The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln : Chapter 7 - Lincoln And The War

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter seven of the Boy's Life of Abraham Lincoln by
Helen Nicolay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
recording by Tom Weiss Tom's audiobooks dot Com. Chapter seven,
Lincoln and the War. It is one thing to be
elected President of the United States. That means triumph, honor, power.

(00:26):
It is quite another thing to perform the duties of president,
for that means labor, disappointment, difficulty, even danger. Many a
man envied Abraham Lincoln when, in the stately pomp of inauguration,
and with the plaudits of the spectators ringing about him,
he took the oath of office, which, for four years
transforms an American citizen into the ruler of these United States.

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Such andy would have changed the deepest sympathy if they
could have known what lay before him. After the music
and cannon were dumb, after the flags were all furled
and the cheering crowds had vanished, the shadows of war
fell about the Executive Mansion, and its new occupant remained
face to face with its heavy task, a task which,

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as he had truly said in his speech at Springfield,
was greater than that which rested upon Washington. Then, as
never before, he must have realized the peril of the nation,
with its credit gone, its laws, defied, its flag, insulted.
The South had carried out its threat, and seven million

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Americans were in revolt against the idea that all men
are created equal, while twenty million other Americans were bent
upon defending that idea. For the moment, both sides had
paused to see how the new president would treat this
attempt at secession. It must be constantly borne in mind
that the rebellion in the Southern States with which mister

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Lincoln had to deal was not a sudden revolution, but
conspiracy of slow growth and long planning. As one of
its actors frankly admitted, it was not an event of
a day. It is not anything produced by mister Lincoln's election.
It is a matter which has been gathering head for
thirty years. Its main object, it must also be remembered,

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was the spread of slavery. Alexander H. Stevens, in his
speech made shortly after he became the Confederate Vice President,
openly proclaimed slavery to be the cornerstone of the new government.
For years, it had been the dream of Southern leaders
to make the Ohio River the northern boundary of a
great slave empire, with everything lying to the south of that,

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even the countries of South and Central America as parts
of their system. Though this dream was never to be realized,
the Confederacy finally came to number eleven states Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,
South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia,

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and to cover a territory of more than seven hundred
and fifty thousand square miles, larger than England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain,
Germany and Switzerland put together with a coastline thirty five
hundred miles long and a land frontier of over seven
thousand miles. President Buchanan's timidity and one of spirit had

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alone made this great rebellion possible, for although it had
been gathering head for thirty years, it was only within
the last few months that it had come to acts
of open treason and rebellion. President Buchanan had opportunity and
apple power to crush it when the conspirators first began
to show their hands. Instead, he wavered and delayed while

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they grew bolder under his lack of decision, imagining that
they would have a bloodless victory, and even boasting that
they would take Washington for their capital, or if the
new president should work them and make them fight, that
they would capture Philadelphia and dictate the peace they wanted
from Independence Hall. By the time mister Lincoln came into office,

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the conspiracy had grown beyond control by any means then
in the hands of the President. Though men on both
sides still vainly hoped that the troubles of the country
might be settled without fighting, Mister Lincoln especially wished to
make very sure that if it ever came through a
matter of war, the fault should not lie with the North.

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In his inaugural address, he had told the South that
he would use the power confided in him to hold
and occupy the places belonging to the government, and to
collect the taxes. But beyond what might be necessary for
these objects, he would not use force among the people anywhere.
His peaceful policy was already harder to follow than he

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realized before he had been president. Twenty four hours word
came from Major Anderson, still defying the Conspius from Fort
Sumter and Charleston Harbor, that his little garrison was short
of food and must speedily surrender unless help reached them.
The rebels had for weeks been building batteries to attack
the fort, and with Anderson's report came the written opinions

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of his officers that it would require an army of
twenty thousand men to relieve it. They might as well
have ask for twenty thousand archangels, for at that time
the entire army of the United States numbered but seventeen thousand,
one hundred and thirteen men, and these were doing duty
not only in the southern and Eastern States, but were

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protecting settlers from Indians on the Great Western frontier, and
guarding the long Canadian and Mexican boundaries as well. Yet
Anderson and its men could not be left to their
fate without even an attempt to help them, Though some
of the high military and naval officers hastily called into
council by the new President, advised this course, it was

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finally decided to notify the Confederates that a ship carrying
food but no soldiers, would be sent to his relief.
If they chose to fire upon that, it would be
plainly the South and not the North that began. The
war days went on, and by the middle of April,
the Confederate government found itself forced to a fatal choice.

