through the invasion of Mexico by a French army commanded by Bazaine,
seven years later to be known as the (more or less) hero of Metz. Lotus
Napoleon had been unwilling to give up his dream of a French empire, or
of an empire instituted under French influence, in the Western
Hemisphere. He was still hopeful, if not confident, that the United
States would not be able to maintain its existence; and he felt assured
that if the Southern Confederacy should finally be established with the
friendly co-operation of France, he would be left unmolested to carry
out his own schemes in Mexico. He had induced an honest-minded but not
very clearheaded Prince, Maximilian, the brother of the Emperor of
Austria, to accept a throne in Mexico to be established by French
bayonets, and which, as the result showed, could sustain itself only
while those bayonets were available. The presence of French troops on
American soil brought fresh anxieties to the administration; but it was
recognised that nothing could be done for the moment, and Lincoln and
his advisers were hopeful that the Mexicans, before their capital had
been taken possession of by the invader, would be able to maintain some
national government until, with the successful close of its own War,
the United States could come to the defence of the sister republic.
The extreme anti-slavery group of the Republican party had, as
indicated, never been fully satisfied with the thoroughness of the
anti-slavery policy of the administration and Mr. Chase retained until
the action of the convention in June the hope that he might through the
influence of this group secure the Presidency. Lincoln remarks in
connection with this candidacy: "If Chase becomes President, all right.
I hope we may never have a worse man." From the more conservative wing
of the Republican party came suggestions as to the nomination of Grant
and this plan brought from Lincoln the remark: "If Grant takes Richmond,
by all means let him have the nomination." When the delegates came
together, however, in Baltimore, it was evident that, representing as
they did the sober and well-thought-out convictions of the people, no
candidacy but that of Lincoln could secure consideration and his
nomination was practically unanimous.
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?"
"It is one of the States of the North-west," said Sherman.
"When I was studying geography," said the planter, "I knew of Wisconsin
simply as the name of a tribe of Indians. How many men are there in a
regiment?"
"Well, there were a thousand when they started," said Sherman.
"Do you mean to say," said the planter, "that there is a State called
Wisconsin that has sent thirty thousand men into your armies?"
"Oh, probably forty thousand," answered Sherman.
With the next battalion the questions and the answers are repeated. The
flag was that of a Minnesota regiment, say the 32d. The old planter had
never heard that there was such a State.
"My God!" he said when he had figured out the thousands of men who had
come to the front, from these so-called Indian territories, to maintain
the existence of the nation, "If we in the South had known that you had
turned those Indian territories into great States, we never should have
gone into this war." The incident throws a light upon the state of mind
of men in the South, even of well educated men in the South, at the
outbreak of the War. They might, of course, have known by statistics
that great States had grown up in the North-west, representing a
population of millions and able themselves to put into the field armies
to be counted by the thousand. They might have realised that these great
States of the North-west were vitally concerned with the necessity of
keeping the Mississippi open for their trade from its source to the Gulf
of Mexico. They might have known that those States, largely settled from
New England, were absolutely opposed to slavery. This knowledge was
within their reach but they had not realised the facts of the case. It
was their feeling that in the coming contest they would have to do only
with New England and the Middle States and they felt that they were
strong enough to hold their own against this group of opponents. That
feeling would have been justified. The South could never have been
overcome and the existence of the nation could never have been
maintained if it had not been for the loyal co-operation and the
magnificent resources of men and of national wealth that were
contributed to the cause by the States of the North-west. In 1880, I had
occasion, in talking to the two thousand students of the University of
Minnesota, to recall the utterance of the old planter. The students of
that magnificent University, placed in a beautiful city of two hundred
and fifty thousand inhabitants, found it difficult on their part to
realise, amidst their laughter at the ignorance of the old planter, just
what the relations of the South had been before the War to the new free
communities of the North-west.
In February, 1865, with the fall of Fort Fisher and the capture of
Wilmington, the control of the coast of the Confederacy became complete.
The Southerners and their friends in Great Britain and the Bahamas (a
group of friends whose sympathies for the cause were very much enhanced
by the opportunity of making large profits out of their friendly
relations) had shown during the years of the War exceptional ingenuity,
daring, and persistence in carrying on the blockade-running. The ports
of the British West Indies were very handy, and, particularly during the
stormy months of the winter, it was hardly practicable to maintain an
absolutely assured barrier of blockades along a line of coast
aggregating about two thousand miles. The profits on a single voyage on
the cotton taken out and on the stores brought back were sufficient to
make good the loss of both vessel and cargo in three disastrous trips.
The blockade-runners, Southerners and Englishmen, took their lives in
their hands and they fairly earned all the returns that came to them. I
happened to have early experience of the result of the fall of Fort
Fisher and of the final closing of the last inlet for British goods. I
was at the time in prison in Danville, Virginia. I was one of the few
men in the prison (the group comprised about a dozen) who had been
fortunate enough to retain a tooth-brush. We wore our tooth-brushes
fastened into the front button-holes of our blouses, partly possibly
from ostentation, but chiefly for the purpose of keeping them from being
stolen. I was struck by receiving an offer one morning from the
lieutenant of the prison guard of $300 for my tooth-brush. The "dollars"
meant of course Confederate dollars and I doubtless hardly realised from
the scanty information that leaked into the prison how low down in
February, 1865, Confederate currency had depreciated. But still it was a
large sum and the tooth-brush had been in use for a number of months.
