Lincoln (58 page)

In the days after receiving the news from Anderson, Lincoln wrestled with his problem. He did not come to conclusions quickly, and he was
temperamentally averse to making bold moves. It was his style to react to decisions made by others rather than to take the initiative himself. In these troubled hours he made no public pronouncements and did not even discuss the Sumter crisis at the first formal meeting of the cabinet on March 6, which Attorney General Bates characterized as “introductory” and “uninteresting.” In subsequent informal conversations the President told Gideon Welles that he wanted to avoid hasty action so as to gain “time for the Administration to get in working order and its policy to be understood.” Before taking any action, Lincoln, with his usual caution, tried to verify the facts. He asked General Scott to answer a set of interrogatories similar to ones that he used in the courtroom: How long could Anderson maintain his position? Was Scott now able to reinforce Fort Sumter? If not, what additional resources did he need? He received the disheartening response that it would require a naval expedition, 5,000 regular army troops, and 20,000 volunteer soldiers to reinforce the fort. Since these could not be produced, surrender was “merely a question of time.”

The Sumter crisis was the principal topic of discussion at a cabinet meeting on March 9, when the secretaries learned for the first time how grave the situation was. If relieving Anderson required an expeditionary force of at least 25,000 men—at a time when the entire United States army numbered only 16,000, mostly scattered in outposts along the Indian frontier—the inescapable conclusion was that the fort must be surrendered.

Lincoln was not yet willing to accept that conclusion. Perhaps his reluctance was increased when Francis P. Blair, Sr., forced his way into the President’s office and warned that evacuation of the fort was “virtually a surrender of the union” amounting to treason. The next day the old gentleman apologized for having said “things that were impertinent,” but Lincoln got the message.

He also learned that all military experts were not as pessimistic as General Scott. Former Navy Lieutenant Gustavus Vasa Fox, Mrs. Montgomery Blair’s brother-in-law, who was knowledgeable about coastal defenses, had for some time been advocating a plan to reinforce or resupply Sumter from the sea. He would use powerful light-draft New York tugboats under the cover of night to run men and supplies from an offshore naval expedition to the fort. His plan got nowhere under the Buchanan administration, and Scott, with the traditional scorn that army men showed for navy planners, thought it was impracticable. Now Montgomery Blair, who was a West Point graduate, endorsed it and Lincoln began to give it serious consideration.

On March 15 he asked each member of his cabinet to respond in writing to the question: “Assuming it to be possible to now provision Fort-Sumpter, under all the circumstances, is it wise to attempt it?” Seward took the lead in opposing any such attempt. An expedition to relieve Sumter would “provoke combat, and probably initiate a civil war.” Cameron, Welles, and Smith echoed Seward’s views. Chase took the opposite side of the question. He
admitted having some doubts, and he did not advise reinforcing Sumter if it would precipitate a war, with the necessity of enlisting large armies and spending millions of dollars that the Treasury did not have. But on the whole he thought this unlikely and therefore voted in favor of resupplying Major Anderson. Montgomery Blair strongly urged an expedition. Southerners had been led to believe
“that the Northern men are deficient in the courage necessary to maintain the Government.”
Only prompt reinforcement of Anderson and his garrison could “vindicate the hardy courage of the North and the determination of the people and their President to maintain the authority of the Government.”

With his advisers divided, Lincoln was unable to reach a decision. As he saw it, his duty from a purely military point of view was clear: it was “the mere matter of getting the garrison safely out of the Fort.” But evacuation “would be utterly ruinous” politically. “By many,” he explained to Congress a few months later, “it would be construed as a part of a
voluntary
policy—that, at home,... would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to insure to the latter, a recognition abroad—... in fact, it would be our national destruction consummated.”

