  foreign   office  without  further  explanation,  or 
:<  h  with  nil  its  interlineations  and  correc-  without  requesting  a  reply  in  a  limited  time. 
:   but  the  foregoing  shows  those  made  by  Such  a  course  would  have  left  the  American 
Mr.    Lincoln  with  sufficient  accuracy.    Such  minister  in  a  position  of  uncertainty  whether 
ional  verbal  alterations  of  Mr.  Seward's  he  was  still  in  diplomatic  relations  or  not,  and 
nerely  corrected  ordinary  slips  of  the  pen  whether  the  point  had  been  reached  which 
or  errors  of  the  copyist  are  not  noted.    When  would  justify  him  in  breaking  off  intercourse ; 
ident  returned  the  manuscript  to  his  nor  would  he  have  had  any  further  pretext 
ds,   Mr.   Seward   somewhat   changed   the  upon  which   to   ascertain   the   disposition    or 
rm   of  the  dispatch  by  prefixing  to  it  two  intention    of    the     British     Government.     It 
ntroductory   paragraphs    in  which    he  would  have  been  wiser  to  close  the  legation 
bodied,  in  his  own  phraseology,  the  Presi-  at   once  and  return    to    America.      Happily, 
s   direction    that    the   paper   was   to    be  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  the   weak  point  of  the  in- 
ely  a  confidential   instruction   not  to  be  struction,  and  by  his  changes  not  only  kept 
d  or  shown  to  any  one,  and  that  he  should  it  within  the  range  of  personal  and  diplomatic 
ice  say  anything  inconsistent  with  courtesy,  but  left   Mr.  Adams  free  to  choose 
5  also  rendered  unnecessary  the  for  himself  the  best  way   of    managing    the 
dent's  direction  to  omit  the  last  two  para-  delicate  situation. 
hs,  and  accordingly  they  remained  in  the        The  main  point  in  question,  namely,  thatthe 
dispatch  as  finally  sent.)  United  States  would  not  suffer  Great  Britain 
to  carry  on  a  double  diplomacy  with  Washing- 
'1  he  mere  perusal  of  this  document  shows  ton  and  with  Montgomery  at  the  same  time  — 
how  ill-advised  was  Mr.  Seward's  original  di-  that  if  she  became  the  active  friend  of  the  re-
A    IT/S TORY. 
407 
bellion  she  must  become  the  enemy  of  the 
United  States,  was  partly  disposed  of  before 
the  arrival  of  the  amended  dispatch  at  Lon- 
don. Several  days  before  it  was  written  Mr. 
Adams  had  his  first  official  interview  (May 
18)  with  Lord  John  Russell,  and  in  the  usual 
formal  phraseology,  but  with  emphatic  dis- 
tinctness, told  him  that  if  there  existed  on  the 
part  of  Great  Britain  "  an  intention  more  or 
less  marked  to  extend  the  struggle"  by  en- 
couragement in  any  form  to  the  rebels,  "  I 
was  bound  to  acknowledge  in  all  frankness 
that  in  that  contingency  I  had  nothing  further 
left  to  do  in  Great  Britain."  The  British  min- 
ister denied  any  intention  to  aid  the  rebellion, 
and  explained  that  the  Queen's  proclamation 
was  issued  merely  to  define  their  own  attitude 
of  strict  neutrality,  so  that  British  naval  offi- 
cers and  other  officials  might  understand  how 
to  regulate  their  conduct.* 
When  the  dispatch  finally  reached  Mr. 
Adams,  he  obtained  another  interview  with 
Lord  John  Russell,  to  ascertain  definitely 
the  status  of  the  rebel  commissioners  in 
London.  He  told  him  that  a  continuance 
of  their  apparent  relation  with  the  British 
Government  "could  scarcely  fail  to  be  view- 
ed by  us  as  hostile  in  spirit,  and  to  require 
some  corresponding  action  accordingly." 
Lord  John  Russell  replied  that  he  had  only 
seen  the  rebel  commissioners  twice,  and 
"had  no  expectation  of  seeing  them  any 
more."f 
So  early  as  the  year  1854,  when  the  shadow 
of  the  Crimean  war  was  darkening  over 
Europe,  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
submitted  to  the  principal  maritime  nations 
the  propositions,  first,  that  free  ships  should 
make  free  goods,  and  second,  that  neutral 
property  on  board  an  enemy's  vessel  should 
not  be  subject  to  confiscation  unless  contra- 
band of  war.  These  propositions  were  not 
immediately  accepted,  but  when  the  powers 
assembled  in  congress  at  Paris  in  1856,  for 
the  purpose  of  making  peace,  Great  Britain 
and  the  other  nations  which  took  part  in  the 
congress  gave  them  their  assent,  adding  to 
them,  as  principles  of  international  law,  the 
abolition  of  privateering  and  the  obligation 
that  blockades,  to  be  respected,  must  be  effect- 
ive. The  adhesion  of  the  United  States  hav- 
ing been  invited  to  these  four  propositions, 
the  Government  of  that  day  answered  that 
they  would  accede  to  them  if  the  other  powers 
would  accept  a  fifth  principle  —  that  the  goods 
of  private  persons,  non-combatants,  should  be 
exempt  from  confiscation  in  maritime  war. 
