FOOTNOTES:
[22] In "The Republic" magazine of April, 1875.
[23] Edwin M. Stanton had succeeded Simon Cameron on Jan. 13. 1862.
[24] On Nov. 7, 1862.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE VIGOROUS PROSECUTION OF THE WAR.
Conscription, taxation, and the reverses of the Union arms in the summer of 1862 in Virginia and elsewhere materially affected the political currents of the ensuing fall, and the tide of reaction against the war feeling reached its highest flood in the closing elections of that year. Horatio Seymour was then chosen Governor of New York; the States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois gave anti-Republican majorities, and ten of the principal Northern States, which in 1860 rolled up over 200,000 Republican majority, gave over 35,000 to the Opposition, while the footings of their Congressional delegations showed a Democratic majority of ten replacing a Republican preponderance of forty-one. In Michigan a successful effort was made to fuse all the "conservative" elements in a so-called "Union movement," which obtained some support from lukewarm Republicans and was thus enabled to manifest unusual strength. Its platform was dissent from "radical" measures in general, and the force of its attacks was centered upon Senator Chandler and his record, as representing the most aggressive type of Republicanism. He accepted this challenge unhesitatingly, and fought the campaign through without a hint at retraction or an apologetic word. He defended the "blood letter" and the "McClellan speech" on every stump; he repeated before the people the bold utterances with which he had stirred the Senate; he declared to every audience that his record he would not qualify by a hair's breadth, and that by it he was prepared to stand or fall; and he denounced with unstinted severity the weakness of some of his critics and the disloyalty of others.[25] The brunt of the battle in his State fell upon him, and the vigor and courage of his personal canvass attracted widespread attention. He spoke in all the leading cities of Michigan during the campaign, and worked uninterruptedly until the day of election. The result was the casting of 68,716 votes for the Republican State ticket to 62,102 for the "Union" candidates, and the choice of five Republicans out of the six members of Congress, and of a Legislature constituted as follows: Senate—18 Republicans and 14 Fusionists; House—63 Republicans and 37 Fusionists. This Legislature, on assembling in January, 1863, re-elected Mr. Chandler to the Senate in accordance with the unmistakable wish of his party and the universal expectation. The most strenuous efforts were made to detach Republican support from him, but they failed utterly. In the caucus the vote was taken viva voce, and it was unanimous for Mr. Chandler. In the Legislature he received the support of the representatives of his party as well as that of one or two members chosen by the Fusionists. The Opposition selected a candidate of Republican antecedents, and its vote was divided as follows: James F. Joy, 45; Alpheus Felch, 2; Hezekiah G. Wells, 1; Solomon L. Withey, 1. In his address of thanks before the nominating caucus, Mr. Chandler said: "I do not claim my re-election as a personal tribute. It is, rather, a tribute to principle. It indicates that the patriotic sons of Michigan stand firm in support of the government and a vigorous prosecution of the war."
Not only did he thus modestly measure the significance of his re-election, but he bent every energy to make that felt which the people meant. Strafford's motto of "Thorough"—although the spirit was that of Hampden and Pym and not of the apostate Earl—expresses the fixity of purpose and the ardor of zeal with which he strove to make irresistible the blows of the Union against its assailants. Before the people, on the floor of the Senate, within the White House, at the private offices of the War Department, in committee-room, and as part of his daily intercourse with men of all ranks and classes, he urged the use of every resource for the defense of the nation and demanded the sternest punishment of those who had dared
"to lay their hand upon the ark
"Of her magnificent and awful cause."
