Recollections of President Lincoln and his administration

Contents

PAGE

I. Preliminary and Explanatory. —Origin of this Volume.— Its Scope and Purpose 1

II. A Glimpse op a Noted Campaign. — The State Elections Early in October, 1860, which Virtually Settled the Presidential Contest 8

II

A GLIMPSE OF A NOTED CAMPAIGN.— THE STATE ELECTIONS EARLY IN OCTOBER, 1860, WHICH VIRTUALLY SETTLED THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST.

Vermont was the first state which held an election after the nomination of Mr. Lincoln. The first Tuesday in September had come, and the Republicans had carried Yermont. If doubts had existed, they were now dispelled. The Republicans were united; they had made a strong pull and a pull all together, and when they made a united effort they almost always carried Yermont. Their majority being greater than the combined vote of all their opponents, the state was considered safe for Lincoln at the presidential election in November.

As soon as the election was over I was invited by the National Committee, then in continuous session, to come to the Astor House, New York, for consultation. They wanted to know something about our Yermont methods ; also what Yermont could do for other states where the contest was more doubtful. A t the committee rooms I first met Judge William D. Kelley, then making his first run for Congress in Philadelphia. He had not then gained the name of " Pig-iron Kelley," nor the grateful affection of his state and the country which he afterwards earned by long, efficient, and most reputable service in the popular branch of the national legislature. "We made short speeches at the same mass-meeting in Jersey City. "When the meeting was over he said to me, " Your style will just suit my district. Come over to Philadelphia with me, and give us a taste of your Green Mountain quality. You may return to New Y'ork early on Monday."

I assented, with little thought of the danger of trusting myself to the friendly contact of Philadelphia politicians. I went with Judge Kelley to what was then a suburb of the city of brotherly love, Germantown by name, where I made an out-door address to ten thousand Wide-awakes and other Republicans. The newspapers said the speech was " a cracker." I had never heard the term before applied to any form of political or intellectual work. It was evidently commendatory, and indicated the partiality of the Philadelphians to what I thought was rather a dry form of edible.

On the following morning Judge Kelley introduced me to some of the campaign managers at the committee rooms. I remember two of them, for their names became afterwards pretty well known to the peojDle of this republic. There were Andrew G. Curtin and Col. Alexander McClure. The first-named was running: for governor, and Col. McClure was running him. Both greeted me with effusion. They could now tell me in person what I should have learned later by letter. They had decided that Col. Frank Blair and myself were a matched pair of speakers for the country. They had, therefore, appointed a series of meetings for us which would occupy nearly every afternoon and evening until the Friday preceding the state election in October. They had telegraphed the notices to every town and city where the meetings were to be held.

I objected that this was rather a cool proceeding ; that Col. Blair and myself had never met ; that I had business engagements at home ; that I protested on general principles against an appropriation of my time for two or three weeks without mentioning the subject to me. They swept my objections away like cobwebs ; declared that we " Vermonters did not know the first principles of running a campaign ; that if they waited to arrange all the details in advance, they would never get the speakers they wanted; that the only safe way was to make the appointments and then capture the speakers ; that in our case there had been no difficulty ; Col. Blair and myself were both within easy reach, and they knew we would never consent to disappoint fifty thousand Republicans, disarrange the plans of the committee, and perhaps endanger the election."

Resistance appeared to be unavailing. I surrendered, telegraphed home some of the details of my capture, and that I did not anticipate an early escape out of the hands into which I had fallen. The next day two very lively young Republicans took charge of Col. Blair and m}Tself, and carried us far into the dark regions of a Democratic county. Where we travelled, what places we visited, I never inquired. The image of that fortnight upon my memory represents a continuous procession of committees of eminent citizens, mass -meetings, torch -light processions, "Wide-awakes in uniform, shouting, singing political songs, and hurrahing for the ticket. In the afternoons Col. Blair and myself usually addressed the same mass-meeting. As soon as one had concluded he was hurried away to a distant town or city, to be in time for the evening meeting. The other made his speech, and was rushed off in the opposite direction. Some nights we were hundreds of miles apart, at noon the next day together. Such sleep as we got was on the cars. We were only permitted to see Republican newspapers, which declared that our converts were numerous, our missionary work

AND HIS ADMINISTRATION. H

a pronounced success. "We never failed to make our connections, and, as agreed, were returned to the Girard House in Philadelphia, on Friday preceding the Monday of the state election. We were a used-up pair of campaigners. We had lost our voices ; could not speak above a whisper, and in desperate need of the rest and sleep to which we intended to appropriate the next forty-eight hours.

