Lincoln

Part 1

Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger

LINCOLN

An Account of His Personal Life, Especially of Its Springs of Action as Revealed and Deepened by the Ordeal of War

By Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

Authority for all important statements of facts in the following pages may be found in the notes; the condensed references are expanded in the bibliography. A few controversial matters are discussed in the notes.

I am very grateful to Mr. William Roscoe Thayer for enabling me to use the manuscript diary of John Hay. Miss Helen Nicolay has graciously confirmed some of the implications of the official biography. Lincoln's only surviving secretary, Colonel W. O. Stoddard, has given considerate aid. The curious incident of Lincoln as counsel in an action to recover slaves was mentioned to me by Professor Henry Johnson, through whose good offices it was confirmed and amplified by Judge John H. Marshall. Mr. Henry W. Raymond has been very tolerant of a stranger's inquiries with regard to his distinguished father. A futile attempt to discover documentary remains of the Republican National Committee of 1864 has made it possible, through the courtesy of Mr. Clarence B. Miller, at least to assert that there is nothing of importance in possession of the present Committee. A search for new light on Chandler drew forth generous assistance from Professor Ulrich B. Phillips, Mr. Floyd B. Streeter and Mr. G. B. Krum. The latter caused to be examined, for this particular purpose, the Blair manuscripts in the Burton Historical Collection. Much illumination arose out of a systematic resurvey of the Congressional Globe, for the war period, in which I had the stimulating companionship of Professor John L. Hill, reinforced by many conversations with Professor Dixon Ryan Fox and Professor David Saville Muzzey. At the heart of the matter is the resolute criticism of Mrs. Stephenson and of a long enduring friend, President Harrison Randolph. The temper of the historical fraternity is such that any worker in any field is always under a host of incidental obligations. There is especial propriety in my acknowledging the kindness of Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor James A. Woodburn, Professor Herman V. Ames, Professor St. George L. Sioussat and Professor Allen Johnson.

CONTENTS

FOUNDATIONS I THE CHILD OF THE FOREST II THE MYSTERIOUS YOUTH III A VILLAGE LEADER IV REVELATIONS V PROSPERITY VI UNSATISFYING RECOGNITION

PROMISES VII THE SECOND START VIII A RETURN TO POLITICS IX THE LITERARY STATESMAN X THE DARK HORSE XI SECESSION XII THE CRISIS XIII ECLIPSE

CONFUSIONS XIV THE STRANGE NEW MAN XV PRESIDENT AND PREMIER XVI "ON TO RICHMOND!" XVII DEFINING THE ISSUE XVIII THE JACOBIN CLUB XIX THE JACOBINS BECOME INQUISITORS XX IS CONGRESS THE PRESIDENT'S MASTER? XXI THE STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY XXII LINCOLN EMERGES

AUDACITIES XXIII THE MYSTICAL STATESMAN XXIV GAMBLING IN GENERALS XXV A WAR BEHIND THE SCENES XXVI THE DICTATOR, THE MARPLOT, AND THE LITTLE MEN XXVII THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE XXVIII APPARENT ASCENDENCY XXIX CATASTROPHE XXX THE PRESIDENT VERSUS THE VINDICTIVES

VICTORY XXXI A MENACING PAUSE XXXII THE AUGUST CONSPIRACY XXXIII THE RALLY TO THE PRESIDENT XXXIV "FATHER ABRAHAM" XXXV THE MASTER OF THE MOMENT XXXVI PREPARING A DIFFERENT WAR XXXVII FATE INTERPOSES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NOTES

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author and publisher make grateful acknowledgement to Ginn and Company, Boston, for the photograph of St. Gaudens' Statue; to The Century Company of New York for the Earliest Portrait of Lincoln, which is from an engraving by Johnson after a daguerreotype in the possession of the Honorable Robert T. Lincoln; and for Lincoln and Tad, which is from the famous photograph by Brady; to The Macmillan Company of New York for the portrait of Mrs. Lincoln and also for The Review of the Army of the Potomac, both of which were originally reproduced in Ida M. Tarbell's Life of Abraham Lincoln. For the rare and interesting portrait entitled The Last Phase of Lincoln acknowledgment is made to Robert Bruce, Esquire, Clinton, Oneida County, New York. This photograph was taken by Alexander Gardner, April 9, 1865, the glass plate of which is now in Mr. Bruce's collection.

