CHAPTER 26
Your administration has fallen upon times which will be remembered as long as human events find a record.
—GEORGE BANCROFT TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Lincoln ~ Buchanan
The Civil War would require unprecedented efforts in the field of finance. On February 25, 1862, the Legal Tender Act was passed, allowing the federal government to print $150 million in paper notes, not backed by precious metal. This radical alteration to monetary policy generated a great deal of criticism, but with the war ongoing and low deposits of specie, the government had little choice. In discussing a possible quotation to place on the notes, Lincoln offered a verse from the New Testament, “‘Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee.’”
The administration’s untried policy was not without detractors. “I never expected to see the day when the federal government would assume the power of issuing a paper currency, much less of making it a legal tender,” Buchanan wrote.
Treasury Secretary Chase stormed in to see the president and placed before him an offensive cartoon, which showed Chase feeding gold to a goose while the goose was laying greenbacks. Chase complained that the cartoon would be harmful to the credit of the United States and that the author should be punished. “I would myself give a thousand dollars to make an example of its author!” he exclaimed.
Lincoln fixed the secretary with “a look of mingled humor, sagacity, wisdom, and esteem,” and “gently said, ‘From which end would you pay, Chase?’”
Lincoln was hoping to spend these new federal funds on a measure other than war, one that could eliminate the very cause of the conflict.
George Bancroft, historian and member of the Polk cabinet, had written Lincoln, “If slavery and the Union are incompatible, listen to the words that come to you from the tomb of Andrew Jackson, ‘The Union must be preserved at all hazards’ . . . Your administration has fallen upon times which will be remembered as long as human events find a record,” arguing that the Civil War was an instrument of God to destroy slavery. Lincoln responded, “The main thought in the closing paragraph of your letter is one which does not escape my attention, and with which I must deal in all due caution, and with the best judgment I can bring to it.”
Lincoln shared this judgment in a White House meeting with Charles Sumner. Lincoln would ask Congress to adopt a simple resolution: If states were willing to create a program for compensated emancipation for slaves, then the federal government would commit the necessary resources. Delaware, with only 1,798 slaves, was the perfect place to experiment, Lincoln thought. The United States would pay Delaware $400 per slave, for a total of $719,200. If it worked there, perhaps Maryland could be next. The cost of the war was $2 million a day. Fewer than eighty-seven days of war could similarly pay for all of the slaves in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and the District of Columbia. Sumner disagreed with Lincoln’s graduated approach, and thought one particular passage in the president’s proposed resolution too easy to misconstrue. Lincoln offered to strike it out. Sumner reviewed the document again, finally saying that he did not want to delay the message.
Lincoln had this resolution back on his desk in a little over a month, after it passed by 3–1 margins in the Senate and House, along with another measure that he had long championed. As a congressman, Lincoln had introduced a bill for emancipation in the District of Columbia. Now as president, he would have the opportunity to sign such a bill into law. “I have ever desired to see the national capital freed from the institution in some satisfactory way,” Lincoln said.
The Confederate vessel Virginia, commonly known by its former name, the Merrimac, and fitted with iron plates, steamed out of Norfolk on March 8. Its opponents watched as their shells bounced off of the armor, waiting in horror for the Merrimac to come for them. In its debut the newly armored vessel had “sunk the Cumberland, burned the Congress, and run the Minnesota aground.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing for the Atlantic, was present to witness the aftermath. Only a “few sticks” were left of the Congress, and the masts of the Cumberland rose out of the water, “a tattered rag of a pennant fluttering from one of them . . . A remnant of the dead crew still man the sunken ship, and sometimes a drowned body floats up to the surface.”
The implications for the new weapon of war were terrifying. It could break up the blockade. It could terrorize northern cities and their commerce. It could steam up the Potomac and force the government to give up the capital.
News of the Merrimac arrived the following morning, a Sunday “of swiftly succeeding emotions at the Executive Mansion.” Nicolay and Hay remembered Lincoln, “as usual in trying moments, composed but eagerly inquisitive, critically scanned the despatches . . . joining scrap to scrap of information, applying his searching analysis and clear logic to read the danger and find the remedy.” The emergency cabinet meeting might have been “the most excited and impressive of the whole war,” his secretaries recalled. Stanton paced the floors. McClellan sat silently. The military scrambled to protect Washington, creating obstructions in the Potomac to prevent passage of the Merrimac.
Fortunately, the Union had been conducting ironclad experiments of its own, for which Congress had appropriated $1.5 million. The result was the Monitor, twice the size and displacing four times as much water as the Merrimac, it also had five times as many guns. The Monitor had, unbeknownst to the worried administration, already arrived to confront the Merrimac. The first battle of ironclads, which rendered obsolete all the navies of the earth, lasted three hours, as nine- and eleven-inch shells bounced off the sides of each ship. Unable to harm the other, the ships withdrew from the scene.
Meanwhile, McClellan’s long awaited movement was underway. The expeditionary force left on March 17, arriving at Fort Monroe on the Virginia Peninsula on April 5. The logistical feat was impressive, as “121,500 men, 14,592 animals, 1,150 wagons, 44 batteries, 74 ambulances,” and a substantial amount of material for building bridges, telegraph lines, and equipment, made the journey. Lost along the way were only eight mules and nine barges, whose contents were saved. An estimated fifty-five thousand troops were needed to secure Washington. McClellan left nineteen thousand.