American Experiment (134 page)

[Sherman on end to indecision]:
John Sherman to William T. Sherman, April 12, 1861, in Rachel Sherman Thorndike,
The Sherman Letters
(Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1894), p. 110.

[Nevins on “purifying hurricane”]:
Allan Nevins,
The War for the Union,
Vol. 1:
The Improvised War
(Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959), p. 75.

[Disparity between northern and southern resources]:
Charles P. Roland,
The Confederacy
(University of Chicago Press, 1960), pp. 34-37.

[Confederate volunteers]:
Bell I. Wiley,
The Life of Johnny Reb
(Bobbs-Merrill, 1943), pp. 15-27, 108-10; William C. Davis,
Battle at Bull Run
(Doubleday, 1977), pp. 18-28.

[Battle of Bull Run]:
Davis, passim; Frank Moore, ed.,
The Rebellion Record
(G. P. Putnam, 1862), Vol. 2, pp. 36-37, Documents pp. 1-116; William K. Scarborough, ed.,
The Diary of Edmund Ruffin
(Louisiana State University Press, 1976), Vol. 2, pp. 68-75; Edward P. Alexander,
Military Memoirs of a Confederate
(Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907), pp. 13-51.

[Union advance a “picnic”]:
sec Alfred S. Roe, ed.,
The Fifth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
(Blanchard Press, 1911), pp. 79-80; also Charles C. Coffin,
Four Years of Fighting
(Ticknor and Fields, 1866), pp. 17-21;
Rebellion Record,
Vol. 2, p. 55.

[Greeley’s masthead]:
Harlan H. Horner,
Lincoln and Greeley
(University of Illinois Press, 953), p. 226.

[Ruffin on southern morale]:
Scarborough, pp. 69-77.

[Doherty on Union courage in attack]: Rebellion Record,
Vol. 2, p. 90.

[Sherman’s frustration]:
Mark A. D. Howe, ed.,
Home Letters of General Sherman
(Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909), pp. 205-6.

[Bee’s rallying cry]:
quoted in Alexander, p. 36.

[Cummings’ order to charge]:
James I. Robertson, Jr.,
The Stonewall Brigade
(Louisiana State University Press, 1963), p. 40.

[The Union retreat]:
Oliver O. Howard,
Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard
(Baker and Taylor, 1907), Vol. 1, pp. 159-62.

[Carnage on the battlefield]:
Scarborough, pp. 92-93. See also Howe, p. 208.

[Greeley’s letter to Lincoln]:
Homer, pp. 233-34.

[Southern braggadocio]:
Nevins, p. 222.

[General sources on the Confederacy]:
Coulter; Clement Eaton,
A History of the Southern Confederacy
(Macmillan, 1954); Frank L. Owsley,
States Rights in the Confederacy
(University of Chicago Press, 1925); Roland.

[Florida governor on central control of army]:
quoted in Roland, p. 59.
[Benjamin on need to centralize]:
quoted in Owsley, pp. 30-31.

[“Executive usurpation” by Davis]:
Pollard, p. 265.

[Printing of Confederate money]:
Sandburg, pp. 239-40.

[Stephens on liberties coming first]:
quoted in Coulter, p. 402.

[Brown on conscription]:
quoted in James G. Randall and David Donald,
The Civil War and Reconstruction,
and ed. (D. C, Heath, 1969), p.269.
[Roland on “deadliest conflict”]:
Roland, p. 59.

[Attitude of Rhett]:
Roland, pp. 53, 58.

[Lincoln watching soldiers return from Bull Run]:
Thomas, p. 272.

[Whitman on Lincoln recovering himself]:
Richard M. Bucke, Thomas B. Harned, and Horace L. Traubel, eds.,
The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman
(G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1902), Vol. 4, p. 36.

[Lincoln on limited presidential power]:
fragment of House speech, 1848 (July 1?), in John G. Nicolay and John Hay, eds.,
Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln,
enlarged edition (Century, 1894), Vol. 2, p. 56.

[Randall on Lincoln’s use of arbitrary power]:
James G. Randall,
Constitutional Problems under Lincoln
(D. Appleton, 1926), p. 513. See also Wilfred E. Binkley,
President and Congress
(Alfred A. Knopf, 1947), p. 126.

[Lincoln on choice between life and limb]:
Nicolay and Hay, Vol. 10, p. 66.

[Anna Ella Carroll]:
Sandburg, pp. 410-11.

[Lincoln’s program for action]:
Basler, Vol. 4, pp. 457-58.

[Union sympathizers in Virginia and Tennessee]:
Carleton Beals,
War Within a War: The Confederacy Against Itself
(Chilton Books, 1965), passim.

