Yale University Library

39002008446297

le^

(Souvenir' of the
^hltteentk <S3,nnual jSincoltt::} Skinner'
of the Sioepublicano GLub of ihe^
(Sity of %ew R/otk
i8qq

836

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Gift of
STUART W. JACKSON
Yale 1898

By kind permission of Paul Dana, Esq., this edi
tion of five hundred numbered copies of " Lin
coln and his Cabinet" has been printed on
American hand-made paper for the Republican
Club of the City of New-York, at the Marion
Press, Jamaica, Queensborough, New- York.

No.

2m^3

m

^

1

^Hk '"*¦"
vif^HH|^
J^^
¦^
/ .„, .. - ._.
^
A
_^9^Cv«-w2'»v uLcuccr^
LINCOLN
AND HIS CABINET
A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE
NEW HAVEN COLONY HISTORICAL
SOCIETY, TUESDAY, MARCH lo, 1896
BY
CHARLES ANDERSON DANA
Assistant Secretary of War, 1863-65

SOUVENIR OF THE
THIRTEENTH ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER
OF THE REPUBLICAN CLUB OF THE
CITY OF NEW-YORK
1899

Copyright, 1896, by C. A. Dana.
The portrait of President Lincoln and the repro
duction of "The First Reading of the Emanci
pation Proclamation" are from the paintings by
Mr. Frank B. Carpenter, and are used with his
kind permission.

C - '' ? '
^ 3 (o cl h

LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President 1861-65.
Born in Hardin County, Kentucky, February 1 2,
1809; died at Washington, April 15, 1865.
WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD, Secretary of
State 1861-69. B°rn at Florida, New York,
May 16, 1 80 1; died at Auburn, New York,
October 10, 1872.
SALMON PORTLAND CHASE, Secretary of
the Treasury 1861—64. Born at Cornish, New
Hampshire, January 13, 1808; died at New
York, May 7, 1873.

5

WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN, Secretary of
the Treasury 1864—65. Born at Boscawen,
New Hampshire, October 1 6, 1 806 ; died at
Portland, Maine, September 8, 1 869.
SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War 1861-
62. Born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
March 8, 1799; died there June 26, 1889.
EDWIN McMASTERS STANTON, Secretary
of War 1862—68. Born at SteubenviUe, Ohio,
December 19, 18 14; died at Washington, De
cember 24, 1869.
GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of the Navy
1861—69. Born at Glastonbury, Connecticut,
July I, 1802; died at Hartford, Connecticut,
February 11, 1878.
CALEB BLOOD SMITH, Secretary of the In
terior 1861-62. Born at Boston, Massachusetts,
April 16, 1808; died at Indianapolis, Indiana,
January 7, 1 864. 6

JOHN PALMER USHER, Secretary of the In
terior 1 863-65. Born at Brookfield, New York,
January 9, 18 16; died at Philadelphia, Penn
sylvania, April 13, 1889.
EDWARD BATES, Attorney- General 1861-64.
Born at Belmont, Virginia, September 4, 1793 ;
died at St. Louis, March 25, 1869.
JAMES SPEED, Attorney-General 1864-66.
Born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, March 1 1 ,
1 81 2; died there June 25, 1887.
MONTGOMERY BLAIR, Postmaster-General
1861-64. Born in Franklin County, Kentucky,
May 10, 1 8 1 3 ; died at Silver Spring, Mary
land, July 27, 1883.
WILLIAM DENNISON, Postmaster-General
1864—66. Born at Cincinnati, Ohio, Novem
ber 23, 181 5; died at Columbus, Ohio, June
15, 1882.

LINCOLN
AND HIS CABINET
HAVE been invited to
tell you some recollec
tions of impressions that
were made upon me dur
ing the period when I was serving
at Washington and in the field under
President Lincoln and Edwin M. Stan
ton. I felt no special anxiety to per
form this duty, but it seemed to me
as though I ought not to decline it.
The number of those who knew those
b 9

men face to face, and saw them inti
mately during the time that tried men's
souls, is already small, and growing
smaller; and it is a duty to record the
impressions and to narrate the facts of
those times and of those relations.
The election of Abraham Lincoln was
brought about by a dissension in the
Democratic party. It was divided, and
the Republican party was united, and
the consequence was his election. The
great question at issue in that election,
although I do not think it was formally
stated in the platforms of the parties,
was this : Shall the owners of slaves en
joy the right of taking their slaves into
the Territories of the United States that
are now free, and keeping them there?
The slave-owners claimed that right.
IO