As a Senator his vote was recorded for every important war measure, relating to the revenues, the finances, and the armies of the Union. Upon the great questions of public policy which bore so powerfully on the progress of the struggle he uniformly led his party. At the first Congressional session of the war he urged the employment of confiscation as a legitimate and effective weapon for checking and punishing rebellion; the measure he introduced at that time proved to be too sweeping to receive an immediate enactment, but within a few months Congress did advance on this subject to his ground. When General Butler declared that the slaves who fled to his camp from work upon the rebel intrenchments were "contraband of war," and reported his action to the authorities at Washington and asked for instructions, Mr. Chandler was one of the first to appreciate the adroit wisdom of that epigrammatic construction of military law, and his co-operation with Secretary Cameron in urging the approval of General Butler's action upon the President and General Scott was very valuable and effective. Immediately after the battle of Bull Run he, with Mr. Sumner and Mr. Hamlin, called upon Mr. Lincoln with a proposition to organize and arm the colored people. Mr. Chandler even then favored the full exercise of the President's constitutional war powers, and urged that they should be used, first, to set the slaves free; and, second, to make the slaves themselves aid the work of abolishing slavery and maintaining the Union. He believed that this institution was the backbone of the South, that the war was brought on to save it from the civilizing tendencies of the age, and that among the first steps taken by the Federal government, when thus assailed by slavery, should be the proclaiming of freedom to all bondsmen and the guaranteeing of the protection of the government to the free. He argued that such a policy, promptly declared, would produce chaos in the South, would subject the Confederate government to the danger of local uprisings of the negroes, and would thus make victory easy. But the Administration was not prepared to take a step so far in advance of popular opinion, and for some months the prevailing policy was one which prohibited the soldiers of the Union from protecting or harboring fugitive slaves, and in some instances made slave-hunters of the troops. When General Fremont, on the 31st of August, issued his proclamation in Missouri, declaring free all slaves belonging to persons engaged in the rebellion, Mr. Chandler was among those who most heartily approved this step. The President was alarmed, as he feared the country was not ready for such an act, and greatly modified the Fremont proclamation, as he also did a still more sweeping order of General Hunter in the following May. Mr. Chandler's disappointment at this was extreme, but within a few months he saw emancipation resorted to by the Administration as a war measure, and a death-blow dealt to "the relic of barbarism." That part of the report for 1861 of Simon Cameron as Secretary of War, which urged the most summary attacks upon the institution of slavery as the surest means of dealing mortal blows to the rebellion, and which Mr. Lincoln suppressed, Mr. Chandler heartily endorsed, and every manifestation by Northern commanders of a disposition to make their armies defenders of the slave system aroused his indignation. The act of March 13, 1862, prohibiting by an article of war the use of the troops for the returning of fugitive slaves to their masters, he earnestly supported, and the act of April 16, 1862, abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, was a measure in which he especially interested himself, and whose final passage he celebrated by an entertainment given to its most devoted friends at his rooms in the National Hotel of Washington. The abortive colonization schemes which were tried about this time, at Mr. Lincoln's urgent recommendation, Mr. Chandler privately opposed as utterly inadequate and as a mere diversion of force into useless channels, but for public reasons he made no open resistance to the experiment. For the laws of June 19, 1862, forever prohibiting slavery in the territories, and of June 28, 1864, repealing the fugitive slave statutes, it need not be said that he labored with unflagging industry.
Mr. Chandler was very active in advocating the use of colored troops as soldiers, being months in advance of the Administration in this respect; he urged this policy upon the authorities unsuccessfully for weeks, and then worked earnestly to secure legislation from Congress authorizing the enrollment and enlistment of negroes. This movement was so strenuously resisted at the capitol that in the end a compromise was effected upon a bill, which was approved on July 16, 1862, authorizing the receiving of colored men as laborers in the army to dig trenches and do other work of non-combatants. But after the Emancipation Proclamation black men were accepted as soldiers by order of the President, and regularly enrolled and paid. Mr. Chandler always believed that that proclamation and the enlistment of freedmen in the army were two of the most powerful blows at the rebellion, and often remarked, when talking upon the subject, that they were worth 300,000 men. While the controversy over this important step was unsettled, General Butler, at New Orleans, found himself in need of reinforcements, and was actually compelled to organize and arm several regiments of colored soldiers, whom he knew to be especially well adapted to the performance of a certain class of duties in that region which could not be done by soldiers from the North, who were not acclimated. This step on his part followed his definite refusal, under instructions from Washington, to permit General Phelps to do the same thing (that officer resigning for this very reason.) While the correspondence on this whole topic was in progress with the authorities, General Butler appealed to Senator Chandler, writing him long letters showing the sanitary necessity of having negro garrisons in some localities, and touching upon the other phases of the question. He also asked the Senator's aid in securing arms and equipments for these colored troops, and obtained from him valuable assistance in pushing on the requisitions at the War Department in defiance of official "red tape." On this general question Mr. Chandler said in the Senate, on June 28, 1864:
I believe that this rebellion is to be crushed, is to be exterminated, and I believe that every man who favors it, whether he be a member of this body or a member of the Southern army, is to be crushed and to be exterminated, unless he repents. That is what I believe.... I thank God the nation has risen to the point of using every implement that the Almighty and common sense have put in its hands to crush the rebellion.... We do not need another man from north of the Potomac. Let us bring the loyal men of the South in to put down treason in the South, and there are men enough and more than enough to do it. We have heard enough about not using black men to put down this rebellion. I would use every thing that God and nature had put in my hands to put down this rebellion; but first I would use the black element, bring every negro soldier who can fight into the army. A negro is better than a traitor. I say this advisedly. I consider a loyal negro better than a secession traitor, either in the North or the South. I prefer him anywhere and everywhere that you please to put him. A secession traitor is beneath a loyal negro. I would let a loyal negro vote; I would let him testify; I would let him fight; I would let him do any other good thing and I would exclude a secession traitor.