[McClellan in Washington]:
Sandburg, pp. 314-20; Nevins, pp. 237-39.
[Captain on military panorama]:
quoted in Nevins, p. 239.

[Cameron and the War Department]:
A. Howard Meneely,
The War Department, 1861
(Columbia University Press, 1928), esp. Ch. 9; Fred A. Shannon,
The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861-1865
(Arthur H. Clark, 1928), Vol. 1, passim; Sandburg, pp. 425-35.

[Washington neglects the West]:
Nevins, Ch. 16.

[Union gunboat fleet]: Battles and Leaders,
Vol. 1, pp. 358-61; Allan Nevins,
The War for the Union,
Vol. 2:
War Becomes Revolution
(Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960), pp. 70-73.

[Sam Grant in peace and war]:
Lloyd Lewis,
Captain Sam Grant
(Little, Brown, 1950), Chs. 17-23; Bruce Catton,
Grant Moves South
(Little, Brown, 1960), Chs. 1-3.

[Cairo in 1861]:
Coffin, pp. 52-53.

[The Union Navy]:
Bern Anderson,
By Sea and by River: The Naval History of the Civil War
(Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), pp. 3-66;
Battles and Leaders,
Vol. 1, pp. 611-91.

[The
Trent
affair]: Battles and Leaders,
Vol. 2, pp. 135-42.

[“Wrap the whole world in flames”]:
Sandburg, p. 363.

[“One war at a time”]: ibid.,
p. 365.

[Writ of habeas corpus for Merryman]:
Sandburg, p. 279.

[Taney’s opinion in
Ex parte Merryman]; Randall, p. 121.

[Taney calls upon Lincoln to perform his duty]: ibid.,
p. 162; Sandburg, p. 280.

[Madison on ambition]: Federalist
No. 51.

[Congress grudgingly approves emergency acts]:
Randall, pp. 128-29.

[Committee on Government Contracts]:
Sandburg, pp. 425-27.

[Sanitary
Commission]:
Nevins,
Improvised War,
P· 283.

[Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War]:
Nevins,
Improvised War,
p. 387.

[Soldier bitter at government suspicion]:
General Charles F. Smith, quoted in Bruce Catton,
America Goes to War
(Wesleyan University Press, 1958), p. 99.

[Cameron and the antislavery radicals]:
Burton J. Hendrick,
Lincoln’s War Cabinet
(Little, Brown, 1946), pp. 219-35.

[Course of the war in 1862].
Foote; Nevins,
War Becomes Revolution: Battles and Leaders,
Vol. 2, pp. 22-89.

[Boys in blue]:
Bell I. Wiley,
The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union
(Bobbs-Merrill, 1951).

[Boys in gray]:
Wiley,
Johnny Reb.

[Fair on naïveté of Civil War soldiers]:
Charles Fair,
From the Jaws of Victory
(Simon and Schuster, 1971), p. 223.

[Composition of Illinois regiments]:
Victor Hicken,
Illinois in the Civil War
(University of Illinois Press, 1966), pp. 7-8.

[Elected officers]:
see Catton,
America Goes to War,
p. 38 and passim.

[“Purge” in Wisconsin regiment]:
Nevins,
Improvised War,
p. 280.

[Soldier complaining about Jackson]:
quoted in Davis,
Battle at Bull Run,
p. 18.

[“Old Blue Light”]: ibid.

[Grant as the “quiet man ”]:
Lewis, p. 428.

[“Go to your quarters!”]: ibid.,
p. 430.

[Northern soldiers and blacks]:
Wiley,
Billy Yank,
Ch. 5; Catton,
America Goes to War,
pp. 24-25.

[Ohio soldier on blacks]:
quoted in Wiley,
Billy Yank,
p. 109.

[Holocaust of Shiloh]:
Leander Stillwell,
The Story of a Common Soldier
(Franklin Hudson, 1920), p. 48.

[Antietam]:
Bruce Catton,
The Army of the Potomac: Mr. Lincoln’s Army
(Double- day, 1951), Part VI; John W. Schildt,
Drums Along the Antietam
(McClain Printing,. 1972).

[Lincoln on the war as a people’s war]:
Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4, 1861, in Basler, Vol. 5, p. 438.

[Greeley’s “Prayer of Twenty Million”]:
Horner, pp. 263-67.

[Lincoln on putting the Union first]:
Lincoln to Horace Greeley, Aug. 22, 1862, in Basler, Vol. 5, pp. 388-89.