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Either it must begin war or allow the rebellion to collapse.
All its claims. The Independents were denied. The commissioner had
sent to Washington on the pretense that they were agents
of a foreign country, were politely refused to hearing. Yet
not one angry word or provoking threat, or a single
harmful act had come from the Black Republican president. In

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his inaugural he had promised the people of the South
peace and protection, and offered them the benefit of the males.
Even now, all he proposed to do was to send
bread to Anderson and his hungry soldiers. His prudent policy
placed them where as he had told them, they could
have no war unless they themselves chose to begin it.

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They did choose to begin it. The rebellion was the
work of ambitious men who had no mind to stop
at that late day and see their labor go for nothing.
The officer in charge of their batteries was ordered to
open fire on Fort Sumter if Anderson refused to surrender,
and in the dim light of dawn on April twelfth,

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eighteen sixty one, just as the outline of Fort Sumter
began to show itself against the brightening sky, the shot
that opened the Civil War rose from a rebel battery
and made its slow and graceful curve upon Sumter. Soon
all the batteries were in action, and the fort was
replying with a will. Andersen held out for a day

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and a half until his cartridges were all used up,
his flagstaff had been shot away, and the wooden buildings
inside the fort were on fire. Then, as the ships
with supplies had not yet arrived, and he had neither
food nor ammunition, he was forced to surrender. The news
of the firing upon Fort Sumter changed the mood of

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the country, as if by magic. By deliberate act of
the Confederate government, its attempt at peaceable secession had been
changed to active war. The Confederates gained Fort Sumter, but
in doing so they roused the patriotism of the North
to affirm resolve that this insult to the flag should
be redressed, and that the unrighteous experiment of a rival

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government founded upon slavery as its cornerstone should never succeed.
In one of his speeches on the journey to Washington,
mister Lincoln had said that, devoted as he was to peace,
it might become necessary to put the foot down firmly.
That time had now come. On April fifteenth, the day

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after the fall of Fort Sumter, all the newspapers of
the country printed the President's called Worms, ordering out seventy
five thousand militias three months, and directing Congress to meet
in special session on July fourth, eighteen sixty one. The
North rallied instantly to the sport of the government and
offered him twice the number of soldiers he asked for.

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Nothing more clearly shows the difference between President Lincoln and
President Buchanan than in the way in which the two
men met the acts of the Southern Rebellion. President Buchanan
temporized and delayed when he had plenty of power. President Lincoln,
without a moment's hesitation, accept that the great and unusual
responsibility thrust upon him, and at once issued orders for

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buying ships, moving troops, and dancing money to committees of safety,
and for other military and naval measures for which at
the moment he had no express authority from Congress. As
soon as Congress came together on July fourth, he sent
a message explaining his actions, saying, it became necessary for
me to choose whether use only the existing means which

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Congress had provided, I should let the government fall at
once into ruin, or whether, availing myself of the broader
powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of insurrection, I
would make an effort to save it. With all the
blessings for the present age and for posterity. Congress, it
is needless to say, not only approved all that he

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had done, but gave him practically unlimited powers for dealing
with the rebellion in future. It soon became evident that,
no matter how ready and willing to fight for their
country the seventy five thousand volunteers might be, they could
not hope to put down the rebellion because the time
for which they had enlisted would be almost over before

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they could receive the training necessary to change them from
valiant citizens into good soldiers. Another call was therefore issued,
this time for men to serve three years or during
the war, and also for a large number of sailors
demand the new ships that the government was straining every
nerve to buy, build, and otherwise make ready. More important, however,

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than soldiers trained or untrained, was the united will of
the people of the North, and most important of all,
the steadfast and courageous soul of the man called to
direct the struggle. Abraham Lincoln, the poor frontier boy, the
struggling young lawyer, the Illinois politician, whom many, even among

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the Republicans who voted to elect him president, thought scarcely
fit to hold such a smaller office, proved beyond question.
The man for the task gifted above all his associates
with wisdom and strength to meet the great emergencies as
they arose during the Four Years War that had already begun.
Since this is the story of mister Lincoln's life, and

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not of the Civil War, we cannot attempt to follow
the history of the long contest as it unfolded itself,
day by day and month by month, or even to
stop to recount a list of the great battles that
drenched the land in blood. It was a mighty struggle
fought by men of the same race and kindred, often
by brother against brother. Each fought for what he felt