This  proposition  was  rejected  by  the  British 
Government,  and  the  negotiations  were  then 
suspended  until  after  Mr.  Lincoln  became 
President.  A  few  weeks  after  his  inauguration 
the  suspended  negotiations  were  taken  up  by 
Mr.  Seward,  who  directed  Mr.  Adams  to 
signify  to  the  British  Government  that  the 
United  States  were  now  ready  to  accept  with- 
out reserve  the  four  propositions  adopted  at 
the  Congress  of  Paris.  £  After  some  delay, 
Lord  John  Russell  remarked  to  Mr.  Adams 
that  in  case  of  the  adhesion  of  the  United 
States  to  the  Declaration  of  Paris,  the  engage- 
ment on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  would  be 
prospective  and  would  not  invalidate  any- 
thing done.  This  singular  reserve  Mr.  Adams 
reported  to  his  Government,  and  was  directed 
by  Mr.  Seward  to  ask  some  further  elucida- 
tion of  its  meaning.  But  before  this  dispatch 
was  received,  the  strange  attitude  of  the  Brit- 
ish Government  was  explained  by  Lord  Rus- 
sell's §  submitting  to  Mr.  Adams  a  draft  of 
a  supplementary  declaration  on  the  part  of 
England  that  her  Majesty  did  not  intend,  by 
the  projected  convention  for  the  accession  of 
the  United  States  to  the  articles  of  the  Con- 
gress of  Paris,  "  to  undertake  any  engagement 
which  shall  have  any  bearing,  direct  or  in- 
direct, on  the  internal  differences  now  prevail- 
ing in  the  United  States."  The  President, 
having  been  informed  of  this  proposed  decla- 
ration, at  once  instructed  Mr.  Adams  ||  that  it 
was  inadmissible,  as  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  could  not  accede  to  this  great 
international  act  except  upon  the  same  equal 
footing  upon  which  all  the  other  parties  stood. 
It  afterward  transpired  that  the  British  Gov- 
ernment had,  at  the  same  time  that  these 
important  negotiations  were  going  on  with 
the  Government  of  the  United  States,  ap- 
proached the  new  Confederate  Government 
upon  the  same  subject,  sending  communica- 
tions in  a  clandestine  manner  through  the 
British  Legation  in  Washington  to  Mr. 
Bunch,  the  English  consul  at  Charleston, 
through  whom  they  were  in  the  same  furtive 
and  unofficial  manner  laid  before  the  author- 
ities at  Richmond.  The  French  Government 
joined  in  this  proceeding,  at  the  invitation  of 
England.  Mr.  Davis  at  once  recognized  the 
great  importance  of  such  quasi-recognition 
of  his  Government,  and  he  himself  drafted 
resolutions  declaring  the  purpose  of  the  Con- 
federates to  observe  the  principles  towards 
neutrals  embodied  in  the  second  and  third 
rules  of  the  Declaration  of  Paris  —  that  block- 
ades to  be  binding   must   be   effectual,  but 
*  Adams  to  Seward,  May  21,  1S61. 
t  Adams  to  Seward,  June  14,  1S61. 
t  See  Mr.  Seward's  dispatch  to  Mr.  Adams..  April 
24,  1861 ;  Seward  to  Adams,  May  17.  1861  :  and  papers 
relating  to  Treaty  of  Washington,  Vol.  I.,  p.  33,  et 
seq. 
$  Lord  John  Russell  was  raised  to  the  peerage, 
under  the  title  of  Earl  Russell,  July  30,  1S61. 
i|  Seward  to  Adams,  Sept.  7,  1861.
408 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
that  they  "maintained  the  right  of  priva- 
teering."* These  resolutions  were  passed  in 
the  Confederate  Congress,  and  Mr.  Bunch, 
conveying  the  news  of  this  result  to  Lord 
Lyons,  said: 
The  wishes  of  her  Majesty's  Government  would 
seem  to  have  been  fully  complied  with,  for  as  no  pro- 
5  made  that  the  Confederate  Government 
should  abolish  privateering,  it  could  not  be  expected 
that  they  should  do  so  of  their  own  accord,  particularly 
is  the  arm  upon  which  they  most  rely  for  the 
injury  of  the  extended  commerce  of  their  enemy. 
The  American  Government  held  itself  justly 
ieved,  therefore,  that  its  accession  to  the 
Declaration  of  Paris  was  impeded  by  condi- 
tions which  it  could  not,  consistently  with  its 
dignity,  accept;  that  the  British  Government 
secretly  negotiating  at  the  same  time  with 
the  insurgents  upon  the  same  subject ;  that 
while  the  United  States  wTere  invited  to  ac- 
cede to  all  four  of  the  articles  of  Paris  the 
Confederate  Government  wras  given  its  choice 
by  the  British  Cabinet  to  accept  only  three. 
