THE TURN OF THE TIDE
The winter of 1862-63 was for the Rebellion much what the winter of
Valley Forge was for the Revolution. It passed, however, and the nation
still clung fast to its purpose. The weak brethren who had become
dismayed were many, but the people as a whole was steadfast. This being
so, ultimate success became assured. Wise and cool-headed men, in a
frame of mind to contemplate the situation as it really was, saw that
the tide was about at its turning, and that the Union would not drift
away to destruction in this storm at any rate. They saw that the North
_could_ whip the South, if it chose; and it was now sufficiently evident
that it would choose,--that it would endure, and would finish its task.
It was only the superficial observers who were deceived by the Virginian
disasters, which rose so big in the foreground as partially to conceal
the real fact,--that the Confederacy was being at once strangled and
starved to death. The waters of the Atlantic Ocean and of the Gulf of
Mexico were being steadily made more and more inaccessible, as one
position after another along the coast gradually passed into Federal
hands. The Mississippi River, at last a Union stream from its source to
its mouth, now made a Chinese wall for the Confederacy on the west. Upon
the north the line of conflict had been pushed down to the northern
borders of Mississippi and Georgia, and the superincumbent weight of the
vast Northwest lay with a deadly pressure upon these two States.
It was, therefore, only in Virginia that the Confederates had held their
own, and here, with all their victories, they had done no more than just
hold their own. They had to recognize, also, that from such battlefields
as Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville they gathered no sustenance,
however much they might reap in the way of glory. Neither had they
gained even any ground, for the armies were still manoeuvring along the
same roads over which they had been tramping and swaying to and fro for
more than two years. By degrees the Southern resources in the way of
men, money, food, and supplies generally, were being depleted. The
Confederacy was like a lake, artificially inclosed, which was fed by no
influx from outside, while it was tapped and drained at many points.
On the other hand, within the North, affairs were coming into a more
satisfactory condition. It was true that all the military successes of
July had not discouraged the malcontents; and during the summer they had
been busily preparing for the various state elections of the autumn,
which they hoped would strongly corroborate their congressional triumphs
of 1862. But when the time came they were exceedingly disappointed. The
law now, fairly enough, permitted soldiers in the field to vote, and
this was, of course, a reinforcement for the Republican party; but even
among the voters at home the Democratic reaction of the preceding year
had spent its force. In October Pennsylvania gave Governor Curtin, the
Republican candidate for reëlection, a majority of 15,000. In the same
month, under the circumstances described in the preceding chapter, Ohio
buried Vallandigham under a hostile majority of more than 100,000. The
lead thus given by the "October States" was followed by the "November
States." In New York no governor was to be elected; but the Republican
state ticket showed a majority of 30,000, whereas the year before
Seymour had polled a majority of 10,000. The Northwest fell into the
procession, though after a hard fight. A noteworthy feature of the
struggle, which was fierce and for a time doubtful in Illinois, was a
letter from Mr. Lincoln. He was invited to attend a mass meeting at
Springfield, and with reluctance felt himself obliged to decline; but in
place of a speech, which might not have been preserved, the good fortune
of posterity caused him to write this letter:--
August 26, 1863.
HON. JAMES C. CONKLING:
_My dear Sir_,--Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meeting of
unconditional Union men, to be held at the capital of Illinois, on the
third day of September, has been received. It would be very agreeable
for me thus to meet my old friends at my own home, but I cannot just now
be absent from here as long as a visit there would require.
The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional devotion to
the Union, and I am sure my old political friends will thank me for
tendering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those other noble men whom
no partisan malice or partisan hope can make false to the nation's life.
There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say: you
desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. But how can we
attain it? There are but three conceivable ways: First, to suppress the
rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for it? If
you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is to
give up the Union. I am against this. Are you for it? If you are, you
should say so plainly. If you are not for _force_, nor yet for
_dissolution_, there only remains some imaginable _compromise_.
