The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln : Chapter 12 - The Conquerer Of A Great Rebellion

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter twelve of the Boy's Life of Abraham Lincoln buying
Helen Nicolay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
recording by Tom Weiss Tom's audiobooks dot Com. Chapter twelve,
The Conqueror of a Great Rebellion. The presidential election of
eighteen sixty four took place on November eighth. The diary

(00:24):
of one of the President's secretaries contains a curious record
of the way the day passed at the Executive Mansion.
The house has been still and almost deserted. Everybody in
Washington and not at home voting, seems ashamed of it
and stays away from the President. While I was talking
with him today, he said, it is a little singular
that I, who am not an addicted man, should always

(00:46):
have been before the people for election in canvasses, marked
for their bitterness. Always but once when I came to
Congress it was a quiet time. But always besides that,
the contests in which I have been prominent have been
with great rancor. Early in the evening, the President made
his way through reign and darkness to the War Department

(01:06):
to receive the returns. The telegrams came thick and fast,
all pointing joyously to his reelection. He sent the important
ones over to Missus Lincoln at the White House, remarking,
she is more anxious than I am. The satisfaction of
one member of the little group about him was coupled
with the wish that the critics of the administration might

(01:28):
feel properly rebuked by this strong expression of the popular will.
Mister Lincoln looked at him in kindly surprise. You have
more of that feeling of personal resentment than I, he said.
Perhaps I have too little of it, but I never
thought it paid. A man is not time to spend
half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to

(01:50):
attack me, I never remember the past against him. This
state of mind might well have been called by a
higher name than lack of personal resentment. Lincoln and Johnson
received a popular majority of four hundred eleven thousand, two
hundred eighty one and two hundred twelve out of the
two hundred thirty three electoral votes, only those of New Jersey, Delaware,

(02:12):
and Kentucky twenty one in all being cast from mc clellan.
For mister Lincoln, this was one of the most solemn
days of his life. Assured of his personal success, and
made devoutly confident by the military victories of the last
few weeks, that the end of the war was at hand,
he felt no sense of triumph over his opponents. The

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thoughts that filled his mind found expression in the closing
sentences of the little speech that he made to some
serenaders who greeted him in the early morning hours of
November nine, as he left the War Department to return
to the White House. I am thankful to God for
this approval of the people. But while deeply grateful for
this mark of their confidence in me, if I know

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my heart, my gratitude is free from any taint of
personal triumph. It is no pleasure to me to triumph
over anyone. But I give thanks to the Almighty for
this evidence of the people's resolution to stand by free
government and the rights of humanity. Mister Lincoln's inauguration for
his second term as President took place at the time

(03:15):
appointed on March fourth, eighteen sixty five. There is little
variation in the simple but impressive pageantry with which the
ceremony is celebrated. The principal novelty commented on by the
newspapers was the share which the people who had up
to that time been slaves had for the first time
in this public and political drama. Associations of Negro citizens

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joined in the procession, and a battalion of Negro soldiers
formed part of the military escorts. The central act of
the occasion was President Lincoln's second inaugural address, which enriched
the political literature of the nation with another masterpiece. He said,
fellow countrymen, at this second appearing to take the oath

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of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an
extended address than there was at the first. Then a
statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued
seemed fitting improper. Now, at the expiration of four years
during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on
every point in phase of the great contest, which still

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absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation,
little that is new could be presented. The progress of
our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as
well known to the public as to myself, And it
is I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all with

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high hope for the future. No prediction in regard to
it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four
years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending
civil war, all dreaded it, all sought to avert it.
While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place,
devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents

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were in the city seeking to destroy it without war,
seeking to dissolve the union and divide effects by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make
war rather than let the nation survive, and the other
would accept war rather than let it perish, and the
war came. One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves,

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not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the
southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and
powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the
cause of the war. To strength and perpetuate and extend
this interest was the object for which the insurgents would
rent the Union, even by war. While the government claimed

(05:53):
no right to do more than to restrict the territorial
enlargement of it, neither party expected for the war the
magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither
anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with
or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each look
for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding.

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Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God,
and each invokes his aid against the other. It may
seem strange that any man should dare to ask a
just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat
of other men's faces. But let us judge not that
we be not judged. The prayers of both could not

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be answered. That of neither has been fully answered. The
Almighty has his own purposes. Woe unto the world because
of offenses, For it must needs be that offenses come,
but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of
those those offenses which, in the providence of God must

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needs come, but which having continued through his appointed time,
he now wills to remove, and that he gives to
both North and South this terrible war, as the woe
do to those by whom the offense came. Shall we
discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the
believers in a living God always ascribe to him. Fondly

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do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills,
let it continue, until all the wealth piled by the
bondsman two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall
be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with
the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.

