Lincoln (62 page)

Despite the absence of clear strategic plans, the demand for a Union advance became explosive after federal troops suffered several minor setbacks during the early months of the war. The most conspicuous of these occurred on May 24, the day after Virginia formally ratified its ordinance of secession, when Lincoln directed federal troops to cross the Potomac and occupy Alexandria. Moving stealthily, Union forces, including the Zouave regiment that Elmer Ellsworth had recruited in New York, compelled the Virginia troops to withdraw. Flushed with victory, Ellsworth spotted a secession flag flying above the Marshall House—a flag the President could see with his spyglass from the White House—and dashed up the stairs to tear it down. On his way down the hotelkeeper shot and killed him. Ellsworth’s death deeply grieved Lincoln, who thought of this young officer as almost another son. The funeral ceremonies were held in the White House, and afterward the President wrote the young man’s parents of their shared affliction: “So much of promised usefulness to one’s country, and of bright hopes for one’s self and friends, have rarely been so suddenly dashed, as in his fall.”

The tragedy—one that would have gone almost unnoticed in later years, when deaths were reported by the thousands—reinforced the drumbeat of politicians and newspapers calling for action. Up to this point Lincoln had favored delay, but he now ordered an advance against the Confederate army near Manassas, Virginia, where it was a constant threat to Washington.

Since Scott was too old and infirm to take the field, Lincoln put General Irvin McDowell, a forty-two-year-old West Point graduate who had served with distinction in the Mexican War, in charge of the advance. On June 29, Lincoln met with his cabinet and military advisers in the White House to discuss McDowell’s plans, which were simple and direct. Believing that General P. G. T. Beauregard had about 35,000 men at Manassas, he proposed to attack the Confederates before they could be reinforced. Scott demurred because he believed in “a war of large bodies,” not “a little war by piecemeal,”
but the President and the cabinet overruled him, and McDowell was authorized to begin his campaign on July 9.

It was not until a week later that McDowell was ready to move—a very costly week’s delay that gave the Confederacy a chance to reinforce Beauregard’s army with Joseph E. Johnston’s troops from the Shenandoah Valley. Slowly McDowell’s army began to march out to meet the Confederate army at Manassas. (That is what the Southerners called the place; Yankees found that one undistinguished Southern crossroads looked much like another, and they called the field of engagement Bull Run, after the creek that meandered near it.) McDowell’s plans were widely known in Washington, and his invading army was accompanied by six United States senators, at least ten representatives, scores of newspapermen, and many of what a reporter called “the fairer, if not gentler sex,” who often brought picnic baskets in their buggies.

Assured by Scott that McDowell would be successful, Lincoln quietly went to church on July 21. In midafternoon he went to Scott’s office, only to find the general-in-chief taking his afternoon nap. When the President woke him up, the general said that early reports from the battlefield signified nothing and before dropping off to sleep again predicted McDowell’s victory. But by six o’clock that evening Seward came to the White House with the news that McDowell’s army was in full retreat. At the War Department the President read the dispatch of an army captain of engineers: “The day is lost. Save Washington and the remnants of this army.... The routed troops will not re-form.” All evening the President and the cabinet members clustered in Scott’s office, hearing more and more alarming news. That night, stretched out on a couch in the cabinet room of the White House, the President listened to firsthand reports from terrified eyewitnesses of the defeat. He did not go to bed that night.

The next day Lincoln began to assess the damage. He learned that many of McDowell’s troops had fought bravely and well. The Union army would have won the battle except for the unanticipated arrival of Johnston’s forces from the Valley. Even then, facing overwhelming odds, most of the volunteer Union regiments had retreated in good order, and the demoralized mob described by so many witnesses was largely composed of teamsters, onlookers, and ninety-day troops whose terms of enlistment were about to expire. The army was defeated but not crushed, and McDowell’s troops were fed into the substantial fortifications on the south side of the Potomac. By nightfall Cameron wired to worried New Yorkers, “The capital is safe.”

