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.
The evidence is conclusive to this point: That at an interview at the
Executive Mansion, April 5, 1861, between President Lincoln and Colonel
John B. Baldwin, then a member of the Virginia Convention that finally
adopted the Ordinance of Secession, President Lincoln assured Mr.
Baldwin that he would evacuate Fort Sumter if the fort could be
provisioned and the Virginia Convention would adjourn _sine die_.
Colonel Baldwin's voluntary and qualified denial is of no value in
presence of President Lincoln's report of the interview as given by
Mr. Botts and in presence of the testimony that Mr. Baldwin did not
deny the truthfulness of Mr. Botts' limited statement, when it was
asserted by Mr. Botts in the presence of Lewis.