But rest and sleep were not for us. Col. Blair was hurried off somewhere, and I did not see him again until the second year of the war. John T. Nixon, afterwards a Federal judge in the southern district of New Jersey, was lying in wait for me. He was running for Congress ; was having a hard fight, and there were special reasons why, he said, I must go into the southeast corner of New Jersey to a great mass-meeting and barbecue, where I had been advertised to speak. I pleaded exhaustion, loss of voice, general dilapidation and worthlessness, in vain. I could " save the district," he said. " A night's rest would set me all right. I must go and show myself, if I had to be carried on a stretcher, or he would be accused of intentionally deceiving and disappointing five thousand people in a rural community. Promptly at seven next morning he would come for me."

I was awakened out of a dream. It was early morning. From my window I saw that the street in front of the hotel was filled by a crowd of Wide-awakes, who were commencing the day by a service of music and song, which they ended by a night procession in the country, one hundred miles away. They were to form my escort to the train for Southeastern New Jersey.

Omitting the intervening details, let me say at once that, attended by Mr. Nixon and a party of his friends,

I reached the place of meeting shortly after midday. There was no town or village, scarcely a collection of houses. I do not know that the place had any name. It was near water communication with Delaware Bslj, for during the afternoon four steamers arrived, bringing as many thousand Wide-awakes from Philadelphia and vicinity. Seats had been provided in a lovely grove, and these were already occupied, apparently by the population of the locality en masse. Fathers and mothers with their families, young persons of both sexes, to the number of six or seven thousand — the most orderly, quiet, cleanly rural population it has ever been my good-fortune to see. They had come not to shout, but to listen. Their good example reacted. Nobody could talk nonsense to such an audience. The speeches were argumentative, sensible, the best I had heard during the campaign.

The Wide-awakes attended, to close the exercises with a torch-light procession. Coming from the city on excursion steamers, a political organization, to attend a political meeting in the country, it may be anticipated that, being well provided with poor whiskey, they turned the meeting into a pandemonium, and, to use a phrase not then invented, that they " painted the place red." Nothing of the kind. There were oxen roasted entire, refreshments in abundance, but no whiskey nor evidences of whiskey. There was a grand political meeting, good, sound, creditable speeches, an attentive, respectful audience, ending with one of the most beautiful torchlight processions I ever witnessed ; music, songs, but not one incident of rowdyism or disorder to mark or mar the day or the occasion. At the very close, two pre-revolutionary anvils performed duty as cannon, and made considerable noise. The whole affair was a credit to the orderly community which conducted it. Judge Nixon, referring to it during the next session of Congress, said its object was to stir up the community. It was at first feared that it had not produced the effect desired. But on election day, when he carried the county by an unheard-of majority, it was decided that an earthquake, reinforced by a cyclone, could not have done the work so thoroughly as that quiet, well-ordered meeting.

It had been arranged that I should return to Philadelphia by one of the steamers. I took the one said to be least crowded, but it turned out that there were at least two Wide-awakes for every square foot of standing-room it afforded. We got under way ; ran out into the bay ; also into a fog as thick as molasses, as dark as Erebus, and as cold as the shady side of an iceberg. All that long night, until two hours after daylight, we rolled and wallowed in the waters of the bay. The fog was so thick that it was unsafe to run by compass, or even to start the boat ahead. There was not a bed or a blanket on board. In my exhausted condition, with no place to lie or even to sit down, I suffered dreadfully. Some of the boys finally hunted up an old sail, wrapped it around me, and laid me away on a cushioned seat in the pilot-house. I slept through all the racket, until we reached the dock at Camden, where I was taken to the residence of a hospitable Republican, had a bath and a bed, and slept until election morning.

That was an exciting election day. It settled the presidential contest. Ohio and Indiana, if I rightly remember, then held their state elections on the same first Monday in October. I was admitted to the rooms of the committee. At frequent intervals during the day reports came from many sections that the election was very quiet, men were keeping their promises, and all seemed to be going well. But there were no results for comparison until evening, when the large hall was packed, and the street in front completely blocked by an expectant crowd, awaiting the announcement of victory or defeat in the most important election since the Declaration of Independence. It was arranged that the reports from other states should come through state committees. Those in Pennsylvania came through many sources.

