Part 22 (1/2)

”Well, General,” McClellan said, ”I am in command again.”

What followed would be talked about for years to come. As McClellan rode forward toward the soldiers, he saluted them with his cap, and they, suddenly encouraged, broke out in shouts and cheers ”with wild delight.” The word spread along the columns of soldiers, ”Little Mac is back!”

AS JULY TURNED INTO AUGUST, and then into September, Lincoln waited for the military victory that would allow him to announce his Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. For months now, the most furious a.s.sault on Lincoln came not from Confederate troops besieging Was.h.i.+ngton, but from radical Republican senators a.s.sailing his leaders.h.i.+p. Senators Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson of Ma.s.sachusetts, along with Congressman Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, gave Lincoln no respite. Lincoln told a visitor that he would look out the White House window and see them coming, singly, as a pair, or all together to attack him for not making a more frontal a.s.sault on slavery. In these dire days, Lincoln often found refuge in his bottomless barrel of humor. He told a friend that the visits of these three reminded him of the boy in Sunday school, who, when asked to read from the Bible the story of the three men in the fiery furnace, struggled over the difficult names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The boy read on, mortified, until he looked down the page and saw their names coming again. This time, in agony, he cried out, ”Look! Look there! Here comes them same three d.a.m.n fellers again!”

Lincoln used this time to refine his thinking about emanc.i.p.ation. Sometime in early August, he telegraphed his old friend Leonard Swett in Bloomington, Illinois, asking him to come to Was.h.i.+ngton immediately. Lincoln ushered the tall, dark-eyed Swett into the cabinet room, where he pulled out several letters from a drawer in his desk. He first read one from William Lloyd Garrison, the New England abolitionist, then one by Garrett Davis, state senator from the border state of Kentucky, followed by one or two more letters about emanc.i.p.ation.

Without commenting on the quite different opinions, Lincoln began to debate the issue. First, he took one side, often using phrases from the letters but adding his own arguments. Then he argued the other side. Swett, who had traveled the Eighth Judicial Circuit with Lincoln, had observed this pattern in countless courtrooms. Lincoln could ”state the case of his adversary better and more forcibly than his opponent could state it himself.” Lincoln went on for more than an hour with his one-man debate. Swett became impressed that Lincoln's ”manner did not indicate that he wished to impress his views upon upon the hearer, but rather to weight and examine them for his own enlightenment the hearer, but rather to weight and examine them for his own enlightenment in the presence in the presence of the hearer.” Swett, so trusted by Lincoln, believed he was privileged to be ”a witness of the President's mental operations.” of the hearer.” Swett, so trusted by Lincoln, believed he was privileged to be ”a witness of the President's mental operations.”

When Lincoln finished, he asked for no comment from Swett. He thanked him for coming, wished him a pleasant trip home, and sent greetings to ”mutual friends.” So evenhanded was Lincoln's debate that Swett predicted to his wife, ”He will issue no proclamation emanc.i.p.ating negroes.”

STILL WRESTLING OVER HOW TO PROCLAIM emanc.i.p.ation, Lincoln sent word to the black leaders.h.i.+p in Was.h.i.+ngton that he wished to speak with them. On the afternoon of August 14, 1862, an American president did something that no one could remember: He welcomed to the White House a committee of five black leaders. The group did not include national figures such as Frederick Dougla.s.s. Lincoln told them that money ”had been appropriated by Congress, and placed at his disposition” for the purpose of colonization. Lincoln asked, ”Why should they leave the country?” He then answered his own question. ”You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss.” Lincoln went on to clarify what he meant. ”This physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence.” emanc.i.p.ation, Lincoln sent word to the black leaders.h.i.+p in Was.h.i.+ngton that he wished to speak with them. On the afternoon of August 14, 1862, an American president did something that no one could remember: He welcomed to the White House a committee of five black leaders. The group did not include national figures such as Frederick Dougla.s.s. Lincoln told them that money ”had been appropriated by Congress, and placed at his disposition” for the purpose of colonization. Lincoln asked, ”Why should they leave the country?” He then answered his own question. ”You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss.” Lincoln went on to clarify what he meant. ”This physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence.”