The  Government  of  the  United  States  said 
afterward  in  its  case  at  Geneva  that 
The  practical  effect  of  this  diplomacy,  had  it  been 
successful,  would  have  been  the  destruction  of  the 
commerce  of  the  United  States  or  its  transfer  to  the 
British  flag,  and  the  loss  of  the  principal  resource  of 
the  United  States  upon  the  ocean  should  a  continua- 
tion of  this  course  of  insincere  neutrality  unhappily 
force  the  United  States  into  a  war.  Great  Britain  was 
thus  to  gain  the  benefit  to  its  neutral  commerce  of  the 
recognition  of  the  second  and  third  articles,  the  rebel 
privateers  and  cruisers  were  to  be  protected  and  their 
deva>tntion  legalized,  while  the  United  States  were  to 
be  deprived  of  a  dangerous  weapon  of  assault  upon 
Great  Britain. 
The  action  of  Mr.  Bunch  in  this  matter  was 
properly  regarded  by  the  President  as  a  vio- 
lation of  the  laws  of  the  United  States  to  which 
as  accredited,  and  his  exequatur  was  re- 
voked. A  long  discussion  followed,  in  which 
neither  side  succeeded  in  convincing  the  other 
of  its  wrong;  and  the  next  year,  pending  an 
attack  upon  Charleston,  a  British  man-of-war 
entered  that  port  and  took  Mr.  Bunch  away. 
'JUL    ';  TRENT"    AFFAIR. 
The  public  mind  would  probably  have 
dwelt  with  more  impatience  and  dissatisfac- 
tion upon  the  present  and  prospective  inaction 
of  the  armies  but  for  an  event  which  turned 
all  thoughts  with  deep  solicitude  into  an  en- 
tirely different  channel.  This  was  what  is 
known  as  the  Trent  affair,  which  seriously 
threatened  to  embroil  the  nation  in  a  war 
with  Great  Britain.    The  Confederate  Gov- 
*  Papers  relating  to  the  Treaty  of  Washington, 
Vol.  I.,  p.  36. 
eminent  had  appointed  two  new  envoys  to 
proceed  to  Europe  and  renew  its  application 
for  recognition,  which  its  former  diplomatic 
agents  had  so  far  failed  to  obtain.  For  this 
duty  ex-Senator  Mason  of  Virginia  and  ex- 
Senator  Shdell  of  Louisiana  were  selected,  on 
account  of  their  political  prominence,  as  well 
as  their  recognized  abilities.  On  the  block- 
ade runner  Theodora,  they,  with  their  secre- 
taries and  families,  succeeded  in  eluding  the 
Union  cruisers  around  Charleston,  and  in 
reaching  Havana,  Cuba.  Deeming  them- 
selves beyond  danger  of  capture,  they  made 
no  concealment  of  their  presence  or  mission, 
but  endeavored  rather  to  "  magnify  their  of- 
fice." The  British  consul  showed  them  marked 
attention,  and  they  sought  to  be  presented 
officially  to  the  Captain-General  of  Cuba; 
but  that  wary  functionary  explained  that  he 
received  them  only  as  "  distinguished  gentle- 
men." They  took  passage  on  board  the 
British  mail  steamer  Trent  for  St.  Thomas, 
intending  there  to  take  the  regular  packet  to 
England. 
Captain  Wilkes,  commanding  the  United 
States  war  steamer  San  Jacinto,  just  returned 
from  an  African  cruise,  heard  of  the  circum- 
stance, and,  going  to  Havana,  fully  informed 
himself  of  the  details  of  their  intended  route. 
The  Trent,  he  learned,  was  to  leave  Havana 
on  November  7.  That  day  found  him  stationed 
in  the  old  Bahama  channel,  near  the  northern 
coast  of  Cuba,  where  he  had  reason  to  believe 
she  would  pass.  At  about  noon  of  the  8th 
the  lookout  announced  the  approach  of  the 
Trent,  and  when  she  was  sufficiently  near,  the 
San  Jacinto  fired  a  round-shot  across  her 
course,  and  displayed  the  American  colors. 
The  British  steamer  did  not  seem  disposed 
to  accept  the  warning  and  failed  to  slacken 
her  speed,  whereupon  Captain  Wilkes  ordered 
a  shell  to  be  fired  across  her  bows,  which  at 
once  brought  her  to.  Lieutenant  Fairfax,  with 
two  officers  and  a  guard  of  marines,  left  the  San 
Jacinto  and  rowed  to  the  mail  steamer;  the 
lieutenant  mounted  to  the  deck  alone,  leaving 
his  officers  and  men  in  the  boat.  He  was 
shown  to  the  quarter-deck,  where  he  met  Cap- 
tain Moirofthe  Trent,  and,  informing  him  who 
he  was,  asked  to  see  his  passenger-list.  Captain 
Moir  declined  to  show  it.  Lieutenant  Fairfax 
then  told  him  of  his  information  that  the  rebel 
commissioners  were  on  board  and  that  he  must 
satisfy  himself  on  that  point  before  allowing 
the  steamer  to  proceed.  The  envoys  and  their 
secretaries  came  up,  and,  hearing  their  names 
mentioned,  asked  if  they  were  wanted.  Lieu- 
tenant Fairfax  now  made  known  in  full  the 
purport  of  his  orders  and  the  object  of  his 
visit. 
The   altercation   and   commotion  called  a
A    HISTORY. 