The seizure of the rebel emissaries, Mason and Slidell, by Captain Wilkes, on the British steamer Trent, was heartily applauded by Mr. Chandler, and he opposed with much earnestness their surrender at the demand of Great Britain. Mr Seward's policy in the matter seemed to him to be humiliating and the possibility of a second war, in case Captain Wilkes was sustained, he did not dread, believing that the nation would treble its military strength in the face of such a danger, that the South would suffer from an alliance with a country so long regarded as the hereditary foe of the American people, and that the end would be the conquest and annexation of the British American provinces. He was greatly incensed by Great Britain's prompt concession of belligerent rights to the South and by its blustering bearing in the Trent case, and at one time suggested a policy of non-intercourse with that power, which he regarded as an inveterate enemy. In later years he advocated the most vigorous pushing of "the Alabama claims," and at the time of the British war with Abyssinia offered in the Senate a resolution recognizing King Theodore as a "belligerent" in the general terms of the Queen's proclamation of May, 1861 in regard to the Confederacy. He never ceased to believe that the United States, in the settlement of its war claims with Great Britain, ought to have refused to accept anything less than the annexation of the Canadas.
Mr. Chandler in the Senate favored imposing severe penalties on the gold gambling in Wall street, which affected so injuriously the national credit. In the preparation of the internal revenue laws of 1862, imposing a large number of taxes and affecting vast interests, he gave exceedingly valuable aid, his own business experience and his familiarity with commercial details making his suggestions practical in form and wise in scope. Every measure to secure the stringent enforcement of the laws for the punishment of treason received his hearty support, and his denunciation of traitors and their open or secret allies continued to be vigorous and unsparing.[26] His industry time alone seemed to restrain, for his zeal was inexhaustible and his magnificent physical powers bore the tremendous strain unyieldingly. His public record during the four years of the war makes it possible to apply to him, without extravagance, Lord Clarendon's description of Hampden: "He was of a vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and of parts not to be imposed on by the most subtle or sharp, and of a personal courage equal to his best parts."
The "little, nameless, unremembered acts" of these days were of no slight aggregate importance and thoroughly illustrate the characteristics of the man. There was no reasonable service that he was not quick to render to any volunteer who applied to him for aid. A blue uniform gained for its wearer prompt admittance to his room and a careful hearing for any request. Repeatedly private soldiers saw him leave men of rank and influence to listen to their stories, and lay aside matters of pressing moment to act upon their complaints or relieve their distress.[27]
He visited the hospitals to seek out Michigan men whom he could help, and to see that they were properly provided for, while their applications for furloughs and for discharges, if entrusted to his care, were so pushed as to obtain prompt action from the authorities in spite of routine and official tardiness. He advanced large sums of money to help destitute and invalid soldiers homeward,[28] or to aid the friends of fallen or wounded men upon their melancholy errands. Upon all occasions he was especially attentive to the humblest applicants, and the ease of the private soldier in distress and need touched his sympathies the most quickly. His was a familiar figure in all the departments, often accompanied with a squad of sick, crippled, even ragged, veterans, in search of delayed furloughs, or of arrears of pay, or of the medical examinations preceding invalid discharges, or of some service which "red tape" had delayed. In the words of one who possessed abundant opportunities for obtaining knowledge, "This could be said of Mr. Chandler to a greater extent than of any other public man I ever saw, that he would spare no pains in doing even little things for men who were of the smallest consequence to one in his position. He would take great trouble in hunting up minor matters for enlisted men, and this it was that made him so popular among the soldiers." His activity in their behalf was not limited by State lines; he answered any appeals that came to him, although he was especially prompt and vigilant in helping the "Michigan boys."[29]
At the War Department Mr. Chandler was as well known as (and was reputed to be scarcely less powerful than) the Secretary himself. Mr. Stanton's brusqueness never daunted him, and few stood upon such terms of privileged intercourse with that no less irascible than great man. Repeatedly he elbowed his way through the crowded ante-chamber of the Secretary's office, pushed past protesting orderlies, strode up to Mr. Stanton's private desk, and obtained by emphatic personal application some order which subordinates could not grant in a case needing prompt action.[30] Where other men would have encountered rebuff he rarely failed. In connection with this phase of his public activity these letters are of interest:
Detroit, Mich., July 29, 1862.
Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War.Dear Sir: Brigadier-General Richardson, of this State, is reported as being absent from duty without leave. This is not true. He is absent on sick leave, and is not able to join his command. Will you not, in accordance with the wishes of the whole delegation, assign him to the command of Michigan soldiers now being raised? His presence here, and the assurance that he is to command, will greatly stimulate enlistments. We are proud of him as one of the best fighting generals of the army. Very truly yours,
Z. CHANDLER.
Detroit, July 31, 1862.
Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War.Sir: There is a fine company of ninety-five splendid men guarding three rebel prisoners at Mackinac. Would it not be well to put those rascals in some tobacco warehouse or jail and send these troops where they are needed? General Terry would like a command in some other division than the one he is in. Can you not accommodate him? The soldiers at Mackinac are anxious for active service and are well drilled. Very truly yours,
Z. CHANDLER.
Detroit, Aug. 9, 1862.
Adjutant-General Thomas.Dear Sir: Are the boys of the Michigan First (Bull Run prisoners) exchanged yet? I promised them it should be done at once, and now find them enlisting again under the supposition that it has been done. The list is with the Secretary of War. Our quota is full, and our blood is up. They were yesterday paying $10 for a chance to enter some of the regiments. Very truly yours,
Z. CHANDLER.
Detroit, Aug. 28, 1862.
Hon. Wm. A. Howard.Dear Sir: Will you say from me to the Secretary of War that I deem it of vital importance that some one be authorized to open and examine rebel correspondence passing through the Detroit postoffice? Mr. Smith (of the postoffice) informs me that letters come through directed to rebels at Windsor. Truly yours,
Z. CHANDLER.
Detroit, Nov. 15, 1863.
Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War.Dear Sir: I telegraphed you to-night to send heavy guns and ammunition to the lakes. The reason was this: Upon examination I found that we could improvise a navy in about two hours which could cope with any rebel armament which could be placed upon the lakes, if we had big guns. But my investigation furnished one 68-pounder, condemned, and four 32-pounders, without powder, at Erie; and this was our whole armament on the lakes, except one 32-pounder upon the Michigan, and a few 6, 10 and 12-pounders. We must have guns of large calibre at each of the principal ports. If you cannot spare eleven-inch guns immediately send us some eight-inch or some old 68-pounders, with ammunition. A tug, costing not over $30,000, with one eleven-inch gun on board and a crew of twenty men, could destroy a million dollars' worth of property on the lakes every twenty-four hours, and we would be powerless. She would sink the Michigan with one judiciously-placed shell. We are not alarmed, but we want big guns and must have them. The lake marine is scarcely second to the ocean in tonnage and value, and it must be protected. We had no idea of our defenses until the late scare. Truly yours,
Z. CHANDLER.
Mr. Chandler's influence with public men and in the private councils of the nation's leaders at Washington was throughout the war always invigorating. From the very outset, and while the patriotic instinct of the North was "still, as it were, in the gristle and not yet hardened into the bone," he urged upon the executive authorities summary measures, and the striking of hard and quick blows. He advised them to arrest traitors while their treason was still in the bud. He urged them to make early and incessant attacks on the enemy, and counseled implicit reliance on the devotion and loyalty of the North. The Union cause saw no hour so dark that the eye of his courage could not penetrate its gloom; the rebellion won no victory that shook his absolutely "dauntless resolution." Every suggestion of peace except on the basis of Freedom and the national supremacy he denounced. Every hint of conciliating armed traitors he scouted as, in Hosea Biglow's phrase, mere "tryin' squirt-guns on the infernal Pit." To the real statesmanship of that period he thus gave expression in a public dinner at Washington early in 1863: "We must accept no compromise; a patched-up peace will be followed by continued war and anarchy." He chafed like a caged lion before half-heartedness, imbecility and delay. His sincerity and his earnestness revived the discouraged and aroused hope, and his strong convictions inspired men of weaker moral fibre with something of his own inflexibility. He never hesitated to use plain words in dealing with the nation's enemies, he never lost faith, and he never admitted the possibility of defeat. At the White House his visits were ever welcome, his advice received, and the virility of his understanding and the fervor of his patriotism recognized. Mr. Chandler appreciated to the full extent the innate strength of Abraham Lincoln's remarkable character and its rare loftiness, and, different as were their dispositions and widely divergent as often were their opinions, he never lost confidence in the President's aims and never ceased to be one of his trusted counselors. Many features of executive policy he condemned plainly and boldly to the President himself, but frankness and sincerity prevented his criticisms from becoming unpalatable, and Mr. Lincoln often acknowledged his indebtedness to the practical wisdom and the tireless zeal of the Michigan Senator.
Cecil said to Sir Walter Raleigh, "I know that you can toil terribly." This Mr. Chandler did through those eventful years. His labor was without cessation. The great demands upon the energies of the public man were equaled by appeals for private effort which he would not decline, and in every channel of profitable work for the Union cause he made his strong will and his aggressive vitality felt. Industry, so unusual and efficient, multiplied the power of his Roman firmness, and these qualities, guided by his strong understanding, high courage, sincerity of conviction, and the ardor of his patriotism, made him a leader of men in years when leadership without strength was impossible. His impress is upon the events of that era, and of the war for Emancipation and the Union he could say with Ulysses, "I am part of all that I have met." Through the tempest of civil strife his strong spirit battled its way unflinchingly to the goal, and title was fitly bestowed in the people's knighting of Zachariah Chandler as "The Great War Senator."