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As was said three thousand years ago, so still it
must be said, the judgments of the Lord are true
and righteous, altogether, with malice toward none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to
see the right. Let us strive on to finish the
work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds,

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to care for him who shall have borne the battle,
and for his widow and his orphan, to do all
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all nations. The address ended, the
Chief Justice arose, and the listeners, who for the second
time heard Abraham Lincoln repeat the solemn words of his

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oath of office, went from the impressive scene to their
several homes in thankfulness and confidence that the destiny of
the nation was in safe keithing. Nothing would have amazed
mister Lincoln more than to hear himself called a man
of letters. And yet it would be hard to find
it all literature anything to excel the brevity and beauty

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of his address at Gettisbourg, or the lofty grandeur of
this second inaugural. In Europe, his style has been called
a model for the study in himateation of princes, while
in our own country many of his phrases have already
passed into the daily speech of mankind. His gift of
putting things simply and clearly was partly the habit of

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his own clear mind, and partly the result of the
training he gave himself in days of voyage poverty, when
taper and inkwor luxuries almost beyond his reach, and the
words he wished to set down must be the best
words and the clearest and shortest to express the ideas
he had in view. This training of thought before expression,

(09:32):
of knowing exactly what he wished to say before saying
it stood him in good stead all his life. But
only the mind of a great man with a lofty
soul and a poet's vision. One who had suffered deeply
and felt keenly, who carried the burden of a nation
on his heart, whose sympathies were as broad and whose
kindness was as great as his moral purpose was strong

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and firm, could have written the deep, forceful, convincing words
that fell from his pen in the later years of
his life. It was the light he lived, the noble
aim that upheld him, as well as the genius with
which he was born, that made him one of the
greatest writers of our time. At the date of his
second inauguration, only two members of mister Lincoln's original cabinet

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remained in office, but the changes had all come about
gradually and naturally, never as the result of quarrels, and
with the exception of Secretary Chase, not one of them
left the cabinet harboring feelings of resentment or bitterness towards
his late chief, Even when, in one case it became
necessary for the good of the service for mister Lincoln

(10:39):
to ask a cabinet minister to resign. That gentleman not
only unquestionably obeyed, but entered into the presidential campaign immediately
afterward working heartily and effectively for his reelection as for
Secretary Chase. The President was so little disturbed by his
attitude that, on the death of Roger B. Tate, the

(11:00):
Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, he made
him his successor, giving him the highest judicial office in
the land, and paying him the added compliment of writing
out his nomination with his own hand. The keynote of
the President's young life had been persevering industry, that of
his mature years was self control and generous forgiveness. And

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surely his remark on the night of his second election
for president that he did not think resentment paid, and
that no man had time to spend half his life
in quarrels, was well borne out by the fruit of
his actions. It was this spirit alone which made possible
much that he was able to accomplish. His rule of
conduct toward all men is summed up in a letter

(11:44):
of reprimand that it became his duty while he was
president to send to one young officer accused of quarreling
with another. It deserves to be written in letters of
gold on the walls of every school in college throughout
the land. The advice of a father to his son,
beware of entrance to a quarrel. But being in bearren
that the opposed may beware of thee is good, but

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not the best quarrel, not at all. No man resolved
to make the most of himself can spare time for
personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all
the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper and the
loss of self control. Yield larger things to which you
can show no more than equal right, and yield lesser ones,

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though clearly your own. Better give your path to a
dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right.
Even killing the dog would not cure the bite. It
was this willingness of his to give up the lesser things,
and even the things to which he could claim an
equal right, which kept peace in his cabinet, made up
of men of strong wills and conflicting natures. Their devotion

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to the Union, great as it was, would not have
sufficed in such a strangely assorted official family. But his
unfailing kindness and good sense led him to overlook many
things that another man might have regarded as deliberate insults.
While his great tact and knowledge of human nature enabled
him to bring out the best in people about him,
and at times to turn their very weaknesses into sources

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of strength. It made it possible for him to keep
the regard of every one of them. Before he had
been in office a month, it had transformed Secretary Stewart
from his rival into his lasting friend. It made a
warm friend out of the blunt, positive, hot tempered Edwin M. Stanton,
who became Secretary of War in place of mister Cameron.