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to be right, and their common inheritance of courage and
iron will of endurance and splendid bravery and stubborn pluck
made this battle of brothers the more bitter as it
was the more prolonged. It ranged over an immense extent
of country, But because Washington was the capital of the
Union and Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, and

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the desire of each side was to capture the chief
city of the other, the principal fighting ground during the
whole war lay between these two towns, with the Allegheny
Mountains on the west and Chesapeake Bay on the east.
Between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi River, another field of
warfare developed itself, on which some of the hardest battles

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were fought and the greatest victories won. Beyond the Mississippi
again stretched another great field, bounded only by the Rocky
Mountains and the Rio Grande. But the principal fighting in
this field was near or even on the Mississippi. In
the efforts made by both Unionists and Confederates to keep
and hold the great highway of the river, so necessary

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for trade in time of peace and for moving armies
in time of war, on this immense battle ground was fought.
One of the most costly wars of modern times, with
soldiers numbering a million men on each side, in which,
counting battles and skirmishes small and great, an average of
two engagements a day were fought. For four long years,

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two millions of money were used up every twenty four hours,
and during which the unholy prize of slavery for which
the Confederate states did battle, was completely swept away. Though
the tide of battle abden flowed, defeat and victory may
be said to have been nearly evenly divided. Generally speaking,

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success was more often on the side of the South
during the first half of the war with the North.
During the latter half, the armies were equally brave, the
North had the greater territory from which to draw supplies,
and the end came not when one side had beaten
the other man for man, but when the South had
been drained of fighting men and food and guns, and

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slavery had perished in distress of war. Fortunately for all,
nobody at the beginning dreamed of the length of the struggle.
Even Lincoln's stout heart would have been dismayed if he
could have foreseen all that lay before him. The task
that he could see was hard and perplexing enough, everything
in Washington was in confusion. No president ever had such

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an increase of official work as Lincoln. During the early
months of his administration, the halls and ante rooms of
the Executive Mansion were literally crowded with people seeking appointment
to wand and the new appointments that were absolutely necessary
were not half finished when the firing at Fort Sumter
began active war. This added to the difficulty of sifting

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the loyal from the disloyal, and the yet more pressing
labor of organizing an immense new army. Hundreds of clerks
employed in the government departments left their deaths and hurried south,
crippling the service just at the time with a sudden
increase of work, made their presence doubly needed. A larger
proportion of the officers of the army and navy, perhaps

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as many as one third, gave their skill in services
to the Confederacy, feeling that their allegiance was due to
their state or section rather than to the general government.
Prominent among these was Robert E. Lee, who had been
made a colonel by Lincoln and whom General Scott had
recommended as the most promising officer to command the new
force of seventy five thousand men pulled out by the

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President's proclamation. He chose instead to resign and cast his
fortunes with the South, where he became the head of
all the Confederate armies. The loss to the Union and
gain to the Confederate cause by his action is hard
to measure, since in him the Southern Armies found a
commander whose surpassing courage and skill inspired its soldiers long

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after all hope of success was gone. Cases such as
this gave the President more anxiety than all else. It
seemed impossible to know whom to trust. An officer might
come to him in the morning protesting devotion to the Union,
and by night be gone to the South. Mister Lincoln

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used to say at this time that he felt like
a man letting rooms at one end of his house
while the other end was on fire. The situation grew
steadily worse. Maryland refused to allow United soldiers to cross
her territory, and the first attempt to bring troops through
Baltimore from the north, and in a bloody riot, the

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burning of railroad bridges to prevent help from reaching Washington.
For three days Washington was entirely cut off from the north,
either by telegraph or mail. General Scott hastily prepared the
city for a siege, taking possession of all a large
supplies of flower and provisions in town, and causing the
Capitol and other public buildings to be barricaded. Though President

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Lincoln did not doubt the final arrival of help, he
like everyone else, was very anxious and found it hard
to understand the long delay. He knew that troops had
started from the north, why did they not arrive. They
might not be able to go through Baltimore, but they
could certainly go around it. The distance was not great.