I. THE CHILD OF THE FOREST

Of first importance in the making of the American people is that great forest which once extended its mysterious labyrinth from tide-water to the prairies when the earliest colonists entered warily its sea-worn edges a portion of the European race came again under a spell it had forgotten centuries before, the spell of that untamed nature which created primitive man. All the dim memories that lay deep in subconsciousness; all the vague shadows hovering at the back of the civilized mind; the sense of encompassing natural power, the need to struggle single-handed against it; the danger lurking in the darkness of the forest; the brilliant treachery of the forest sunshine glinted through leafy secrecies; the Strange voices in its illimitable murmur; the ghostly shimmer of its glades at night; the lovely beauty of the great gold moon; all the thousand wondering dreams that evolved the elder gods, Pan, Cybele, Thor; all this waked again in the soul of the Anglo-Saxon penetrating the great forest. And it was intensified by the way he came,--singly, or with but wife and child, or at best in very small company, a mere handful. And the surrounding presences were not only of the spiritual world. Human enemies who were soon as well armed as he, quicker of foot and eye, more perfectly noiseless in their tread even than the wild beasts of the shadowy coverts, the ruthless Indians whom he came to expel, these invisible presences were watching him, in a fierce silence he knew not whence. Like as not the first signs of that menace which was everywhere would be the hiss of the Indian arrow, or the crack of the Indian rifle, and sharp and sudden death.

Under these conditions he learned much and forgot much. His deadly need made him both more and less individual than he had been, released him from the dictation of his fellows in daily life while it enforced relentlessly a uniform method of self-preservation. Though the unseen world became more and more real, the understanding of it faded. It became chiefly a matter of emotional perception, scarcely at all a matter of philosophy. The morals of the forest Americans were those of audacious, visionary beings loosely hound together by a comradeship in peril. Courage, cautiousness, swiftness, endurance, faithfulness, secrecy,--these were the forest virtues. Dreaming, companionship, humor,--these were the forest luxuries.

From the first, all sorts and conditions were ensnared by that silent land, where the trails they followed, their rifles in their hands, had been trodden hard generation after generation by the feet of the Indian warriors. The best and the worst of England went into that illimitable resolvent, lost themselves, found themselves, and issued from its shadows, or their children did, changed both for good and ill, Americans. Meanwhile the great forest, during two hundred years, was slowly vanishing. This parent of a new people gave its life to its offspring and passed away. In the early nineteenth century it had withered backward far from the coast; had lost its identity all along the north end of the eastern mountains; had frayed out toward the sunset into lingering tentacles, into broken minor forests, into shreds and patches.

Curiously, by a queer sort of natural selection, its people had congregated into life communities not all of one pattern. There were places as early as the beginning of the century where distinction had appeared. At other places life was as rude and rough as could be imagined. There were innumerable farms that were still mere "clearings," walled by the forest. But there were other regions where for many a mile the timber had been hewn away, had given place to a ragged continuity of farmland. In such regions especially if the poorer elements of the forest, spiritually speaking, had drifted thither--the straggling villages which had appeared were but groups of log cabins huddled along a few neglected lanes. In central Kentucky, a poor new village was Elizabethtown, unkempt, chokingly dusty in the dry weather, with muddy streams instead of streets during the rains, a stench of pig-sties at the back of its cabins, but everywhere looking outward glimpses of a lovely meadow land.

At Elizabethtown in 1806 lived Joseph Hanks, a carpenter, also his niece Nancy Hanks. Poor people they were, of the sort that had been sucked into the forest in their weakness, or had been pushed into it by a social pressure they could not resist; not the sort that had grimly adventured its perils or gaily courted its lure. Their source was Virginia. They were of a thriftless, unstable class; that vagrant peasantry which had drifted westward to avoid competition with slave labor. The niece, Nancy, has been reputed illegitimate. And though tradition derives her from the predatory amour of an aristocrat, there is nothing to sustain the tale except her own appearance. She had a bearing, a cast of feature, a tone, that seemed to hint at higher social origins than those of her Hanks relatives. She had a little schooling; was of a pious and emotional turn of mind; enjoyed those amazing "revivals" which now and then gave an outlet to the pent-up religiosity of the village; and she was almost handsome.(1)

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