CHAPTER 33
The last proclamation of the president caps the climax of folly and wickedness.
—FRANKLIN PIERCE
Lincoln ~ Pierce ~ Fillmore
As the dreadful year of 1862 drew to a close, Union efforts in the west focused on Vicksburg, Mississippi. That critical city occupied high ground above the Mississippi River. For as long as Vicksburg remained in Confederate hands, the Union could not control the great waterway. From Vicksburg the railroad ran east, connecting other railroads leading to every southern state. Across the river a railroad ran west to Shreveport, Louisiana. Vicksburg was the only junction connecting every part of the Confederacy.
“Vicksburg is the key,” Lincoln said. “The war can never be brought to a close until the key is in our pocket.” Jefferson Davis called Vicksburg “the nail head that holds the South’s two halves together.”
Ulysses Grant was determined to have it. Grant, now the highest-ranking general in the west, was discouraged by the elections of 1862. Northern enlistments had dried up, and now the Union resorted to the draft. Grant resolved, “There was nothing left to be done but to go forward to a decisive victory.” But the path to Vicksburg, over land and water, was heavily fortified and protected, and filled with dangers, natural and otherwise.
The first day of 1863 brought with it, like every year, a levee at the White House. When it was done came the important business of the day. After Antietam, Lincoln had announced that he would issue the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1. Now that time had arrived. The Proclamation was brought to Lincoln on a scroll by Seward and his son Frederick, who served as his aide at the State Department. Lincoln dipped his pen in ink, but paused as he prepared to sign and dropped the pen. After a moment, Lincoln again picked up the pen, but hesitated and dropped it again. Looking at Seward, he said, “I have been shaking hands since nine o’clock this morning and my right arm is almost paralyzed. If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign the Proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter will say, ‘He hesitated.’” Lincoln gripped the pen a third time and wrote “Abraham Lincoln” at the end. Looking up and smiling, he said, “That will do!”
In Beaufort, South Carolina, controlled by the Union forces after the landing at Port Royal, three thousand slaves arrived to hear a reading. They were treated to a fine barbecue and waited on by Union soldiers. For more than a year the emancipation experiment had thrived, as they demonstrated their ability to work the plantations and sustain themselves and one another. Even so, their legal status had been in doubt. But from a platform the Emancipation Proclamation was now read. The American flag was waved from the stage, by a man who recognized that “now for the first time, it meant anything to these people.” The now former slaves in the audience spontaneously broke into song:
My country ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing!
Franklin Pierce was livid. “The last proclamation of the president caps the climax of folly and wickedness . . . the most obvious dictates of humanity, honor, and common honesty, to say nothing of patriotism, commands the withdrawal of support promptly and irrevocably,” he wrote his former law partner.
“Mr. Lincoln has been and is to what his limited ability and narrow intelligence [allow] their willing instrument for all the woe which has thus far been brought upon the country and for all the degradation, all the atrocity, all the desolation and ruin which is only too palpably before us.”
Pierce argued that the Constitution had been “deliberately violated and defied by the national executive sworn to maintain it,” that “five hundred thousand men have been induced to take their places in the ranks of the Army under false pretences,” and “one hundred thousand of them at least have poured out their life and blood for the consummation of an object to which they never did give and never could have given their approbation.
“All of this would have been sufficiently replete with a degree of wrong, disgrace, and honor [sic] which admits of no expression. But what will the world say of a proclamation, emanating from the President of the United States, not only in defiance of the fundamental law of the country for the upholding of which he ought to have been willing to pour his own blood, but in defiance of all law human and Divine which invites the black race in six entire states and parts of several others to use and with all the barbaric features . . . slay and devastate without regard to age or sex . . . the homes of the descendants of men whose fathers fought with our fathers the battles of the Revolution, and whose fathers with our fathers formed and adopted the Constitution . . . the women and children brutally violated and slaughtered shall be white women and children.
“What will the civilized world say when they read these words sent forth by the President of the United States . . . they will say justly that a crime so fearful as that proposed was never before contemplated by any nation, civilized or barbarous.
“If it be not too late for the people of the United States to utter a voice which shall terrify duplicity and overcome fanaticism—if it be not too late to rescue the Republic from ruin financially and politically—is it too late to stay the restless march of barbarism, to save such remnants of honor as may warrant as to claim and deserve a place among the civilized peoples of the earth.
“But I will say no more now,” Pierce concluded. “My heart is sick of the contemplation.”
Millard Fillmore was similarly incensed, sending Pierce an article from the Commercial Advertiser critical of Lincoln’s Proclamation. Pierce responded with thanks, arguing, “If this war is prosecuted to abolish slavery . . . what possible justification could be argued for it? A war prosecuted for these objects is itself treason.
“If Mr. Lincoln had decided at the outset that he was” to fight a war on this basis, “who would have sprung to arms for such objects?” He encouraged Fillmore to “continue to deliver your heavy blows, thick and fast” against these and all unconstitutional measures.