409 
CHARLES    FRANCIS    ADAMS.       (FROM    A     PHOTOGRAPH     BY    MAYALL,    LENT     BY    THEODORE     F.     DWIGHT,    ESQ.) 
considerable  number  of  passengers  around 
the  group.  All  of  them  manifested  open  se- 
cession sympathy,  and  some  indulged  in  abus- 
ive language  so  loud  and  demonstrative  that 
the  lieutenant's  two  officers,  and  six  or  eight 
armed  men  from  the  boat,  without  being 
called,  mounted  to  the  lieutenant's  assist- 
ance. In  these  unfriendly  demonstrations  the 
mail  agent  of  the  Trent,  one  Captain  Williams, 
a  retired  British  naval  officer,  made  himself 
especially  conspicuous  with  the  declaration 
that  he  was  the  "  Queen's  representative," 
and  with  various  threats  of  the  consequences 
of  the  affair.  The  captain  of  the  Trent  firmly 
but  quietly  opposed  all  compliance  or  search, 
and  the  envoys  and  their  secretaries  protested 
Vol.  XXXVL— 58. 
against  arrest,  whereupon  Lieutenant  Fairfax 
sent  one  of  his  officers  back  to  the  San  Jacinto 
for  additional  force.  In  perhaps  half  an  hour 
the  second  boat  returned  from  the  San  Ja- 
cinto with  some  twenty-four  additional  men. 
Lieutenant  Fairfax  now  proceeded  to  execute 
his  orders  without  actual  violence,  and  with 
all  the  politeness  possible  under  the  circum- 
stances. Mason  and  Slidell,  and  their  secre- 
taries, foreseeing  the  inevitable,  had  retired 
to  their  state-rooms  to  pack  their  luggage  : 
thither  it  was  necessary  to  follow  them,  and 
there  the  presence  of  the  families  of  Slidell 
and  Eustis  created  some  slight  confusion,  and 
a  few  armed  marines  entered  the  cabin,  but 
were  sent  back.    The  final  act  of  capture  and
4io 
ABRAHAM  LIXCOLN: 
removal  was  then  carried  out  with  formal  stage 
solemnity.* 
Captain  Wilkes's  first  instruction  to  Lieu- 
tenant Fairfax  was  to  seize  the  Trent  as  a  prize, 
but.  as  he  afterward  explained: 
I  forbore  to  seize  her,  however,  in  consequence  of 
mv  being  so  reduced  in  officers  and  crew,  and  the  de- 
rangement it  would  cause  innocent  persons,  there  be- 
ing a  large  number  of  passengers,  who  would  havebeen 
put  to  great  loss  and  inconvenience  as  well  as  disap- 
pointment from  the  interruption  it  would  have  caused 
them  in  not  being  able  to  join  the  steamer  from  St. 
Thomas  for  Europe.t 
The  Trent  was  allowed  to  proceed  on  her 
voyage,  while  the  San  Jacinto  steamed  away 
for  Boston,  where  she  arrived  on  the  24th  of 
REAR-ADMIRAL    CHARLES     WILKES,     U.    S. 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY    ANTHONY.) 
November,  and  transferred  her  prisoners  to 
Fort  Warren. 
country  rang  with    exultation 
The 
arret 
whole 
"  When  the  marines  and  some  armed  men  had  been 
formed/' reports  Lieutenant  Fairfax,"just  outside  of  the 
ain  deck  cabin,  where  these  four  gentlemen  had  gone 
to  pack  up  their  baggage,  I  renewed  my  efforts  to  in- 
them  to  accompany  me  on  board,  they  still  refus- 
ompany  me  unless  force  was  applied.   I  called 
to  my  assistance  four  or  five  officers,  and  first  taking 
hold  of  Mr.  Mason's  shoulder,  with  another  officer  on 
ide,  I  went  as  far  as  the  gang-way  of  the 
teamcr,  and  delivered  him  over  to   Lieutenant  Greer, 
to  be   placed  in   the  boat.     I    then  returned  for   Mr. 
Slidell,  who  insisted  that   f  mint  apply  considerable 
force   to  get  him  to  go  with   me.    Calling  in  at  last 
three  officer-,,  he  also  was  taken  in  charge  and  handed 
over  to  Mr.  Greer.    Mr.  McFarlo.nd  and   Mr.  Eustis, 
after  protesting,  went  quietly  into  the  boat."    "  There 
was  a  great  deal  of  excitement  on  board  at  this  time," 
says  another  report,  "  and  the  officers  and  passengers 
over  the  exploit.  The  feeling  was  greatly 
heightened  by  the  general  public  indignation 
at  the  unfriendliness  England  had  so  far  mani- 
fested to  the  Union  cause;  but  perhaps  more 
especially  because  the  two  persons  seized  had 
been  among  the  most  bitter  and  active  of  the 
secession  conspirators.  The  public  press  lauded 
Captain  Wilkes,  Boston  gave  him  a  banquet, 
and  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  wrote  him  a 
letter  of  emphatic  approval.  He  congratu- 
lated him  "  on  the  great  public  service  "  he 
had  rendered  in  the  capture,  and  expressed 
only  the  reservation  that  his  conduct  in  omit- 
ting to  capture  the  vessel  must  not  be  allowed 
to  constitute  a  precedent.  \  When  Congress 
met  on  the  2d  of  December  following,  the 
House  of  Representatives  immediately  passed 
a  resolution,  without  a  dissenting  voice,  thank- 
ing Captain  Wilkes  for  his  "brave,  adroit,  and 
patriotic  conduct";  while  by  other  resolutions 
the  President  was  requested  to  order  the  pris- 
oners into  close  confinement,  in  retaliation  for 
similar  treatment  by  the  rebels  of  certain  pris- 
oners of  war.  The  whole  strong  current  of 
public  feeling  approved  the  act  without  quali- 
fication, and  manifested  an  instant  and  united 
readiness  to  defend  it. 