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He was a man of strong will and great endurance,
and gave his department a record for hard and effective
work that it would be difficult to equal. Many stories
are told of the disrespect he showed the President and
the cross purposes at which they labored. The truth is
that they understood each other perfectly on all important matters,
and worked together through three bis. He trying years, with

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ever increasing affection and regard the President's kindly humor forgave
his secretary many blood speeches. Stanton says, I am a fool.
He is reported to have asked a busybody who came
fleet footed to tell him of the Secretary's hasty comment
on an order of little moment. Stanton says, I am
a fool. Well, with a whimsical glance at his informant,

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then I suppose I must be Stanton is nearly always right.
Knowing that Stanton was nearly always right, it made little
difference to his chief what he might say in the
heat of momentary annoyance. Yet in spite of his forbearance,
he never gave up the larger things that he felt
were of real importance. And when he learned at one

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time that an effort was being made to force a
member of the cabinet to resign, he called them together
and read them the following impressive little lecture. I must
myself be the judge how long to retain in and
when to remove any of you from his position. It
would greatly pain me to discover any of you endeavoring
to procure another's removal, or in any way to prejudice

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him before the public. Such endeavor would be a wrong
to me, and much worse, a wrong to the country.
My wish is that on this subject no remark be made,
nor question asked by any of you, here or elsewhere,
now or hereafter. This is one of the most remarkable
speeches ever made by a president. Washington was never more dignified.

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Jackson was never more peremptory. The President's spirit of forgiveness
was broad enough to take in the entire South. The
cause of the Confederacy had been doomed from the hour
of his reelection. The cheering of the troops which greeted
the news had been heard within the lines at Richmond,
and the besieged town lost hope, though it continued to

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struggle bravely, if desperately. Although Horace Greeley's peace mission to
Canada had come to nothing, another volunteer effort in the
same direction served only to call forth a declaration from
Jefferson Davis that he would fight for the independence of
the South to the bitter end. Mister Lincoln watched longingly
for the time when the first move could be made

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toward peace. Early in January eighteen sixty five, as the
country was about to enter upon the fifth year of
actual war, he learned from Honorable Francis P. Blair Senior,
who had been in Richmond, how strong the feeling of
discouragement at the Confederate capital had become. Mister Blair was
the father of Lincoln's first Postmaster General, a man of

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large acquaintance of South, who knew, perhaps better than any
one in Washington, the character and temper of the Southern leaders.
He had gone to Richmond hoping to do something toward
bringing the war to a close, but without explaining his
plans to anyone, and with no authority from the government
beyond permission to pass through the military lines and return.

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His scheme was utterly impracticable, and mister Lincoln was interested
in the report of his visit only because it showed
that the rebellion was nearing its end. This was so
marked that he sent mister Blair back again to Richmond
with a note intended for the eye of Jefferson Davis,
saying that the government had constantly been was then and

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would continue to be, ready to receive any agent mister
Davis might send with a view of securing peace to
the people of our one common country. Hopeless as their
cause had by this time become, the Confederates had no
mind to treat for peace on any terms except independence
of the Southern States. Yet, on the other hand, they

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were in such straits that they could not afford to
leave mister Lincoln's offer untested. Mister Davis therefore sent North
his Vice President, Alexander H. Stevens, with two other high
officials of the Confederate Government, armed with instructions which aimed
to be liberal enough to gain them admittance to the
Union Lines, and yet distinctly announced that they came for

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the purpose of securing peace to the two countries. This
difference in the wording, of course, doomed their mission in advance,
for the government at Washington had never admitted that there
were two countries, and to receive the messengers of Jefferson
Davis on any such terms would be to concede practically
all that the South asked. When they reached the Union Lines,

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the officer who met them informed them that they could
go no farther unless they accepted the President's conditions. They
finally changed the form of their request and were taken
to Fortress Monroe. Meantime, mister Lincoln had sent Secretary Stewart
to Portress Monroe with instructions to hear all that they
might have to say, but not to definitely conclude anything

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on learning the true nature of their errand he was
about to recall him when he received a telegram from
General Grant regretting that mister Lincoln himself could not see
the commissioners, because, to Grant's mind, they seemed sincere anxious
to do everything he could in the interest of peace.
Mister Lincoln, instead of recalling Secretary Stewart, telegraphed that he

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would himself come to Portress Monroe and start it that
same night. The next morning, February third, eighteen sixty five,
he and the Secretary of State received the rebel commissioners
on board the President's steamer, the River Queen. This conference,
between the two highest officials of the United States government
and three messengers from the Confederacy, bound as the President

