hostility to coercion. A meeting of disciples of Mayor Fernando Wood
held at Brooke’s Hall on Dec. 15 gives us the key to much of this
sentiment. Its chairman said that the city had lost $20,000,000 a month
in Southern orders, an estimate which merchants applauded; while the
rougher element that later engaged in the Draft Riots adopted with a
roar the resolution that, “believing our Southern brethren to be now
engaged in the holy cause of American liberty, and trying to roll back
the avalanche of Britishism, we extend to them our heartfelt sympathy.”
The _Herald_ the same day computed the loss of the North from the
“national convulsion” at $478,620,000, explaining that flour had fallen
a dollar a barrel, wheat twenty cents a bushel, and many manufactories
had suspended, since Lincoln’s election. Mayor Fernando Wood, in his
message published Jan. 8, proposed that if disunion took place, New
York should declare itself a free city, clinging to its commerce with
both sections. Wood was a Philadelphia Quaker by birth, who began
life as a cigar-maker, and made his way in politics by a physique so
handsome, a personality so fascinating, and a character so unscrupulous
that he has been well called the successor of Aaron Burr. The _Evening
Post_ remarked that it had always known he was a knave, but it had not
before suspected him of being so egregious a fool, and asked whether
the city in seceding would take the Hudson River, Long Island Sound,
New York Central, and Erie Canal with it--it couldn’t do without them.
Even the _Herald_ sneered at his proposal. But William H. Russell,
visiting the city, as late as March was shocked by the indifference
which prominent citizens showed to the impending catastrophe.
This indifference the _Evening Post_, _Times_, and _Tribune_ were
loyally trying to dispel. On Feb. 2, when five States had seceded,
the _Evening Post_ warned them that the act meant war. “No one doubts
that if the people of those States should transfer them back to Spain
or France, the United States would be prepared to recover them at all
the hazards of war; and, for the same reason, she will recover them
from the hands of any other ‘foreign powers’ under any other names.” A
fortnight later Bryant reiterated:
... Our government means no war, and will not, if it can be
avoided, shed a drop of blood; if war comes, it must be made by
the South; but let the South understand, when it does come, that
eighty years of enterprise, of accumulation, and of progress in
all the arts of warfare have not been lost upon the North. Cool
in temperament, peaceful in its pursuits, loving industry and
trade more than fighting, it has yet the old blood of the Saxon
in its veins, and will go to battle with the same ponderous
and irresistible energy with which it has reared its massive
civilization out of the primitive wilderness.
The _Times_ was equally emphatic. When the _Journal of Commerce_ argued
that two American nations, one free and one slave, might live as
cordially together as the Protestant and Catholic parts of Switzerland,
the _Tribune_ reminded it that in 1846–7 the Catholic cantons had tried
to secede, and the Swiss government had instantly crushed the movement.
Bryant was keenly interested all the while in the formation of
Lincoln’s Cabinet. Immediately after Lincoln’s nomination he had
written him saying that “I was not without apprehensions that the
nomination might fall upon some person encumbered with bad associates,
and it was with a sense of relief and infinite satisfaction that I,
with thousands of others, heard the news of your nomination.” He was
desirous of having Cabinet places given his friends Chase and Gideon
Welles, and Parke Godwin prints in his biography the three letters in
which he urged the claims of these men and protested against Cameron.
He also wrote Lincoln in behalf of a low tariff. But the biography does
not contain the letter which Hiram Barney, Collector of the Port, wrote
Bryant from Chicago immediately (Jan. 17, 1861) after seeing Lincoln
regarding his Cabinet:
I went with Mapes, Opdyke, and Hageboom from Washington to
Columbus and Springfield. We saw and conversed freely and fully
with Gov. Chase and Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln received your letter
announcing our mission the night previous to our arrival. I
thank you for writing it. It was influential, I have no doubt,
in procuring for us the favorable reception and hearing which
was accorded to us. Mr. Lincoln has invited to his Cabinet only
three persons, to wit--Mr. Bates, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Cameron.
All these have accepted. In regard to the latter-named, however,
Mr. Lincoln became satisfied that he had made a mistake, and
wrote him requesting him to withdraw his acceptancy or decline.