President  Lincoln's  usual  cool  judgment  at 
once  recognized  the  dangers  and  complica- 
tions that  might  grow  out  of  the  occurrence.  A 
well-known  writer  has  recorded  what  he  said 
in  a  confidential  interview  on  the  day  the  news 
was  received  : 
I  fear  the  traitors  will  prove  to  be  white  elephants. 
We  must  stick  to  American  principles  concerning  the 
rights  of  neutrals.  We  fought  Great  Britain  for  insist- 
ing, by  theory  and  practice,  on  the  right  to  do  precisely 
what  Captain  Wilkes  has  done.  If  Great  Britain  shall 
now  protest  against  the  act,  and  demand  their  release, 
we  must  give  them  up,  apologize  for  the  act  as  a  viola- 
tion of  our  doctrines,  and  thus  forever  bind  her  over  to 
keep  the  peace  in  relation  to  neutrals,  and  so  acknowl- 
edge that  she  has  been  wrong  for  sixty  years.  §  || 
The  Cabinet  generally  coincided  in  express- 
ing gratification  and  approval.  The  interna- 
tional questions  involved  came  upon  them  so 
suddenly  that  they  were  not  ready  with  de- 
ofthe  steamer  were  addressing  us  by  numerous  oppro- 
brious epithets,  such  as  calling  us  pirates,  villains, 
traitors,  etc."  (Report  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Dec.  2, 
1861.)  The  families  of  Slidell  and  Eustis  had  mean- 
while been  tendered  the  use  of  the  cabin  of  the  San 
Jacinto,  if  they  preferred  to  accompany  the  prisoners ; 
but  they  declined,  and  proceeded  in  the  Trent. 
t  Report  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Dec.  2,  1861. 
\  Welles,  in  "  The  Galaxy,"  May,  1873,  pp.  647-649. 
§  Lossing,  "  Civil  War  in  the  United  States,"  Vol. 
II.,  p.  156. 
||  Secretary  of  the  Navy  Welles  corroborated  the 
statement  in  "The  Galaxy  "for  May,  1873,  p.  647:  "The 
President,  with  whom  I  had  an  interview  immediately 
on  receiving  information  that  the  emissaries  were  capt- 
ured and  on  board  the  San  Jacinto,  before  consultation 
with  any  other  member  of  the  Cabinet  discussed  with 
me  some  of  the  difficult  points  presented.     His  chief
A   HISTORY. 
411 
cided  opinions  concerning  the  law 
and  policy  of  the  case ;  besides,  the 
true  course  obviously  was  to  await 
the  action  of  Great  Britain. 
The  passengers  on  board  the 
Tre?it,  as  well  as  the  reports  of  her 
officers,  carried  the  news  of  the  capt- 
ure directly  to  England,  where  the 
incident  raised  a  storm  of  public 
opinion  even  more  violent  than  that 
in  the  United  States,  and  very  nat- 
urally on  the  opposite  side.  The 
Government  of  England  relied  for 
its  information  mainly  upon  the 
official  report  of  the  mail  agent, 
Captain  Williams,  who  had  made 
himself  so  officious  as  the  "  Queen's 
representative,"  and  who,  true  to  the 
secession  sympathies  manifested  by 
him  on  shipboard,  gave  his  report  a 
strong  coloring  of  the  same  charac- 
ter. English  public  feeling,  popular 
and  official,  smarted  under  the  idea 
that  the  United  States  had  perpe- 
trated a  gross  outrage,  and  the  clamor 
for  instant  redress  left  no  room  for 
any  calm  consideration  of  the  far- 
reaching  questions  of  international 
law  involved.  Thereseemedlittlepos- 
sibility  that  a  war  could  be  avoided, 
and  England  began  immediate  prep- 
arations for  such  an  emergency.  Some  eight 
thousand  troops  were  dispatched  to  Canada, 
ships  were  ordered  to  join  the  English  squad- 
rons in  American  waters,  and  the  usual  procla 
JOHN     SLIDELL. 
—  of  a  rupture  and  war  with  America  which  it 
revealed,  made  a  profound  impression  upon 
both.  Prince  Albert  was  already  suffering 
from  the  illness  which  terminated  his  life  two 
mation  issued  prohibiting  the  export  of  arms    weeks  afterward.  This  new  and  grave  political 
and  certain  war  supplies. 
Two  days  after  the  receipt  of  the  news 
Lord  Palmerston,  in  a  note  to  the  Queen, 
formulated  the  substance  of  a  demand  to  be 
sent  to  the  United  States.    He  wrote : 
The  general  outline  and  tenor  which  appeared  to 
question  gave  him  a  sleepless  night.  "  He 
could  eat  no  breakfast,"  is  the  entry  in  her 
Majesty's  diary,  "and  looked  very  wretched. 
