CHAPTER 29
Mr. Hay, what is the use of growing old? You learn something of men and things but never until too late to use it.
—WILLIAM SEWARD
Lincoln ~ Fillmore ~ Van Buren
As the long awaited and expensive adventure of General George McClellan drew to an ignominious close, Lincoln began working on a confidential project in the War Department’s telegraph office. One morning he sat at a desk and asked Major Eckert for some paper, on which “to write something special.” During the first full day, as with each new day he worked at this, Lincoln never filled a complete piece of paper with his writing. When finished for the day, he asked Major Eckert to entrust the work to his care, to be locked up and not shown to anyone. He returned in the morning, a routine he would follow for weeks. Eckert remembered that “Sometimes he would not write more than a line or two, and once I observed that he had put question-marks on the margin of what he had written. He would read over each day all the matter he had previously written and revise it, studying carefully each sentence.”
In Buffalo, meanwhile, undeterred by recent disappointments, the leading citizens of the city came together to form the Historical Society. Millard Fillmore, its first president, saved a newspaper article announcing, “the new organization . . . has been formed for the purpose of rescuing from oblivion the past and contemporaneous affairs of Buffalo . . . We shall expect to see a large and interested audience.”
On July 1, 1862, at American Hall, Fillmore gave his inaugural address to the new organization. He acknowledged that Buffalo was scarcely older than its oldest living resident, but made clear that the Historical Society’s objective was to collect and preserve information for posterity. He noted his own recent research into the origin of the town’s name, which could not be positively identified.
“However it may sound to foreign ears, to me it signifies everything which I love and admire in a city, beautiful, clean, healthy, warm in winter [sic] and cool in summer; but above all, it is my home, and the home of the friends I love best, where my days have been spent, and my bones shall repose.
“Let our citizens unite heart and hand in building up this society, which, while it does justice to the dead, reflects honor upon the living.” To start what he hoped would be a valuable collection, Fillmore donated the last letter ever written by Daniel Webster. But Fillmore was not insensitive to the history being made all around him.
For some months past, he had been especially concerned about the issue of emancipation, collecting a number of articles on the subject. One from the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser read, “we see that an African element is interposed between us and our design . . . We hear no more of treason, but much of emancipation and a war against slavery. Regiments march to the battlefield shouting hoarsely, ‘the soul of John Brown is marching on’ . . . We of the north should make this no more a part of our design, than any other necessary result of war.” Another article from the same paper intoned, “Northern fanatics can now see that all our woe has proceeded from their foolishness.” But what if such a thing came to pass? Fillmore also saved an editorial from the World, calling for an “experiment in practical emancipation.” Citing the example of Port Royal, it argued that the purpose should be to demonstrate for the country and its political leaders “a practical demonstration of the capacity of the average mass of the plantation slaves of the south for regulated freedom.”
Shortly after launching the Historical Society, Fillmore met a visitor to Buffalo. “He did not hesitate to express his views upon the present state of affairs of our country,” the man remembered, while also recalling that Fillmore complained “abolitionists in Congress had undone what the army had done.” Fillmore believed Lincoln had done well under the circumstances. But this approval was given with no knowledge of Lincoln’s project in the telegraph office.
Lincoln met with a congressional delegation from the border states, who were adamantly opposed to any scheme of emancipation. From the beginning, Lincoln had been incredibly sensitive to the temperature in that region. Once again fears of driving them from the Union were brought up.
Shortly thereafter, Seward and Welles accompanied Lincoln in a carriage to the funeral of Stanton’s son. The navy secretary remembered, “He dwelt earnestly on the gravity, importance, and delicacy of the movement, said he had given it much thought and had about come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity absolutely essential for the salvation of the Union, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued.” Lincoln said that he had never mentioned it to anyone and wanted their candid views. Seward replied that given the significance, he should like to think it over, but his initial impression was to agree with Lincoln. Welles concurred.
Lincoln became impressed that now was not the right time. Any movement against slavery would look desperate on the heels of so many military reversals. But as the president wrote to his friend Reverdy Johnson, senator from Maryland, “it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.”
Despite increasing illness, Martin Van Buren took a deep interest in the movements of the army of the Union. Upon waking from frequent bouts of unconsciousness, Van Buren asked “for the details of military news since his indisposition.”
Van Buren was often “insensible and unable to recognize friends or relatives.” But during periods of lucidity he “evinced the most lively and patriotic interest in the affairs of the country,” said one witness, “and expressed all faith in the ultimate triumph of our arms and cause. He has continually denounced the course of Mr. Buchanan’s administration from the first, but has expressed the utmost confidence in that of Mr. Lincoln.”
According to the New York Tribune, “A few hours before his death he motioned his grand-children to his side, when he bade them a final adieu. His dying words are said to have been . . . ‘there is but one Reliance.’” The Albany Evening Journal reported, “Another pillar of the Republic has fallen. Another Statesman has departed for the Silent land.” The Milwaukee Morning Sentinel noted, “He dies in the fullness of years and with a fame undimmed.”
In contrast to the silence in Washington upon John Tyler’s death, Lincoln issued a glowing tribute to the first president he had ever met, “his honored predecessor.” Lincoln ordered that the White House and non-military buildings be “placed in mourning,” and civilian government functions suspended the following day. As Lincoln wrote, “The grief of his patriotic friends will measurably be assuaged by the consciousness that while suffering with disease and seeing his end approaching, his prayers were for the restoration of the authority of the government of which he had been head, and for peace and good will among his fellow citizens.” Van Buren biographer John Niven put it best: “Van Buren would have approved the sentiment, one imagines, with a smile. After all, a crucial election campaign was going on in the Empire State; the race would be close. The Magician, whenever possible, had always offered proper respects for the departed with an eye on the election returns.”