Slaves were property. They were like
other property, and why should their
owners be denied the right of taking
their property into the Territories, when
a Northern man could take his prop
erty — his horses, his oxen, whatever he
possessed? The slaves were their oxen;
they were their chattels ; and they in
sisted that they ought to have the right
of taking them into the Territories, and
keeping them there as slaves. That was
the fundamental question of the election.
And when Mr. Lincoln was elected the
South said: "Now we are denied this
right, we will break up the government ;
we will secede ; we will withdraw." That
right, too, they claimed as a constitu
tional principle. No Northerner had
claimed it, though some ardent partizans

had threatened it; but several of the
Southern States now set it up as an origi
nal, inalienable right. They claimed that
the refusal to them of the right to take
their property with them when they went
to live in one of the new Territories was
sufiicient occasion for the withdrawal
from the Union of the slaveholding
States, and for the breaking up of the
government. That question was to be determined
by war, and as soon as Abraham Lincoln
was elected they began to prepare for
war ; and when he became President we
began, on our side, to prepare for war.
Previous to his inauguration there had
been no preparation. When Mr. Lincoln
was inaugurated as President his first
act was to name his cabinet; and it was

a common remark at the time that he
had put into the cabinet every man who
had competed with him for the nomi
nation in the Republican National Con
vention. The first in importance, in
consequence, was William H. Seward, of
New York, who had been Mr. Lincoln's
most prominent competitor. It had
been feared by many of those who were
opposed to Mr. Seward's friends — he
had no personal opposition, but some
of his friends had a good deal — it was
feared by those who were opposed to his
friends that if he became President his
friends would run the government, and
run it for purposes that all might not
approve. He was made Secretary of
State. It is worth while to notice this : the
13

great opposition against Mr. Seward was
because he was a New Yorker, and the
Republican party in New York was un
der the control, more or less decided, of
what is called a " boss." And they said
there should n't be any boss, but that
the party should direct itself. Well,
exactly what that means I have not been
able to understand. An army without
a general is of no use, and a ship with
out a captain does n't get navigated
safely. I notice, too, that the class of
politicians who are most strenuous
against bosses are those who are not
able to control for themselves the boss
who happens to be in power in their
district or their State. At any rate, that
objection, managed by skillful politi
cians, and aided by Mr. Lincoln's per-
14

sonal popularity in the West, availed
sufiiciently to deprive Mr. Seward of
the nomination.
The second man in importance to be
put into the cabinet was Mr. Chase of
Ohio. He was a very able, noble, and
spotless statesman, a man who would
have been worthy of the best days of
the old Roman republic. He had been
a candidate, though less conspicuous
than Seward ; and he was also a candi
date against whom the opposition that
had been raised against Mr. Seward
would not have availed, because, while
Mr. Seward had a friend who was the
boss of the Republican party in New
York, Mr. Chase bossed it himself in
Ohio. Then there was Mr. Cameron of

Pennsylvania. He was made Secretary
of War. A very able man, a practical
politician of immense knowledge and
resource, in earlier days a friend of
General Jackson, one of the first and
most decided statesmen to embrace the
Republican cause and to advocate the
Republican doctrine. He held the office
of Secretary of War only a little over a
year, I think, and there was an outcry
against him, because they said he was
buying too many guns, too many arms ;
he was spending too much money.
And those who were against bosses
were against this expenditure because
they said they did n't think it could be
quite correct. But all these things were
investigated afterward, and nothing was
ever proved against Simon Cameron
i6

except this : that he was a man with a
manly heart in his bosom, that he ap
preciated the magnitude of the contest
that was upon us, and prepared for it
accordingly. His preparations were
equal to the danger at hand, and, in
stead of being decried, he ought to
have had, and finally did obtain, the
full credit to which he was entitled as a
wise, patriotic, and provident statesman.
Next, Mr. Bates of Missouri was
made Attorney-General. He also had
been run a good deal as a candidate for
the Presidential nomination against Mr.
Seward, but there had never been any
great probability that he would get it.
He was a most eloquent speaker, and a
very fair lawyer, and he served out his
time in the cabinet until the end of the
c 17

administration. He was an amiable and
a gifted man, entirely creditable and
satisfactory, without possessing any ex
traordinary genius or any unusual force
of character.
Then there was Mr. Caleb B. Smith
of Indiana, who was Secretary of the
Interior, and Montgomery Blair of
Maryland, a Democrat of the old
school, who was Postmaster-General;
both eminent, able, useful men.
I must not forget, especially here in
New Haven, in this rapid review ofthe
assistants of Mr. Lincoln, the members
of the cabinet, to speak of the Connec
ticut member, Gideon Welles. He was
Secretary of the Navy ; and I am happy,
at this distance, to testify to the fact
that he was an excellent Secretary. He
i8

was a man of no decorations ; there was
no noise in the street when he went
along ; but he understood his duty, and
he did it efficiently, continually, and un
varyingly. Other men were more con
spicuous, because they were brought
more immediately in contact with the
people. The navy is off at sea, and we
don't see all the time what it is doing.
I am able to declare that Mr. Welles
was a perfectly faithful, able, devoted,
and successful public officer. The navy
under his control was far more efficient
— it is true it was larger — and more
energetic than it had ever been before
in our day. He was a satisfactory and
substantial member of the government,
and was always creditable to the State
that sent him forth. 19

When Mr. Cameron went out of the
cabinet, Mr. Lincoln, following the ad
vice both of Cameron and of Charles
Sumner, selected as his successor in the
War Department Mr. Edwin M. Stan
ton. Stanton was an old States'-rights
Democrat. He had never voted any
thing but the Democratic ticket up to
that time. He was a very extraordinary
man, and it was through him that I
came to be put into the War Depart
ment, and had the opportunities of ac
quiring the various information that I
hope to lay before you this evening.
Mr. Stanton was a short, thick, dark
man, with a very large head and a mass
of black hair. He was very intense, and
one of the most eloquent men that I
ever met. He was entirely absorbed in
20

his duties. His energy was something
almost superhuman, and when he took
hold of the War Department the armies
seemed to grow, and they certainly
gained in force and vim and thorough
ness. The time of preparation, which
to us had before seemed so long and
tedious that we were almost losing hope
— that time came to an end, and the
time of action began. I said that Mr.
Stanton was a very eloquent man. In
order to illustrate that, if you will allow
me, I will tell a little story. In the last
year of the war the Army of the Poto
mac had hanging around it a man, a
sort of peddler — I think his name may
have been Morse, but I don't remem
ber positively; it was something like
that. He went back and forward into

