Abraham Lincoln: The People's Leader in the Struggle for National Existence

by George Haven Putnam

The election in November gave evidence that, even in the midst of civil war, a people's government can sustain the responsibility of a national election. The large popular majorities in nearly all of the voting States constituted not only a cordial recognition of the service that was being rendered by Lincoln and by Lincoln's administration, but a substantial assurance that the cause of nationality was to be sustained with all the resources of the nation. The Presidential election of this year gave the final blow to the hopes of the Confederacy.

I had myself a part in a very small division of this election, a division which could have no effect in the final gathering of the votes, but which was in a way typical of the spirit of the army. On the 6th of November, 1864, I was in Libby Prison, having been captured at the battle of Cedar Creek in October. It was decided to hold a Presidential election in the prison, although some of us were rather doubtful as to the policy and anxious in regard to the result. The exchange of prisoners had been blocked for nearly a year on the ground of the refusal on the part of the South to exchange the coloured troops or white officers who held commissions in coloured regiments. Lincoln took the ground, very properly, that all of the nation's soldiers must be treated alike and must be protected by a uniform policy. Until the coloured troops should be included in the exchange, "there can," said Lincoln, "be no exchanging of prisoners." This decision, while sound, just, and necessary, brought, naturally, a good deal of dissatisfaction to the men in prison and to their friends at home. When I reached Libby in October, I found there men who had been prisoners for six or seven months and who (as far as they lived to get out) were to be prisoners for five months more. Through the winter of 1864-65, the illness and mortality in the Virginia prisons of Libby and Danville were very severe. It was in fact a stupid barbarity on the part of the Confederate authorities to keep any prisoners in Richmond during that last winter of the War. It was not easy to secure by the two lines of road (one of which was continually being cut by our troops) sufficient supplies for Lee's army. It was difficult to bring from the granaries farther south, in addition to the supplies required for the army, food for the inhabitants of the town. It was inevitable under the circumstances that the prisoners should be neglected and that in addition to the deaths from cold (the blankets, the overcoats, and the shoes had been taken from the prisoners because they were needed by the rebel troops) there should be further deaths from starvation.

It was not unnatural that under such conditions the prisoners should have ground not only for bitter indignation with the prison authorities, but for discontent with their own administration. One may in fact be surprised that starving and dying men should have retained any assured spirit of loyalty. When the vote for President came to be counted, we found that we had elected Lincoln by more than three to one. The soldiers felt that Lincoln was the man behind the guns. The prison votes, naturally enough, reached no ballot boxes and my individual ballot in any case would not have been legal as I was at the time but twenty years of age. I can but feel, however, that this vote of the prisoners was typical and important, and I have no doubt it was so recognised when later the report of the voting reached Washington.

In December, 1864, occurred one of the too-frequent cabals on the part of certain members of the Cabinet. Pressure was brought to bear upon Lincoln to get rid of Seward. Lincoln's reply made clear that he proposed to remain President. He says to the member reporting for himself and his associates the protest against Seward: "I propose to be the sole judge as to the dismissal or appointment of the members of my Cabinet." Lincoln could more than once have secured peace within the Cabinet and a smoother working of the administrative machinery if he had been willing to replace the typical and idiosyncratic men whom he had associated with himself in the government by more commonplace citizens, who would have been competent to carry on the routine responsibilities of their posts. The difficulty of securing any consensus of opinion or any working action between men differing from each other as widely as did Chase, Stanton, Blair, and Seward, in temperament, in judgment, and in honest convictions as to the proper policy for the nation, was an attempt that brought upon the chief daily burdens and many keen anxieties. Lincoln insisted, however, that it was all-important for the proper carrying on of the contest that the Cabinet should contain representatives of the several loyal sections of the country and of the various phases of opinion. The extreme anti-slavery men were entitled to be heard even though their spokesman Chase was often intemperate, ill-judged, bitter, and unfair. The Border States men had a right to be represented and it was all-essential that they should feel that they had a part in the War government even though their spokesman Blair might show himself, as he often did show himself, quite incapable of understanding, much less of sympathising with, the real spirit of the North. Stanton might be truculent and even brutal, but he was willing to work, he knew how to organise, he was devotedly loyal. Seward, scholar and statesman as he was, had been ready to give needless provocation to Europe and was often equally ill-judged in his treatment of the conservative Border States on the one hand and of the New England abolitionists on the other, but Seward was a patriot as well as a scholar and was a representative not only of New York but of the best of the Whig Republican sentiment of the entire North, and Seward could not be spared. It is difficult to recall in history a government made up of such discordant elements which through the patience, tact, and genius of one man was made to do effective work.

In February, 1865, in response to suggestions from the South which indicated the possibility of peace, Lincoln accepted a meeting with Alexander H. Stephens and two other commissioners to talk over measures for bringing the War to a close. The meeting was held on a gun-boat on the James River. It seems probable from the later history that Stephens had convinced himself that the Confederacy could not conquer its independence and that it only remained to secure the best terms possible for a surrender. On the other hand, Jefferson Davis was not yet prepared to consider any terms short of a recognition of the independence of the Confederacy, and Stephens could act only under the instructions received from Richmond. It was Lincoln's contention that the government of the United States could not treat with rebels (or, dropping the word "rebels," with its own citizens) in arms. "The first step in negotiations, must," said Lincoln, "be the laying down of arms. There is no precedent in history for a government entering into negotiations with its own armed citizens."

"But there is a precedent, Mr. Lincoln," said Stephens, "King Charles of England treated with the Cromwellians."

"Yes," said Lincoln, "I believe that is so. I usually leave historical details to Mr. Seward, who is a student. It is, however, my memory that King Charles lost his head."

It soon became evident that there was no real basis for negotiations, and Stephens and his associates had to return to Richmond disappointed. In the same month, was adopted by both Houses of Congress the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibited slavery throughout the whole dominion of the United States. By the close of 1865, this amendment had been confirmed by thirty-three States. It is probable that among these thirty-three there were several States the names of which were hardly familiar to some of the older citizens of the South, the men who had accepted the responsibility for the rebellion. The state of mind of these older Southerners in regard more particularly to the resources of the North-west was recalled to me years after the War by an incident related by General Sherman at a dinner of the New England Society. Sherman said that during the march through Georgia he had found himself one day at noon, when near the head of his column, passing below the piazza of a comfortable-looking old plantation house. He stopped to rest on the piazza with one or two of his staff and was received by the old planter with all the courtliness that a Southern gentleman could show, even to an invader, when doing the honours of his own house. The General and the planter sat on the piazza, looking at the troops below and discussing, as it was inevitable under the circumstances that they must discuss, the causes of the War.

"General," said the planter, "what troops are those passing below?" The General leans over the piazza, and calls to the standard bearers, "Throw out your flag, boys," and as the flag was thrown out, he reports to his host, "The 30th Wisconsin."

"Wisconsin?" said the planter, "Wisconsin? Where is Wisconsin?"