Latest Event Updates
“Now He Belongs to the Ages”
At 7:22 a.m., April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was pronounced dead. Stanton’s concise tribute from his deathbed still echoes. “Now he belongs to the ages.”
Quoted in David Donald, Lincoln, p. 599. As David Donald notes, witnesses thought they heard several variations of Stanton’s utterance, including “He belongs to the ages now,” “He now belongs to the Ages,” and “He is a man for the ages.” Donald, Lincoln, p. 686, endnote for p. 599 beginning “to the ages.” (Quoted in Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”，pp. 743 )
Instantly the news spread through the city. At eleven o’clock I was myself standing before the house in which Mr. Lincoln was lying. The crowd was rapidly increasing; squads of soldiers were coming, too, and soon formed in line on the pavement. At that moment all were silent, and no one exactly knew what had happened. Suddenly I heard Booth’s name muttered by the crowd: he was the assassin, it was said. A few minutes later we heard that Mr. Seward had been murdered at his house, and soon after rumors were current of similar deeds perpetrated upon Mr. Stanton and General Grant. Then the aspect of the crowd changed all of a sudden. Until then it had seemed panic-stricken; all at once it became infuriated. Everyone thought himself in the presence of mysterious enemies hidden in the darkness of night, and from whose murderous steel it became incumbent to save those who were yet alive.
The first floor of the house where Mr. Lincoln had just been carried was composed of three rooms, opening on the same corridor. It was in the third, a small room, that the dying man lay.
His face, lighted by a gasjet, under which the bed had been moved, was pale and livid. His body had already the rigidity of death. At intervals only the still audible sound of his breathing could be faintly heard, and at intervals again it would be lost entirely. The surgeons did not entertain hope that he might recover a moment’s consciousness. Judge William T. Otto, a thirty years’ friend of Mr. Lincoln’s, was standing at the bedside holding his hand; around the bed stood also the Attorney-General, Mr. Speed, and the Rev. Mr. Gurney, pastor of the church Mr. Lincoln usually attended.
Leaning against the wall stood Mr. Stanton, who gazed now and then at the dying man’s face, and who seemed overwhelmed with emotion. From time to time he wrote telegrams or gave the orders which, in the midst of the crisis, assured the preservation of peace. The remaining members of the Cabinet and several Senators and generals were pacing up and down the corridor. Thus the night passed on. At last, toward seven o’clock in the morning, the surgeon announced that death was at hand, and at twenty minutes after seven the pulse ceased beating.
Everyone present seemed then to emerge from the stupor in which the hours of night had been spent. Mr. Stanton approached the bed, closed Mr. Lincoln’s eyes, and drawing the sheet over the dead man’s head, uttered these words in a very low voice: “He is a man for the ages.”
Quoted in Marquis de Chambrun [Charles Adolphe Pineton], “Personal Recollections of Mr. Lincoln,” Scribner’s 13 (January 1893)
In the dark night of another day of evil the most sorrowful heart by the bedside of the murdered President throbbed in the bosom of his Secretary of War, and his voice it was which spoke his grandest eulogy in the words, “There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen!“
Lucius E. Chittenden,”Recollections of President Lincoln and his administration” P186.
“If He had been Alive”
News of Lincoln’s death was withheld from Seward. The doctors feared that he could not sustain the shock. On Easter Sunday, however, as he looked out the window toward Lafayette Park, he noticed the War Department flag at half-mast. “He gazed awhile,” Noah Brooks reported, “then, turning to his attendant,” he announced, “The President is dead.” The attendant tried to deny it, but Seward knew with grim certainty. “If he had been alive he would have been the first to call on me,” he said, “but he has not been here, nor has he sent to know how I am, and there’s the flag at halfmast.” He lay back on the bed, “the great tears coursing down his gashed cheeks, and the dreadful truth sinking into his mind.” His good friend, his captain and chief, was dead.
“The history of governments,” John Hay later observed, “affords few instances of an official connection hallowed by a friendship so absolute and sincere as that which existed between these two magnanimous spirits. Lincoln had snatched away from Seward at Chicago the prize of a laborious life-time, when it seemed within his grasp. Yet Seward was the first man named in his Cabinet and the first who acknowledged his personal preeminence…. From the beginning of the Administration to that dark and terrible hour when they were both struck down by the hand of murderous treason, there was no shadow of jealousy or doubt ever disturbed their mutual confidence and regard.”