Mr. Cameron refused to answer the letter and was greatly offended
by it. He, however, authorized a mutual friend to telegraph and
he did so--that Mr. Cameron would not on any account accept a
seat in his Cabinet. Mr. Lincoln has thus a quarrel on his hands
which he is anxious to adjust satisfactorily before he proceeds
further in his formation of his Cabinet. He is advised from
Washington not to conclude further upon the members of his Cabinet
until he reaches Washington, which will be probably about the
middle of February--and he has concluded to act according to this
advice. We tried to change this purpose, but I fear in vain. He
has not offered a place to Mr. Chase. He wants and expects to
invite him to the Treasury Department. But he fears this will
offend Pennsylvania, and he wants to reconcile the Republicans
of that State to it before it is settled. He thinks Mr. Chase
would be willing to let the matter stand so and leave the option
with him (Mr. Lincoln) of taking him when he can do so without
embarrassment. He knows that Gov. Chase does not desire to go
into the Cabinet and prefers the Senate--but he relies upon Gov.
Chase’s patriotism to overcome the objections which arise from this
unpleasant state of things.
He wants to take Judd, but this selection will offend some of his
friends and he does not decide upon it. Welles of Connecticut is
his preference for New England. Blair of Maryland is favorably
considered. Dayton will either go into his Cabinet or will have the
mission to England or France. One of these missions he intends to
give to Cassius M. Clay. Caleb B. Smith of Indiana is urged upon
him and he may have to take him instead of Judd. Caleb is almost as
objectionable as Cameron, and for similar reasons. He received good
naturedly and with some compliments my Cabinet which I gave him in
pencil on a slip of paper, rather in joke--as follows:
Lincoln and Judd
Seward and Chase
Bates and Blair
Dayton and Welles
He considers Chase the ablest and best man in America. He is
determined that Justice shall be done to all his friends,
especially to the Republicans of Democratic antecedents, and Mr.
Seward understands that he will not allow the Democratic ...
Republicans of New York to be deprived of their full share of
influence and patronage under his Administration. He is opposed
to all offers of compromise by Republicans which can in the least
affect the integrity of the principles as set forth in the Chicago
platform.
If he would act now on his own judgment and preferences he would
make a good Cabinet not much different from that I have above
mentioned. What he will ultimately do after reaching Washington no
one, not even himself, can tell. He wants to please and satisfy all
his friends.
As this letter indicates, the _Evening Post_ office was one of the
chief Eastern centers from which the “Democratic Republicans” in these
dark months tried to make their influence felt upon the incoming
Administration.
Lincoln’s inaugural address was warmly applauded by the _Evening
Post_. Bryant had seen the President-elect at the Astor House as he
passed through New York, and taken new faith in him. “Admirable as the
inaugural address is in all its parts--convincing in argument, concise
and pithy in manner and simple in style--the generous and conciliatory
tone is the most admirable,” the poet wrote. “Mr. Lincoln thoroughly
refutes the theory of secession. He points out its follies and warns
the disaffected districts against its consequences, but he does so
in the kindly, pitying manner of a father who reasons with an erring
child.” On inauguration day the _Evening Post_ had again predicted war
with the rebels, and again declared that “the Unionists of our States
will arise and deal them the destruction they deserve.” The _Tribune_
regarded the message in the same way. It especially praised “the tone
of almost tenderness,” below which Lincoln’s iron determination was
evident. The message would carry to twenty millions the tidings that
the Federal Government still lived, “with a _Man_ at the head of it.”
The _World_ and _Times_ spoke in similar terms.
But the secessionist press abused this noble state paper roundly.
The _Herald_, which had been praising Buchanan as a wise and just
statesman, and attacking Lincoln as an incompetent, said that the new
President might almost as well have told his audience a funny story
and let it go. His speech was a body of vague generalities artfully
designed to allow its readers to make whatever interpretations they
pleased. “It is neither candid nor statesmanlike; nor does it possess
any essential of dignity or patriotism. It would have caused a
Washington to mourn, and would have inspired Jefferson, Madison, or
Jackson with contempt.” Gerard Hallock in the _Journal of Commerce_
involved himself in a neat contradiction, writing: “The President puts
forth earnest professions of love for the Union, and places justly
and properly much stress upon his duty to preserve it and execute the
laws. But he commits the practical error of setting up the theory of an
unbroken Union, against the stubborn fact of a divided and dissevered
one.” Why, asked Bryant, was it “just” for the President to dwell upon
his duty to preserve the Union, and yet “a practical error” to do so?