I do not believe that any compromise embracing the maintenance of the
Union is now possible. All that I learn leads to a directly opposite
belief. The strength of the rebellion is its military, its army. That
army dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any
offer of terms made by any man or men within that range, in opposition
to that army, is simply nothing for the present; because such man or men
have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one
were made with them.
To illustrate: suppose refugees from the South and peace men of the
North get together in convention, and frame and proclaim a compromise
embracing a restoration of the Union. In what way can that compromise be
used to keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania? Meade's army can keep Lee's
army out of Pennsylvania, and, I think, can ultimately drive it out of
existence. But no paper compromise, to which the controllers of Lee's
army are not agreed, can at all affect that army. In an effort at such
compromise we would [should] waste time, which the enemy would improve
to our disadvantage, and that would be all.
A compromise, to be effective, must be made either with those who
control the rebel army, or with the people, first liberated from the
domination of that army by the success of our own army. Now, allow me to
assure you that no word or intimation from that rebel army, or from any
of the men controlling it, in relation to any peace compromise, has ever
come to my knowledge or belief. All charges and insinuations to the
contrary are deceptive and groundless. And I promise you that if any
such proposition shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept
a secret from you. I freely acknowledge myself to be the servant of the
people, according to the bond of service, the United States
Constitution; and that, as such, I am responsible to them. But to be
plain, you are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite likely there
is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I
certainly wish that all men could be free, while you, I suppose, do not.
Yet I have neither adopted nor proposed any measure which is not
consistent with even your views, provided that you are for the Union. I
suggested compensated emancipation, to which you replied: you wished not
to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not asked you to be taxed to buy
negroes, except in such a way as to save you from greater taxation to
save the Union exclusively by other means.
You dislike the emancipation proclamation, and perhaps would have it
retracted. You say it is unconstitutional. I think differently. I think
the Constitution invests its commander-in-chief with all the law of war
in time of war. The most that can be said, if so much, is, that slaves
are property. Is there, has there ever been, any question that by the
law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when
needed? And is it not needed whenever it helps us and hurts the enemy?
Armies, the world over, destroy enemies' property when they cannot use
it, and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy.
... But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If it
is not valid it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be
retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you
profess to think its retraction would operate favorably for the Union.
Why better after the retraction than before the issue? There was more
than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the
proclamation was issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under
an explicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt
returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as
favorably for us since the issue of the proclamation as before. I know,
as fully as one can know the opinion of others, that some of the
commanders of our armies in the field, who have given us our most
important victories, believe the emancipation policy and the use of
colored troops constitute the heaviest blows yet dealt to the rebellion,
and that at least one of those important successes could not have been
achieved, when it was, but for the aid of black soldiers.
Among the commanders who hold these views are some who have never had an
affinity with what is called "abolitionism," or with "Republican party
politics," but who hold them purely as military opinions. I submit their
opinions as entitled to some weight against the objections often urged
that emancipation and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures,
and were not adopted as such in good faith.
You say that you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem
willing to fight for you; but no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively to
save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in
saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to
the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting it will be an apt
time then for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes. I
thought that, in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the
negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the
enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently?
I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves
just so much less for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it
appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon
motives. Why should they do anything for us, if we will do nothing for
them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the
strongest motive, even the promise of freedom. And the promise, being
made, must be kept.
The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the
sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it; nor yet wholly to them. Three
hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey,
hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more colors
than one, also lent a helping hand. On the spot their part of the
history was jotted down in black and white. The job was a great national
one, and let none be slighted who bore an honorable part in it. And
while those who have cleared the great river may well be proud, even
that is not all. It is hard to say that anything has been more bravely
or well done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro', Gettysburg, and on many
fields of less note. Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten. At all
the watery margins they have been present, not only on the deep sea, the
broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow muddy bayou, and
wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been and made their
tracks. Thanks to all. For the great Republic,--for the principle it
lives by and keeps alive,--for man's vast future,--thanks to all.
Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon,
and come to stay, and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future
time. It will then have been proved that among free men there can be no
successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take
such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost. And there will
be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue, and clinched
teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind
on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white men
unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they
have striven to hinder it.
Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy final triumph. Let us be
quite sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a
just God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful result.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
This was a fair statement of past facts and of the present condition;
and thus the plain tokens of the time showed that the menace of
disaffection had been met and sufficiently conquered. The President had
let the nation see the strength of his will and the immutability of his
purpose. He had faced bullying Republican politicians, a Democratic
reaction, Copperheadism, and mob violence, and by none of these had he
been in the least degree shaken or diverted from his course. On the
contrary, from so many and so various struggles he had come out the
victor, a real ruler of the country. He had shown that whenever and by
whomsoever, and in whatever part of the land he was pushed to use power,
he would use it. Temporarily the great republic was under a "strong
government," and Mr. Lincoln was the strength. Though somewhat cloaked
by forms, there was for a while in the United States a condition of
"one-man power," and the people instinctively recognized it, though they
would on no account admit it in plain words. In fact every malcontent
knew that there was no more use in attempting to resist the American
President than in attempting to resist a French emperor or a Russian
czar; there was even less use, for while the President managed on one
plausible ground or another to have and to exercise all the power that
he needed, he was sustained by the good-will and confidence of a
majority of the people, which lay as a solid substratum beneath all the
disturbance on the surface. It was well that this was so, for a war
conducted by a cabinet or a congress could have ended only in disaster.
This peculiar character of the situation may not be readily admitted; it
is often convenient to deny and ignore facts in order to assert popular
theories; and that there was a real _master_ in the United States is a
proposition which many will consider it highly improper to make and very
patriotic to contradict. None the less, however, it is true, and by the
autumn of 1863 every intelligent man in the country _felt_ that it was
true. Moreover, it was because this was true, and because that master
was immovably persistent in the purpose to conquer the South, that the
conquest of the South could now be discerned as substantially a
certainty in the future.
Some other points should also be briefly made here. The war is to be
divided into two stages. The first two years were educational;
subsequently the fruits of that education were attained. The men who had
studied war as a profession, but had had no practical experience, found
much to learn in warfare as a reality after the struggle began. But
before the summer of 1863 there were in the service many generals, than
whom none better could be desired. "Public men" were somewhat slow in
discovering that their capacity to do pretty much everything did not
include the management of campaigns. But by the summer of 1863 these
"public" persons made less noise in the land than they had made in the
days of McClellan; and though political considerations could never be
wholly suppressed, the question of retaining or displacing a general no
longer divided parties, or superseded, and threatened to wreck, the
vital question of the war. Moreover, as has been remarked in another
connection, the nation began to appreciate that while war was a science
so far as the handling of armies in the field was concerned, it was
strictly a business in its other aspects. By, and in fact before, the
summer of 1863 this business had been learned and was being efficiently
conducted.
Time and experience had done no less for the President than for others.
A careful daily student of the topography of disputed regions, of every
proposed military movement, of every manoeuvre, every failure, every
success, he was making himself a skillful judge in the questions of the
campaigns. He had also been studying military literature. Yet as his
knowledge and his judgment grew, his modesty and his abstention from
interference likewise grew. He was more and more chary of endeavoring to
control his generals. The days of such contention as had thwarted the
plans of McClellan without causing other plans to be heartily and fully
adopted had fortunately passed, never to return. Of course, however,
this was in part due to the fact that the war had now been going on long
enough to enable Mr. Lincoln to know pretty well what measure of
confidence he could place in the several generals. He had tried his
experiments and was now using his conclusions. Grant, Sherman,
Sheridan, Thomas, Hancock, and Meade were no longer undiscovered
generals; while Fremont, McClellan, Halleck--and perhaps two or three
more might be named--may be described in a counter-phrase as generals
who were now quite thoroughly discovered. The President and the country
were about to get the advantage of this acquired knowledge.
