CHAPTER 38
Three years of civil war have desolated the fairest portion of our land, loaded our country with an enormous debt that the sweat of millions yet unborn must be taxed to pay; arrayed brother against brother, and father against son in mortal combat; deluged our country with fraternal blood, whitened our battle-fields with the bones of the slain, and darkened the sky with the pall of mourning.
—MILLARD FILLMORE
Pierce ~ Lincoln ~ Buchanan ~ Fillmore
In autumn 1863, Nathaniel Hawthorne published his long awaited Our Old Home, a collection of travel essays from his seven years abroad, which had been serialized in the Atlantic Monthly. The author of The Scarlet Letter encountered an uncommon controversy, not for the content of the essays, but for their dedication:
TO
FRANKLIN PIERCE,
AS A SLIGHT MEMORIAL OF A COLLEGE FRIENDSHIP, PROLONGED THROUGH MANHOOD, AND RETAINING ALL ITS VITALITY
IN OUR AUTUMNAL YEARS,
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Pierce was riding a long train of unpopularity, from the Kansas-Nebraska Act to his criticism of Lincoln and the war, and the recent discovery of his correspondence with Jefferson Davis, which had been printed widely throughout the country. Hawthorne fought his editor to keep the dedication as it was, writing him that it would be an act of cowardice to do otherwise, noting that Pierce’s patronage by appointing him to the consulate at Liverpool made the entire book possible. For good measure, he pointed out, “if he is so exceedingly unpopular that his name is enough to sink the volume, there is so much the more need that an old friend should stand by him. I cannot, merely on account of pecuniary profit or literary reputation, go back from what I have deliberately thought and felt it was right to do.” Hawthorne remarked that he would never be able to think of the book without “remorse and shame” if he gave in. The social cost was high to him, for he noted, “My friends have dropped off from me like autumn leaves.” One large bookseller refused to order any copies, though his customers were very much fans of Hawthorne. Many friends still bought the book, and in the case of Ralph Waldo Emerson, cut out the dedication before reading. To paraphrase the old adage, when forced to choose between his friend and his country, Hawthorne had the courage to choose his friend.
Pierce was soon to need Hawthorne more than ever before. On December 2, 1863, he lost his wife. Hawthorne arrived immediately at his friend’s side. After the funeral the two kept vigil at her graveside at the Old North Church in Concord. The Pierces had never been much of a fit for one another, the healthy convivial public figure, versus the sickly, reclusive woman who hated politics. Once asked why he married her, Pierce had said, “I could take better care of her than anyone else.” As Pierce stood by Jane’s grave throughout that day, he probably wondered whether he had done so, hoping that he had made her happy. At one point during the vigil, “though completely overcome with his own sorrow,” Pierce “turned and drew up the collar of Hawthorne’s coat to shield him from the bitter cold.”
On December 8, the president released a controversial publication of his own. In a “Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction,” Lincoln promised that people wishing to return to the Union would receive “a full pardon,” have their property restored, except for their slaves, after taking an oath to support the Constitution and laws of the United States, as well as those proclamations issued by Lincoln as president. High-ranking Confederate officers and government officials would be exempt. Whenever 10 percent of a state’s population had sworn the oath, a state would be recognized as having resumed its former role in the Union.
Hay recorded, “Whatever may be the results or the verdict of history the immediate effect of this paper is something wonderful. I never have seen such an effect produced by a public document. Men acted as if the millennium had come. Chandler was delighted, Sumner was beaming, while at the other political pole Dixon and Reverdy Johnson said it was highly satisfactory.” Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts placed his hands on Hay’s shoulders and said, “The President has struck another great blow. Tell him from me God Bless him.”
At Ford & Levett’s Auction House, a crowd had gathered to bid on books, with some going as high as $1.50. The auctioneer announced the next volume for sale, “Here gentlemen, is the life of James Buchanan; how much am I offered?”
“A postage stamp,” came the opening bid.
“Five cents,” came another, to laughter.
“Ten cents.”
“Twelve.”
“Fifteen.”
Sold for fifteen cents.
“And damned dear at that,” someone said. The crowd cheered in agreement.