Lincoln acknowledged that his guests were free men, probably free their whole lives. ”Your race is suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people.” He went on to discuss how racial equality did not exist in the United States. ”I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact, about which we all think and feel alike, I and you.” With this comment, Lincoln uncharacteristically made an a.s.sumption he did not test. He then talked about the evil of slavery, for both blacks and whites. His conclusion: ”It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated.”

Lincoln hoped these leaders would be the vanguard of a colonization project in Central America. He said he understood that of all the blacks in America these men had made the most of their opportunities, but he urged them to avoid ”a selfish view of the case.” If they took the lead, he was confident others would follow. He concluded by asking them to study his proposal. ”Take your full time-no hurry at all.” Lincoln, believing he was taking the lead in appealing to black leaders to think of their future, seemed to be closing the door to a future in the United States precisely at the moment he was revising his Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation.

This episode is puzzling. Lincoln did not convene a dialogue. He did not say, ”This I believe,” but rather offered his comments as the accepted thinking about race of the day. It has been suggested that Lincoln's continuing remarks about colonization right up to the moment of his announcement of emanc.i.p.ation were calculated to make this bitter pill easier to swallow for moderates, if not conservatives. But there is no doubt that Lincoln had hit a low point in his public speech about slavery and race just as he was about to reach for the higher ground of emanc.i.p.ation.

Lincoln's comments infuriated Frederick Dougla.s.s. In the September issue of Dougla.s.s' Monthly, Dougla.s.s' Monthly, the abolitionist editor printed the full text of Lincoln's remarks and offered his most abrasive criticism yet of the president. ”Mr. Lincoln a.s.sumes the language and arguments of an itinerant Colonization lecturer.” He lambasted Lincoln's ”contempt for Negroes and his canting hypocrisy.” Dougla.s.s was at pains to point out that Lincoln, ”elected as an anti-slavery man by Republican and Abolition voters ... is quite a genuine representative of American prejudice and Negro hatred and far more concerned for the preservation of slavery, and the favor of the Border Slave States, than for any sentiment of magnanimity or principles of justice and humanity.” the abolitionist editor printed the full text of Lincoln's remarks and offered his most abrasive criticism yet of the president. ”Mr. Lincoln a.s.sumes the language and arguments of an itinerant Colonization lecturer.” He lambasted Lincoln's ”contempt for Negroes and his canting hypocrisy.” Dougla.s.s was at pains to point out that Lincoln, ”elected as an anti-slavery man by Republican and Abolition voters ... is quite a genuine representative of American prejudice and Negro hatred and far more concerned for the preservation of slavery, and the favor of the Border Slave States, than for any sentiment of magnanimity or principles of justice and humanity.”

BY 1862, LINCOLN HAD BECOME accustomed to ministers and church officials coming to Was.h.i.+ngton to offer their advice on the management of the war. On September 13, he welcomed two Chicago ministers, William W. Patton and John Dempster, to the Red Room, one of three public parlors on the first floor of the White House. Mary Lincoln had installed a new red carpet in the room, which the Lincolns used as a family parlor and a place to entertain friends. The ministers from Lincoln's home state represented a ”meeting of Christians of all denominations” that had gathered in Bryan Hall in Chicago on September 7 to express their support for emanc.i.p.ation. They came to lobby Lincoln and present him with memorials in English and German. accustomed to ministers and church officials coming to Was.h.i.+ngton to offer their advice on the management of the war. On September 13, he welcomed two Chicago ministers, William W. Patton and John Dempster, to the Red Room, one of three public parlors on the first floor of the White House. Mary Lincoln had installed a new red carpet in the room, which the Lincolns used as a family parlor and a place to entertain friends. The ministers from Lincoln's home state represented a ”meeting of Christians of all denominations” that had gathered in Bryan Hall in Chicago on September 7 to express their support for emanc.i.p.ation. They came to lobby Lincoln and present him with memorials in English and German.

