Abraham Lincoln, Volume I

by Jr. John T. Morse

and discouraging. On the other hand, the West throve surprisingly well in the absence of political nourishment, and certain local commanders achieved cheering successes without any aid from the military civilians of Washington. The contrast seems suggestive, yet perhaps it is incorrect to attach to these facts any sinister significance, or any connection of cause and effect. Other reasons than civilian assistance may account for the Virginia failures, while Western successes may have been won in spite of neglect rather than by reason of it. Still, simply as naked facts, these things were so.

Upon occurrences outside of Virginia Mr. Lincoln bestowed more thought than was fashionable in Washington, and maintained an oversight strongly in contrast to the indifference of those who seemed to recognize no other duty than to discuss the demerits of General McClellan. The President had at least the good sense to see the value of unity of plan and coöperation along the whole line, from the Atlantic seaboard to the extreme West. Also at the West as at the East he was bent upon advancing, pressing the enemy, and doing something positive. He had not occasion to use the spur at the West either so often or so severely as at the East; yet Halleck and Buell needed it and got it more than once. The Western commanders, like those at the East, and with better reason, were importunate for more men and more equipment. The President could not, by

any effort, meet their requirements. He wrote to McClernand after the battle of Belmont: "Much, very much, goes undone; but it is because we have not the power to do it faster than we do." Some troops were without arms; but, he said, "the plain matter of fact is, our good people have rushed to the rescue of the government faster than the government can find arms to put in their hands." Yet, withal, it is true that Mr. Lincoln's actual interferences at the South and West were so occasional and incidental, that, since this writing is a biography of him and not a history of the war, there is need only for a list of the events which were befalling outside of that absorbing domain which lay around the rival capitals.

Along the southern Atlantic coast some rather easy successes were rapidly won. August 29, 1861, Hatteras Inlet was taken, with little fighting. November 7, Port Royal followed. Lying nearly midway between Charleston and Savannah, and being a very fine harbor, this was a prize of value. January 7, 1862, General Burnside was directed to take command of the Department of North Carolina. February 8, Roanoke Island was seized by the Federal forces. March 14, Newbern fell. April 11, Fort Pulaski, at the mouth of the Savannah River, was taken. April 26, Beaufort was occupied. The blockade of the other Atlantic ports having long since been made effective, the Eastern seaboard thus early became a prison wall for the Confederacy.

At the extreme West Missouri gave the President some trouble. The bushwhacking citizens of that frontier State, divided not unequally between the Union and Disunion sides, entered upon an irregular but energetic warfare with ready zeal if not actually with pleasure. Northerners in general hardly paused to read the newspaper accounts of these rough encounters, but the President was much concerned to save the State. As it lay over against Illinois along the banks of the Mississippi River, and for the most part above the important strategic point where Cairo controls the junction of that river with the Ohio, possession of it appeared to him exceedingly desirable. In the hope of helping matters forward, on July 3, 1861, he created the Department of the West, and placed it under command of General Fremont. But the choice proved unfortunate. Fremont soon showed himself inefficient and troublesome. At first the President endeavored to allay the local bickerings; on September 9, 1861, he wrote to General Hunter: "General Fremont needs assistance which it is difficult to give him. He is losing the confidence of men near him.... His cardinal mistake is that he isolates himself;... he does not know what is going on.... 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;... but will you not serve the country, and oblige me, by taking it voluntarily?" Kindly consideration, however, was thrown away

upon Fremont, whose self-esteem was so great that he could not see that he ought to be grateful, or that he must be subordinate. He owed his appointment largely to the friendly urgency of the Blair family; and now Postmaster-General Blair, puzzled at the disagreeable stories about him, went to St. Louis on an errand of investigation. Fremont promptly placed him under arrest. At the same time Mrs. Fremont was journeying to Washington, where she had an extraordinary interview with the President. "She sought an audience with me at midnight," wrote Lincoln, "and taxed me so violently with many things that I had to exercise all the awkward tact I have to avoid quarreling with her.... She more than once intimated that if General Fremont should decide to try conclusions with me, he could set up for himself." Naturally the angry lady's threats of treason, instead of seeming a palliation of her husband's shortcomings, tended to make his displacement more inevitable. Yet the necessity of being rid of him was unfortunate, because he was the pet hero of the Abolitionists, who stood by him without the slightest regard to reason. Lincoln was loath to offend them, but he felt that he had no choice, and therefore ordered the removal. He preserved, however, that habitual strange freedom from personal resentment which made his feelings, like his action, seem to be strictly official. After the matter was all over he uttered a fair judgment: "I thought well of Fremont. Even

now I think well of his impulses. I only think he is the prey of wicked and designing men; and I think he has absolutely no military capacity." For a short while General Hunter filled Fremont's place, until, in November, General Henry W. Halleck was assigned to command the Department of Missouri. In February, 1862, General Curtis drove the only regular and considerable rebel force across the border into Arkansas; and soon afterward, March 7 and 8, within this latter State, he won the victory of Pea Ridge.

In Tennessee the vote upon secession had indicated that more than two thirds of the dwellers in the mountainous eastern region were Unionists. Mr. Lincoln had it much at heart to sustain these men, and aside from the personal feeling of loyalty to them it was also a point of great military consequence to hold this district. Near the boundary separating the northeastern corner of the State from Kentucky, the famous Cumberland Gap gave passage through the Cumberland Mountains for the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, "the artery that supplied the rebellion." The President saw, as many others did, and appreciated much more than others seemed to do, the desirability of gaining this place. To hold it would be to cut in halves, between east and west, the northern line of the Confederacy. In the early days a movement towards the Gap seemed imprudent in face of Kentucky's theory of "neutrality." But this foolish notion was in time effectually disposed

of by the Confederates. Unable to resist the temptation offered by the important position of Columbus at the western end of the State on the Mississippi River, they seized that place in September, 1861. The state legislature, incensed at the intrusion, immediately embraced the Union cause and welcomed the Union forces within the state lines.

This action opened the way for the President to make strenuous efforts for the protection of the East Tennesseeans and the possession of the Gap. In his annual message he urged upon Congress the construction of a military railroad to the Gap, and afterward appeared in person to advocate this measure before a committee of the Senate. If the place had been in Virginia, he might have gained for his project an attention which, as matters stood, the politicians never accorded to it. He also endeavored to stir to action General Buell, who commanded in Kentucky. Buell, an appointee and personal friend of General McClellan, resembled his chief somewhat too closely both in character and history. Just as Mr. Lincoln had to prick McClellan in Virginia, he now had to prick Buell in Kentucky; and just as McClellan, failed to respond in Virginia, Buell also failed in Kentucky. Further, Buell, like McClellan, had with him a force very much greater than that before him; but Buell, like McClellan, would not admit that his troops were in condition to move. The result was that Jefferson Davis, more active