Noah Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, pp. 458-59 (quotes p. 459).“Hay’s Reminiscences of the Civil War,” in Hay, At Lincoln’s Side, pp. 128-29. By Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”，pp. 744，Goodwin-743-507-10
“He Was Incontestably The Greatest Man I Ever Knew.”
I recall many conversations with General Grant about those who took a high place in the civil administration of the war, and especially about Lincoln. Of Lincoln the General always speaks with reverence and esteem.” I never saw the President,” said the General, ” until he gave me my commission as lieutenant-general. Afterwards I saw him often either in Washington or at head-quarters. Lincoln, I may almost say, spent the last days of his life with me. I often recall those days. He came down to City Point in the last month of the war, and was with me all the time. He lived on a dispatch-boat in the river, but was always around head-quarters. He was a fine horseman, and rode my horse Cincinnati. We visited the different camps, and I did all I could to interest him. He was very anxious about the war closing; was afraid we could not stand a new campaign, and wanted to be around when the crash came. I have no doubt that Lincoln will be the conspicuous figure of the war; one of the great figures of history. He was a great man, a very great man. The more I saw of him, the more this impressed me. He was incontestably the greatest man I ever knew. What marked him especially was his sincerity, his kindness, his clear insight into affairs. Under all this he had a firm will, and a clear policy. People used to say that Seward swayed him, or Chase, or Stanton. This was a mistake. He might appear to go Seward’s way one day, and Stanton’s another, but all the time he was going his own course, and they with him. It was that gentle firmness in carrying out his own will, without apparent force or friction, that formed the basis of his character. He was a wonderful talker and a teller of stories. It is said his stories were improper. I have heard of them, but I never heard Lincoln use an improper word or phrase. I have sometimes, when I hear his memory called in question, tried to recall such a thing, but cannot. I always found him pre-eminently a clean-minded man. I regard these stories as exaggerations. Lincoln’s power of illustration, his humor, was inexhaustible. He had a story or an illustration for everything. I remember as an instance when Stephens of Georgia came on the Jeff. Davis Peace Commission to City Point. Stephens did not weigh more than eighty pounds, and he wore an overcoat that m a d e him look like a man of two hundred pounds. As Lincoln and I came in, Stephens took off his coat. Lincoln said, after he had gone, ‘I say. Grant, did you notice that coat Aleck Stephens wore?’ I said yes. ‘Did you ever see,’ said Lincoln, ‘such a small ear of corn in so big a shuck?’ These illustrations were always occurring in his conversation.
“The darkest day of my life,” said the General, “was the day I heard of Lincoln’s assassination. I did not know what it meant. Here was the rebellion put down in the field, and starting up in the gutters ; we had fought it as war, now we had to fight it as assassination. Lincoln was killed on the evening of the 14th of April. Lee surrendered on the 9th of April. I arrived in Washington on the 13th. I was busy sending out orders to stop recruiting, the purchase of supplies, and to muster out the army. Lincoln had promised to go to the theater, and wanted me to go with him. While I was with the President, a note came from Mrs. Grant saying she must leave Washington that night. She wanted to go to urlinfrton to see our children. Some incident of a trifling nature had made her resolve to leave that evening. I was glad to have the note, as I did not want to go to the theater. So I made my excuse to Lincoln, and at the proper hour we started for the train. As we were driving along Pennsylvania Avenue, a horseman drove past us on a gallop, and back again around our carriage, looking into it. Mrs. Grant said, ‘ There is the man who sat near us at lunch to-day, with some other men, and tried to overhear our conversation. He was so rude that we left the diningroom. Here he is now riding after us.’ I thought it was only curiosity, but learned afterward that the horseman was Booth. It seems I was to have been attacked, and Mrs. Grant’s sudden resolve to leave deranged the plan. At M days later I received an anonymous letter from a man, saying he had been detailed to kill me, that he rode on my train as far as Havre de Grace, and as my car was locked he could not get in. He thanked God he had failed. I remember the conductor locked our car, but how true the letter was I cannot say. I learned of the assassination as I was passing through Philadelphia. I turned around, took a special train, and came on to Washington. It was the gloomiest day of my life.”