Virginia. He would go down into the
rebel lines, and then he would come
back. When he went down he went in
the character ofa man who had entirely
hoodwinked the Washington authori
ties and deluded them ; and, in spite of
them, or by some corruption or other,
he always brought with him into the
Confederate lines something that the
people wanted down there, some dresses
for the ladies, or some little luxury that
they could n't get otherwise.
These things that he took with him
were always supervised by government
agents before he went away. Then he
would come back again, and bring us a
lot of valuable information. As you see,
he was a kind of spy for both sides. So
he found a good thing in it, and we

found a good thing in it, because in
that way we got a great deal of infor
mation about the strength of armies,
about the preparations and the move
ments of the enemy, and so on ; and it
was thought to be sufficiently useful ' to
allow this thing to go on. Well, at last
he came back and went to Baltimore,
and got his outfit to take down South ;
and when he came up the chief detective
of the War Department examined his
goods carefully, and found that he had
got lots of things that we could not
allow him to take. We had all his bills,
telling where he had bought these things
in Baltimore. They amounted to per
haps |20,ooo or $25,000, or more. A
good deal of this stuff was military
goods and uniforms, and this, we said,
23

was altogether too contraband. So we
confiscated the contraband goods, and
put Morse in prison; and one after
noon Colonel Taylor, a very valuable
military officer, and a nephew of Presi
dent Taylor, went over to Baltimore,
and arrested the principal merchants of
that town, who had sold these goods to
Morse, — the chief dry-goods dealers
and fancy merchants, — so that no lady
could go out and buy even a pair of
gloves the next day, for the shops were
all shut. Presently a deputation from
Baltimore came over to see President
Lincoln, to say that this was a great
outrage, and that these gentlemen, most
respectable merchants, faultless citizens,
ought all to be set instantly at liberty
and damages paid them. Mr. Lincoln
24

sent the deputation over to the War
Department, and Mr. Stanton sent for
me. He said : " All Baltimore is com
ing here. Sit down here, and hear the
discussion we shall have." So they came
in, the bank presidents and boss mer
chants of Baltimore. There must have
been at least $50,000,000 in the depu
tation. The gentlemen sat down around the
fire in the Secretary's office, and began
to make their speeches, detailing the
circumstances and the wickedness of
this outrage. There was no ground for
it, no justification. After half a dozen
of them had spoken, Mr. Stanton asked
one after another if he had anything
more to say, and they all said no. Then
Stanton began and delivered the most
d 25

eloquent speech that I ever listened to.
He described the beginning of the war,
for which he said there was no justifica
tion. Being beaten in an election was
no reason for destroying the govern
ment. Then he went on to the fact that
half a million of our young men had
been laid in untimely graves by this
conspiracy of the slave interest. He de
scribed the whole conspiracy in the
most solemn and impressive terms, and
then he depicted the offense that this
man Morse, aided by these several
merchants, had committed. He said:
" Gentlemen, if you would like to ex
amine the bills of what he was taking to
the enemy, here they are." And when
he had finished, these gentlemen, with
out answering a word, got up, and, one
26

by one, went away. That was the only
speech I ever listened to that cleared
out the entire audience.
Well, that 's the sort of man Stanton
was. He was impulsive, warm-blooded,
very quick in execution, perhaps not al
ways infallible in judgment. I never
knew a man who could do so much
work in a given time. He was a ner
vous man, a man of imagination, a
man utterly absorbed in the idea of the
republic one and indivisible; and he
lived for it, wore himself out in the ser
vice, and shortly after he ceased to serve
in that office he passed into another
world, entirely exhausted, consumed by
his devotion to public duties. That was
the kind of men that Mr. Lincoln had
around him — not all like Stanton, not
27

all like Cameron, not all like Chase,
but all faithful to their duty, all Amer
icans, all patriots.
Mr. Seward, for instance, possessed a
great, subtle, far-reaching intelligence.
He was an optimist. He had imagi
nation. He was reaching out always
toward the future, and dwelling upon it.
The treaty by which we acquired Alaska
was his doing. He also negotiated and
arranged the treaty that Congress would
not approve for the acquisition of St.
Thomas in the West Indies. He be
lieved that North America should be
one and united — one government, one
flag, one power. His idea was that the
islands of the Antilles, and the whole
continent up to the frozen regions of
the Arctic Ocean, should all live and
28

grow great and mighty with that beau
tiful emblem, the Stars and Stripes, float
ing over them.
Probably in the administration Mr.
Seward had the most cultivated and
comprehensive intellect. He was n't
equal to Mr. Lincoln, because, as I have
said, he was altogether an optimist.
He did n't believe any permanent injury
could happen to anybody so long as the
Stars and Stripes were there. During
the war it was always said that he ex
pected to bring back the seceding States
by a friendly act of Congress, or some
device of negotiation. That was proba
bly a fault in his judgment; yet, take
him for all in all, it would be difficult
to match him among living statesmen,
or among the statesmen of the world,
29