“This could not be allowed,” he concluded—but he did not know how to avoid it. Like any other administrator facing impossible choices, he postponed action by calling for more information. After several conversations with Fox, to whom he took a great liking, he sent the lieutenant to Charleston ostensibly to bring Anderson messages about possible evacuation but in reality to get a firsthand look at the fort and the Confederate fortifications that threatened it. In an entirely separate move, the President put Seward’s views about Southern Unionism to the test by asking Stephen A. Hurlbut, an old friend from Illinois who had been born in Charleston, to go to South Carolina and ascertain the state of public opinion. Along with Hurlbut went Ward Hill Lamon, whose bibulous habits and open hostility to abolitionism might gain him access to a different class of South Carolinians.

By this time knowledge of the Sumter crisis had become general. From all sides the President heard imperative voices. Neal Dow, the Republican leader from Maine, wrote that evacuation of the fort would be “approved by the entire body of Republicans in this State” because it was “undoubtedly a Military
necessity.”
Greeley’s powerful
New York Tribune
spoke of allowing the Southern states to go in peace and opposed the use of any force. In the Senate, which was still in session to confirm presidential appointments, Douglas said that South Carolina was entitled to Fort Sumter and that “Anderson and his gallant band should be instantly withdrawn.” From faraway San Francisco the
Daily Alta California
predicted that “if Mr. Lincoln does withdraw the troops from Fort Sumter, secession is dead, and every leader in the movement ruined.”

On the other extreme some Republicans had long felt that the time had come for a test of strength with the South. Senator Zachariah Chandler, a
blunt, hard-drinking Michigan businessman, held that “without a little bloodletting this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush.” William Butler, Lincoln’s old Springfield friend, grew so angry at the prospect of giving up Fort Sumter without a fight that he lost control of grammar and orthography in a letter to Trumbull: “Is it passiable that Mr Lincoln is getting scared. I know the responsiability is grate; But for god sake tell Mr L to live by it; Or have the credit (If credit it may be termed) Of sinking in a richous cause.” A caucus of Republican congressmen warned the President that failure to reinforce Sumter would bring disaster to the party. Trumbull introduced a resolution in the Senate that “it is the duty of the President to use all the means in his power to hold and protect the public property of the United States.”

Amid these dissonant voices Lincoln heard from his emissaries to South Carolina. Fox returned to Washington more confident than ever that it was possible to resupply Fort Sumter by sea at night. On March 27, Hurlbut offered a bleak picture of public opinion in South Carolina. “Separate Nationality is a fixed fact,” he reported; “there is no attachment to the Union . … positively nothing to appeal to.” He judged that any attempt to reinforce Sumter would be received as an act of war; even “a ship known to contain
only provisions
for Sumpter [sic] would be stopped and refused admittance.”

The next day Lincoln received shocking advice from Scott. The general asserted that evacuation of Fort Sumter would not be enough to retain the loyalty of the upper South, including Virginia, Scott’s native state; it was necessary also to surrender Fort Pickens, on the Florida coast, even though that fort was securely in Union hands and could be reinforced at will. Only such liberality would “soothe and give confidence to the eight remaining slave-holding States, and render their cordial adherence to this Union perpetual.”

Appalled, Lincoln managed to get through the first state dinner that he and Mary gave for members of his official family and distinguished guests that evening, but he asked the cabinet to remain after the others took their leave. Then, in a voice choked with emotion, he told them of Scott’s recommendations. Blair erupted that the general was not offering military advice but “playing politician.” Except for Seward, whose views Scott was echoing, the others agreed. Lincoln gave notice that he would hold a formal council the next day. That night he slept not at all, aware that the time had come for decision.

The next morning he was, he said, “in the dumps.” He got up deeply depressed, conscious that he would have to ask the cabinet, which met at noon, for a final judgment on whether attempts should be made to relieve Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens. Each member—except Cameron, who was absent—gave a written opinion. Seward remained obdurately opposed to sending an expedition to provision or reinforce Sumter because it would
precipitate a civil war, but sensing that the President was determined to take some action, he favored holding Fort Pickens “at every cost.” Caleb Smith agreed. Bates also thought Fort Pickens must be held “at all hazards” and on Fort Sumter offered the unhelpful opinion that “the time is come either to evacuate or relieve it.” But now Chase and Welles came out unequivocally for reinforcing Sumter, and Blair threatened to resign if the President followed the advice of General Scott.