Quoted in John Russell Young’s “Around the World with General Grant,” 1879.
The President visited the General several times when in camp in front of Petersburg, and it was most gratifying to observe the spirit of co-operation manifested in all their intercourse. General Grant, while sitting by his campfire one evening, said of Mr. Lincoln: “I regard him as one of the greatest of men. He is unquestionably the greatest man I have ever encountered. The more I see of him and exchange views with him, the more he impresses me. I admire his courage and respect the firmness he always displays. Many think, from the gentleness of his character, that he has a yielding nature, but, while he has the courage to change his mind when convinced that he is wrong, he has all the tenacity of purpose which could be desired in a great statesman. His quickness of perception often astonishes me. Long before the statement of a complicated question is finished, his mind will grasp the main points and he will seem to comprehend the whole subject better than the person who is stating it. He will take rank in history alongside of Washington.” With hearts too great for rivalry, with souls too noble for jealousy, they taught the world that it is time to abandon the path of ambition when two cannot walk it abreast.
Quoted in Horace Porter, The living Lincoln : centenary tributes
As the general had been detained so long at the White House that he was not able to get luncheon before starting, and as there was an additional ride in prospect, a stop was made at Bloodgood’s Hotel, near the ferry; for the purpose of getting supper. The general had just taken his seat with Mrs. Grant at the table in the supper-room when a telegram was brought in and handed to him. His whereabouts was known to the telegraph people from the fact that he had sent a message to Bloodgood’s ordering the supper in advance. The general read the despatch, dropped his head, and sat in perfect silence. Then came another, and still another despatch, but not a word was spoken. Mrs. Grant now broke the silence by saying: “Ulyss, what do the telegrams say! Do they bring any bad news?” “I will read them to you,” the general replied in a voice which betrayed his emotion;
“but first prepare yourself for the most painful and startling news that could be received, and control jom feelings so as not to betray the nature of the despatchei to the servants.” He then read to her the telegram-conveying the appalling announcement that Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, and probably the Vice-President, Mr. Johnson, had been assassinated, and warning the general to look out for his own safety. A special train was at once ordered to take him back to Washington, but finding that he could take Mrs. Grant to Burlington (less than an hour’s ride), and return to Philadelphia nearly as soon as his train could be got ready, he continued on, took her to her destination, returned to Philadelphia, and was in Washington the next morning.
Quoted in Horace Porter,Campaigning with Grant (New York: Century Co., 1897; New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1992), pp.499
Throughout the night, Stanton dictated numerous dispatches, which were carried to the War Department telegraph office by a relay team of messengers positioned nearby. “Each messenger,” Stanton’s secretary recalled, “after handing a dispatch to the next, would run back to his post to wait for the next.” The first telegram went to General Grant, requesting his immediate presence in Washington. “The President was assassinated at Ford’s Theater at 10.30 to-night and cannot live…. Secretary Seward and his son Frederick were also assassinated at their residence and are in a dangerous condition.” The dispatch reached Grant in the Bloodgood Hotel, where he was taking supper. He “dropped his head,” Horace Porter recalled, “and sat in perfect silence.” Noticing that he had turned “very pale,” Julia Grant guessed that bad news had arrived and asked him to read the telegram aloud. “First prepare yourself for the most painful and startling news that could be received,” he warned. As he made plans to return to Washington, he told Julia that the tidings filled him “with the gloomiest apprehension. The President was inclined to be kind and magnanimous, and his death at this time is an irreparable loss to the South, which now needs so much both his tenderness and magnanimity.”
Quoted in Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”，p.742，Goodwin-735-501-34 Goodwin-743-507-21
Tolstoy on Lincoln
Tolstoy on Lincoln
by Leo Tolstoy
First published Feb. 7, 1909 in the New York World
Tolstoi Holds Lincoln World’s Greatest Hero by Count S. Stakelberg (Written Especially for The World.)
Visiting Leo Tolstoi in Yasnaya with the intention of getting him to write an article on Lincoln, I unfortunately found him not well enough to yield to my request. However, he was willing to give me his opinion of the great American statesman, and this is what he told me:
“Of all the great national heroes and statesmen of history Lincoln is the only real giant. Alexander, Frederick the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Gladstone and even Washington stand in greatness of character, in depth of feeling and in a certain moral power far behind Lincoln. Lincoln was a man of whom a nation has a right to be proud; he was a Christ in miniature, a saint of humanity, whose name will live thousands of years in the legends of future generations. We are still too near to his greatness, and so can hardly appreciate his divine power; but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on uscenturies more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.
