The testimony of John Minor Botts of Virginia, given before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, February 18, 1866, presents Mr. Lincoln as a diplomatist at the outset of his experience as President.
Mr. Botts had been a leading member of the Whig Party and he was a Union man from the beginning of the contest to the end of the war. As the work of secession was advancing in the Gulf States Mr. Lincoln became anxious for the fate of the border States and especially for Virginia and Kentucky, which promised to serve as barriers to the aggressive movements of the South in case of war. Mr. Botts came to Washington at the request of Mr. Lincoln in the early days of April, 1861, and they were together and in private conversation during the evening of the 7th of April from seven to eleven o'clock. In the conversation of that evening the President gave Mr. Botts an account of the steps that he had taken to prevent a collision in the harbor of Charleston.
Mr. Summers and Mr. Baldwin of Virginia had been delegates in the Peace Congress and they had been counted among the Union men of the State. Soon after the inauguration the President was informed that the small garrison in Fort Sumter was nearly destitute of provisions and that an attempt to add to the supply would be resisted. The President, Mr. Summers and Mr. Botts had served together as Whigs in the Thirtieth Congress and the President invited Mr. Summers by letter and by special messenger to a conference in Washington. To this invitation no answer was given by Mr. Summers until the 5th of April, when Mr. Baldwin appeared and said that he had come upon the request of Mr. Summers. Mr. Lincoln said at once: "Ah! Mr. Baldwin, why did you not come sooner? I have been expecting you gentlemen to come to me for more than a week past. I had a most important proposition to make to you. I am afraid you have come too late. However, I will make the proposition now. We have in Fort Sumter with Major Anderson about eighty men and I learn from Major Anderson that his provisions are nearly exhausted . . . I have not only written to Governor Pickens, but I have sent a special messenger to say that if he will allow Major Anderson to obtain his marketing at the Charleston market, or, if he objects to allowing our people to land at Charleston, if he will have it sent to him, then I will make no effort to provision the fort, but, that if he does not do that, I will not permit these people to starve, and that I shall send provisions down,—and that if fires on that vessel he will fire upon an unarmed vessel, loaded with nothing but bread but I shall at the same time send a fleet along with her, with instructions not to enter the harbor of Charleston unless the vessel is fired into; and if she is, then the fleet is to enter the harbor and protect her. Now, Mr. Baldwin, that fleet is now lying in the harbor of New York and will be ready to sail this afternoon at five o'clock, and although I fear it is almost too late, yet I will submit anyway the proposition which I intended for Mr. Summers. Your convention in Richmond, Mr. Baldwin, has been sitting now nearly two months and all they have done has been to shake the rod over my head. You have recently taken a vote in the Virginia Convention, on the right of secession, which was rejected by ninety to forty-five, a majority of two thirds, showing the strength of the Union Party in that convention; and, if you will go back to Richmond and get that Union majority to adjourn and go home without passing the ordinance of secession, so anxious am I for the preservation of the peace of this country and to save Virginia and the other States from going out, that I will take the responsibility of evacuating Fort Sumter, and take the chance of negotiating with the cotton States, which have already gone out."
This quotation is from the testimony of Mr. Botts and there cannot be better evidence of the facts existing in the first days of April, nor a more trustworthy statement of the position of Mr. Lincoln in regard to the secession movement. At that time the Virginia Convention had rejected a proposed ordinance of secession by a vote of ninety to forty-five, and there can be no doubt that Mr. Lincoln had hopes that his proposition might calm the temper and change the purposes of the secessionists in that State if he did not change the schemes of Governor Pickens, of which, indeed, the prospect was only slight.
In his Inaugural Address, and in all his other public utterances, Mr. Lincoln sought to place the responsibility of war upon the seceding States. At a later day Mr. Lincoln, in a conversation with Senator Sumner and myself, expressed regret that he had neglected to station troops in Virginia in advance of the occupation of the vicinity of Alexandria by the Confederates, a course of action to which he had been urged by Mr. Chase and others.
Mr. Lincoln's proposition for the relief of Fort Sumter was rejected by Mr. Baldwin, as was the proposition for the adjournment of the convention, sine die.
When Mr. Botts appeared the time had passed when arrangements could have been made for the relief of Sumter and the adjournment of the convention. Although the situation may not have been realized at the time it was not the less true that Mr. Botts and the small number of Union men in Virginia were powerless in presence of the movement in favor of secession under the lead of Tyler, Seddon and others.
The political side of Mr. Lincoln's character is seen in the fact that he enjoined secrecy upon Mr. Botts. He may have been unwilling to allow his supporters in the North to know how far he had gone in the line of conciliation. In the conversation with Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Lincoln had given an assurance that upon the acceptance of his two propositions he would evacuate Fort Sumter. When Mr. Lincoln made these facts known to Mr. Botts at the evening interview, Mr. Botts said; "Will you authorize me to make that proposition to the Union men of the convention? I will take a steamboat to-morrow morning, and have a meeting of the Union men to-morrow night, I will guarantee with my head, that they will adopt your proposition." In reply, Mr. Lincoln said: "It is too late. The fleet has sailed." In truth it was too late for the acceptance of the propositions in Virginia. The Union men were powerless, and the secessionists were dominant in affairs and already vindictive. The charge that Mr. Seward gave a promise that Sumter would be abandoned, may or it may not have been true, but there can be no ground for doubting the statement made by Mr. Botts in regard to the terms tendered by Mr. Lincoln, and which were rejected by Mr. Baldwin.
Mr. Baldwin admitted the interview with Mr. Lincoln, and the nature of it as herein given, to Mr. John F. Lewis, who was a Union man and a member of the convention that adopted the Ordinance of Secession by a vote of eighty-eight to fifty-five.
Of the three witnesses, Baldwin, Botts and Lewis, Mr. Baldwin was the first witness who was examined by the Committee on Reconstruction. At that time the committee had no knowledge of the conversation between Mr. Baldwin and President Lincoln. Speaking, apparently, under the influence of the criticisms of Botts and Lewis of his rejection of Mr. Lincoln's propositions, Baldwin introduced the subject with the remark: "I had a good deal of interesting conversation with him (that is with Mr. Lincoln) that evening. I was about to state that I have reason to believe that Mr. Lincoln himself had given an account of this conversation which has been understood—but I am sure _mis_understood—by the persons with whom he talked, as giving the representation of it, that he had offered to me, that if the Virginia Convention would adjourn sine die he would withdraw the troops from Sumner and Pickens." As there was no occasion in the conversation between Lincoln and Baldwin for a reference to Fort Pickens, and as the President did not mention Fort Pickens in the account of the conversation that he gave to Mr. Botts, the denial of Mr. Baldwin may fall under one of the forms of falsehood mentioned by Shakespeare.