He was an American in earnest. He
believed in that democracy which is de
mocracy indeed. He believed in the
Constitution of the United States, and
his one desire was that its blessings
should be extended and made perpetual
over all this continent. I look back
upon him with intense gratitude. He
set up the landmarks toward which we
are to come, the boundaries which we
are to attain to. He proclaimed the
principle of continental unity, and that
unity he would found in freedom, in
progress, and in improvement of every
nature. Such were the principal men by
whom Mr, Lincoln was surrounded.
They were very independent men.
They were not always satisfied with his
30

decisions, with his action ; but he was
always master of the house. There was
no pretension about Abraham Lincoln;
he did n't put on any airs, and I never
heard him say a harsh word to anybody.
I never heard him speak a word of
complaint even. These other gentle
men, the members of the cabinet, like
human beings in general, were not
pleased with everything. Much was
imperfect ; much was not ordered in the
best way; much, perhaps, might have
been done better if they individually
had had charge of it. Not so with the
President. He was most calm, equable,
uncomplaining, and, to my mind, one
of the happiest men that I have ever
known. He always had a pleasant word
for everybody. What he said showed
31

the profoundest thought, even when hf
was joking. He seemed to see every
side of every question. He never was
impatient, he never was in a hurry, and
he never tried to hurry anybody else.
To every one he was pleasant and cor
dial; yet they all felt that it was his
word that went at last, and until he had
decided, the case had n't been decided,
and the final orders not issued yet.
But, before going further, let me en
deavor to give those in this audience
who never saw Mr. Lincoln some idea
of his personal appearance. He was
a very tall man — six feet four inches.
His complexion was dark, his eyes and
hair black, and, though he was of lean,
spare habit, I should suppose he must
have weighed over two hundred pounds.
32

STANTON. CHASE.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

THE FIRST READING OF THE EMANCIPATIO
PAINTED AT THE WHITE HOUSE BY \1
In the upper left-hand corner the artist introduced a portrait of Sli
The portrait over the mantelpiece h

SEWARD.
ION PROCLAMATION BEFORE THE CABINET.
MR. FRANK B. CARPENTER IN I 864.
Simon Cameron, first Secretary of War under President Lincoln.
is of ex-President Andrew Jackson.

He was a man of fine fiber, and thus a
brain of superior power was contained
in a small but rather elongated skull.
Horatio Seymour once spoke of him as
a man "who wore a No. 7 hat and a
No. 14 boot." His movements were
rather angular, but never awkward, and
he was never burdened with that fre
quent curse of unfortunate genius, the
dreadful oppression of petty self-con
sciousness. It was a most remarkable character,
that of Abraham Lincoln. He had the
most comprehensive, the most judicious
mind; he was the least faulty in his
conclusions of any man that I have ever
known. He never stepped too soon,
and he never stepped too late. Just
consider, if you can, the problem that
e 33

was before him when he became Presi
dent: One third ofthe country in open
rebellion — not merely in rebellion on
account of this peculiar property in
slaves that we have spoken of, but also
because its people had an intense con
viction that they had the right, under
the Constitution, to leave the Union
when they thought it was advantageous
to do so.
They had come into the Union, they
had accepted the Constitution, and they
could n't admit that that was an irrev
ocable transaction. The right of rebel
lion had been talked of in every quarter.
Every man has a right to rebel, we were
told, if only he is willing to take the
consequences. That was the doctrine of
our seceding countrymen in the South.
34

They were defending their property as
we would defend ours, and they were
defending what they considered to be
an inherent right, the right of every
freeman to say whether he will submit
to the government that is over him, or
rebel and take the consequences. And
I am bound to declare that the most of
them were just as sincere in their pur
pose and their passion as we were in
ours. Mr. Lincoln was not what you would
call an educated man. The college that
he had attended was that which a man
attends who gets up at daylight to hoe
the corn, and sits up at night to read
the best book he can find, by the side
of a burning pine-knot. What education
he had, he had picked up in that way,
35

He had read a great many books, and
all the books that he had read he knew.
He had a tenacious memory, just as he
had the ability to see the essential thing.
He never took an unimportant point
and went off upon that; but he always
laid hold of the real thing, of the real
question, and attended to that, without
attending to the others any more than
was indispensably necessary.
Thus, while we say that Mr. Lincoln
was an uneducated man, uneducated in
the sense that we recognize here in New
Haven, or at any other great college
town, he yet had a singularly perfect
education in regard to everything that
concerns the practical affairs of life.
His judgment was excellent, and his
information was always accurate. He
36

knew what the thing was. He was a
man of genius, and, contrasted with
men of education, genius will always
carry the day. I remember very well
going into Mr. Stanton's room in the
War Department on the day of the
Gettysburg celebration, and he said,
"Have you seen these Gettysburg
speeches?" " No," said I ; " I did n't know you
had them."
He said, "Yes; and the people will
be delighted with them. Edward Ever
ett has made a speech that will make
three columns in the newspapers, and
Mr. Lincoln has made a speech of per
haps forty or fifty lines. Everett's is
the speech of a scholar, polished to the
last possibility. It is elegant and it is
37

