Recollections of the Civil War / With the Leaders at Washington and in the Field in the Sixties

by Charles A. Dana

I reached Washington about the middle of December, and immediately gave to Mr. Stanton an outline of Grant's plan and reasons for a winter campaign. The President, Mr. Stanton, and General Halleck all agreed that the proposed operations were the most promising in sight; indeed, Mr. Stanton was enthusiastic in favor of the scheme as I presented it to him. He said that the success of Grant's campaign would end the war in the Mississippi Valley, and practically make prisoners of all the rebel forces in the interior of Mississippi and Alabama, without our being at the direct necessity of guarding and feeding them. But Halleck, as a sine qua non, insisted that East Tennessee should first be cleared out and Longstreet driven off permanently and things up to date secured, before new campaigns were entered upon.

The result was that no winter campaign was made in 1863-'64 toward the Alabama River towns and Mobile. Its success, in my opinion, was certain, and I so represented to Mr. Stanton. Without jeoparding our interests in any other quarter, Grant would have opened the Alabama River and captured Mobile a full year before it finally fell. Its success meant permanent security for everything we had already laid hold of, at once freeing many thousands of garrison troops for service elsewhere. As long as the rebels held Alabama, they had a base from which to strike Tennessee. I had unbounded confidence in Grant's skill and energy to conduct such a campaign into the interior, cutting loose entirely from his base and subsisting off the enemy's country. At the time he had the troops, and could have finished the job in three months.

After I had explained fully my mission from Grant, I asked the Secretary what he wanted me to do. Mr. Stanton told me he would like to have me remain in the department until I was needed again at the front. Accordingly, an office in the War Department was provided for me, and I began to do the regular work of an assistant to the Secretary of War. This was the first time since my relations with the War Department began that I had been thrown much with the Secretary, and I was very glad to have an opportunity to observe him.

Mr. Stanton was a short, thick, dark man, with a very large head and a mass of black hair. His nature was intense, and he was one of the most eloquent men that I ever met. Stanton was entirely absorbed in his duties, and his energy in prosecuting them was something almost superhuman. When he took hold of the War Department the armies seemed to grow, and they certainly gained in force and vim and thoroughness.

One of the first things which struck me in Mr. Stanton was his deep religious feeling and his familiarity with the Bible. He must have studied the Bible a great deal when he was a boy. He had the firmest conviction that the Lord directed our armies. Over and over again have I heard him express the same opinion which he wrote to the Tribune after Donelson: "Much has recently been said of military combinations and organizing victory. I hear such phrases with apprehension. They commenced in infidel France with the Italian campaign, and resulted in Waterloo. Who can organize victory? Who can combine the elements of success on the battlefield? We owe our recent victories to the Spirit of the Lord, that moved our soldiers to rush into battle, and filled the hearts of our enemies with dismay. The inspiration that conquered in battle was in the hearts of the soldiers and from on high; and wherever there is the same inspiration there will be the same results." There was never any cant in Stanton's religious feeling. It was the straightforward expression of what he believed and lived, and was as simple and genuine and real to him as the principles of his business.

Stanton was a serious student of history. He had read many books on the subject—more than on any other, I should say—and he was fond of discussing historical characters with his associates; not that he made a show of his learning. He was fond, too, of discussing legal questions, and would listen with eagerness to the statement of cases in which friends had been interested. He was a man who was devoted to his friends, and he had a good many with whom he liked to sit down and talk. In conversation he was witty and satirical; he told a story well, and was very companionable.

There is a popular impression that Mr. Stanton took a malevolent delight in browbeating his subordinates, and every now and then making a spectacle of some poor officer or soldier, who unfortunately fell into his clutches in the Secretary's reception room, for the edification of bystanders. This idea, like many other false notions concerning great men, is largely a mistaken one. The stories which are told of Mr. Stanton's impatience and violence are exaggerated. He could speak in a very peremptory tone, but I never heard him say anything that could be called vituperative.

There were certain men in whom he had little faith, and I have heard him speak to some of these in a tone of severity. He was a man of the quickest intelligence, and understood a thing before half of it was told him. His judgment was just as swift, and when he got hold of a man who did not understand, who did not state his case clearly, he was very impatient.

If Stanton liked a man, he was always pleasant. I was with him for several years in the most confidential relations, and I can now recall only one instance of his speaking to me in a harsh tone. It was a curious case. Among the members of Congress at that period was a Jew named Strouse. One of Strouse's race, who lived in Virginia, had gone down to the mouth of the James River when General Butler was at Fortress Monroe, and had announced his wish to leave the Confederacy. Now, the orders were that when a man came to a commanding officer with a request to go through the lines, he was to be examined and all the money he had was to be taken from him. General Butler had taken from this Virginian friend of Strouse between fifty thousand and seventy-five thousand dollars. When a general took money in this way he had to deposit it at once in the Treasury; there a strict account was kept of the amount, whom it was taken by, and whom it was taken from. Butler gave a receipt to this man, and he afterward came to Washington to get his money. He and Strouse came to the War Department, where they bothered Mr. Stanton a good deal. Finally, Mr. Stanton sent for me.

"Strouse is after me," he said; "he wants that money, and I want you to settle the matter."