The immediate political reaction to the defeat was to rally behind the President. In order to make that support clear, both houses of Congress voted almost unanimously for John J. Crittenden’s resolution declaring “that this war is not waged... for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing ... established institutions [meaning slavery]... but to defend... the Constitution and to preserve the Union.” That resolution
echoed the pledge in Lincoln’s inaugural address not to interfere with slavery within the states.

But such unity was only a façade. Bull Run was a severe Union defeat, and finger-pointing and recriminations inevitably followed. McDowell unfairly received a good share of the blame. Scott, too, was condemned for allowing such an ill-prepared campaign to get under way. Restive under criticism, the old general made an apology that was more like a defense when he talked with several Illinois congressmen in Lincoln’s presence two days after the battle. “I am the greatest coward in America,” he announced. “I will prove it; I have fought this battle, sir, against my judgment; I think the President of the United States ought to remove me to-day for doing it; as God is my judge, after my superiors had determined to fight it, I did all in my power to make the Army efficient. I deserve removal because I did not stand up, when my army was not in condition for fighting, and resist it to the last.”

The President interjected, “Your conversation seems to imply that I forced you to fight this battle.”

Scott avoided a direct response by saying, “I have never served a President who has been kinder to me than you have been.”

Unlike the general, Lincoln was willing to assume the blame for the defeat. Coolly reviewing the evidence, he concluded that the Manassas campaign, though unsuccessful, had not been ill advised. He knew that Union soldiers were raw recruits, but so were their Confederate opponents. On neither side did commanding officers have experience in conducting large-scale engagements. A crushing defeat of the Confederate army at Bull Run could have ended the war.

The President moved immediately to remedy the causes of the Union defeat. To boost morale he visited the fortifications around Washington and assured the troops that as commander-in-chief he would make sure they had all needful supplies. But he also recognized the need for better discipline. When he inspected the troops at Fort Corcoran, a disgruntled officer complained that Colonel William T. Sherman had threatened to shoot him like a dog for planning to go to New York without a leave. In a stage whisper that the other soldiers could easily hear, the President said, “Well, if I were you, and he threatened to shoot, I would not trust him, for I believe he would do it.”

Clearly a new commanding general was needed, and on the day after the battle Lincoln summoned George B. McClellan from western Virginia to take charge of the forces around Washington and to build a new army out of the three-year volunteer regiments that were just beginning to arrive in the capital.

During the next months while McClellan was organizing and training the new soldiers, Lincoln had a breathing spell from political pressure, because
everybody recognized that it would take time to build a real army. During these weeks the President and his family could for the first time enjoy living in the White House. Initially they had been overwhelmed by the size of the Executive Mansion with its thirty-one rooms, not including the conservatory, various outbuildings, and stables. The East Room alone was about as large as their entire Springfield house. Except for the family dining room, the first floor was open to all visitors. An aged Irish doorkeeper, Edward McManus, was supposed to screen visitors, but in practice anybody who wanted to could stroll in at any hour of the day and often late at night. On the second floor nearly half the rooms were also public, so that the Lincolns’ private quarters, which at first seemed so palatial, proved to be remarkably constricted. The upstairs oval room became the family sitting room. The two adjoining rooms on the south side were those of the President and Mrs. Lincoln; as in Springfield, they had separate but connecting bedrooms. Across the wide corridor were the state guest room, called the Prince of Wales Room, and the infrequently used room of Robert, who was in the White House only during Harvard vacations. Tad and Willie had smaller rooms on the north side.

The younger boys found endless opportunities for mischief and adventure in the Executive Mansion. To adults the soldiers stationed on the south grounds of the White House were an ominous reminder of danger, but to Willie and Tad the members of the “Bucktair Pennsylvania regiment were playmates who could always be counted on for stories and races. Catching the martial spirit, Willie and Tad took great pleasure in drilling all the neighborhood boys they could round up. With two special friends who just matched them in age—Bud and Holly Taft, sons of a federal judge who lived nearby—they commandeered the roof of the mansion for their fort, and there, with small logs painted to look like cannon, they resolutely fired away at unseen Confederates across the Potomac.