A consequence of these changed conditions, of the entrance upon this new
stage of the war, becomes very visible in the life of Mr. Lincoln. The
disputation, the hurly-burly, the tumultuous competition of men,
opinions, and questions, which made the first eighteen months of his
presidency confusing and exciting as a great tempest on the sea, have
gone by. For the future his occupation is rather to keep a broad,
general supervision, to put his controlling touch for the moment now
here, now there. He ceases to appear as an individual contestant; his
personality, though not less important, is less conspicuous; his
influence is exerted less visibly, though not less powerfully. In short,
the business-like aspect affects him and his functions as it does all
else that concerns the actual conduct of the war; he too feels, though
he may not formulate, the change whereby a crisis has passed into a
condition. This will be seen from the character of the remainder of this
narrative. There are no more controversies which call for other chapters
like those which told of the campaigns of McClellan. There are no more
fierce intestine dissensions like those which preceded the Proclamation
of Emancipation,--at least not until the matter of reconstruction comes
up, and reconstruction properly had not to do with the war, but with the
later period. In a word, the country had become like the steed who has
ceased fretfully to annoy the rider, while the rider, though exercising
an ever-watchful control, makes less apparent exertion.
* * * * *
By one of the odd arrangements of our governmental machine, it was not
until December 7, 1863, that the members of the Thirty-eighth Congress
met for the first time to express those political sentiments which had
been in vogue more than a year before that time, that is to say during
the months of October and November, 1862, when these gentlemen had been
elected, at the close of the summer's campaign. It has been said and
shown that a very great change in popular feeling had taken place and
made considerable advance during this interval. The autumn of 1863 was
very different from the autumn of 1862! A Congress coming more newly
from the people would have been much more Republican in its complexion.
Still, even as it was, the Republicans had an ample working majority,
and moreover were disturbed by fewer and less serious dissensions among
themselves than had been the case occasionally in times past. McClellan
and the Emancipation Proclamation had not quite yet been succeeded by
any other questions of equal potency for alienating a large section of
the party from the President. Not that unanimity prevailed by any means;
that was impossible under the conditions of human nature. The extremists
still distrusted Mr. Lincoln, and regarded him as an obstruction to
sound policies. Senator Chandler of Michigan, a fine sample of the
radical Republican, instructed him that, by the elections, Conservatives
and traitors had been buried together, and begged him not to exhume
them, since they would "smell worse than Lazarus did after he had been
buried three days." Apparently he ranked Seward among these defunct and
decaying Conservatives; certainly he regarded the secretary as a
"millstone about the neck" of the President.[52] Still, in spite of such
denunciations, times were not in this respect so bad as they had been,
and the danger that the uncompromising Radicals would make wreck of the
war was no longer great.
* * * * *
Another event, occurring in this autumn of 1863, was noteworthy because
through it the literature of our tongue received one of its most
distinguished acquisitions. On November 19 the national military
cemetery at Gettysburg was to be consecrated; Edward Everett was to
deliver the oration, and the President was of course invited as a guest.
Mr. Arnold says that it was actually while Mr. Lincoln was "in the cars
on his way from the White House to the battlefield" that he was told
that he also would be expected to say something on the occasion; that
thereupon he jotted down in pencil the brief address which he delivered
a few hours later.[53] But that the composition was quite so
extemporaneous seems doubtful, for Messrs. Nicolay and Hay transcribe
the note of invitation, written to the President on November 2 by the
master of the ceremonies, and in it occurs this sentence: "It is the
desire that, after the oration, you, as Chief Executive of the Nation,
formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use, by a few
appropriate remarks." Probably, therefore, some forethought went to the
preparation of this beautiful and famous "Gettysburg speech." When Mr.
Everett sat down, the President arose and spoke as follows:[54]--
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a
great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of
that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final
resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might
live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in
a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot
hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here
have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The
world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can
never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have
thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to
the great task remaining before us;--that from these honored dead, we
take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion;--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the earth."
FOOTNOTES:
[52] N. and H. vii. 389.
[53] Arnold, _Lincoln_, 328. This writer gives a very vivid description
of the delivery of the speech, derived in part from Governor Dennison,
afterward the postmaster-general, who was present on the occasion.
[54] Mr. Arnold says that in an unconscious and absorbed manner, Mr.
Lincoln "adjusted his spectacles" and read his address.