Had Lincoln gone too far? Not far enough? Had he acted rashly? Had he waited too long? The Springfield Republican may have said it best. “The President’s action is timely—neither too soon nor too late. It is thorough—neither defeating itself by halfway measures nor by passionate excess. It is just and magnanimous—doing no wrong to any loyal man, and offering no exasperation to the disloyal. It is practical and effective—attempting neither too little nor too much. And it will be sustained by the great mass of loyal people, north and south; and thus, by the courage and prudence of the President, the greatest social and political revolution of the age will be triumphantly carried through the midst of a civil war.”
The fears that the army would “disintegrate,” in McClellan’s words, over the freeing of slaves were wildly exaggerated, but not without foundation. Many of those serving had signed up to fight for the Union, and others, including General William Sherman, were supportive of or at least ambivalent toward slavery. Lincoln was prepared to respond generously toward those who protested. One of these was Major Alexander Montgomery, dismissed for allegedly saying that Lincoln “ought to have his damned black heart cut out.” Lincoln noted that his dismissal “is doing the Union cause great harm in his neighborhood and country . . . he is a man of character, did good service in raising troops for us last fall, and still declares for the Union and his wish to fight for it.” If upon further inquiry Montgomery still wished to fight for the Union, Lincoln asked that he be restored.
General Burnside followed Fredericksburg with an aborted march against Lee, called off due to the weather. His subordinate generals complained loudly of his leadership, and ultimately he was replaced as head of the Army of the Potomac. “Is it not strange that among a population so numerous and so intelligent and enterprising as ours, the war has not yet produced one great General?” Buchanan asked. “McClellan is best among them . . . During the French Revolution there sprang up, often from the ranks, Generals of the first order, possessing dash and strategy and capable of conducting a war of invasion in the most efficient manner.”
Lincoln wrote to Burnside’s replacement, Joseph Hooker, letting him know that he would be keeping a close watch on him. Lincoln liked that he was “brave and skillful,” free of politics, confident, “a valuable, if not indispensable quality,” ambitious, “which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm.” But Lincoln also accused him of undermining Burnside, and thus “did a great wrong to the country.” He also said that he found credible rumors of Hooker saying that the army and country need a dictator. Lincoln reminded him, “Only those generals who gain successes, can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.” He closed with encouragement. “And now, beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories.”
As the Army of the Potomac witnessed another leadership change, so did the tiny home guard unit known as the Union Continentals of Buffalo. The troops expressed their “high sense of the valuable and efficient services rendered by Captain Fillmore during his term of office, to put on record our appreciation of that . . . his knowledge of the duties of a soldier, his patience and perseverance as a military instructor, the great interest which he has evinced in forming from men of character and position in this community a body of soldiers, trained and disciplined for service in the preservation of order and the defense of the Union,” praising his “esprit de corps.” But Fillmore was not leaving civic life. He agreed to allow his name to be used as an incorporator of a hospital for invalid soldiers. He would donate personally, he said, but he had “exhausted my limited means, and I am not in the way of earning more.”
Shortly thereafter, in the midst of a Civil War, Buffalo opened its Fine Arts Academy, one of the first art museums in the United States. The Commercial Advertiser noted that it “has taken its place among the recognized institutions of the city. The collection of paintings there grouped is a very superior one—indeed, a prominent New York artist who recently examined the pictures declared that it was rare to find as choice a collection even in the metropolis . . . . An hour or two can hardly be so pleasantly and profitably spent as in the art gallery. The very atmosphere of the place is refining.” In the midst of so much brutality, the people of Buffalo would never lose sight of what was good about life.
Even in the most refined quarters the war was never far from the home front. A soldier from Buffalo in the 119th New York Volunteers wrote from Baton Rouge, “How much I would like to be with you,” he said. “I feel now as if home and dear Buffalo would suit me very well, could I but be there. I have traveled in this direction long enough to suit me for a short period of time, at least, and I would be perfectly willing, as far as my own pleasure is concerned, to quit the sunny south, and pass the remainder of my days in peace up north.”
On March 26, 1863, Lincoln wrote to Andrew Johnson after hearing of his thoughts about raising a black regiment. Johnson, the only senator to remain while his state seceded, was now serving as the military governor of Tennessee, over the parts occupied by Union forces. “In my opinion the country now needs no specific thing so much as some man of your ability, and position, to go to this work . . . The colored population is the great available and yet unavailed of force for restoring the Union. The bare sight of fifty thousand armed, and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once.”
As Lincoln worked toward arming former slaves, the rest of the country was still processing the Emancipation Proclamation. Democrats saw a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on the fallout. Granite State voters would have the first word. One newspaper reported, “The coming state election in New Hampshire will be severely contested by the peace Democrats. Franklin Pierce, the Ex President, is the manager of the campaign, descending to the minutia of a town and district canvass. He is outspoken in his opposition to the war . . . The Republicans are certain, however, of carrying the state, if we have any military success to speak of before the election.”
There would be no military victories before the election, with opposing armies camped across the Rappahannock from one another. But New Hampshire was unequivocal all the same. As the New York Times reported, “The people of that state are not willing to be misunderstood on the subject. They have elected a Republican member of Congress in every district, and a strong Republican majority in the legislature,” which would in turn select a Republican governor. “It indicates . . . a firm and settled purpose to stand by the administration in its prosecution of the war.”