“If one would know the greatness of Lincoln one should listen to the stories which are told about him in other parts of the world. I have been in wild places, where one hears the name of America uttered with such mystery as if it were some heaven or hell. I have heard various tribes of barbarians discussing the New World, but I heard this only in connection with the name of Lincoln. Lincoln as the wonderful hero of America is known by the most primitive nations of Asia. This may be illustrated through the following incident:
“Once while travelling in the Caucasus I happened to be the guest of a Caucasian chief of the Circassians, who, living far away from civilized life in the mountains, had but a fragmentary and childish comprehension of the world and its history. The fingers of civilization had never reached him nor his tribe, and all life beyond his native valleys was a dark mystery. Being a Mussulman he was naturally opposed to all ideas of progress and education.
“I was received with the usual Oriental hospitality and after our meal was asked by my host to tell him something of my life. Yielding to his request I began to tell him of my profession, of the development of our industries and inventions and of the schools. He listened to everything with indifference, but when I began to tell about the great statesmen and the great generals of the world he seemed at once to become very much interested.
“‘Wait a moment,’ he interrupted, after I had talked a few minutes. ‘I want all my neighbors and my sons to listen to you. I will call them immediately.’
“He soon returned with a score of wild looking riders and asked me politely to continue. It was indeed a solemn moment when those sons of the wilderness sat around me on the floor and gazed at me as if hungering for knowledge. I spoke at first of our Czars and of their victories; then I spoke of the foreign rulers and of some of the greatest military leaders. My talk seemed to impress them deeply. The story of Napoleon was so interesting to them that I had to tell them every detail, as, for instance, how his hands looked, how tall he was, who made his guns and pistols and the color of his horse. It was very difficult to satisfy them and to meet their point of view, but I did my best. When I declared that I had finished my talk, my host, a gray-bearded, tall rider, rose, lifted his hand and said very gravely:
“‘But you have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and greatest ruler of the world. We want to know something about him. He was a hero. He spoke with a voice of thunder; he laughed like the sunrise and his deeds were strong as the rock and as sweet as the fragrance of roses. The angels appeared to his mother and predicted that the son whom she would conceive would become the greatest the stars had ever seen. He was so great that he even forgave the crimes of his greatest enemies and shook brotherly hands with those who had plotted against his life. His name was Lincoln and the country in which he lived is called America, which is so far away that if a youth should journey to reach it he would be an old man when he arrived. Tell us of that man.’
“‘Tell us, please, and we will present you with the best horse of our stock,’ shouted the others.
“I looked at them and saw their faces all aglow, while their eyes were burning. I saw that those rude barbarians were really interested in a man whose name and deeds had already become a legend. I told them of Lincoln and his wisdom, of his home life and youth. They asked me ten questions to one which I was able to answer. They wanted to know all about his habits, his influence upon the people and his physical strength. But they were very astonished to hear that Lincoln made a sorry figure on a horse and that he lived such a simple life.
“‘Tell us why he was killed,’ one of them said.
“I had to tell everything. After all my knowledge of Lincoln was exhausted they seemed to be satisfied. I can hardly forget the great enthusiasm which they expressed in their wild thanks and desire to get a picture of the great American hero. I said that I probably could secure one from my friend in the nearest town, and this seemed to give them great pleasure.
“The next morning when I left the chief a wonderful Arabian horse was brought me as a present for my marvellous story, and our farewell was very impressive.
“One of the riders agreed to accompany me to the town and get the promised picture, which I was now bound to secure at any price. I was successful in getting a large photograph from my friend, and I handed it to the man with my greetings to his associates. It was interesting to witness the gravity of his face and the trembling of his hands when he received my present. He gazed for several minutes silently, like one in a reverent prayer; his eyes filled with tears. He was deeply touched and I asked him why he became so sad. After pondering my question for a few moments he replied:
“‘I am sad because I feel sorry that he had to die by the hand of a villain. Don’t you find, judging from his picture, that his eyes are full of tears and that his lips are sad with a secret sorrow?’