Lincoln used this occasion to both affirm and question his visitors on the use and misuse of religion. Lincoln spoke of the dilemma he wrestled with day and night, and then spoke of his own desire.

I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other cla.s.s is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps in some respects both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that G.o.d would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me; for, unless I am more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter.

Even as Lincoln was increasingly pondering the meaning and purpose of G.o.d in the war, he was growing impatient with religious people who came to him regularly to express their certainty that G.o.d was on the side of the North: ”And if I can learn what it is I will do it!” ”And if I can learn what it is I will do it!” Lincoln underlined his affirmation and then put an exclamation point to underscore his conviction. Lincoln underlined his affirmation and then put an exclamation point to underscore his conviction.

Lincoln had been receiving a good deal of mail from church organizations regarding emanc.i.p.ation. He told the ministers from Illinois and others, ”The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree.” He then asked, ”What good good would a proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation from me do, especially as we are now situated? I do not want to issue a doc.u.ment that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet!” He continued, ”Would would a proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation from me do, especially as we are now situated? I do not want to issue a doc.u.ment that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet!” He continued, ”Would my word my word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Const.i.tution in the rebel states?” After his long disquisition on slavery, Lincoln concluded, ”I can a.s.sure you that the subject is on my mind, day and night, more than any other.” free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Const.i.tution in the rebel states?” After his long disquisition on slavery, Lincoln concluded, ”I can a.s.sure you that the subject is on my mind, day and night, more than any other.”

Some have commented that Lincoln toyed with these and other pet.i.tioners in this time period, fully aware that he intended to issue an Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. A better explanation may be, like Lincoln's conversation with Leonard Swett, that he was still mulling over all sides of the issue, as much for his own ears as for the ears of his listeners. As people came to him with their certainties, he responded with his ambiguities. Yet for Lincoln, ambiguity did not mean inaction.

WITH BOTH THE UNION AND THE CONFEDERATE armies exhausted from the second battle of Bull Run, most were resting and resupplying their troops. This wasn't the case for Robert E. Lee. Lee sensed this was the moment not to retreat, but to advance. Fresh from summer victories on the Virginia peninsula, and now at Bull Run, he nonetheless believed the South could never defeat the North in a long, drawn-out war, because it would always be outpaced in men and industrial resources. He understood that the Union's momentary weakness was probably his best opportunity. An insatiable reader of newspapers, Lee read of the despair on the Northern home front and the low morale of Union troops. Back home, it was as if the armies exhausted from the second battle of Bull Run, most were resting and resupplying their troops. This wasn't the case for Robert E. Lee. Lee sensed this was the moment not to retreat, but to advance. Fresh from summer victories on the Virginia peninsula, and now at Bull Run, he nonetheless believed the South could never defeat the North in a long, drawn-out war, because it would always be outpaced in men and industrial resources. He understood that the Union's momentary weakness was probably his best opportunity. An insatiable reader of newspapers, Lee read of the despair on the Northern home front and the low morale of Union troops. Back home, it was as if the Richmond Dispatch Richmond Dispatch and Lee were reading each other's minds. The and Lee were reading each other's minds. The Dispatch Dispatch wrote on August 29, 1862, ”Now is the time to strike the telling and decisive blows ... and to bring the war to a close.” wrote on August 29, 1862, ”Now is the time to strike the telling and decisive blows ... and to bring the war to a close.”

Lee gambled he could invade Maryland and catch McClellan's Army of the Potomac by surprise. He believed that in Maryland, a Union state but with slaves making up 35 percent of the population, he would find citizens ready to rally to the Confederate cause. His men would be able to live off the produce of friendly farmers. On the night of September 4, 1862, under the cover of darkness, Lee and his troops crossed the Potomac just forty miles upriver from Was.h.i.+ngton.