learned; but Lincoln's speech will be
read by a thousand men where one
reads Everett's, and will be remem
bered as long as anybody's speeches are
remembered who speaks in the English
language." That was the truth. If you will com
pare those two speeches now you will
get an idea how superior genius is to
education; how superior that intellec
tual faculty is which sees the vitality of
a question, and knows how to state it;
how superior that intellectual faculty is
which regards everything with the fire
of earnestness in the soul, with the re
lentless purpose of a heart devoted to
objects beyond literature.
Another remarkable peculiarity of
Mr. Lincoln's was that he seemed to
38

have no illusions. He had no freakish
notions that things were so, or might
be so, when they were not so. All his
thinking and all his reasoning, all his
mind, in short, was based continually
upon actual facts, and upon facts of
which, as I said, he saw the essence.
I never heard him say anything that
was not so. I never heard him foretell
things; he told what they were, but I
never heard him intimate that such and
such consequences were likely to happen
without the consequences following. I
should say, perhaps, that his greatest
quality was wisdom. And that is some
thing superior to talent, superior to
education. I do not think it can be
acquired. He had it; he was wise; he
was not mistaken ; he saw things as they
39

were. All the advice that he gave was
wise, it was judicious, and it was always
timely. This wisdom, it is scarcely ne
cessary to add, had its animating phi
losophy in his own famous words,
" With charity toward all, with malice
toward none." Or, to afford a more
extended illustration, let me quote, from
Nicolay and Hay's "History" (vol, vi,
p, 152), the main part of his most ad
mirable letter of August 22, 1862, to
Horace Greeley :
If there be those who would not save the Union
unless they could at the same time save slavery, I
do not agree with them. If there be those who
would not save the Union unless they could at the
same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with
them. My paramount object in this struggle is to
save the Union, and is not either to save or to
destroy slavery. If I could save the Union with-
40

out freeing any slave, I would do it ; and if I
could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do
it ; and if I could save it by freeing some and leav
ing others alone, I would also do that. What I do
about slavery and the colored race, I do because I
believe it helps to save the Union ; and what I for
bear, I forbear because I do not believe it would
help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever
I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause,
and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing
more will help the cause. I shall try to correct
errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt
new views so fast as they shall appear to be true
views. I have here stated my purpose according to
my view of official duty ; and I intend no modifi
cation of my oft-expressed personal wish that all
men everywhere could be free.
Another remarkable quality was his
personal kindness. He was kind at
heart, not from mere politeness. As I
said, I never heard him say an unkind
thing about anybody. Now and then
f 41

he would laugh at something jocose or
satirical that somebody had done or
said, but it was always pleasant humor.
I noticed his sweetness of nature par
ticularly with his little son, a child at
that time perhaps seven or nine years
old, who used to roam the departments,
and whom everybody called "Tad."
He had a defective palate, and could n't
speak very plainly. Often I have sat
by his father, reporting to him about
some important matter that I had been
ordered to inquire into, and he would
have this boy on his knee ; and, while
he would perfectly understand the re
port, the striking thing about him was
his affection for the child.
He was good to everybody. Once
there was a great gathering at the
42

White House on New Year's day, and
all the diplomats came in their uni
forms, and all the officers of the ar
my and navy in Washington were in
full costume. A little girl of mine
said, "Papa, could n't you take me
over to see that?" I said yes; so I
took her over and put her in a corner,
where she beheld this gorgeous show.
When it was finished, I went up to
Mr. Lincoln, and said, " I have a little
girl here who wants to shake hands
with you." He went over to her, and
took her up and kissed her and talked
to her. She will never forget it if she
lives to be a thousand years old. That
was the nature of the man, I must tell
another story to illustrate the same
point, 43

Whenever an important campaign of
the armies began Mr. Lincoln Uked to
send me, because when I went, with my
newspaper experience, he got a clear re
port of everything that happened. The
generals did n't like to sit down, after
fighting all day, and write a report, and
they were always glad to have me come
to them. Well, when General Grant
went out for the campaign in the Wil
derness, — that was the last great cam
paign, which ended in the surrender of
Richmond, — for two days we had no
reports. One evening I got a mes
sage to come to the War Department.
There I found the President and Mr.
Stanton. Mr. Lincoln said, "We are troubled
about this business down in the Wilder-
44

ness. We don't know what is going on.
I would like you to go down."
I said, "Certainly."
"How soon can you be ready?"
said he.
I said, "It will take twenty minutes
to go home and change my clothes, and
get the things that I want to take, and
get my horse saddled, and then it will
take twenty minutes to get a train. Be
sides, we must have an escort."
"Well," said he, "you are willing to
go?" " Why, yes," I said ; " I am delighted.
I want to see it."
So I went and ordered a train, got
my things all ready, and got an escort
provided to defend the train after we
had got out beyond our lines, and then
45