On February 8, 1864, Millard Fillmore contributed $24.81 to the Bounty Committee to recruit troops. Later that month he served as president of the committee of arrangements for the Buffalo Sanitary Fair. The United States Sanitary Commission had been formed to modernize the Army Medical Bureau. It was at that time the largest voluntary association in the history of the United States. Fillmore and his wife had worked hard to raise funds, and the event netted an incredible $25,000.
As the head organizer and the first citizen of Buffalo, Fillmore was asked to address the crowd at St. James Hall on February 22. He talked about the progress of Buffalo and of the nation, of revolutions in technology, travel, and communications. “But now, alas! All this changed. Three years of civil war have desolated the fairest portion of our land, loaded our country with an enormous debt that the sweat of millions yet unborn must be taxed to pay; arrayed brother against brother, and father against son in mortal combat; deluged our country with fraternal blood, whitened our battle-fields with the bones of the slain, and darkened the sky with the pall of mourning.
“The impartial historian will [decide who is at fault] when the passions engendered by the strife have cooled, and partisan prejudice, petty jealousies, malignant envy, and intriguing, selfish ambition shall be laid in the dust, and, it is hoped, buried in oblivion. And much less are we called upon to predict when or how this war will end. Let those who seek light on this subject, read General Jackson’s Farewell Address.” Fillmore pointed out that much must be forgiven, if not forgotten, for the country to truly reconcile. He argued “the administration must be supported in all constitutional efforts to conquer and disperse the rebel army.” Nothing more could be done, Fillmore argued, than “to provide for the wants, physical and spiritual, of the sick and wounded soldier. Let him feel when he goes to the battlefield, that we appreciate the sacrifices he makes and the dangers he is to encounter.” Fillmore took especial pains to praise the women who had served as nurses and otherwise aided soldiers in the war effort.
Fillmore, unlike Pierce in his summer speech, was not attempting to make news. And yet he did. It was in “Shocking bad taste,” according to the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser. “The only thing that marred the harmony of the proceedings . . . was the speech of the venerable president, ex-President Fillmore. We give his remarks as toned down. We should have been glad to have placed upon record some words from Mr. Fillmore which would have identified him with the friends of . . . the Union, instead of being obliged to class him, as we now do, amongst the bitterest opponents of the war.” One representative letter to Fillmore read, “I was pained to witness what to me seemed the favor of sympathy with rebellion and slavery.”
But no matter what the former presidents did, or were perceived to have done, there was still talk of bringing them in as part of a negotiated peace. A resolution in the House called for just that. The New York Daily Tribune joked, “We have a dim recollection that persons of that name were buried some centuries ago. 22 living men [the number of Congressmen who supported the resolution] voted to hunt in the tombs for them—and there was whisper of the still more ghastly name of James Buchanan.” This bizarre measure spurred a congressman to offer another: “Resolved, that the rebellion be and the same is hereby abolished.” That motion, however, carried, “to much laughter.”
Franklin Pierce, who throughout the war had taken a hands-on role in the Democratic fortunes in his state, was determined to defeat the administration. New Hampshire would cast the first ballots of 1864, offering critical momentum either to Lincoln or his opponents. The Democratic platform took credit for predicting “the consequences of abolition agitation,” and supported negotiations with the South if they were willing to return to the Union. The platform attacked Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction. They denounced Lincoln’s expansion of the war’s objective. By seeking to destroy slavery, they argued, Lincoln had forced the South to fight until they could fight no more. A vote for the Republicans, according to New Hampshire’s Democratic nominee for governor, was for “perpetual war.”
The Republican nominee for governor was an unconditional Unionist and “in favor of every effective measure for crushing out treason, whether it rears its head defiantly as in South Carolina or masks its hideous features with hypocritical smiles in New Hampshire.”
A critical component of Civil War elections was the soldiers’ vote. When the war began, the young men fighting it often could not participate, which made the difference in the reversals sustained by the Republicans in 1862. Generous furloughs were given near election time, but the vast majority of soldiers were consistently disenfranchised. The situation led to efforts in many states to permit absentee voting. In New Hampshire, such a measure had passed, but the state Supreme Court had ruled it unconstitutional. Still, the Thirteenth New Hampshire Volunteers would not be silenced. Together they had defended Washington, fought at Fredericksburg, and were now in Virginia. A letter drafted by them and signed by all but three regimental officers appeared in New Hampshire newspapers on February 25. “Great issues are at stake,” they wrote “and upon their settlement depends the great question of liberty and self-government throughout the civilized world. Although it is upon the battlefield that these vital questions are to be fought out and settled . . . depends in a great measure upon the position taken by the voters of the North the present year.
