366 Days in Abraham Lincoln's Presidency: The Private, Political, and Military Decisions of America's Greatest President
624
366 Days in Abraham Lincoln's Presidency: The Private, Political, and Military Decisions of America's Greatest President
624eBookProprietary (Proprietary)
Related collections and offers
Overview
366 Days in Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency includes fascinating facts like how Lincoln hated to hunt but loved to fire guns near the unfinished Washington monument, how he was the only president to own a patent, and how he recited Scottish poetry to relieve stress. As Scottish historian Hugh Blair said, “It is from private life, from familiar, domestic, and seemingly trivial occurrences, that we most often receive light into the real character.”
Covering 366 nonconsecutive days (including a leap day) of Lincoln’s presidency, this is a rich, exciting new perspective of our most famous president. This is a must-have edition for any historian, military history or civil war buff, or reader of biographies.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781626369153 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Skyhorse |
| Publication date: | 05/18/2010 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 624 |
| File size: | 601 KB |
About the Author
Harry Turtledove is an American novelist of science fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy. Publishers Weekly has called him the “master of alternate history,” and he is best known for his work in that genre. Some of his most popular titles include The Guns of the South, the novels of the Worldwar series, and the books in the Great War trilogy. In addition to many other honors and nominations, Turtledove has received the Hugo Award, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and the Prometheus Award. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a PhD in Byzantine history. Turtledove is married to mystery writer Laura Frankos, and together they have three daughters. The family lives in Southern California.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
1860
"WE ARE NOT ENEMIES, BUT FRIENDS. WE MUST NOT BE ENEMIES. THOUGH PASSION MAY HAVE STRAINED, IT MUST NOT BREAK OUR BONDS OF AFFECTION."
— ABRAHAM LINCOLN
NOVEMBER 6
The Sixteenth President
Lincoln, on this Tuesday in 1860, waited for the election returns in the vote that would put him in the White House.
With the Illinois legislature out of session, Lincoln acquired a temporary office at the State Capitol where he stayed most of the day, rarely mentioning the election. His law partner, William Herndon, convinced him to vote in the state elections and, before Lincoln walked to the polls, he cut off the top of the ballot listing the presidential candidates so that he couldn't vote for himself.
That evening he waited with a crowd as a courier delivered election returns from the telegraph. First came news that Lincoln carried Illinois, then Indiana. He also carried the Northwest and New England, but there was no word from the critical eastern states. At nine o'clock, Lincoln walked to the telegraph office to read the results as soon as they arrived. At ten came word that Lincoln took Pennsylvania. He decided to take a break and had coffee and sandwiches with his wife, Mary, at Watson's Saloon, where he was greeted at the door with "How do you do, Mr. President!"
When Lincoln returned to the telegraph office, returns from the South were coming in. "Now we shall get a few licks back," Lincoln said. Indeed the news was ominous. Ten Southern states had not even carried Lincoln on the ballot. At two in the morning, Lincoln was told that he carried New York and he decided to go home. The final tallies showed that Lincoln received less than 40 percent of the popular vote, with the other 60 percent split between three Democrats. Lincoln carried all the Northern states except New Jersey, garnering 180 electoral votes, 28 more than he needed.
#1
HOW DID LINCOLN GET ELECTED?
How did an uneducated Midwesterner with only two years of experience in national politics become the chief magistrate of the land? For one thing, Lincoln was not an unknown. Americans had watched for years the growing sectional tensions over slavery, emphasized by a race war in Kansas, the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, and John Brown's attempt to spark a slave insurrection in Virginia. When Lincoln took on Stephen Douglas for his seat in the Senate in 1858, the public read with relish their heated debates over slavery. While Lincoln lost this election, he became nationally known, particularly after the debates were published. The popularity of the debates led to an invitation in early 1860 to speak in New York at Cooper Union — a speech that was reprinted nationwide.
When the Republican convention was held in Chicago — Lincoln's backyard — Lincoln's managers worked hard to present him as a moderate second choice to the more radical favorites — William Seward and Salmon Chase. Unlike Seward and Chase, Lincoln's lack of experience in national politics meant he had fewer enemies. When neither Chase nor Seward could garner the Republican nomination, the convention turned to Lincoln.
By then the Democratic Party was imploding. The party had dominated politics for forty years and was itself dominated by Southerners who forced northern Democrats to swallow compromise after compromise over slavery just to keep the South from seceding. At the Democratic convention in Charleston, South Carolina, the Northerners could not stomach another compromise. The convention collapsed and a total of three Democrats — Stephen Douglas, John Breckinridge and John Bell — found themselves on the presidential ticket, bleeding votes from each other. None of the Democrats could match Lincoln's 40 percent of the popular vote.
NOVEMBER 10
The Gravest Apprehensions
Lincoln, on this Saturday in 1860, responded in writing to former Connecticut congressman Truman Smith's plea that Lincoln assuage Southern fears about his policies as president — fears that fueled secession fervor.
