“Out of the smoke and stench, out of the music and violet dreams of the war, Lincoln stood perhaps taller than any other of the many great heroes. This was in the mind of many. None threw a longer shadow than he. And to him the great hero was The People. He could not say too often that he was merely their instrument” (p. 735).
Although he had just lost the 1858 Senatorial election, Lincoln remained philosophical about it and simply moved his sights farther down the road to the 1860 presidential election instead. His team of men made sure that the Republican nomination convention would be held in Chicago and then they packed the place with thousands of Lincoln’s supporters. With many behind-the-scenes deals going on, Lincoln, after several ballots, managed to edge out all the leading Republican giants as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. Meanwhile the Democratic Party had split; thus Lincoln would be running against Stephen Douglas, John Breckenridge, and John Bell.
Lincoln realized that the Republican Party was non-existent in the South and that the North contained the most electoral votes anyways, so he concentrated all the money and power of the Republican Party in the northern states alone. In the end, his scheme worked because he won every single northern state, except New Jersey but including California and Oregon. He had become the 16th President of the United States but with the sanction of only half the country. “Fifteen states gave him no electoral votes; in ten states of the South he didn’t get a count of one popular vote. He was the most sectionally elected President the nation had ever had and the fact would be dinned into his ears” (p. 183).
The South was horrified and it was all dominoes from there. South Carolina, always the hotbed of radicalism, immediately seceded after Lincoln’s victory, shortly to be followed by Florida, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. At once, they took over all forts, armories, and other governmental buildings for their own use. Lincoln was not even officially president yet and already the country was falling to pieces. He was finally inaugurated on March 4, 1861 and it would still be another month before he would be able to deal with the situation. Or should I say…it was a month later when the situation became too noticeable to ignore. Around the first of April, Lincoln received word that the men at Fort Sumter in South Carolina would starve if help from the North did not arrive soon. On April 12th, when Navy ships did try to aid Fort Sumter, South Carolina fired upon them and the call to war commenced. (Fort Sumter eventually fell to the South.) On April 15th, Lincoln called for troops, while on that same day, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas followed the other seceded states, eventually forming the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as President.
The very first battle of the war took place in Manassas, VA only a few miles from Washington and thus providing the North high expectations of success. “The Battle of Bull Run, Sunday, July 21, 1861, was to a large and eager public a sort of sporting event, the day and place of combat announced beforehand, a crowd of spectators riding to the scene with lunch baskets as though for a picnic” (p. 252). The picnic did not last, however, the South won this battle and the Northern army turned into a rout. It was very rough for the North in the first few months of the war, especially since most Northerners believed that the war would only last a few months at the most.
Amidst the general gloom and disillusionment of the unsuccessful North, Lincoln had to deal with his own personal tragedy. In February of 1862, Willie, Lincoln’s favorite son, caught a fever and died at only eleven years old. “He [Lincoln] lifted the cover from the face of his child, gazed at it long, and murmured, ‘It is hard, hard, hard to have him die!’” (p. 290). “Among letters of condolence that had come was one, softhearted and sincere, from ex-President Pierce, mentioning that he too had once lost a boy he loved and could understand the grief” (p. 291). I have to admit here that my heart also softened towards Pierce by his tremendous show of basic humanity to a grieving Lincoln.
A major effort was underway in the first year of the war to keep the border states, i.e. Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, out of the South’s hands by whatever means available. The North was successful in commandeering these states to their cause but it also helped that Lincoln created another state as a buffer too. In 1862, “Congress passed an act making West Virginia a state, seceding her from Virginia” (p. 339). This was a brilliant move not only because it made Washington safer but also because it gave the North (and took away from the South) men and land.
Things were going poorly for the North and consequently for Lincoln as well. He had been infected with a rash of incompetent major generals, including McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, and Pope, who, although the North had more men and supplies, seemed to lose every encounter with the enemy. It was frustrating—from the Battle of Seven Pines, to the 2nd Battle of Bull Run, to Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville—all Union losses. I think it says something about the fragility of the North’s situation that when Lincoln had to find a victory in which to offer the world the Emancipation Proclamation, he had to settle for Antietam (1862), which was basically a draw. Lincoln finally settled on promoting Ulysses S Grant over the Western army, leading the siege of Vicksburg, and when Robert E Lee made a pass at Pennsylvania, Lincoln appointed George Meade as head of the Army of the Potomac.
It was the summer of 1863 and things were about to change dramatically for the North, although it would take them a while to realize it. At Gettysburg in Pennsylvania on July 1st, Lee stumbled upon a regiment of the Union army and opened fire. Instead of finding a better position, Lee stayed where he was while eleven Union corps came up to defend Missionary Ridge. After 3 days of intense and bloody fighting, Lee realized he could not win this fight and on July 4th, the Union army found their foes gone. On the other side of the country, July 4th heralded another Union victory when Vicksburg, bastion of the Confederate forces on the Mississippi River, surrendered unconditionally to Grant.