The first figures were from Ohio. Names I have forgotten, nor are they material. Call this one Dover. The operator read out, " Dover, Republican first time. Seventy majority. Last year one hundred and ten Democratic/' Some one started a cheer; others shouted, " Hush !" The next was from a Democratic county in Pennsylvania. It announced a Democratic majority of, say seventy. One who held the record of the last corresponding votes added instantly to the despatch, " A Democratic loss of ninety votes." The silence was still unbroken. Another Pennsylvania despatch : " C. beats D. by eighty, and is elected." The reader of the record adds, " A Republican gain of a member ; a Democratic loss on the vote of nearly two hundred." A Republican, with powerful voice, exclaimed, " That means that Abraham Lincoln is the next President of the United States, and Andrew Curtin the next Governor of Pennsylvania !" The roar of triumph that went up from that crowd was enough to have started the roof from its fastenings. It was caught up outside as the signal of victory, and the sound of human voices suppressed the sound of cannon, which instantly commenced a salute of one hundred guns. It might well have been impressive, for it was Republican notice to the world that the people had decreed, in the words of Washington, that " the Union must be preserved !"

The announcement was accidental ; it was dangerously premature. Prudent men were ver}^ anxious lest it might be necessary to recall it. But the despatches came in rapid succession — as fast as the operator could read them — faster than the vote could be compared with that of preceding years. Their tenor was constant Republican gains, Democratic losses ! When the returns upon the state ticket began to come in, the average improved. It was nearly ten o'clock, and not until we knew that Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, and probably Illinois, had gone Republican, that some remote little precinct, far up the Alleghany Mountains, reported the first trifling Democratic gain. There was a howl of derision, when some one said, " I know that place. It's where they are still voting for Jefferson and Burr."

As soon as it was known to a certainty that we had carried these four states, I quietly elbowed my way through the crowd to my hotel, with a thankful heart for the victory. The mighty crowd was celebrating it without the least evidence of rioting or disorder. There was but little sleep that night ; all this noise and crowd was directly underneath my window. But I was so weary that a battery of artillery, engaged in target-practice in the next room, would not have kept me awake. I was asleep within a minute after my head rested on the pillow, and for ten hours nothing disturbed me. It was eight o'clock next morning when a delegation from the committee called, to ascertain what disposition I had made of myself, and, as it happened, to give me my first lesson in " Practical Politics."

" How many city members of Congress do the Republicans elect?" I asked. "When I left you last night almost everything else was settled ; but the Congressional vote was the last counted, and no complete returns were in from any district. Is Judge Kelley defeated?"

" I should think not !" replied one of my visitors. " We have swept the decks. We have elected four congressmen from this city, sure. When I left the committee-rooms they were debating whether they should permit the Democrats to count in the other. It hadn't been decided."

" Counting in," I exclaimed — " what do you mean by " counting in a member?" " You poor, unsophisticated Yermonter," he said, " you pretend you don't know what ' counting in ' means ! You must have played the counting-out games of children ! This is the same thing, only it works the other way."

Young men will better comprehend the progress backward of politics within a little more than a fourth of a century when I say that my guilelessness was not at all assumed. I was born in a community in which the casting of a ballot was regarded as a solemn and serious duty. In my boyhood, election meetings were opened with prayer, and until the vote was counted there was no act unbefittins" the church in which the elections were alwavs held. I had never heard of " counting out " or " counting in " a candidate. The suggestion dawned upon me like a suggestion of a crime. Such remarks make no impression now. I have become too familiar with the practice, professionally and otherwise. The person referred to afterwards became a Democratic leader. I still occasionally meet him, but never without recalling this observation with a sensation which is neither creditable to him nor agreeable to myself.

III

OFFICE-SEEKING BY AN INEXPERIENCED CANDIDATE.— APPOINT- MENT TO THE PEACE CONFERENCE.— SENATOR FOOT, OF VER- MONT.—HIS PREMONITIONS OF REBELLION.

The October elections decided the presidential contest. Pennsylvania was the keystone. " As goes Pennsylvania, so goes the Union !" was the slogan of all the political clans. The praises which were the reward of my services in Pennsylvania naturally increased my estimate of the value of those services, so that when I returned to my law office I looked about to see what office would suitably reward me. I had been treading out corn for a month — the Republicans would not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn — the laborer was worthy of his reward, and I did not doubt that I should be strongly supported as a candidate for any place in my own state for which I might apply. The collectorship of the port would, as I thought, just suit me — the salary was not large — under two thousand dollars, but it was the largest in the state in the gift of the President, and therefore best worthy of my attention.

Mindful of the success of the traditional early bird, I would take time by the forelock and secure the support of my Republican friends before any other candidate started in the race. I would not even wait for the election. I would begin now. I prepared letters to leading Republicans in all parts of the state. I am sure they were models. I put the whole responsibility upon my friends. Personally, I said, I was rather disinclined to 2 take the office — but my friends were so persistent — they insisted that I ought to receive some substantial reward — that my appointment would do credit to the state, to myself, and the party. I had decided to take their advice. If the gentleman addressed agreed with them, •would he kindly furnish me with his written recommendation to the President for my appointment ?