Shortly after the election, a letter from Smith was delivered to Lincoln, warning the president-elect of a circular that was handed out at the Connecticut polls on Election Day. The circular used inaccuracies and misquotes to claim that Lincoln was "an undisguised enemy of the peace and safety of the Union." Smith wrote that "the most strenuous exertions have been made to fill the minds of the people of the South with the gravest apprehensions as to what would be your purposes and policy." Smith advised that Lincoln "speak out ... to disarm mischief makers, to allay causeless anxiety, to compose the public mind." Indeed, newspapers were already predicting a secession crisis. That night in Charleston, South Carolina, a mob carried an effigy of Lincoln with a placard that read, ABE LINCOLN, FIRST PRESIDENT NORTHERN CONFEDERACY. A pair of slaves hoisted the effigy onto a scaffold and set it alight.
Lincoln, on this Saturday, rebuffed Smith's urgings, saying that he felt "constrained ... to make no declaration for the public." He added, "I could say nothing which I have not already said, and which is in print, and open for inspection of all. To press a repetition of this upon those who have listened, is useless; to press it upon those who have refused to listen, and still refuse, would be wanting in self- respect, and would have an appearance of sycophancy and timidity, which would excite the contempt of good men, and encourage bad ones to clamor the more loudly."
A week and a half later, the clamor became so great that Lincoln finally spoke out for the first time.
NOVEMBER 20
A Public Statement
During the 1860 presidential campaign, Lincoln made no speeches and issued no public statements — referring all inquiries to his party's platform and his public statements before his nomination. It was not unusual for presidential candidates in those days to eschew campaigning, but Lincoln also wanted to avoid rhetoric that could be used to fan the flames of sectionalism.
Once Lincoln was elected, Southerners began calling for secession because they were told Lincoln was planning to emancipate their slaves. Letters poured in to Lincoln, begging him to make a public statement to mollify the fears of Southerners. "I could say nothing which I have not already said," Lincoln responded. Lincoln was concerned about those who were "eager for something new upon which to base new misrepresentations."
Bending to political pressure, Lincoln, on this Tuesday in 1860, inserted a response to the secession crisis into his friend Lyman Trumbull's Republican victory speech.
On this day, Springfield was holding a celebration of Lincoln's election with a speech from Trumbull, into which Lincoln inserted a few paragraphs he considered to be his stance on the crisis. "Each and all States will be left in as complete control of their own affairs respectively, and at as perfect liberty to choose, and employ, their means of protecting property, and preserving peace ... as they have ever been under any administration," Lincoln wrote. To this Trumbull naively added, "When this is shown, a re-action will assuredly take place in favor of Republicanism, the Southern mind even will be satisfied ... and the fraternal feeling existing in olden times ... will be restored."
Just as Lincoln expected, the speech was used against him, particularly in the press. "The Boston Courier ... endeavor[s] to inflame the North with the belief that [the speech] foreshadows an abandonment of Republican ground," the president-elect lamented.
#2
WHY DID THE SOUTH FEAR LINCOLN?
Why did Lincoln's election prompt Southern states to secede from the Union? A look at those states' articles of secession, which included declarations of the causes of their decision, is instructive. For example, Mississippi's "Immediate Causes" of secession originated as far back as the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the first of a handful of instances where the North refused "the admission of new slave States into the Union." As Texas's "causes" stated, the absence of any entry of new slave states, and thus no new senators or congressmen, "placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their [Northern] exactions and encroachments." Some of the other causes included the lack of enforcement of fugitive slave laws, inflammatory rhetoric from abolitionists, the Republican Party's advocacy of "Negro equality," and Republican support of John Brown's 1859 attempt to spark a slave uprising in Virginia. The final straw, as South Carolina's "causes" stated, was "the election of a man to the high office of President ... whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery."
Any thorough and fair reading of Lincoln's opinions and speeches reveals that he was not "hostile" to slavery. While he was, indeed, against the expansion of slavery into the territories, he openly supported fugitive slave laws. He was critical of abolitionists and their inflammatory demands, and vehemently eschewed John Brown's methods. Time after time during the 1858 Lincoln — Douglas debates, Lincoln declared himself against black social and political equality. Lincoln's 1858 Springfield speech, in which he declared that "this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free," was often cited as a threat against the South. A closer look reveals that it was instead a prediction. But the truth was hidden from most Southerners behind sectional rhetoric, outright lies, and emotional appeals to the universal fear of change.
NOVEMBER 30
Alexander Stephens
Lincoln and the future vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, became friends in the late 1840s when they were both Whigs in Congress; Lincoln for Illinois, Stephens for Georgia. After Lincoln's election as president in 1860, Georgia governor Joe Brown called the state legislature into session to consider secession. On November 14, Stephens delivered a passionate plea urging Georgians to show "good judgment" and not depart the Union.
On this Friday in 1860, Lincoln — the future president of the Union — sent a letter to Stephens, touching off an exchange of letters.