[Early congressional measures for emancipation]:
Harman Belz, “Protection of Personal Liberty in Republican Emancipation, Legislation of 1862,”
Journal of Southern History,
Vol. 42, No. 3 (August 1976), pp. 385-400.

[Seward on the “last
shriek
on our retreat”]:
quoted in Thomas, p. 334.

[Frederick Douglass on the proposed emancipation proclamation]:
quoted in Stephen B. Oates,
With Malice Toward None
(Harper & Row, 1977), p. 320.

[The December cabinet crisis]:
Hendrick; Thomas, pp. 352-54.

[Lincoln on “the dogmas of the quiet past”]:
Annual Message to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862, in Basler, Vol. 5, p. 537.

[Lincoln’s dream the night before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation]:
quoted from Oates, pp. 331-32.
[Lincoln: “if my name ever goes into history”]:
Oscar and Lillian Handlin,
Abraham Lincoln
a
nd the Union
(Little, Brown, 1980), p. 159.

[Final Emancipation Proclamation]:
Philip Van Doren Stern, ed.,
The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln
(The Modern Library, 1940), pp. 746-48 (capital letters added).
[Gathering in front of the White Home]:
Oates, p. 333.

[Battle songs of freedom]:
Irwin Silber, ed.,
Songs of the Civil War
(Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 17-20, 26.

Sections of this chapter were drafted jointly by the author and Jeffrey P. Trout.

I
N MY STUDIES IN
political history I have found it useful to conceive of three levels of leadership: the galaxy of presidents, nationally known senators and governors, intellectual and economic and cultural power wielders at the top; a second level of influential state and metropolitan notables, editors, preachers, heads of state and national interest groups, issue groups, and idea groups; and a third layer of grass-roots activists in government, political parties, interest groups, racial, religious, and ethnic organizations, and economic and social enterprises who serve as crucial transmission links between the upper echelons and the mass public. Volumes—sometimes whole libraries—are written about the galaxies; the intermediate notables often make their way into the
Dictionary of American Biography
or
Notable American Women;
the activists at the third level down are lucky to win biographical coverage in the local obituary pages.

While the “third cadre” of activists is, in my view, the one most crucial to democracy, the “second cadre” offers by far the most fascinating personalities. At least, this seems to have been true during the seventy-five-year period the present work covers, from the great constitution-making years of the 1780s to the crises of 1862. I doubt that any country has produced a more brilliant array of men and women leaders in politics, literature, women’s rights, business enterprise, from such a small population during such a short period. I wish I could have done justice to this creative second cadre, but then the present work would be far more encyclopedic than it is.

Instead, I have examined certain personages—Lydia Maria Child, for example—at some length, as exemplars of countless other second-cadre leaders. I have tried also to reach into especially important subcultures to give some sense of the smell and feel and sound of the place as representative of certain sections of the country at certain times. In order to sink these historical drill holes into particular areas, and in order to capture significant personages in the second cadre of leadership, I have benefited from researches undertaken at the following archives and libraries, to whose staffs I express appreciation: Albany State Library, California Historical Society, Columbia University Library, William R. Perkins Library of Duke University, Emory University Library, Filson Club of Louisville, Library of Congress, Louisiana State University Library, Massachusetts Historical Society, New York Historical Society, New York Public Library,
Pennsylvania Historical Society, Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe, South Carolina Historical Society, South Carolina Library of the University of South Carolina, Tulane University Library, Virginia State Library, University of Virginia Library, Widener Library, Earl Gregg Swem Library of the College of William and Mary, Williams College Library, and a number of local archives and libraries as indicated in the notes. Dee Ann Montgomery conducted research also at the Illinois State Historical Library and other libraries in Illinois.

I was privileged, in writing key sections of this work, to have the collaboration of exceptionally gifted research associates and the benefit of the work they have done in particular fields of study. Stewart Burns collaborated in planning and drafting material on major aspects of black history and of social history more broadly; Dee Ann Montgomery, in social history, especially women’s history, and in political party history; and Jeffrey P. Trout, in military history—particularly the Civil War—and political history. I am responsible for the final writing, including any errors of omission and commission; I would be grateful to be informed of any such errors at Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., 01267. David Coolidge, Virginia Earll, Ann F. Hickey, and Ellen Yager also assisted with research. Robert A. Burns investigated Shays’s Rebellion in western Massachusetts libraries and archives. Peter A. Meyers assisted me on conceptualization and data on some major theoretical problems. Michael Beschloss, Maurice Greenbaum, and Lisl Cade helped me in important ways. Deborah Burns designed the endpapers in collaboration with Betty Anderson. Jay Leibold worked intensively on manuscript preparation.