It was in late November of that same year when Lincoln would make a most surprising little speech at the dedication ceremony for the new military cemetery at Gettysburg. After sitting through a rousing 2 hour speech by Edward Everett, Lincoln got up and spoke for exactly three minutes.
“Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon 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 battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place of those who have given their lives that this 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 power to add or to detract.
The world will very 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 that they have thus far so nobly carried on. 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 here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation all, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” (p. 444-45).
1863 not only saw these exciting Union victories but also draft riots in New York City, the first annual Thanksgiving Day celebration set for the last Thursday of November, the Capitol Building being finished with the statue “Armed Freedom” placed on top of the dome, the Republican Party briefly changing its name to the “National Union” Party to accommodate Democrats, and a host of popular, bestselling Abraham Lincoln joke books!
1864 saw even more changes for the North. It was an election year and in the history of the world, no nation had ever held an election in the midst of a civil war. We, Americans, would change that. Lincoln’s job was by no means a sure thing so it was important that the North keep on winning. With this end in view, he brought Grant over to wage the war against Robert E Lee in the Eastern theater, while Sherman was promoted over the West. Grant then decided on a many-pronged attack against the South that lead Sherman to Atlanta on one end while Grant would engage Lee at the other. Also it was presidential nomination time! The Democrats nominated George McClellan, former general, to head their presidential ticket while Lincoln, although he was not the politicians’ favorite, got the Republican nomination. However, in this year of changes, his previous running mate, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, would be swapped out for Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. Lincoln stated that there were two reasons for this change: 1. Johnson was a powerful War Democrat and would appeal to those voters and 2. He was from the South and that was important for unity.
The war effort though seemed to stall. Grant fought Lee in about six horrendously bloody and costly battles all the way to the gates of Petersburg where he then sat in a siege. Then Sherman who had victoriously marched through as many battles from Chattanooga saw a defeat at Kennesaw Mountain and then sat down in front of Atlanta to wait. But with the ’64 election closing in, Lincoln needed action. Sherman finally defeated Johnston and after accidentally burning much of Atlanta, he lost contact with the world as he headed east to Savannah, destroying all he could find on the way. Almost a month later after totally silence, Lincoln finally had word that Sherman was successful—he had reached the coast! Lincoln was then reelected for a second term.
Lincoln then put forward Amendment #13 that would abolish slavery, while Grant moved forward and threatened Richmond. On Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865, hounded and driven out of Richmond, with Sherman coming up from the south, Lee surrendered to Grant at the Appomattox State Court House. Lincoln was delighted and asked the band to play “Dixie” to the shock of all. “I propose closing up this interview by the band performing a particular tune…I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard” (p. 691).
Even though he was swamped with the new work of capitulation of the South and reconstruction of the Union, Lincoln made time on Good Friday, April 14, 1865 to spend time with his wife, Mary, and another couple, Clara Smith and Henry Rathbone, by going to seeing the play, Our American Cousin. It was a mediocre play and Lincoln did not really want to go but the theater had already published the fact that he would be there. At a certain point in the middle of play while everyone was laughing, John Wilkes Booth slipped into the President’s unguarded box and shot him with a short-range Derringer pistol behind the left ear. “For Abraham Lincoln it is lights out, good night, farewell—and a long farewell to the good earth and its trees, its enjoyable companions, and the Union of States and the world Family of Man he has loved” (p. 709). The President slumped forward, while Henry moved to block Boothe from escaping. Booth, however, also had a knife and he stabbed at Rathbone. After that, he jumped from the box onto the stage, broke his leg, and disappeared out the back entrance on his own horse. He would be caught and killed 12 days later at a farm in Virginia.
Lincoln was not dead though. There were several army doctors in the house that night and they got Lincoln out of the theater to a boardinghouse across the street. All the doctors agreed on one thing though—Lincoln would not survive the bullet to the brain. He never regained consciousness and when the sun arose the next morning, Abraham Lincoln died. “The Pale Horse had come. To a deep river, to a far country, to a by-and-by whence no man returns, had gone the child of Nancy Hanks and Tom Lincoln, the wilderness boy who found far lights and tall rainbows to live by, whose name ever before he died had become a legend inwoven with men’s struggle for freedom the world over” (p. 716).
It was now, after Lincoln had died, that his reputation grew and multiplied into what no one could see while he lived. “Now began the vast epic tale of the authentic Lincoln tradition mingled with legend, myth, folklore. Believers and atheists, those of fixed doctrine or the freethinkers—both were to argue he was theirs…Some had one sweeping claim: ‘He was humanity.’” (p. 732).
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