went down and got into a car. Some
how we did n't start, and presently
there came a man on horseback, who
said to me, "The President wants you
at the War Department." So I rode
back to the War Department, and there
was Mr. Lincoln with Mr. Stanton.
The President said:
"I have been thinking about this,
Dana, and I don't like to send you.
There is Jeb Stuart, with his cavalry,
roaming over the region that you will
have to cross, and I am afraid to have
you go."
Said I, " Mr. Lincoln, is that the
reason you called me back here?"
"Yes," he said; "I don't like to
have you go."
I said, "I don't think that is a very
46

good reason, because I have a good
horse and forty troopers, and we are
able to run if they are too many for us,
and if they are not, we can fight."
"Well," said he, "I am glad to hear
you say that, because I really want you
to go, but I could n't send you out un
til I felt sure that you were entirely
willing yourself."
"Well," I answered, "you are the
first general that ever gave orders in
that way, I guess."
That was the man — kindly and af
fectionate to everybody. I don't believe
he ever spoke a cross word even to his
wife. That is saying a good deal, is n't
it, gentlemen?
These are amiable and lovable per
sonal qualities, but the great thing was
47

the fact that he succeeded — that the
Civil War was ended under his rule.
He succeeded with the forces of the
anti-slavery States in putting down a
rebellion in which 12,000,000 people
were concerned, determined people,
educated people, fighting for their
ideas and their property, fighting to
the last, fighting to the death. I don't
think there is anything else in history
to compare with that achievement.
How did he do it?
In the first place, he never was in
haste. As I said, he never took a step
too soon, and also he never took a step
too late. When the whole Northern
country seemed to be clamoring for him
to issue a proclamation abolishing sla
very, he did n't do it. Deputation after
48

deputation went to Washington. I re
member once a hundred gentlemen
came, dressed in black coats, mostly
clergymen, from Massachusetts. They
appealed to him to proclaim the aboli
tion of slavery. But he did n't do it.
He allowed Mr. Cameron and General
Butler to ex;ecute their great idea of
treating slaves as contraband of war,
and of protecting those who had got
into our lines against being recaptured
by their Southern owners; but he
would not prematurely make the pro
clamation that was so much desired.
Finally the time came, and of that he
was the judge. Nobody else decided it;
nobody commanded it; the proclama
tion was issued as he thought best, and
it was efficacious. The people of the
g 49

North, who during the long contest
over slavery had always stood strenu
ously by the compromises of the Con
stitution, might themselves have be
come half rebels if this proclamation
had been issued too soon. At last they
were tired of waiting, tired of endeavor
ing to preserve even a show of regard
for what was called the compromises of
the Constitution when they believed the
Constitution itself was in danger. Thus
public opinion was ripe when the pro
clamation came, and that was the be
ginning of the end.
This unerring judgment, this patience
which waited and which knew when the
right time had arrived — these were in
tellectual qualities that I do not find
exercised upon any such scale by any
50

other man in history, and with such
unerring precision. This proves Abra
ham Lincoln to have been intellectually
one of the greatest of rulers. If we
look through the record of great men,
where has there ever been one to be
matched alongside of him? I don't
know. He could have issued this pro
clamation two years before, perhaps, and
the consequence of it might have been
our entire defeat ; but when it came it
did its work, and it did us no harm
whatever. Nobody protested against it,
not even the Confederates themselves ;
but they felt it deeply.
Another interesting fact about Abra
ham Lincoln is that he developed into
a great military man; that is to say, a
man of supreme military judgment. I
51

do not risk anything in saying that if
you will study the records of the war,
and study the writings relating to it,
you will agree with me that the greatest
general we had, greater than Grant or
Thomas, was Abraham Lincoln. It was
not so at the beginning ; but after three
or four years of constant practice in the
science and art of war, he arrived at this
extraordinary knowledge of it, so that
Von Moltke was not a better general,
or an abler planner or expounder of a
campaign, than was President Lincoln.
To sum it up, he was a born leader
of men. He knew human nature; he
knew what chord to strike, and was
never afraid to strike it when he be
lieved that the time had arrived. On
this let me tell another story.
52

Lincoln was a supreme politician, and
he was a politician who understood
politics because he understood human
nature. And finally the idea was con
ceived that the Constitution of the
United States should be amended so
that slavery should be prohibited in the
Constitution. That was a change in
our polity, and it was also a most im
portant military measure. It was in
tended, not merely as a means of
prohibiting slavery and decreeing its
abolition, but as a means of affecting
the judgment and the feeling and the
anticipations of those in rebellion. It
was believed that that amendment to
the Constitution would be equivalent
to new armies in the field, equivalent to
sending a hundred thousand men to
53

fight, because this would be an intellec
tual army and an intellectual force that
would tend to paralyze the enemy and
break the continuity of his ideas. In
order to amend the Constitution it was
necessary first to have the proposed
amendment approved by two thirds of
the States; and when that question
came to be considered the issue was
seen to be so close that one State more
was necessary. Then the State of Ne
vada was organized to answer that pur
pose, and was admitted into the Union.
I have heard people sometimes com
plain of Nevada as a superfluous and
petty State, not big enough to be a
State ; but when I hear that complaint
I always think of Abraham Lincoln's
saying, "It is easier to admit Nevada
54