The result was a trifle disappointing in two respects. My friends, "all with one consent, began to make excuse." Every one had pledged himself months before to some one else. Candidates were as numerous as the counties. A few answered that they would stand by me if I said so, although it would embarrass them to recede from their pledges. The general tenor of the correspondence might be poetically expressed in the solemn words, " Too late ! Too late ! Ye cannot enter now."

October, November, December passed ; Lincoln and Hamlin were known to be elected. What power was it that closed our eyes to current events and their consequences ? The people of the South were infatuated — of the North, blind ! blind ! Was it one of those mysterious ways in which the Almighty works his sovereign will, which led to the sealing up of Northern eyes ? Day after day we saw the funds of the United States transferred to Southern depositories ; cannon, small-arms, and military supplies transferred to Southern arsenals ; Southern leaders seizing upon and appropriating moneys which the United States held in trust for wards of the nation. South Carolina called a convention which passed an ordinance of secession, without one dissenting vote. Her representatives and senators in Congress shook the dust of Washington from their feet and left the capital, with insult and contumely for the Union on their lips ; every Southern state engaged openly in preparations for the destruction of the Union ; and while all this was going on the people of the North went, one to his cattle, another to his merchandise, and if they cast a glance at the angry clouds gathering in the Southern sky, declared that they might result in a sprinkle, but that we should not have much of a shower after all ! To us the Union was the ark of our covenant, men might rage and bluster and threaten, but to touch it with unhallowed hands involved a measure of depravity of which we believed no American capable.

That fine old merchant, manufacturer, and patriot, Erastus Fairbanks, was then Governor of Vermont. On Saturday, the second day of February, late in the day, he telegraphed me that he wished me to lay aside all business, and leave Burlington that evening for Washington — that I was appointed a member of a delegation — my associates would meet me on the train — one of his aids would bring us our commissions, with the few suggestions he thought proper to make to us. I obeyed his injunction. When the train reached Troy, there were on board of it Gen. H. H. Baxter, ex-Governor Hall, Messrs. Underwood, Harris, and myself. There, a letter from the governor was handed us, stating that we were delegates appointed to represent Yermont in a Peace Conference called by Governor Letcher, of Virginia, to be held in Washington on the 4th of February, only two days later. Governor Fairbanks bound us by no instructions, made but one brief recommendation. It was that wo should consult with our delegation in Congress, and then represent Vermont in the conference according to her principles and her traditions, witholding nothing that ought to be surrendered, submitting to nothing that was wrong, unjust, or inconsistent with Kepublican principles.

We reached Washington on time ; other delegates boarding the train as it passed through New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. "We went to Willard's, then the principal hotel, owned by two young Yermonters, who informed us that the city was crowded with strangers, principally from the South.

With a brief delay to clear ourselves from the dust of travel, we drove to the Capitol. Senator Foot was the only member of the Yermont delegation we found there. We knew him at home as a prudent, cautious, rather retiring statesman, very conservative in his views, and eminently cautious in his expressions, in short, a typical Yermonter in whom all Yermonters had unlimited confidence. He met us with his usual cordiality, but the first mention of the Peace Conference appeared to enrage him.

"It is a fraud, a trick, a deception," he exclaimed, " a device of traitors and conspirators again to cheat the North and to gain time to ripen their conspiracy. I at first hoped Governor Fairbanks would pay no attention to it. I am now glad that he has sent delegates. At home they do not believe we are living here in a nest of traitors. You will be able to see and judge for yourselves !"

Ex-Governor Hall, one of the most amiable of men, was shocked by the senator's violence. " You do not mean, senator," he said, " that we are on the eve of rebellion — that there is danger ?"

" That is precisely what I do mean," he said ; " the plot to seize the Capitol and prevent the inauguration of Lincoln is already formed — they will prevent the counting of the votes, if they dare. Their chief present difficulty is want of time. That time you are to assist them in gaining by useless debates in a misnamed Peace Conference. But you have no need to take my word for it. Keep your eyes open and judge for yourselves !"

" We are here for consultation," continued Governor Hall ; " we have decided to do nothing except upon consultation and the advice of our delegation in Congress."

"I think you are wise in that," said the senator. " There are no divided counsels in the delegation. We all think alike, but possibly I express my opinions with the least reserve."