“Like all Orientals, he spoke in a poetical way and left me with many deep bows.
“This little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshipped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become.
“Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skilful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character. He had come through many hardships and much experience to the realization that the greatest human achievement is love. He was what Beethoven was in music, Dante in poetry, Raphael in painting, and Christ in the philosophy of life. He aspired to be divine— and he was.
“It is natural that before he reached his goal he had to walk the highway of mistakes. But we find him, nevertheless, in every tendency true to one main motive, and that was to benefit mankind. He was one who wanted to be great through his smallness. If he had failed to become President he would be, no doubt, just as great as he is now, but only God could appreciate it. The judgment of the world is usually wrong in the beginning, and it takes centuries to correct it. But in the case of Lincoln the world was right from the start. Sooner or later Lincoln would have been seen to be a great man, even though he had never been an American President. But it would have taken a great generation to place him where he belongs.
“Lincoln died prematurely by the hand of the assassin, and naturally we condemn the criminal from our viewpoint of justice. But the question is, was his death not predestined by a divine wisdom, and was it not better for the nation and for his greatness that he died just in that way and at that particular moment? We know so little about that divine law which we call fate that no one can answer. Christ had a presentiment of His death, and there are indications that also Lincoln had strange dreams and presentiments of something tragic. If that was really the fact, can we conceive that human will could have prevented the outcome of the universal or divine will? I doubt it. I doubt also that Lincoln could have done more to prove his greatness than he did. I am convinced we are but instruments in the hands of an unknown power and that we have to follow its bidding to the end. We have a certain apparent independence, according to our moral character, wherein we may benefit our fellows, but in all eternal and universal questions we follow blindly a divine predestination. According to that eternal law the greatest of national heroes had to die, but an immortal glory still shines on his deeds.
“However, the highest heroism is that which is based on humanity, truth, justice and pity; all other forms are doomed to forgetfulness. The greatness of Aristotle or Kant is insignificant compared with the greatness of Buddha, Moses and Christ. The greatness of Napoleon, Caesar or Washington is only moonlight by the sun of Lincoln. His example is universal and will last thousands of years. Washington was a typical American, Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country— bigger than all the Presidents together. Why? Because he loved his enemies as himself and because he was a universal individualist who wanted to see himself in the world— not the world in himself. He was great through his simplicity and was noble through his charity.
“Lincoln is a strong type of those who make for truth and justice, for brotherhood and freedom. Love is the foundation of his life. That is what makes him immortal and that is the quality of a giant. I hope that his centenary birth day will create an impulse toward righteousness among the nations. Lincoln lived and died a hero, and as a great character he will live as long as the world lives. May his life long bless humanity!”
Even Whitman might have been amazed by the scope of Lincoln’s legacy by the time the new century arrived. In 1908, in a wild and remote area of the North Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy, the greatest writer of the age, was the guest of a tribal chief “living far away from civilized life in the mountains.” Gathering his family and neighbors, the chief asked Tolstoy to tell stories about the famous men of history. Tolstoy told how he entertained the eager crowd for hours with tales of Alexander, Caesar, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. When he was winding to a close, the chief stood and said, “But you have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and greatest ruler of the world. We want to know something about him. He was a hero. He spoke with a voice of thunder; he laughed like the sunrise and his deeds were strong as the rock…. His name was Lincoln and the country in which he lived is called America, which is so far away that if a youth should journey to reach it he would be an old man when he arrived. Tell us of that man.” “I looked at them,” Tolstoy recalled, “and saw their faces all aglow, while their eyes were burning. I saw that those rude barbarians were really interested in a man whose name and deeds had already become a legend.” He told them everything he knew about Lincoln’s “home life and youth…his habits, his influence upon the people and his physical strength.” When he finished, they were so grateful for the story that they presented him with “a wonderful Arabian horse.” The next morning, as Tolstoy prepared to leave, they asked if he could possibly acquire for them a picture of Lincoln. Thinking that he might find one at a friend’s house in the neighboring town, Tolstoy asked one of the riders to accompany him. “I was successful in getting a large photograph from my friend,” recalled Tolstoy. As he handed it to the rider, he noted that the man’s hand trembled as he took it.