“To New Hampshire all eyes are anxiously turned. The soldier fighting for the restoration of our once glorious Union expects you to sustain him by an expression at the polls that can not be mistaken.
“If you sustain the party that comes out boldly for a vigorous prosecution of the war until treason every where be put down, then will the soldier in the field go forth to fight with renewed energy, knowing well that the rebellion will be speedily ended; but if, on the contrary, the voice of New Hampshire is in favor of that party which has among its leaders Vallandigham, Fernando Wood, Franklin Pierce, and others of like character, then will the war be prolonged at the cost of countless treasure and many thousand valuable lives.”
If the North had united from the beginning, they argued, the war would be over. “It is by the dissensions at the north that the leaders of the rebellion hope to achieve their independence.
“Fellow citizens, we are deprived of the right of suffrage, and is it presumption on our part to ask you to sustain us by your votes? Sustain those brave soldiers who have gone forth from the old Granite State, from the farm, from the workshop, and the desk, determined to do or die, men who have sealed their devotion to their country’s cause on many a bloody field.”
Franklin Pierce may have preferred his role in the state elections to be behind-the-scenes, if still very active. But the Republicans favored a very public role for him. Pierce’s July 4, 1863, “Mausoleum of Hearts” speech was widely reprinted, and he was indicted in Republican campaign literature for treason. Republicans campaigned for the state legislature against the threat that the Democrats would send Pierce to the Senate. On Election Day, it was reported that Franklin Pierce was “shunned” at his polling place, and “skedaddled” by train after voting.
On March 8, as New Hampshire voters headed to the polls, “a considerable crowd” braved bad weather to be present at the White House reception. Around 9:30 p.m., the “buzz and the movement” indicated to Lincoln that his guest of honor had arrived. When he approached the president, Lincoln said, “This is General Grant, isn’t it?”
“Yes!” Grant replied. He had been summoned to Washington for Lincoln to appoint him lieutenant general, head of all the army. During the reception, Nicolay received a message announcing that the New Hampshire Union ticket had prevailed by three thousand votes. Governor Gilmore, safely re-elected, wrote to the president, “The Granite State sends you greeting. New Hampshire stands fast by the country and your administration of the government. The spirit of liberty dwells among my people.”
James Buchanan lamented the results. “The Democrats of New Hampshire, with General Pierce, have fought a noble battle worthy of a better fate.”
The Republicans won the governorship with 54 percent, the biggest margin in eleven years, while carrying 63 percent of the state House and three-fourths of the Senate.
The Hartford Courant praised the results as an “Example for Connecticut,” writing, “New Hampshire has spoken as a brave and loyal people should. She has just emerged from the smoke of a hotly-contested election, with streamers flying, and victory inscribed upon her banners.” The paper noted “The copperheads put forth stupendous efforts to carry the state,” but “The pro-slavery clique of New Hampshire, headed by Franklin Pierce, has nearly run its course. They have battled long and desperately against God and the right, but the current of events is overwhelmingly against them. In the election of Tuesday they are warned again that their bark is upon the breakers.”
Pierce’s portrait was removed from the Capitol Rotunda and “cast among the rubbish.” Buchanan’s smiling visage had suffered a similar fate earlier in the war. Pierce’s political tragedy was about to be compounded by a personal one. Nathaniel Hawthorne had been unwell, and Pierce had hoped that vacationing in the White Mountains of New Hampshire would help restore him.
One night, Pierce recalled, “Hastening softly to his bedside, I could not perceive that he breathed, although no change had come over his features. I seized his wrist, but found no pulse; ran my hand down upon his bare side, but the great, generous, brave heart beat no more.”
Collecting his things, Pierce looked inside a suitcase and found a pocketbook. It was empty, save for a picture of himself. Hawthorne, it seemed, had carried this image of his treasured friend wherever he went. The funeral was attended by Hawthorne’s great contemporaries, such as Whittier, Longfellow, and Emerson. But those arranging the memorial excluded Pierce from the final honor of bearing his friend to the grave.