When word of Lee's movements reached Maryland and Pennsylvania, the state leaders panicked. Lee was on Union soil. Pennsylvania governor Andrew Curtin telegraphed Lincoln on September 11, insisting the Confederate army numbered 120,000 men. He requested 80,000 federal troops to protect Philadelphia and Harrisburg. Curtin and McClellan rivaled each other in their estimates, for McClellan estimated that Lee's army was 110,000 men. In fact, Lee's army actually numbered 55,000 men. Losing stragglers by the mile, by the time it would finally engage Union troops, it would be down to 45,000 men.

If Governor Curtin saw Lee's march northward as a danger, Lincoln saw it as an opportunity. Contrary to his leading generals, Lincoln had long believed that the best Union military strategy was not to attack cities or occupy territories but to defeat armies. He now thought that Lee's army, stretched long and thin, in unfamiliar territory without its usual base of supplies, was vulnerable. On September 7, 1862, McClellan's army moved north from Was.h.i.+ngton, while apprehension riveted the North.

Once in Maryland, the two armies experienced a surprising reversal of fortunes. The Confederate army, expecting that they would be treated as liberators, arrived looking more like beggars. The populace treated them coolly. The Union army began their march with depressed morale due to their recent defeats, but once in Maryland ”the friendly, almost tumultuous welcome they received ... boosted their spirits.” As the soldiers pa.s.sed by farms, the daughters of the farmers greeted them at the roadside with buckets of cold water. In small villages and towns, and finally in Frederick, where McClellan had set up his field headquarters, they were welcomed by hundreds and often thousands of grateful citizens.

As McClellan's reports were spa.r.s.e in coming in, Lincoln worried in the War Department's telegraph office. He considered traveling up to Frederick, but General in Chief Halleck talked him out it, even going so far as writing down his advice so that it would be part of the official record. He and other military leaders feared that Lincoln could be intercepted by Confederate cavalry.

On the morning of September 13, 1862, Corporal Barton W. Mitch.e.l.l of the Twenty-seventh Indiana Infantry was relaxing in a field near Frederick when he found a copy of Lee's Special Order Number 191, dated September 9, wrapped in an envelope around three cigars. One of nine copies of Lee's order, this particular one had been mislaid by a never-to-be-identified Confederate courier. Delighted, McClellan telegraphed Lincoln, ”I have the plans of the Rebels and will catch them in their own trap if my men are equal to the emergency.” The plans in McClellan's hands told him that Lee had adopted the risky strategy of dividing his army into four or five parts, sending several detachments to capture Harpers Ferry and leaving his other divisions positioned several miles from one another.

McClellan waited six hours before issuing his own orders to his commanders. If McClellan had acted within the first hours, he might have exploited these gaps, but he moved warily and lost his advantage.

Within two days, Lee realized that McClellan had his orders and immediately began to rea.s.semble his army. By hard marching and riding, they quickly reached the east side of Antietam Creek near the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland.

All through the day of September 14, 1862, Lincoln, Halleck, and Stanton waited apprehensively for any news. Halleck was suffering from hemorrhoids so painful that he could not even stand. A conventional medical treatment at the time was an opium suppository. This condition contributed to his lethargy, and his overall health was breaking down in the midst of this military crisis. For Lincoln, it seemed like Halleck was falling apart before his eyes in Was.h.i.+ngton, and he was not at all sure what McClellan was doing in Maryland.

At 9:40 p.m., Lincoln and Halleck received a telegram from McClellan: ”It has been a glorious victory.” By eight the next morning, McClellan wired that the enemy had ”disappeared during the night.” Later in the day, McClellan, euphoric with the prospect of victory over a retreating Confederate army, wired that the enemy is ”in a perfect panic,” and that ”Genl. Lee is reported wounded.”