“He gazed for several minutes silently, like one in a reverent prayer, his eyes filled with tears.” Tolstoy went on to observe, “This little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshipped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become. Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skilful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character.
“Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country-bigger than all the Presidents together.”
“We are still too near to his greatness,” Tolstoy concluded, “but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.”
Quoted in The World, New York, February 7, 1908. By Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”，p.747
“Tell the Folks he Got Away from me.”
Although I reported early at the White House. on the morning after our return from City Point, I found the President already at his desk. He was looking over his mail, but as I came in he looked up, and said, pleasantly:
“Good-morning, Crook. How do you feel?”
I answered: “First-rate, Mr. President. How are you?”
“I am well, but rather tired,” he said.
Then I noticed that he did, indeed, look tired. His worn face made me understand, more clearly than I had done before, what a strain the experiences at Petersburg and Richmond had been. Now that the excitement was over, the reaction allowed it to be seen.
I was on duty near the President all that day. We settled back into the usual routine. It seemed odd to go on as if nothing had happened; the trip had been such a great event. It was a particularly busy day. Correspondence had been held for Mr. Lincoln’s attention during the seventeen days of absence; besides that, his ofifice was thronged with visitors. Some of them had come to congratulate him on the successful outcome of the war; others had come to advise him what course to pursue toward the conquered Confederacy; still others wanted appointments. One gentleman, who was bold enough to ask aloud what everybody was asking privately, said,
“Mr. President, what will you do with Jeff Davis when he is caught?”
Mr. Lincoln sat up straight and crossed his legs, as he always did when he was going to tell a story.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “that reminds me” — at the familiar words every one settled back and waited for the story — “that reminds me of an incident which occurred in a little town in Illinois where I once practised law. One morning I was on my way to the office, when I saw a boy standing on the street comer crying. I felt sorry for the woebegone little fellow. So I stopped and questioned him as to the cause of his grief. He looked into my face, the tears running down his cheeks, and said: ‘Mister, do you see that coon?’ — pointing to a very poor specimen of the coon family which glared at us from the end of the string. ‘Well, sir, that coon has given me a heap of trouble. He has nearly gnawed the string in two — I just wish he would finish it. Then I could go home and say he had got away.'”
Everybody laughed. They all knew quite well what the President would like to do with Jeff Davis — when Jeff Davis was caught.
Quoted in “Through Five Administrations: Reminiscences of Colonel William H. Crook, Body-Guard to President Lincoln”, by William H. Crook, Margarita Spalding Gerry (Editor)(New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1910), p. 60.
“Comes very Near Being a Perfect Man”
Judge Bates, the Attorney-General, referring to Mr. Lincoln’s never-failing fund of anecdote, he remarked, “The character of the President’s mind is such that his thought habitually takes on this form of illustration, by which the point he wishes to enforce is invariably brought home with a strength and clearness impossible in hours of abstract argument. Mr. Lincoln,” he added, “comes very near being a perfect man, according to my ideal of manhood. He lacks but one thing.” Looking up from my palette, I asked, musingly, if this was official dignity as President. No,’ replied Judge Bates, “that is of little consequence. His deficiency is in the element of will. I have sometimes told him, for instance, that he was unfit to be intrusted with the pardoning power. Why, if a man comes to him with a touching story, his judgment is almost certain to be affected by it. Should the applicant be a woman, a wife, a mother, or a sister, — in nine cases out of ten, her tears, if nothing else, are sure to prevail.”
Quoted in F. B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1866), p. 68.
“His Frank, Genial, Generous Face and Direct Simplicity of Bearing, Took all Hearts”
Wednesday, August 6
Nothing much thought of to-day except the great War Meeting ” which was immense. None of the Cabinet there except myself and Mr. Bates. The President, after Mr. Chittenden had finished, said to me (the people clamoring for him) “Well! hadn’t I better say a few words and get rid of myself? ” Hardly waiting for an answer, he advanced at once to the stand. He was received with most uproarious enthusiasm. His frank, genial, generous face and direct simplicity of bearing, took all hearts. His speech is in all the prints, and evinces his usual originality and sagacity.