Thus the nation moved rapidly toward civil war. While the _Herald_,
_Journal of Commerce_, _Express_, and _Daily News_ still talked of
compromise, actually they had given up hope of it and spent their chief
energies in decrying coercion; the first-named having admitted as
much in an editorial of Feb. 3 headed “No Compromise Now Except That
of a Peaceable Separation.” In fact, all these journals found in the
idea of a division much to commend. At the end of January, Bennett’s
writers began preaching imperialistic doctrines. “North America is
too large for one government,” the _Herald_ reflected on the 24th,
“but establish two and they in good time will cover the continent.”
The next day, under the title, “Manifest Destiny of the North and
South,” it drew an alluring picture of the American conquests that
would follow the dissolution of the Union. Inevitably, the Confederacy
would subdue Mexico, Cuba, and other Caribbean lands. The United States
would conquer Canada. The two great nations would be the most friendly
of allies. “Northern troops may yet have to repel invaders of the
possessions of slave-holders in Mexico and Venezuela, and our fleet
will joyfully aid in dispersing new Spanish armadas on the coast of
Cuba. Nor do we doubt that ... under the walls of Quebec, and on the
banks of the St. Lawrence, legions from Louisiana, Alabama, and South
Carolina will aid us.” This glorious vision of unlimited booty was
repeatedly dwelt upon.
The _Herald_ had less Northern influence than its large circulation
would seem to imply, and was hearkened to chiefly at the South. Many
secessionists, remembering the business and social connections of
the South with the metropolis, and the large Democratic majority New
York generally gave, believed that the city would assist to divide
the North and aid the rebellion. “The New York _Herald_ and New York
_Evening Express_ have done much toward disseminating this false
theory,” said the New Orleans _Picayune_ later. The Chicago _Tribune_
that summer quoted a Southern visitor as saying “that we of the North
can have little or no idea of the pestilent influence which the New
York _News_ and other journals of that sort have exerted upon the
popular mind of that section.” Probably less harm was done the Union
by Bennett’s erratic ideas than by Greeley’s influential opinion that
if the South was determined to go, go she ought. Bryant’s editorials
in the _Evening Post_, above those of any other New York journal,
expressed an elevated, unwavering, and steadying demand for loyalty to
the Constitution. He had no patience with Greeley’s acquiescence in a
popular-sovereignty doctrine of secession. He was a far abler writer
than any man on the staff of the _Times_ or _World_, even Raymond.
His superior steadfastness and shrewdness of judgment was strikingly
illustrated just before the war began.
On April 3, as if by concert, the _Tribune_ and _Times_ published long
and emphatic editorials attacking Lincoln for his alleged indecision
and inactivity. The _Tribune_ headed its editorial “Come to the Point!”
and demanded that a programme be laid down. Greeley apparently cared
little what this programme should be. “If the Union is to be maintained
at all hazards, let the word be passed along the line that the laws
are to be enforced.... If the secession of the Gulf States--and of
any more that choose to follow--is to be regarded as a fixed fact,
let that be proclaimed, and let the line of revenue collection be
established and maintained this side of them.” The _Times_ devoted two
columns to “Wanted--A Policy.” The Administration, it said, had fallen
so far short of public expectations that the Union was weaker than a
month before. Indeed, the Administration had exhibited “a blindness
and a stolidity without a parallel in the history of intelligent
statesmanship.” Lincoln had “spent time and strength in feeding
rapacious and selfish politicians, which should have been bestowed
upon saving the Union”; and “we tell him ... that he must go up to a
higher level than he has yet reached, before he can see and realize
the high duties to which he has been called.” Such utterances lent too
much support to the _Herald’s_ constant statements that “the Lincoln
Administration is cowardly, mean, and vicious,” its constant references
to “the incompetent, ignorant, and desperate ‘Honest Abe.’”