Lincoln immediately wrote back to McClellan, ”G.o.d bless you, and all with you. Destroy the rebel army, if possible.” Fifteen minutes later, departing from his usual skepticism about McClellan's predictions, Lincoln sent an ecstatic telegram to his old friend Jesse Dubois, Illinois state auditor, in Springfield. ”I now consider it safe to say that General McClellan has gained a great victory over the great rebel army in Maryland. He is now pursuing the flying foe.” Lincoln's words traveled faster and farther than he may have thought possible, for at midnight he received a telegram from Illinois governor Richard Yates, ”Your dispatch to Col. Dubois has filled our people with the wildest joy. Salutes are being fired & our citizens are relieved from a fearful state of suspense.” But McClellan, with his characteristic hyperbole, had once again misjudged the situation.

Lee was not retreating. Instead, the Confederate general was positioning his forces on a row of hills and ridges that ran through the rural countryside of pasture and farmland between Sharpsburg and Antietam Creek. Lee invited McClellan to attack his smaller but battle-tested veteran army.

McClellan spent much of September 16, 1862, planning his attack, which only allowed more time for Lee to consolidate his forces. In the late afternoon, he finally sent ”Fighting Joe” Hooker across Antietam Creek to attack the Confederate left. He ordered Ambrose Burnside to also cross Antietam Creek and attack the Confederate right. These opening maneuvers were probing skirmishes for the fight everyone knew was coming the next day.

McClellan attacked on September 17, 1862, starting what became known as the battle of Antietam. In the most violent day of the whole Civil War, Union and Confederate soldiers attacked, counterattacked, and fought on. It was said that one thirty-acre cornfield was so covered with dead bodies that one could walk across it without ever touching the earth.

”We are in the midst of the most terrible battle of the war, perhaps of history,” telegraphed McClellan to Halleck and Lincoln at 1:25 p.m. This was the battle Lincoln had been waiting for. McClellan wrote, ”It will be either a great defeat or a most glorious victory.”

McClellan ordered 60,000 of his 80,000 troops to a.s.sault 37,000 Confederates, but he could not push back an army that he a.s.sessed to be over 100,000. McClellan had more than twice as many men as Lee, but by attacking division after division, he afforded Lee the time to s.h.i.+ft his troops to meet the Union attacks. McClellan, convinced that Lee had far more troops than he did, was unwilling to commit any of his 20,000 reserves to the battle. At one point, General John Sedgwick marched his division, with sixty-four-year-old E. V. ”Bull” Sumner in the lead, through the cornfield, across the Hagerstown Pike, and into the West Woods, only to discover they were being fired upon from the rear. Once again, the Confederates, appearing to retreat, led the Union bluecoats into a trap. By the end of the day, Sedgwick would lose 1,700 men-killed, wounded, or missing.

The next day, September 18, 1862, both sides were exhausted; the battle came to a lull, not to be joined again. McClellan wrote to Halleck on September 19, ”Our victory was complete. The enemy is driven back into Virginia.”

Lincoln had ordered McClellan to ”destroy the rebel army,” but he did not. On the evening of September 18, 1862, Lee and his army crossed the Potomac again and returned to the safe haven of Virginia. McClellan sent a small detachment in pursuit, but it came to nothing.

For once, McClellan was not exaggerating the scope of the battle. Almost 6,500 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed in one day at Antietam. This staggering number was four times the number that would be killed in the landings at Normandy on June 6, 1944. The total for this one day was more than the deaths in all of the other wars of the nineteenth century-the War of 1812, the Indian wars, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American War-combined.

ALTHOUGH THE VICTORY AT ANTIETAM was not decisive, it was enough for Abraham Lincoln. At the Soldiers' Home, Lincoln wrote out a second draft of his Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. He returned to the White House, where he refused to meet any visitors. He worked alone in his office, editing the most important statement of his life yet. was not decisive, it was enough for Abraham Lincoln. At the Soldiers' Home, Lincoln wrote out a second draft of his Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. He returned to the White House, where he refused to meet any visitors. He worked alone in his office, editing the most important statement of his life yet.