Children in the White House were something new for Americans, and citizens began showering the boys with presents. The most valued, and the most lasting, were the pets. Someone gave Willie a beautiful little pony, to which he was devoted; he rode the animal nearly every day and, being a generous boy, often allowed Tad to ride, even though the younger boy was so small that his legs stuck straight out on the sides. Especially cherished were two small goats, Nanko and Nanny, which frisked on the White House grounds and, when they had an opportunity, tore up the White House garden. At times the animals, like the general public, seemed to have the run of the White House. On one occasion Tad harnessed Nanko up to a chair, which served him as a sled, and drove triumphantly through the East Room, where a reception was in progress. As dignified matrons held up their hoop skirts, Nanko pulled the yelling boy around the room and out through the door again.

When Lincoln could find time, he played with his boys. One day Julia Taft, the teenage sister of Bud and Holly, heard a great commotion in the upstairs
oval room and entered to find the President of the United States lying on his back on the floor, Willie and Bud holding down his arms, Tad and Holly, his legs. “Julie, come quick and sit on his stomach!” cried Tad, as the President grinned at her grandly. There were also quiet times when Lincoln told stories or read to the boys; he would balance Willie and Bud on each knee while Tad mounted the back of his big chair and Holly climbed on the arm.

But such relaxed times were rare because Lincoln worked harder than almost any other American President. After a meager breakfast he went immediately to his office, where he signed as many papers and commissions as he could before the day’s regular schedule began. A solid black walnut table occupied the center of the office; here the cabinet members gathered for their biweekly sessions. Along one wall of the office were a sofa and two upholstered chairs, above which hung maps of the theaters of military operations. A large upright mahogany desk, so battered that one of Lincoln’s secretaries thought it must have come “from some old furniture auction,” was in one corner. The pigeonholes above it served as a filing cabinet. Lincoln’s smaller working desk stood between the two windows.

Adjoining the President’s office were rooms occupied by his small staff, equipped with nondescript furnishings. Most of the floor of this wing of the White House was covered with oilcloth, which made it easier to clean up after overflowing or missed spittoons. Lincoln’s private secretary was the self-effacing, methodical Nicolay, and the effervescent John Hay served as Nicolay’s assistant. As the burden of correspondence grew, William O. Stoddard, technically a clerk in the Interior Department, was brought in to help with the initial screening of the 200 to 300 letters that came in each day. One of his jobs was to throw away the letters from cranks and lunatics. Much later, when Stoddard became ill, Edward D. Neill of Minnesota, another clerk in the Interior Department, took his place. Hay spelled out the duties of these assistants when he instructed Neill to take charge in his temporary absence: “There will probably be little to do. Refer as little to the President as possible, Keep visitors out of the house when you can. Inhospitable, but prudent. I have a few franked envelopes. Let matters of ordinary reference go without formality of signature.”

Absolutely devoted to Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay were convinced that he would be remembered as a great President, and they early agreed that they would someday write a history of his administration. Lincoln promised to help them. Behind Lincoln’s back Nicolay and Hay affectionately referred to him as “the Ancient” (possibly derived from “Old Abe”) or “the Tycoon,” in reference to the all-powerful Emperor of Japan. Lincoln always addressed Nicolay by his last name and treated him with great respect, but he called Hay “John” and treated him like a son.

In the first days of his administration Lincoln tried to be orderly and businesslike. He attempted to scan and digest all the morning papers that reached the White House. Finding that too time-consuming, he instructed his secretaries to prepare a digest of the news for his perusal, but presently
he discontinued even that. Though he occasionally glanced at the telegraphic news dispatches in one or two papers, he read none of the newspapers consistently and almost never looked at their editorials. There was, he believed, nothing that newspapermen could tell him that he did not already know.