But  still  he  was  well  enough  on  getting  up 
to  make  a  draft  for  me  to  write  to  Lord  Rus- 
sell, in  correction  of  his  draft  to  Lord  Lyons, 
meVt  "thVopinions"orthe*  Cabinet  would  be^thaTthe  sent  me  yesterday,  which  Albert  did  not  ap- 
Washington  Government  should  be  told  that  what  prove." 
has  been  done  is  a  violation  of  international  law 
and  of  the  rights  of  Great  Britain,  and  that  your  Maj- 
esty's Government  trusts  that  the  act  will  be  disa- 
vowed, and  the  prisoners  set  free  and  restored  to 
British  protection;  and  that  Lord  Lyons  should  be 
instructed  that,  if  this  demand  is  refused,  he  should 
retire  from  the  United  States.* 
On  the  following  day  the  formal  draft  of  the 
proposed  dispatch  to  Lord  Lyons  was  laid 
before  the  Queen,  who,  together  with  Prince 
Albert,  examined  it  with  unusual  care.  The 
critical  character  of  the  communication,  and 
the  imminent  danger — the  almost  certainty 
anxiety — for  his  attention  had  never  been  turned  to 
admiralty  law  and  naval  captures  —  was  as  to  the  dis- 
position of  the  prisoners,  who,  to  use  his  own  expres- 
sion, would  be  elephants  on  our  hands,  that  we  could 
not  easily  dispose  of.    Public  indignation  was  so  over- 
The  Queen  returns  these  important  drafts,  which 
upon  the  whole  she  approves  ;  but  she  cannot  help 
feeling  that  the  main  draft  —  that  for  communication 
to  the  American  Government  —  is  somewhat  meager. 
She  should  have  liked  to  have  seen  the  expression  of  a 
hope  that  the  American  captain  did  not  act  under  instruc- 
tions, or,  if  he  did,  that  he  misapprehended  them  — 
that  the  United  States  Government  must  be  fully  aware 
that  the  British  Government  could  not  allow  its  flag 
to  be  insulted,  and  the  security  of  her  mail  communi- 
cations to  be  placed  in  jeopardy;  and  her  Majesty's 
Government  are  unwilling  to  believe  that  the  United 
States  Government  intended  wantonly  to  put  an  insult 
upon  this  country,  and  to  add  to  their  many  distressing 
whelming  against  the  chief  conspirators  that  he  feared 
it  would  be  difficult  to  prevent  severe  and  exemplary 
punishment,  which  he  always  deprecated." 
*  Martin,  "  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort,"  Vol.  V.,  p. 
420.
4> 
ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 
complications  by  forcing  a  question  of  dispute  upon 
u> ;  and  that  we  are  therefore  glad  to  believe  that  upon 
a  full  consideration  of  the  circumstances  of  the  un- 
doubted breach  of  international  law  committed,  they 
would  spontaneously  offer  such  redress  as  alone  could 
satisfy  this  country,  viz.,  the  restoration  of  the  unfor- 
tunate passengers  and  a  suitable  apology.  * 
It  proved  to  be  the  last  political  memoran- 
dum he  ever  wrote.    The  exact  language  of 
rrrection,  had  it  been  sent,  would  not  have 
been  well  calculated  to  soothe  the  irritated  sus- 
ceptibilities of  Americans.  To  the  charge  of 
•'  violating  international  law,"  to  which  Pal- 
merston's  cold  note  confined  itself,  he  added 
the  a<  -  usation  of"  wanton  insult,"  though  dis- 
claiming a  belief  that  it  was  intended.  But  a 
kind  and  pa<  ific  spirit  shines  through  his  mem- 
lurn  as  a  whole,  and  it  is  evident  that  both 
the  Queen  and  himself,  gratefully  remembering 
the  \vel<  ome  America  had  lately  accorded  the 
:  of  Wales,  shrank  from  the  prospect  of 
an  ot  In  this  the  Queen  unconsciously 
>nded  to  the  impulse  of  amity  and  good- 
will which  had  induced  the  President  to  modify 
so  materially  his  foreign  secretary's  dispatch  of 
the  2 1 st  of  May,  the  unpremeditated  thought 
of  the  ruler,  in  each  case,  being  at  once  wiser 
and  more  humane  than  the  first  intention  of 
the  diplomatists.  It  was  from  the  intention 
rather  than  the  words  of  the  Prince  that  the 
Queen's  ministers  took  their  cue 
and  modified  the  phraseology  into 
more  temperate  shape.  Earl  Russell 
wrote: 
Her  Majesty's  Government,  bearing  in 
mind  the  friendly  relations  which  have  long 
subsisted  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States,  are  willing  to  believe  that 
the  United  States'  naval  officer  who  com- 
mitted this  aggression  was  not  acting  in 
compliance  with  any  authority  from  his 
Government,  or  that  if  he  conceived  himself 
to  be  so  authorized,  he  greatly  misunder- 
stood the  instructions  he  had  received.  For 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  must 
be  fully  aware  that  the  British  Government 
could  not  allow  such  an  affront  to  the 
national  honor  to  pass  without  full  repa- 
ration, and  her  Majesty's  Government  are 
unwilling  to  believe  that  it  could  be  the 