The advice of the majority of the cabinet reinforced Lincoln’s own view. He had already asked Fox for a memorandum of the ships, men, and supplies he would need to relieve Sumter, and he now directed Welles and Cameron to have an expedition ready to sail from New York by April 6. To organize the fleet Fox was sent to New York with verbal instructions to prepare for the voyage “but to make no binding engagements.” The strain under which Lincoln labored in arriving at this decision was immense. All the troubles and anxieties of his life, he told Browning, did not equal those he felt in these tense days. The pressure was so great that Mary Lincoln reported that he “keeled over” and had to be put to bed with one of his rare migraine headaches.

A decision had been reached, but Seward was not willing to concede defeat. In the week between the crucial cabinet meeting and the date for the sailing of the fleet, he tried, with a growing sense of desperation, to reverse Lincoln’s course. In the hope of avoiding hostilities, he had, through intermediaries, been in touch with the official commissioners the Confederate government sent to Washington in order to negotiate terms of separation, and he had given his word that the troops would be withdrawn from Fort Sumter. He was still confident he could negotiate a settlement of the crisis if Anderson’s garrison was evacuated. Now he was trapped between his pledge and Lincoln’s determination to proceed with a relief expedition.

Seward first sought to escape his dilemma by bluster. On April 1 he handed Lincoln a memorandum headed “Some thoughts for the President’s consideration.” It began with the pronouncement, “We are at the end of a month’s administration and yet without a policy either domestic or foreign.” From there the Secretary went on to urge that the question before the public be changed from slavery, which was a party issue, to
“Union or Disunion.”
In order to bring about this shift Fort Sumter should be evacuated but Fort Pickens and the other minor forts in the Gulf of Mexico should be reinforced. Public interest should be diverted from domestic quarrels to foreign policy. In order “to rouse a vigorous continental
spirit of independence,
” he would demand explanations from Spain, which had sent troops to assist rebels in Santo Domingo, and France, which was showing too great an interest in Mexican affairs; he even added Great Britain and Russia to his list. If the French and Spanish governments did not give satisfactory answers, he would convene Congress and declare war against them. “Whatever policy we adopt,” the memorandum concluded, “there must be an energetic prosecution. . . .
of it Either the President must do it himself... or Devolve it on some member of his Cabinet. . . . It is not in my especial province. But I neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility.”

Lincoln left no record of how he felt about this extraordinary document, which he must have been tempted to dismiss as an April Fool’s Day joke. Certainly he recognized it as another of Seward’s attempts to play the role of premier in the administration. What hit a nerve was the Secretary’s assertion that the administration had no policy. Others shared this opinion. Senators Sumner and Fessenden were convinced that Lincoln had “no fixed policy except to keep mum and see what end those seceding states will come to.” Carl Schurz warned of general discontent throughout the North because Lincoln lacked leadership. Everybody, Schurz told the President, felt that “any distinct line of policy, be it war or a recognition of the Southern Confederacy, would be better than this uncertain state of things.”

Touchy on this subject, Lincoln stiffly pointed out to Seward that he did have a policy, announced in his inaugural address, of holding, occupying, and possessing the forts and other property belonging to the government. (Rightly interpreted, that meant a policy of not evacuating Fort Sumter.) This policy, he reminded the Secretary, had Seward’s “distinct approval at the time.” Ignoring Seward’s warlike threats against European powers, Lincoln turned to his concluding observation that either the President must energetically prosecute whatever policy he adopted or delegate it to some member of the cabinet. Lincoln’s answer was unequivocal: “I remark that if this must be done,
I
must do it.” Then, recognizing how sharp his reply was, he probably did not send it. He kept the only known copy in his files and most likely discussed the memorandum with Seward, managing to combat its arguments without hurting the Secretary’s feelings.