Lincoln wrote Stephens for a copy of his November 14 speech. Stephens responded two weeks later admitting that "the Country is certainly in great peril and no man ever had heavier or greater responsibilities resting upon him than you." Lincoln wrote, "Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves ...? If they do, I wish to assure you, as a friend and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect, than it was in the days of [George] Washington." Stephen wrote back, "When men come under the influence of fanaticism, there is no telling where their impulses or passions may drive them ... In addressing you thus, I would have you understand me as being not a personal enemy, but as one who would have you do what you can to save our common country."
Lincoln briefly considered offering a cabinet post to Stephens, but once he was made the vice president of the new Confederate Republic that, of course, was impossible.
DECEMBER 5
The Buchanan Perspective
Lincoln, on this Wednesday in 1860, was angry after reading a synopsis of President James Buchanan's last annual message to Congress, in which he blamed the North for the secession crisis.
While Buchanan was a Pennsylvanian — a state known for its abolitionist movements — he was pro-South and pro-slavery virtually all his political career. After Lincoln was elected and the Deep South scheduled secession conventions, Buchanan looked for a way to deflect the crisis. He tried to appeal to reason in his annual message on December 3. "The immediate peril arises ... [from] the incessant and violent agitation on the slavery question throughout the North," he said, ignoring the "agitation" of slavery proponents. "Hence a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar. This feeling of peace at home has given place to apprehensions of servile insurrections." According to Buchanan, this, and not Lincoln's election, was the source of secessionist fervor.
Then, in an appeal to the North, Buchanan wrote an argument against secession. "In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States. ... [Our] Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, privation and blood to establish." He also believed, however, that the federal government had no recourse should a state decide to break away from the Union.
Lincoln's anger was mollified when he read the president's entire message. Yet despite Buchanan's plea, on December 8, South Carolina would elect delegates to its secession convention.
DECEMBER 18
"No Sign Will Be Given Them"
As secessionist fever grew, Lincoln grew weary of misrepresentations of his words, as demonstrated by an angry letter he penned on this day in 1860.
Distortions of Lincoln's words were not new to him, but they were particularly irksome when used to inflame secessionists. During and after his election, Lincoln avoided any public statements for just that reason. As one friend warned, Lincoln "must keep his feet out of all such wolfe traps." The one time Lincoln made a statement through his friend Lyman Trumbull (November 20), the press trumpeted it as a declaration of war on the South. "These political fiends are not half sick enough yet," Lincoln said. "They seek a sign, and no sign will be given them."
To Henry Raymond, editor of the New York Times, Lincoln became caustic. Raymond had forwarded a letter from William Smedes, one of his reporters in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Smedes claimed that Lincoln's presidency was "disastrous" to the South because "he is pledged to ultimate extinction of slavery, holds the black man to be the equal of the white & stigmatizes our whole people as immoral & unchristian." Smedes adds "that it makes every particle of blood in me boil with suppressed indignation that I have to submit my country to the rule of such a man . ... I would regard death by a stroke of lightning to Mr. Lincoln as but just punishment from an offended Deity for his infamous & unpatriotic avowals."
"What a very mad-man your correspondent, Smedes is," Lincoln responded on this day. "Mr. S[medes] can not prove one of his assertions true. Mr. S[medes] seems sensitive on the question of morals and Christianity. What does he think of a man who makes charges against another which he does not know to be true, and could easily learn to be false?"
DECEMBER 24
Forts
On this day in 1860 Lincoln wrote his friend Lyman Trumbull of his concern that secessionists would seize federal forts in Charleston, South Carolina.
Shortly after Lincoln's election as president in November 1860, Major Robert Anderson — who was in charge of the Charleston forts — asked Washington for reinforcements. He also asked that his troops be moved from the less-defensible Fort Moultrie to one of the other forts — Castle Pinckney or Fort Sumter. Despite assurances from state authorities that they would not attack him, Anderson could see a growing army of militia and batteries of cannon around him. The Carolinians thought they had an agreement with President James Buchanan that Anderson would not move from Moultrie, but Buchanan sent an order that the major misunderstood as giving him permission to move his men to Sumter. Meanwhile, South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20.
In Springfield, Lincoln received word that General in Chief Winfield Scott had told Buchanan that Anderson needed to be reinforced. Lincoln sent a message to Scott to be "prepared ... to either hold, or retake, the forts, as the case may require, at, and after the inaugeration." Then on this Christmas Eve, Lincoln wrote Trumbull, "Despaches have come here two days in secession, that the Forts in South Carolina, will be surrendered by the order, or consent at least, of the President. I can scarely believe this; but if it prove true, I will ... announce publicly at once that they are to be retaken after the inaugeration."
During the night of December 26, Anderson moved his men to Sumter. When the Charleston authorities sent emissaries to direct Anderson to return to Moultrie, Anderson responded, "I decline to accede to his request; I cannot and will not go back."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "366 Days In Abraham Lincoln's Presidency"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Stephen A. Wynalda.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION,
FOREWORD,
1860,
1861,
1862,
1863,
1864,
1865,
AFTERWORD-I,
ABBREVIATIONS,
NOTES,
AFTERWORD-II,
BIBLIOGRAPHY,