than to raise another million of sol
diers." Well, when the question finally came
around to be voted upon in the House
of Representatives, it required three
quarters of the votes; and this vote,
this final decision, was canvassed ear
nestly, intensely, most anxiously, for a
long time beforehand. At last, late one
afternoon, the President came into my
office, a room in the third story of the
War Department. He used to come
there sometimes rather than send for
me, because he was very fond of walk
ing, and liked to go about a good deal.
He came in, and shut the door.
" Dana," he said, " I am very anxious
about this vote. It has got to be taken
next week. The time is very short. It
55

is going to be a great deal closer than I
wish it was."
" There are plenty of Democrats who
wish to vote for it," I replied, "and who
will vote for it. There is James E. Eng
lish of Connecticut; I think he is sure,
is n't he ? "
" Oh yes ; he is sure on the merits
of the question."
"Then," said I, "there's 'Sunset'
Cox of Ohio. How is he?"
" He is sure and fearless. But there
are some others that I am not clear
about. There are three that you can
deal with better than anybody else, per
haps, as you know them all. I wish
you would send for them."
He told me who they were ; it is n't
necessary to repeat the names here. One
56

man was from New Jersey and two
from New York.
"What will they be likely to want?"
I asked. " I don't know," said the President ;
" I don't know. It makes no difference,
though, what they want. Here is the
alternative: that we carry this vote, or
be compelled to raise another million,
and I don't know how many more men,
and fight no one knows how long. It
is a question of three votes or new
armies." "Well, sir," said I, "what shall I say
to these gentlemen?"
" I don't know," said he ; " but I say
this to you, that whatever promise you
make to those men, I will perform it."
Well, now, this is a fact that I do
h 57

not think is recorded in any history. I
don't believe my friend, Thomas C.
Acton, who sits back there, ever heard
of it before. I sent for the men and
saw them one by one. I found that
they were afraid of their party. They
said that some fellows in the party
would be down on them. Two of them
wanted internal-revenue collectors ap
pointed. "You shall have it," I said.
Another one wanted a very important
appointment about the custom-house
of New York. I knew the man well
whom he wanted to have appointed.
He was a Republican, though the con
gressman was a Democrat. I had served
with him in the Republican party Coun
ty Committee of New York. The
office was worth perhaps |20,ooo a
58

year. When the congressman stated
the case I asked him, "Do you want
that?" "Yes," said he,
" Well," I answered, " you shall have
it," "I understand, of course," said he,
"that you are not saying this on your
own authority?"
" Oh no," said I ; " I am saying it on
the authority of the President,"
Well, he voted ; the amendment was
carried, and slavery was abolished by
constitutional prohibition in all of the
United States, That was done, and I
felt that this little piece of side politics
was one of the most judicious, humane,
and wise uses of executive authority that
I had ever assisted in or witnessed,
59

But this appointment in the New
York custom-house was to wait a few
weeks, until the term of the actual in
cumbent had run out. My friend, the
Democratic congressman, was quite
willing. He said, "That 's all right; I
am in no hurry," Well, before the time
had expired, Mr. Lincoln was murdered
and Andrew Johnson became President.
I had gone away, and was in the West,
when one day I got a telegram from
Roscoe Conkling: "Come to Wash
ington." So I went. He said:
" I want you to go and see President
Johnson, and tell him that this is a
sacred promise of Mr. Lincoln's, and
that it must be kept."
Then I went to the White House,
and saw President Johnson.
60

"This is Mr. Lincoln's promise," I
urged. "He regarded it as saving the
necessity of another call for troops, and
raising perhaps a million more men to
continue the war. I trust, Mr. Presi
dent, that you will see your way clear
to execute this promise."
"Well, Mr. Dana," he replied, "I
don't say that I won't; but I have ob
served in the course of my experience
that such bargains tend to immorality."
The appointment was not made. I
am happy to say, however, that the
gentleman to whom the promise was
given never found any fault, either with
President Lincoln or with the Assistant
Secretary who had been the means of
making the promise to him.
There is perceptible, I think, a very
6i

decided disposition to convert this great
element in our history — the savior of
the nation, the man who brought us
through that terrible Civil War with
our liberties undiminished — to convert
him into a kind of hero of romance,
a legendary figure. He is sometimes
thought to have been queer and eccen
tric, and there are a good many stories
that seem to favor that idea. I never
found anything eccentric in him. I
found only wisdom and humor — hu
mor that never failed, and that always
was fresh, delightful, and relieving to
the awfiil seriousness of the duties that
we were engaged in every day.
I remember one evening, just before
the Presidential election of '64. The
decision, it was plain, would turn on the
62

vote of Pennsylvania, and the State
election of Pennsylvania, which then
took place in October, a month before
the Presidential election, was pretty
sure to show how the Presidential elec
tion would go in that State. So, on the
evening of the day when that election
had been held, we were all gathered in
the War Department, the President,
Mr. Stanton, Chief Justice Chase, Mr.
Welles, and the principal generals that
were then in Washington. Perhaps
there were twenty gentlemen there.
When I came in, at about ten o'clock,
the President said to me, " Come here,
Dana; sit down here." So I sat down
beside him. The others were all sitting
around, as solemn as a camp-meeting.
Indeed, it was a pretty solemn occa-
63