In a crushing editorial next day, Bryant demolished these peevish
outbursts. First, he pointed out, it was hard within thirty days to
decide what course was best as regarded the seceding States and the
wavering border States. The Cabinet was said to be divided, and the
most careful reflection, investigation, and debate was necessary for a
question so big with the fate of the republic. Second, how could the
facile critics know that Lincoln had not fixed upon his policy, but
concluded to make it known by execution, not by a windy proclamation?
“If Fort Sumter is to be reinforced, should we give the rebels previous
notice?” There existed other considerations, as the fact that every
day officers in the army and navy were going over to the rebels, and
if Lincoln decided upon an energetic course it would be indispensable
to be able to count on an energetic execution in every contingency.
This answer displayed an admirable patience--a patience of which Bryant
might well have had a larger stock in the four years to come.
The first edition of the _Evening Post_ on April 13 carried the news
that the bombardment of Fort Sumter had begun, and carried also an
editorial written with all Bryant’s high fervor:
This is a day which will be ever memorable in our annals. To-day
treason has risen from blustering words to cowardly deeds. Men
made reckless by a long life of political gambling--for years
cherishing treason next their hearts while swearing fealty to the
government--have at last goaded themselves on to murder a small
band of faithful soldiers. They have deliberately chosen the issue
of battle. To-day, who hesitates in his allegiance is a traitor
with them....
To-day the nation looks to the government to put down treason
forever.... It will not grudge the men or the money which are
needed. We have enjoyed for eighty years the blessings of liberty
and constitutional government. It is a small sacrifice we are now
to lay upon the altar. In the name of constitutional liberty, in
the name of law and order, in the name of all that is dear to
freemen, we shall put down treason and restore the supremacy of the
Constitution.
The day was one of intense excitement. The _Evening Post_ of Monday,
April 15, reported that thousands of eager inquirers had thronged the
streets in the neighborhood of the office and packed the counting-room
downstairs until there was no room for a single additional person. The
successive editions were seized upon madly. At five the first rumor
of Sumter’s surrender came over the wires, and at five-thirty it was
confirmed. Within a space of seconds rather than minutes the fourth
edition, containing the complete news, was being cried on the streets.
The _Herald_ next morning sold 135,000 copies, a world’s record. That
Monday Bryant’s leading editorial, “The Union, Now and Forever,” took
its text in the President’s call for volunteers. “If he calls for only
75,000,” said the _Evening Post_, “it is because he knows that he can
have a million if he needs them.” George Cary Eggleston has said that
he and Bryant’s other associates were often amazed to see how calmly
he would write an editorial that proved full of intense eloquence,
every line blazing. This was such an editorial, ending in a ringing
peroration: “‘God speed the President!’ is the voice of millions of
determined freemen to-day.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE CRITICAL DAYS OF THE CIVIL WAR
When Sumter brought the North to its feet as one man, as Lowell wrote,
the press and general public believed the war would be brief. The best
editorial judgment in New York had been that the rebellion could be
strangled by a blockade alone. “A half dozen ships of war stationed
at the proper points is all that is wanted,” said the _Times_ on Feb.
11, 1861. “In a few months’ time the Southern Confederacy would be
completely starved out.” The _Tribune_, arguing Jan. 22 for closing
the Southern ports, had predicted that as a consequence “the South
will decline, and finally collapse, in utter humiliation. And this
will not result from bloody wars, but from the peaceful operation of
the laws of trade.” On the same date the _Evening Post_ remarked that
the secession disease required not cautery or the knife, but a little
judicious regimen. Uncle Sam might crush the seceding States with ease.
“He could devastate every cotton field, and level every seaboard city
in less than a year, if he were so foolhardy and malignant as they have
shown themselves to be.” It must be remembered that at the time of all
these utterances Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas had
not yet joined the South. But in his call to arms just after Sumter
Bryant allowed himself to boast that every loyal arm was a match for
ten traitors. A pathetic _Evening Post_ editorial of June 15, “The
Beginning of the End,” following the Confederate evacuation of Harper’s
Ferry, predicted that Jefferson Davis meant to make a desperate effort
at Manassas, for “his cause is on its last legs, and unless he puts
forth a bold stroke now, it is gone.”