Chase, Salmon P. (2013). pp. 56-7. Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, 1903 (Vol. 2). London: Forgotten Books. (Original work published 1903)
Address to Union Meeting at Washington [1]
August 6, 1862
Fellow-Citizens:
I believe there is no precedent for my appearing before you on this occasion, [applause] but it is also true that there is no precedent for your being here yourselves, [applause and laughter;] and I offer, in justification of myself and of you, that, upon examination, I have found nothing in the Constitution against. [Renewed applause.] I, however, have an impression that there are younger gentlemen who will entertain you better, [voices—“No, no; none can do better than yourself. Go on!”] and better address your understanding, than I will or could, and therefore, I propose but to detain you a moment longer. [Cries—“Go on! Tar and feather the rebels!”]
I am very little inclined on any occasion to say anything unless I hope to produce some good by it. [A voice—“You do that; go on.] The only thing I think of just now not likely to be better said by some one else, is a matter in which we have heard some other persons blamed for what I did myself. [Voices—“What is it?] There has been a very wide-spread attempt to have a quarrel between Gen. McClellan and the Secretary of War. Now, I occupy a position that enables me to observe, at least, these two gentlemen are not nearly so deep in the quarrel as some pretending to be their friends. [Cries of “Good.”] Gen. McClellan’s attitude is such that, in the very selfishness of his nature, he cannot but wish to be successful, and I hope he will—and the Secretary of War is in precisely the same situation. If the military commanders in the field cannot be successful, not only the Secretary of War, but myself for the time being the master of them both, cannot be but failures. [Laughter and applause.] I know Gen. McClellan wishes to be successful, and I know he does not wish it any more than the Secretary of War for him, and both of them together no more than I wish it. [Applause and cries of “Good.”] Sometimes we have a dispute about how many men Gen. McClellan has had, and those who would disparage him say that he has had a very large number, and those who would disparage the Secretary of War insist that Gen. McClellan has had a very small number. The basis for this is, there is always a wide difference, and on this occasion, perhaps, a wider one between the grand total on McClellan’s rolls and the men actually fit for duty; and those who would disparage him talk of the grand total on paper, and those who would disparage the Secretary of War talk of those at present fit for duty. Gen. McClellan has sometimes asked for things that the Secretary of War did not give him. Gen. McClellan is not to blame for asking what he wanted and needed, and the Secretary of War is not to blame for not giving when he had none to give. [Applause, laughter, and cries of “Good, good.”] And I say here, as far as I know, the Secretary of War has withheld no one thing at any time in my power to give him. [Wild applause, and a voice—“Give him enough now!”] I have no accusation against him. I believe he is a brave and able man, [applause,] and I stand here, as justice requires me to do, to take upon myself what has been charged on the Secretary of War, as withholding from him.
I have talked longer than I expected to do, [cries of “No, no—go on,”] and now I avail myself of my privilege of saying no more.
Annotation
[1] New York Times, August 7, 1862 (brackets in original). The meeting was held in front of the Capitol. Resolutions in support of the Union, regretting “a want of readiness and determination” on the part of “those who direct our military operations,” but commending Stanton’s order for the draft of 300,000 militia issued on August 4 and calling for “measures . . . which will bear with the most crushing weight upon those in rebellion” were read by Edward Jordan, solicitor of the Treasury, and “unanimously and enthusiastically adopted.” Lincoln’s speech was preceded by one from Lucius E. Chittenden, register of the Treasury, and followed by one from George S. Boutwell, commissioner of Internal Revenue.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 5.
In fact, not once during the vicious public onslaught against the secretary of war did Lincoln’s support for Stanton waver. During the hours he had spent each day awaiting battlefront news in the telegraph office, Lincoln had taken his own measure of his high-strung, passionate secretary of war. He concluded that Stanton’s vigorous, hard-driving style was precisely what was needed at this critical juncture. As one War Department employee said of Stanton, “much of his seeming harshness to and neglect of individuals” could be explained by the “concentration and intensity of his mind on the single object of crushing the rebellion.”
And, as always, the president refused to let a subordinate take the blame for his own decisions. He insisted to Browning “that all that Stanton had done in regard to the army had been authorized by him the President.” Three weeks later, Lincoln publicly defended the beleaguered Stanton before an immense Union meeting on the Capitol steps. All the government departments had closed down at one o’clock so that everyone could attend. Commissioner French believed he had “never seen more persons assembled in front of the Capitol except at an inauguration, which it very much resembled.” Lincoln sat on the flag-draped platform with the members of his cabinet, including Chase, Blair, and Bates, as “the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon, and music from the Marine Band” heralded the speakers. After a speech by Treasury Registrar Lucius Chittenden, Lincoln turned to Chase, who sat beside him. “‘Well! Hadn’t I better say a few words and get rid of myself?’ Hardly waiting for an answer, he advanced at once to the stand.”