sion, because on the decision of this
election hung the question whether we
were there or were not there. The
President looked over to me, and said,
" Did you ever read anything of Petro
leum V. Nasby?" I answered, "Yes."
"Well," he said, "I want to read you
something." So he began to read just
loud enough for me to hear. Mr. Stan
ton could n't stand this. He got up,
and went off into the telegraph room
that was just alongside. Presently he
opened the door, and called me: "I
have got something for you." So I
went into the telegraph office. I found
that he had n't any work for me. He
simply wanted to objurgate the man who
could sit down at such a time and read
such silly, stupid stuff as that. But that
64

constant humor which Mr. Lincoln in
fiised into everything was really what
saved him, and brought him through
the whole of this immense suffering and
struggle in good health and spirits at
last. I ought to say that this disposition
that I have just referred to, to invent
queer stories about Mr. Lincoln, is get
ting corrected. The life of him which
Mr. McClure is now publishing, and
which Miss Ida Tarbell is writing, is
based upon a thorough investigation of
the facts in his history, and his family's
history, and the history of his child
hood, and the experience of the family
in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois —
an investigation that has not been made
before. It proves, in the first place,
i 65

that Mr. Lincoln did not come of a
trifling, silly, or stupid family. He be
longed to the Lincolns of Hingham,
Massachusetts, and he was related to
the famous Governor Lincoln. Many
stories about his marriage, too, are not
so. Lincoln was a straight, upright, re
spectable man. He was a poor man,
picking up knowledge as best he could,
and rising by his own talent, until he
reached a great place in the bar of Illi
nois, and finally became President of
the United States.
I regard the book which Mr. Mc
Clure is publishing as a public benefac
tion. With this book presenting all
these minute details, and with the great
work of Hay and Nicolay, Mr. Lin
coln's private secretaries, giving the
66

most important documents, we shall
have amply satisfactory and faithful ac
counts of perhaps the greatest man in
modern American history, perhaps the
greatest man in the modern history of
mankind. Let me bring these reminiscences to
a close with another story, which relates
to the last day of Mr. Lincoln's life. It
was one of my duties in the War De
partment to receive the reports of the
officers of the Secret Service in every
part of the country. One cloudy after
noon I got a telegram from the provost-
marshal in Portland, Maine, saying, " I
have positive information that Jacob
Thompson will pass through Portland
to-night, in order to take a steamer
for England. What are your orders?"
67

Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, as
you know, had been Secretary of the
Interior in President Buchanan's ad
ministration. He was a conspicuous
secessionist, and for some time had
been employed in Canada as a semi-
diplomatic agent of the Confederate
government, getting up raids, of which
the notorious attack on St. Albans, Ver
mont, was a specimen. I took the tele
gram, and went down and read it to
Mr. Stanton. His order was prompt:
"Arrest him!" But as I was going out
of the door he called to me, and said,
" No, wait ; better go over and see the
President." At the White House all business
was over, and I went into the Presi
dent's business room without meet-
68

ing any one. Opening the door, there
seemed to be no one in the room, but
as I was turning to go out Mr. Lin
coln called me from a little side room,
where he was washing his hands:
"Halloo, Dana!" saidhe. "What
is it? What's up?"
Then I read him the telegram.
" What does Stanton say ? " he asked.
"He says arrest him, but that I
should refer the question to you."
"Well," said he, slowly, wiping his
hands, "no; I rather think not. When
you have got an elephant by the hind
leg, and he is trying to run away, it 's
best to let him run."
With this direction, I returned to
the War Department.
"Well, what says he?" asked Mr.
Stanton. 69

"He says that when you have got an
elephant by the hind leg, and he is try
ing to run away, it 's best to let him
run." " Oh, stuff! " said Stanton.
That night I was awaked from a
sound sleep with the news that Mr.
Lincoln had been shot, and that the
Secretary wanted me at Manager Ford's
house. I found the President lying un
conscious, though breathing heavily, on
a bed in a small side room, while all
the members of the cabinet, and the
Chief Justice with them, were gathered
in the adjoining parlor. They seemed
to be almost as much paralyzed as the
unconscious sufferer within the little
chamber. The surgeons said there was
no hope. Mr. Stanton alone was in fiill
activity. 70

"Sit down here," said he; "I want
you. Then he began, and dictated orders
one after another, which I wrote out
and sent swiftly to the telegraph. All
those orders were designed to keep the
business of the government in full mo
tion till the crisis should be over. It
was perhaps two o'clock in the morning
before he said, "That 's enough. Now
you can go home."
The next morning, just about day
light, I was awaked by a rapping on a
lower window. It was Colonel Pelouze
of the Adjutant-General's office, who
said :
"Mr. Dana, the President is dead,
and Mr. Stanton directs you to arrest
Jacob Thompson."
The order was sent to Portland, but
71

Thompson could n't be found there.
He had taken the Canadian road to
Halifax. And so Lincoln finished his marvel
ous career and passed to the other
world, leaving other men to deal with
the arduous and perilous questions of
reconstruction. He had, indeed, done
enough, and it may be he was even
fortunate in the tragedy of his death.
Who knows?
But, as we bid him farewell to-night,
we can declare that while he was great
in genius, in character, and in opportu
nities, he was even greater in sanity of
heart and elevation of spirit. While he
was entirely human, there was no mean
fiber in his composition, no base, petty,
selfish impulse in his soul.
72

3 9002 00844 6297