Five days after the battle at Antietam, he convened a special cabinet meeting on Monday, September 22, 1862. Lincoln presented to the cabinet a new four-page doc.u.ment of just under one thousand words. What Lincoln said at this momentous cabinet meeting was recorded by both Salmon Chase and Gideon Welles, independently, in their diaries. Chase wrote that Lincoln told them that ”when the rebel army was at Frederick,” he had ”determined” that if they be ”driven out of Maryland,” he would issue a ”Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation.” Lincoln continued, ”I said nothing to any one; but I made the promise to myself, and”-here Chase indicated that Lincoln hesitated a little-”to my Maker. The rebel army is now driven out, and I am going to fulfill that promise.”

Welles, who had been writing detailed entries in his diary almost every day since July 1862, recorded that the president began by informing the cabinet that regarding emanc.i.p.ation, ”the question was finally decided, the act and the consequences were his,” but he wanted to invite the cabinet's ”criticism” of the paper he had prepared. In his explanation, Lincoln ”remarked that he had made a vow, a covenant, that if G.o.d gave us the victory in the approaching battle, he would consider it an indication of Divine will, and that it was his duty to move forward in the cause of emanc.i.p.ation.”

Lincoln understood that his explanation of his actions would appear unusual to these shrewd politicians. He admitted as much. ”It might be thought strange, he said, that he had in this way submitted the disposal of matters when the way was not clear to his mind what he should do.” Welles reported that Lincoln summed up his remarkable discourse by telling them, ”G.o.d had decided this question in favor of the slaves.”

The members of the cabinet sat in silence. Lincoln broke it by picking up the text of the preliminary Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation and beginning to read it aloud.

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the const.i.tutional relation between the United States, and each of the states, and the people thereof, in which States that relation is, or may be suspended, or disturbed.

Although the language was still legalistic, the fruit of Lincoln's continual brooding and editing over the long summer of 1862 was evident in this newly revised second proclamation. Unlike the doc.u.ment he had presented in July, Lincoln knew this proclamation would soon become public. With keen insight into the range of possible public reactions, he antic.i.p.ated and therefore sought to alleviate public criticism. He stressed at the outset that the war remained about preserving the Union, even though he knew that the press would emphasize the freeing of the slaves. He built in precedent with a reminder of two laws pa.s.sed earlier in the year about the handling of escaped slaves. He had employed scissors and paste to insert these laws into his doc.u.ment.

At the heart of Lincoln's preliminary Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, he offered the language that reflected his change of heart. On the first day of January 1863, ”all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

Lincoln concluded with generosity.

And the executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the const.i.tutional relation between the United States, and their respective states, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.

Lincoln knew he was issuing a strong proclamation, solely based in his military powers as president, but he was determined to be fair and munificent to those who would be affected. Newspapers around the country published the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, announcing that Lincoln would sign it into law on January 1, 1863.

However one might view the concrete results of Lincoln's Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation-how many people were freed in which areas of the Union-the symbolic significance of Lincoln's act was powerful. He had changed the purpose of the war from restoring the old Union to creating a new Union cleansed of slavery. His old nemesis Horace Gree-ley spelled it out in large letters in his Tribune. Tribune. ”G.o.d bless abraham lincoln ”G.o.d bless abraham lincoln!” Greeley predicted, ”It is the beginning of the end of the rebellion; the beginning of the new life of the nation.”

ON OCTOBER 1, 1862, Lincoln traveled to Sharpsburg, Maryland, to visit McClellan. After the battle of Antietam, many questions remained. Why did McClellan not pursue and defeat Lee's army when he had the opportunity? If McClellan needed time to recover from Antietam, why was he not planning to cross the Potomac and pursue Lee now?