deliberate  intention  of  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  unnecessarily  to  force 
into  discussion  between  the  two  Govern- 
ments a  question  of  so  grave  a  character,  and 
with  regard  to  which  the  whole  British 
nation  would  be  sure  to  entertain  such  una- 
nimity of  feeling.  Her  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment, therefore,  trust  that  when  this  matter 
shall  have  been  brought  under  the  consider- 
ation of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  that  Government  will  of  its  own  ac- 
cord offer  to  the  British  Government  such 
redress  as  alone  would  satisfy  the  British 
nation,  namely,  the  liberation  of  the  four 
gentlemen  and  their  delivery  to  your  Lord- 
ship, in  order  that  they  may  again  be  placed 
under  British  protection,  and  a  suitable 
apology  for  the  aggression  which  has  been 
committed.  Should  these  terms  not  be  offered  by 
Mr.  Seward,  you  will  propose  them  to  him.  t 
In  the  private  note  accompanying  this  for- 
mal dispatch  further  instruction  was  given, 
that  if  the  demand  were  not  substantially 
complied  with  in  seven  days,  Lord  Lyons 
should  break  off  diplomatic  relations  and  re- 
turn with  his  whole  legation  to  London.  Yet 
at  the  last  moment  Lord  Russell  himself  seems 
to  have  become  impressed  with  the  brow-beat- 
ing precipitancy  of  the  whole  proceeding,  for  he 
added  another  private  note,  better  calculated 
than  even  the  Queen's  modification  to  soften 
the  disagreeable  announcement  to  the  Ameri- 
can Government.    He  wrote  to  Lord  Lyons : 
My  wish  would  be,  that  at  your  first  interview  with 
Mr.  Seward  you  should  not  take  my  dispatch  with  you, 
but  should  prepare  him  for  it  and  ask  him  to  settle  it 
with  the  President  and  the  Cabinet  what  course  they 
will  propose.  The  next  time  you  should  bring  my  dis- 
patch and  read  it  to  him  fully.  If  he  asks  what  will  be 
the  consequence  of  his  refusing  compliance,  I  think 
you  should  say  that  you  wish  to  leave  him  and  the 
President  quite  free  to  take  their  own  course,  and  that 
you  desire  to  abstain  from  anything  like  menace. % 
422 
*  Martin,  "  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort,"  Vol.  V.,  p. 
tEarl  Russell  to  Lord  Lyons,  Nov.  30,  1861.    Brit- 
sh  "Blue  Book." 
+  Inclosure  in  No.  49.    British  "  Blue  Book."
A   HISTORY. 
4'3 
This  last  diplomatic  touch  reveals  that  the 
Ministry,  like  the  Queen,  shrank  from  war,  but 
that  it  desired  to  reap  all  the  advantages  of  a 
public  menace,  even  while  privately  disclaim- 
ing one. 
The  British  demand  reached  Washington 
on  the  19th  of  December.  It  happened,  for- 
tunately, that  Lord  Lyons  and  Mr.  Seward 
were  on  excellent  terms  of  personal  friendship, 
and  the  British  envoy  was  therefore  able  to 
present  the  affair  with  all  the  delicacy  which 
had  been  suggested  by  Lord  Russell.  The 
Government  at  Washington  had  carefully  ab- 
stained from  any  action  other  than  that  already 
mentioned.    Lord  Lyons  wrote  : 
Mr.  Seward  received  my  communication  seriously 
and  with  dignity,  but  without  any  manifestation  of  dis- 
satisfaction. Some  further  conversation  ensued  in 
consequence  of  questions  put  by  him  with  a  view  to 
ascertain  the  exact  character  of  the  dispatch.  At  the 
conclusion  he  asked  me  to  give  him  to-morrow  to 
consider  the  question,  and  to  communicate  with  the 
President.* 
Another  dispatch  from  Lord  Lyons  shows 
that  Mr.  Seward  asked  a  further  delay,  and 
that  Lord  Russell's  communication  was  not 
formally  read  to  him  till  Monday,  the  23d  of 
December.! 
If  we  may  credit  the  statement  of  Secretary 
Welles,  Mr.  Seward  had  not  expected  so  seri- 
ous a  view  of  the  affair  by  the  British  Gov- 
ernment ;  and  his  own  language  implies  as 
much  when,  in  a  private  letter  some  months 
afterward,  he  mentions  Lord  Lyons's  com- 
munication as  "  our  first  knowledge  that  the 
British  Government  proposed  to  make  it  a 
question  of  offense  or  insult,  and  so  of  war," 
adding :  "  If  I  had  been  as  tame  as  you  think 
would  have  been  wise  in  my  treatment  of  af- 
fairs with  that  country,  I  should  have  no  stand- 
ing in  my  own."  \  But  while  Mr.  Seward,  like 
most  other  Americans,  was  doubtless  elated 
by  the  first  news  that  the  rebel  envoys  were 
captured,  he  readily  discerned  that  the  inci- 
dent was  one  of  great  diplomatic  gravity  and 
likely  to  be  fruitful  of  prolonged  diplomatic 
contention.  Evidently  in  this  spirit,  and  for  the 
purpose  of  reserving  to  the  United  States 
every  advantage  in  the  serious  discussion 
which  was  unavoidable,  he  prudently  wrote 
in  a  confidential  dispatch  to  Mr.  Adams,  on 
November  27: 
I  forbear  from  speaking  of  the  capture  of  Messrs. 