The funeral at Kinderhook was conducted in a “plain unostentatious manner most in keeping with the principles of republican institutions.” Reverend Berry of the Dutch Reformed Church held a brief afternoon ceremony at Lindenwold. “The building was filled to its utmost capacity” with members of the community and many distinguished guests. The pallbearers who conducted Van Buren to the church were older residents of the town, the people who had grown up with him and who had made up his society before, between, and after his time on the world stage.
The church entrance was draped in mourning, “as were also the ceilings, balconies, organ, and altar inside. Over the altar was suspended the National emblem hung with crape.” Reverend Berry’s sermon was a call to action, something Van Buren could not have helped but appreciate. “Before us lies the lifeless body of one of the Presidents of our Union,” he said. “We bury him amid such circumstances as never attended the burial of a President of the people’s choice before,” he said, in an unmistakable reference to John Tyler. “While we are engaged in these solemn rites at the very hour an atrocious rebellion is warring for that Union’s utter destruction. Shall it succeed? Shall it be said that the life of this Republic was measured only by the life of one of its rulers? Are you ready to lay the Union beside him in his grave?” Will you “pledge to our country now, in the hour of its stupendous danger, what true patriots pledged it at the hour of its birth—our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor?”
Lincoln and his cabinet were about to ask just such a pledge of General John Pope, who had been serving in the west. McClellan was asking for “much over rather than under” one hundred thousand troops to reinforce him on the peninsula, something that was impossible. The administration planned to create a new army under Pope and proceed south toward Richmond. Pope assented, on one condition: that McClellan be ordered in advance to “make a vigorous attack on the enemy with his whole force the moment he heard I was engaged.” To this they agreed, and to this McClellan would follow with his usual scrupulousness, writing his wife, “Pope will be badly trashed within two days and . . . they will be very glad to turn over the redemption of their affairs to me. I won’t take it unless I have full and entire control.” Meanwhile, Lee determined to defeat Union forces in northern Virginia before McClellan could rejoin them.
On the peninsula, a team of McClellan’s engineers were doing reconnaissance near the James River when a teenaged boy “came dashing out of a deep belt of woods, mounted on a superb charger. The lad at first was somewhat abashed, but soon recovered his presence of mind to such an extent that he repeated questions but few satisfactory answers were received.” The engineers learned that his father was John Tyler, “that his mother was at the mansion . . . and sick, and that she had sent him to a neighboring plantation for medicine. The beauty and elegance of the general appearance of both bridle and saddle in use by the youngster, induced the party to make a closer examination. When they found them to be not only mounted with solid silver of the best material, stitched in every part with trappings to correspond, but upon the pommel of the saddle was found a silver plate, bearing the inscription: ‘Santa Anna’s saddle, presented to General John Tyler by General Winfield Scott.’”
Julia Tyler had seven children, ranging from age sixteen to two, and for the past seven months, had been raising them in the midst of a war and without her husband, and now she was bedridden. Weeks later, she and her six youngest arrived on Staten Island to live with her brother, having sailed from Harrison’s Landing (her oldest son, future congressman David Tyler, remained to attend Washington College). True to form, Julia Tyler ran the blockade with five cotton bales, which she was easily able to sell upon her arrival.
From the 18th of August until the 26th, General Pope’s new Army of Virginia engaged in skirmishes and minor engagements with Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. As the Confederate army converged on Manassas Junction, the frightening realization came over Pope that none of the promised reinforcements would arrive.
On August 30, Lincoln considered a report—prepared by Stanton and signed by Chase, Smith, and Bates—calling for McClellan’s resignation. On a ride with Hay, Lincoln said he really believed that McClellan wanted Pope defeated. “The President seemed to think him a little crazy,” Hay recalled. They went to bed that night “expecting glad tidings at sunrise.”
At eight in the morning, Hay was dressing when the president came into his room. “Well John we are whipped again, I am afraid. The enemy reinforced on Pope and drove back his left wing and he has retired to Centerville where he says he will be able to hold his men.” Throughout that day, the wounded straggled into Washington “in large numbers.”
The fields near Manassas, for the second time the scene of incredible violence, would bear the scars for years, in the form of “mangled trees, rows of depressions from disinterred graves, the bleached bones of dead horses.” One soldier remembered, “War has been designated as Hell, and I assure you that this was the very vortex of Hell.”
Yet McClellan, who had left the Army of Virginia to be slaughtered, was beloved by his men, certainly more popular than the administration. For his faults, McClellan made certain that his men were properly provisioned. Upon their return to the capital, twenty to thirty thousand soldiers led a respectful review past McClellan’s home. “It is painful to entertain the idea that the country is in the hands of such men,” Welles wrote in his diary. “I hope I mistake them.”
On a moonlight walk, Seward reflected for Hay on the terrible cost a man pays for acquiring wisdom. “Mr. Hay, what is the use of growing old? You learn something of men and things but never until too late to use it. I have only just now found out what military jealousy is. I have been wishing for some months to go home to my people but could not while our armies were scattered and in danger. The other day I went down to Alexandria and found General McClellan’s army landing. I considered our armies united virtually and thought them invincible. I went home and the first news I received was that each had been attacked and each in effect, beaten. It never had occurred to me that any jealousy could prevent these generals from acting for their common fame and the welfare of the country.”
Another forward movement was checked. Another slaughter on the fields around Bull Run had gained the Union nothing. In these dark days Lincoln wrote, “The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for, and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party . . . God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet.” God, Lincoln noted, could have prevented the conflict from happening at all. “Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.”