It then leaked out from a word dropped by the lieutenant that no more
English tooth-brushes could get into the Confederacy and those of us who
had been studying possibilities on the coast realised that Fort Fisher
must have fallen.
In this same month of February, into which were crowded some of the most
noteworthy of the closing events of the War, Charleston was evacuated as
Sherman's army on its sweep northward passed back of the city. I am not
sure whether the fiercer of the old Charlestonians were not more annoyed
at the lack of attention paid by Sherman to the fire-eating little city
in which four years back had been fired the gun that opened the War,
than they would have been by an immediate and strenuous occupation.
Sherman had more important matters on hand than the business of looking
after the original fire-eaters. He was hurrying northward, close on the
heels of Johnston, to prevent if possible the combination of Johnston's
troops with Lee's army which was supposed to be retreating from
Virginia.
On the 4th of March comes the second inaugural, in which Lincoln speaks
almost in the language of a Hebrew prophet. The feeling is strong upon
him that the clouds of war are about to roll away but he cannot free
himself from the oppression that the burdens of the War have produced.
The emphasis is placed on the all-important task of bringing the
enmities to a close with the end of the actual fighting. He points out
that responsibilities rest upon the North as well as upon the South and
he invokes from those who under his leadership are bringing the contest
to a triumphant close, their sympathy and their help for their
fellow-men who have been overcome. The address is possibly the most
impressive utterance ever made by a national leader and it is most
characteristic of the fineness and largeness of nature of the man. I
cite the closing paragraph:
"If we shall suppose that slavery is one of those offences which in
the providence of God needs must come, and which having continued
through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He
gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe to those
by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure
from those Divine attributes, which the believers in the Living God
always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that
this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills
that it should continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen
in two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and
until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by
another drop of blood drawn by the War, as was said two thousand
years ago so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord
are true, and righteous altogether.... With malice towards none,
with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to
see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind
up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the
battle and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may
achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and
with all nations."
After the election of 1864, Lincoln's word had been "a common cause, a
common interest, and a common country." The invocation in this last
inaugural is based upon the understanding that there is again a common
country and that in caring for those who have been in the battle and in
the binding up of the wounds, there is to be no distinction between the
men of the grey and those of the blue.
At the close of February, Lee, who realises that his weakened lines
cannot much longer be maintained, proposes to Grant terms of adjustment.
Grant replies that his duties are purely military and that he has no
authority to discuss any political relations. On the first of April, the
right wing of Lee's army is overwhelmed and driven back by Sheridan at
Five Forks, and on the day following Richmond is evacuated by the
rear-guard of Lee's army. The defence of Richmond during the long years
of the War (a defence which was carried on chiefly from the
entrenchments of Petersburg), by the skill of the engineers and by the
patient courage of the troops, had been magnificent. It must always take
a high rank in the history of war operations. The skilful use made of
positions of natural strength, the high skill shown in the construction
of works to meet first one emergency and then another, the economic
distribution of constantly diminishing resources, the clever disposition
of forces, (which during the last year were being steadily reduced from
month to month), in such fashion that at the point of probable contact
there seemed to be always men enough to make good the defence, these
things were evidence of the military skill, the ingenuity, the
resourcefulness, and the enduring courage of the leaders. The skill and
character of Lee and his associates would however of course have been in
vain and the lines would have been broken not in 1865, but in 1863 or in
1862, if it had not been for the magnificent patience and heroism of the
rank and file that fought in the grey uniform under the Stars and Bars
and whose fighting during the last of those months was done in tattered
uniforms and with a ration less by from one quarter to one half than
that which had been accepted as normal.
On the second of April, the Stars and Stripes are borne into Richmond by
the advance brigade of the right wing of Grant's army under the command
of General Weitzel. There was a certain poetic justice in the decision
that the responsibility for making first occupation of the city should
be entrusted to the coloured troops. The city had been left by the
rear-guard of the Confederate army in a state of serious confusion. The
Confederate general in charge (Lee had gone out in the advance hoping to
be able to break his way through to North Carolina) had felt justified,
for the purpose of destroying such army stores (chiefly ammunition) as
remained, in setting fire to the storehouses, and in so doing he had
left whole quarters of the city exposed to flame. White stragglers and
negroes who had been slaves had, as would always be the case where all
authority is removed, yielded to the temptation to plunder, and the city
was full of drunken and irresponsible men. The coloured troops restored
order and appear to have behaved with perfect discipline and
consideration. The marauders were arrested, imprisoned, and, when
necessary, shot. The fires were put out as promptly as practicable, but
not until a large amount of very unnecessary damage and loss had been
brought upon the stricken city. The women who had locked themselves into
their houses, more in dread of the Yankee invader than of their own
street marauders, were agreeably surprised to find that their immediate
safety and the peace of the town depended upon the invaders and that the
first battalions of these were the despised and much hated blacks.