As we were about to withdraw the senator observed : "There is one subject in addition which I ought to mention. I should speak plainly, possibly to your surprise. The city is overrun with Southerners. A few of them are gentlemen, but the large majority are roughs and adventurers, who profess great contempt for what they call the cowardice of Northern men. They are all armed — they believe that Northern men will run rather than fight — that they may be insulted with impunity. They will probably insult you. I believe street fights would be common if these fellows were not ruled with an iron hand by their leaders, who do not want any fighting until they are prepared. Northern men now carry arms who never carried them before, and are prepared to defend themselves. I think each individual must determine such matters for himself. I have decided that, so long as I represent Vermont as one of her senators, I shall express my opinions touching her interests upon all proper occasions in such language as I deem consistent with the dignity and position of a senator. If assaulted or insulted for such expressions, I shall undertake to defend the honor of Vermont. I do not believe in fighting, nor in submitting to the charge of cowardice. These men are traitors, conspirators, rebels, leagued together for the destruction of the Union. I do not hesitate to tell them so to their faces !"

"Senator!" exclaimed one of our number, astounded at these expressions from one ordinarily so prudent and self -controlled. " Do you advise us to prepare for street fights ? to carry pistols % If I had a loaded pistol in my pocket I should feel as if I were preparing to commit a burglary."

" I advise nothing," he responded, " I am merely putting you upon your guard. You are Yermonters ; you know how to defend your state and yourselves. After you have been here a few days you wrill judge for yourselves whether it will be wise for you to carry arms."

IV

NOTES OX THE PEACE CONFERENCE.— THE PLANS OF THE CON- SPIRATORS.—ADAM GUROWSKL— JAMES S. WADSWORTH.

I do not aspire to the dignity of a historian. I am not writing a history of the Peace Conference. I may, however, venture to hope that the incidents I shall describe may be of use to future historians. They concern the very origin of the rebellion. The Peace Conference was a prelude to the bloody drama which followed it, and its record must be read and understood by those who would comprehend in their chronological order the events which ended all hope of a peaceful solution of the longpending controversy between freedom and slavery by the opening gun against Fort Sumter.

Willard's great hotel, like a parasitic plant, had gradually grown around and taken in an old Washington church, which was then called Willard's Hall. Here the members of the Conference were notified to assemble. They found that its self-appointed managers had attended to all the preliminary work. Without any effort to ascertain who were commissioned as members, a temporary chairman and secretary were elected, and a Committee on Pules and Organization was appointed. An uninstructed member then moved the admission of reporters for the press, a large number of whom were then waiting at the door, directed, as the member said, to make public the proceedings of the most important conference which had been held since the adoption of the Federal Constitution.

Mr. James A. Seddon, of Yirginia, who assumed the duties of managing director of the Conference, objected. He did not see that any good could possibly come of giving publicity to its proceedings. Wide differences of opinion would be found to exist at the outset ; these were to be harmonized by mutual concessions and compromises. The interference and criticisms of the press, he said, would destroy every hope of success. Members would not have the courage to consent to necessary compromises if they were subjected to the daily attacks of the newspapers. If the Conference was to produce any good results, it must transact its business behind closed doors. The motion to admit the reporters, to use the Southern phrase, " passed in the negative."

The programme arranged for the three following days was followed without the slightest change. The Kepublicans contented themselves by looking on, without any interference with the harmony of the proceedings. Ex- President John Tyler was made permanent president, a series of rules was reported by the committee an I adopted ; a Committee on Credentials was then appointed and made an immediate report ; a Committee on Resolutions, consisting of one member from each state represented, to which all resolutions and propositions for the adjustment of existing difficulties between states were to be referred without debate, was appointed by the president.

After some informal consultations among themselves, the Republican members decided that the time had arrived for them to take a more active part in the exercises. One of them, after remarking that a record of the resolutions introduced and disposed of should be preserved for future use, moved the appointment of a recording secretary. Another insisting that every member should be accurately reported, and should be able to show to his constituents what he had said as well as how he had voted, moved the appointment of an official stenographer, who should take notes of the debates and hold them subject to the order of the Conference. Both motions were promptly rejected.

I obtained the bad distinction of casting the first firebrand into the inflammable materials of the Conference. I introduced a formal resolution for the appointment of a stenographer, which was laid on the table. I then observed that it was a part of my duty to make an accurate report of all that transpired in the Conference to the Executive of Vermont ; that I was no stenographer, and did not crave the labor I was about to undertake ; that, after the votes declining to make any record or to preserve the materials from which a record might afterwards be made, I intended openly to take notes and make the best report of the debates and record of the proceedings I could, and to make such use of them as I thought proper.