It was because the _Tribune_ was so confident of an easy victory that
it raised the cry, “On to Richmond!” in June and early July. Simply
because it shared the same confidence, the _Evening Post_, with greater
wisdom, pleaded for deliberation and care, and carried editorials with
such headings as “Patience!” (July 1). After the advance began, it
thought that Jefferson Davis ought to be captured within a month (July
17).
When upon this over-confidence fell the shock of the rout at Bull Run,
the _Post_ felt it necessary to hearten the North by minimizing the
defeat. There was no need to labor the moral that the war was going
to be long and hard, and Bryant was worried lest the public should be
depressed. Frederic Law Olmsted wrote him that “although it is not best
to say it publicly, you should know, at least, that the retreat was
generally of the worst character, and is already in its results most
disastrous.” The _Post_ harped for some time upon the lesson of the
need for better discipline and officers. But it also tried to maintain
that Manassas was the Sebastopol of the rebels, a powerful natural
position; that “in any fair, open, hand-to-hand fight, the Union troops
are too much for the seceders”; and even that the moral effect of the
battle would be in the North’s favor. Greeley felt the same impulse
when, under the reaction from his “On to Richmond!” mischief, he
promised that the _Tribune_ would cease nagging the army, and devote
itself to inspiriting the public.
As soon as they perceived that the war would be bitter, the editors
of the _Post_ took their stand with what the historian Rhodes calls
the radical party of the North; the party of Secretary Chase, Senators
Trumbull and Sumner, and Gen. Carl Schurz. The paper’s Washington
correspondent early (May 3) divided the Cabinet into radicals--Welles,
Chase, Blair--and conservatives--Seward, Bates, and Smith. The
radicals wanted the war prosecuted with intense energy, no thought of
compromise, and no particular regard for the feelings of the border
States and Northern Democrats. Always ardent, sometimes precipitate,
they disliked the cautious Seward, and sometimes lost patience with
Lincoln himself. In the end their policies were usually adopted,
but Lincoln’s wisdom lay in not adopting them prematurely; as Schurz
admitted in 1864, when he wrote a schoolmate that he had often thought
Lincoln wrong, but in the end had always found him right.
Much of the radicalism of Bryant and Parke Godwin was quite sound.
In the first month the _Evening Post_ published no fewer than four
editorials asking for a hurried and strict blockade of the South, and
prophesying that it would “put an end to the rebellion more quickly
than any other plan of action.” On July 20 it anticipated Ericsson
by asking for ironclads, recalling that Robert L. Stevens had begun
building a floating armored battery under an act of Congress passed
in 1842, but had never finished it. The paper thought that “half a
dozen thoroughly shot-proof gunboats, of light draft,” could silence
Forts Sumter, Pulaski, and Jackson, or better still, run past them
and dominate Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans. It asked for a
national draft on July 9, 1862, nine months before Congress passed
a law for one. Lincoln’s early policy was to free and protect all
Southern negroes who, having been employed in the military service of
the Confederacy, came within the lines of the Northern commands, but
this did not satisfy Bryant. On Dec. 6, 1861, he asked Congress to
confiscate the property of the rebels, appoint State commissioners of
forfeiture to take charge of it, and as fast as negroes came within
Northern reach, make them freemen.
Bryant was in direct communication with radical officials in Washington
and radical commanders in the field. He corresponded with Secretary
Chase; Gen. James Wadsworth and Gen. E. A. Hitchcock wrote him
startlingly frank letters; and he heard regularly from Consul-General
Bigelow in Paris. The slowness with which the war dragged on was
deplored by the _Evening Post_ even as it was deplored by Chase,
Schurz, and Sumner. The paper did not criticize Lincoln with the signal
lack of judgment Greeley often showed, much less with the rancorous
hostility of Bennett’s _Herald_ or the now Democratic _World_. But by
the middle of September, 1861, it was censuring him for the reluctance
with which he signed the Confiscation Act, and reminding him that “his
official position is in the lead, and not in the rear.” On Oct. 11 it
published an editorial, “Playing With War,” in which it criticized
the Administration for lukewarmness and declared that the public
wanted active measures; “the more energetic, the more effective these
measures, the more telling the blow, the more they will applaud.”