“I believe there is no precedent for my appearing before you on this occasion,” he affably began, “but it is also true that there is no precedent for your being here yourselves.” Reminding his audience that he was reluctant to speak unless he might “produce some good by it,” Lincoln declared that something needed to be said, and it was “not likely to be better said by some one else,” for it was “a matter in which we have heard some other persons blamed for what I did myself.” Addressing the charge that Stanton had withheld troops from McClellan, he explained that every possible soldier available had been sent to the general. “The Secretary of War is not to blame for not giving when he had none to give.” As the applause began to mount, he continued, “I believe he is a brave and able man, and I stand here, as justice requires me to do, to take upon myself what has been charged on the Secretary of War.”
French was profoundly moved by Lincoln’s speech. “He is one of the best men God ever created,” he asserted. Chase, too, was impressed by the “originality and sagacity” of the address. “His frank, genial, generous face and direct simplicity of bearing, took all hearts.” The great rally concluded to the strains of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and a salute of sixty-eight guns, two for each state in the Union. Reported fully in every newspaper, Lincoln’s defense of his beleaguered secretary brought the campaign against Stanton to an end.
By Doris Kearns Goodwin，“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”，p.454，Entry for August 10, 1862, in Benjamin Brown French, Witness to the Young Republic, p. 405.Goodwin-445-302-034
“If Stanton Said I was a Damned Fool”
Lincoln, however, had the highest opinion of Stanton, and their relations were always most kindly, as the following anecdote bears witness: A committee of Western men, headed by [Congressman Owen] Lovejoy, procured from the President an important order looking to the exchange and transfer of Eastern and Western soldiers with a view to more effective work. Repairing to the office of the Secretary, Mr. Lovejoy explained the scheme, as he had before done to the President, but was met with a flat refusal.
“But we have the President’s order, sir,” said Lovejoy.
“Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind?” said Stanton.
“He did, sir.”
“Then he is a d-d fool,” said the irate secretary.
“Do you mean to say the President is add fool?” asked Lovejoy, in amazement.
“Yes, sir, if he gave you such an order as that.”
The bewildered Illinoisan betook himself at once to the President, and related the result of his conference.
“Did Stanton say I was a d-d fool? “asked Lincoln at the close of the recital.
“He did, sir, and repeated it.”
After a moment’s pause, and looking up, the President said, “If Stanton said I was a d-d fool, then I must be one, for he is nearly always right, and generally says what he means. I will step over and see him.”
George W. Julian, Political Recollections, 1840 to 1872, pp. 211-12.
“Let them Have their Horses to Plow With”
March 28, 1865
Lincoln wanted the surrender of the Confederate armies, and desired that the most liberal terms should be granted them. “Let them once surrender,” he said, “and reach their homes, they won’t take up arms again. Let them all go, officers and all. I want submission, and no more bloodshed. Let them have their horses to plow with, and, if you like, their guns to shoot crows with. I want no one punished ; treat them liberally all round. We want those people to return to their allegiance to the Union and submit to the laws. Again I say, give them the most liberal and honorable terms.”
Quoted in David Dixon Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War, pp. 311
“If I Cannot Find some Excuse”
I remember one day being in his room when he was sitting at his table with a large pile of papers before him, and after a pleasant talk he turned quite abruptly and said, ‘Get out of the way, Swett; to-morrow is butcher-day, and I must go through these papers and see if I cannot find some excuse to let these poor fellows off.’ The pile of papers he had were the records of courts martial of men who on the following day were to be shot. He was not examining the records to see whether the evidence sustained the findings; he was purposely in search of occasions to evade the law, in favor of life.
By William H. Herndon，Jesse W. Weik “Herndon’s Lincoln: A True Story of a Great Life” ，Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, editor, Herndon’s Informants, p. 165 (Leonard Swett’s 1877 revision of a January 17, 1866 letter to William H. Herndon).