Mason  and  Slidell.  The  act  was  done  by  Commodore 
Wilkes  without  instructions,  and  even  without  the 
knowledge  of  the  Government.  Lord  Lyons  has  judi- 
ciously refrained  from  all  communication  with  me  on 
*  Lyons  to  Russell,  Dec.  19,  1S61. 
t  Lyons  to  Russell,  Dec.  2X,  1861.  British  "Blue 
Book!"  * 
X  Seward  to  Weed,  March  2,  1862.  "  The  Galaxy," 
August,  1870. 
Vol.  XXXVL— 59. 
the  subject,  and  I   thought  it  equally  wise   to  r< 
ourselves  until  we  hear  what  the  British  Government 
may  have  to  say  on  the  subject. 
Of  the  confidential  first  interviews  between 
the  Secretary  of  State  and  the  President  on 
this  important  topic  there  is  no  record.  From 
what  remains  we  may  easily  infer  that  the 
President  clearly  saw  the  inevitable  necessities 
surrounding  the  question,  and  was  anxiously 
searching  some  method  of  preserving  to  the 
United  States  whatever  of  indirect  advantage 
might  accrue  from  compliance  with  the  Brit- 
ish demand,  and  of  making  that  compliance  as 
palatable  as  might  be  to  American  public  opin- 
ion. In  this  spirit  we  may  presume  he  wrote  the 
following  experimental  draft  of  a  dispatch,  pre- 
served in  his  autograph  manuscript.  Its  chief 
proposal  is  to  arbitrate  the  difficulty,  or  in  the 
alternative  seriously  to  examine  the  question 
in  all  its  aspects,  and  out  of  them  to  formulate 
a  binding  rule  for  both  nations  to  govern  sim- 
ilar cases.  It  was  an  honest  and  practical  sug- 
gestion to  turn  an  accidental  quarrel  into  a 
great  and  durable  transaction  for  the  better- 
ment of  international  law. 
The  dispatch  of  her  Majesty's  Secretary  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  dated  the  30th  of  November,  1861,  and  of  which 
your  Lordship  kindly  furnished  me  a  copy,  has  been 
carefully  considered  by  the  President ;  and  he  directs 
me  to  say  that  if  there  existed  no  fact  or  facts  perti- 
nent to  the  case,  beyond  those  stated  in  said  dispatch, 
the  reparation  sought  by  Great  Britain  from  the  United 
States  would  be  justly  due,  and  should  be  promptly 
made.  The  President  is  unwilling  to  believe  that  her 
Majesty's  Government  will  press  for  a  categorical  an- 
swer upon  what  appears  to  him  to  be  only  a  partial  rec- 
ord, in  the  making  up  of  which  he  has  been  allowed 
no  part.  He  is  reluctant  to  volunteer  his  view  of  the 
case,  with  no  assurance  that  her  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment will  consent  to  hear  him ;  yet  this  much  he  di- 
rects me  to  say,  that  this  Government  has  intended  no 
affront  to  the  British  flag,  or  to  the  British  nation;  nor 
has  it  intended  to  force  into  discussion  an  embarrass- 
ing question,  all  which  is  evident  by  the  fact  hereby 
asserted,  that  the  act  complained  of  was  done  by  the 
officer  without  orders  from,  or  expectation  of,  the  Gov- 
ernment. But  being  done,  it  was  no  longer  left  to  us 
to  consider  whether  we  might  not,  to  avoid  a  contro- 
versy, waive  an  unimportant  though  a  strict  right;  be- 
cause we  too,  as  well  as  Great  Britain,  have  a  people 
justly  jealous  of  their  rights,  and  in  whose  presence 
our  Government  could  undo  the  act  complained  of 
only  upon  a  fair  showing  that  it  was  wrong,  or  at  least 
very  questionable.  The  LTnited  States  Government 
and  people  are  still  willing  to  make  reparation  upon 
such  showing. 
Accordingly  I  am  instructed  by  the  President  to  in- 
quire whether  her  Majesty's  Government  will  hear  the 
United  States  upon  the  matter  in  question.  The  Presi- 
dent desires,  among  other  things,  to  bring  into  view, 
and  have  considered,  the  existing  rebellion  in  the  United 
States;  the  position  Great  Britain  has  assumed, includ- 
ing her  Majesty's  proclamation  in  relation  thereto ; 
the  relation  the  persons  whose  seizure  is  the  subject 
of  complaint  bore  to  the  United  States,  and  the  object 
of  their  voyage  at  the  time  they  were  seized ;  the 
knowledge  which  the  master  of  the  Trent  had  of  their 
relation  to  the  United  States,  and  of  the  object  of  their 
voyage,  at  the  time  he  received  them  on  board  for  the