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What if twenty miles of railroad had been destroyed? Were
the soldiers unable to march? Always calm and self controlled,
he gave no sign in the presence of others of
the anxiety that weighed so heavily upon him. Very likely
the visitors who saw him during those days thought that
he hardly realized the plight of the city. Yet an

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inmate of the White House, passing through the President's office
when the day's work was done and he imagined himself alone,
saw him pause in his adorbed, walk up and down
the floor and gaze long out of the window in
the direction from which the troops were expected to appear. Then,
unconscious of any hearer, and as if the words were

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wrung from him by anguish, he exclaimed, why don't they come?
Why don't they come? The New York seventh Regiment was
the first to come by a roundabout route. It reached
Washington on the morning of April twenty five, and, weary
and travel worn, but with banners flying and music playing,

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marched up Pennsylvania Avenue to the big white Executive Mansion,
bringing cheer to the President and renewed courage to those
timid citizens whose fright during this time had almost paralyzed
the life of the town. Taking renewed courage, they once
more opened their houses in the shops that had been
closed since the beginning of the blockade, and business began anew.

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The greater part of the three months regiments had been
ordered to Washington, and the outskirts of the capitol soon
became a busy military camp. The great departments of the government,
especially of War Navy, could not immediately handle the details
of all this sudden increase of work. Men were volunteering
rapidly enough but there was sore need of rations to

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feed them, money to pay them, tends to shelter them,
uniforms to clothe them, rifles to arm them, officers to
drill them, and of transportation to carry them to the
camps of instruction where they must receive their training and
await further orders. In this carnival of patriotism and hurly
burly of organization, the weaknesses as well as the virtues

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of human nature quickly showed themselves, And as if the
new President had not already enough to distress and harass
his mind, almost every case of confusion and delay was
brought to him for complaint and correction. On him also
fell the delicate and serious task of deciding hundreds of
novel questions as to what he and his cabinet ministers

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had and had not the right to do under the Constitution.
The month of May slipped away in all these preparatory vexations,
with the great machine of war once started, moved on,
as it always does, from arming to massing of troops,
and from that to skirmish in battle. In June, small
fights began to occur between the Union and Confederate armies.

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The first large battle of the war took place at
Bull Run, about thirty two miles southwest of Washington, on
July twenty one, eighteen sixty one. It ended in a
victory for the Confederates, though their army was so badly
crippled by its losses that it made no further forward
movement during the whole of the next autumn and winter.

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The shock of this defeat was deep and painful to
the people of the North, not yet schooled to patience
or to the uncertainties of war. For weeks, the newspaper's
confident of success had been clamoring for action, and the
cry forward to Richmond had been heard on every hand.
At first, the people would not believe the story of

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a defeat, but it was only too true. By night,
the beaten Union troops were pouring into the fortifications around Washington,
and the next day a horde of stragglers found their
way across the bridges of the Potomac into the city.
President Lincoln received the news quietly, as was his habit,
without any visible sign of distress or alarm. But he

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remained awake and in his office all that Sunday night,
listening to the excited tales of congressmen and senators, who
with undue curiosity had followed the army and witnessed some
of the sights and sounds of battle, and by dawn
on Monday he had practically made up his mind as
to the probable result and what he must do in consequence.

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The loss of the Battle of bull Run was a
bitter disappointment to him. He saw that the North was
not to have the easy victory it anticipated, and to
him personally it brought a great and added care that
never left him during the war. Up to that time,
the North had stood by him as one man in

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its eager resolve to put down the rebellion. From this
time on, though quite as determined, there was division and
disagreement among the people as to how this could best
be done. Parties formed themselves for or against this or
that general, or in favor of this or that method,
and no other of carrying on the war. In other words,

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the President and his administration, the cabinet and other officers
under him became from this time on the target of criticism.
For all the failures of the Union armies, and for
all the accidents and mistakes and unforeseen delays of war.
The self control that mister Lincoln had learned in the
hard school of his boyhood and practiced during all the

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long struggle of his young manhood had been severe and
bitter training, But nothing else could have prepared him for
the great disappointments and trials of the crowning years of
his life. He had learned to endure patiently, to reason calmly,
never to be unduly sure of his own opinion, but
having taken counsel of the best advice at his command,

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to continue in the path that he felt to be right,
regardless of criticism or unjust abuse. He had daily and
hourly to do all this. He was strong and courageous,
with a steadfast belief that the right would triumph in
the end. But his nature was at the same time
sensitive and tender, and the sorrows and pain of others

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hurt him more than did his own. And of Chapter
seven recording by Thom Weiss Tom's Audiobooks dot Com