Abraham Lincoln

May 5, 1862

Posted on April 25, 2016 Updated on April 25, 2016

IN THE FIRST WEEK OF MAY, Lincoln resolved to end months of frustration with McClellan by personally visiting Fort Monroe. Stanton had suggested that a presidential journey to the tip of the Peninsula might finally spur McClellan to act. On the evening of Monday, May 5, the president arrived at the Navy Yard and boarded the Miami, a five-gun Treasury cutter, accompanied by Stanton, Chase, and General Egbert Viele. “The cabin,” Viele recalled, “was neat and cozy. A center table, buffet and washstand, with four berths, two on each side, and some comfortable chairs, constituted its chief appointments.” Since the Miami was a Treasury ship, Chase “seemed to feel that we were his guests,” General Viele observed. The treasury secretary even brought his own butler to serve meals, and “treated us as if we were in his own house.”

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