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well knew beforehand, by instructions which made any practical outcome impossible,
brings out in strongest relief mister Lincoln's kindly patience even
toward the rebellion. He was determined to leave no means
untried that might, however remotely lead to peace. For two hours,
he patiently answered the many questions they asked him as

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to what would probably be done on various subjects if
the South submitted, pointing out always the difference between the
things that he had powered to decide and those that
must be submitted to Congress, and bringing the discussion back
time and again to the three points absolutely necessary to
secure peace, union, freedom for the slaves, and complete disbandment

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of the Confederate armies. He had gone to offer them,
honestly and frankly the best terms in his power, but
not to give up one atom of official dignity or duty.
Their main thought, on the contrary, had been to propose
or to escape the express conditions on which they were
admitted to the conference. They returned to Richmond and reported

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the failure of their efforts to Jefferson Davis, whose disappointment
equaled their own, For all had caught eagerly at the
hope that this interview would somehow prove a means of
escape from the dangers of their situation. President Lincoln, full
of kindly thoughts, on the other hand, went back to Washington,
intent on making yet one more generous offer to hasten

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the day of peace. He had told the commissioners that
personally he would be in favor of the government paying
a liberal amount for the loss of slave property, on
condition that the Southern states agree of their own accord
to the freedom of the slaves. This was indeed going
to the extreme of liberality, but mister Lincoln remembered that,
notwithstanding all their offenses, the rebels were American citizens, members

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of the same nation, and brothers of the same blood.
He remembered, too that the object of the war, equally
with peace and freedom, was to preserve friendship and to
continue the union. Filled with such thoughts and purposes, he
spent the day after his return in drawing up a
new proposal designed as a peace offering to the states

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in rebellion. On the evening of February five, he read
this to his cabinet. It offered the southern States four
hundred million dollars, or a sum equal to the cost
of the war, for two hundred days, on condition that
all fighting ceased by the first of April eighteen sixty five.
He proved more liberal than any of his advisers, and

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with the words you are all against me, sadly uttered,
the President folded up the paper and ended the discussion. Footnote.
Mister Lincoln had freed the slaves two years before as
a military necessity, and as such it had been accepted
by all. Yet a question might arise when the war ended,

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as to whether this act of his had been lawful.
He was therefore very anxious to have freedom find a
place in the Constitution of the United States. This could
only be done by an amendment to the Constitution proposed
by Congress and adopted by the legislatures of three fourths
of the states of the Union. Congress voted in favor

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of such an amendment on January thirty one, eighteen sixty five. Illinois,
the President's own state, adopted it on the very next day,
and though mister Lincoln did not live to see it
a part of the constitution, Secretary Stuart, on December eighteenth,
eighteen sixty five, only a few months after mister Lincoln's death,

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was able to make official announcement that twenty nine states,
constituting a majority of the three fourths of the thirty
six states of the Union, had adopted it, and that
therefore it was the law of the land. Jefferson Davis
had issued a last appeal to fire the Southern Heart,
but the situation at Richmond was becoming desperate. Flower cost

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one thousand dollars a barrel in Confederate money, and neither
the flower nor the money was sufficient for their needs.
Squads of guards were sent into the streets with directions
to arrest every able bodied man they met, and force
him to work in defense of the town. It is
said that the medical boards were ordered to excuse no
one from military service who was well enough to bear

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arms for even ten days. Human nature will not endure
a strain like this, and desertion grew too common to punish. Nevertheless,
the city kept up its defense until April three. Even then,
although hopelessly beat, the Confederacy was not willing to give in,
and much needless and severe fighting took place before the

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final end came. The rebel government hurried away towards the south,
and Lee bent all his energies to saving his army
and taking it to join General Johnston, who still held
out against Sherman. Grant pursued him with such energy that
he did not even allow himself the pleasure of entering
the captured rebel capital. The chase continued six days. On

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the evening of April eighth, the Union army succeeded in
planting itself squarely across Lee's line of retreat, and the
marching and fighting of his army were over forever. On
the next morning, the two generals met in a house
on the edge of the village of Appamarex, Virginia. Lee
resplendent in a new uniform and handsome sword, Grant in

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the travel stained garments in which he had made the campaign,
the blouse of a private soldier with the soldier straps
of a lieutenant general. Here the surrender took place. Grant
as Curtius and Victory, as he was in energetic war,
offered the terms that were liberal in the extreme, and,
on learning that the Confederate soldiers were actually suffering with hunger,

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ordered that rations be issued to them at once. Fire
and destruction attended the flight of the Confederates from Richmond.
Jefferson Davis and his cabinet, carrying with him their more
important state papers, left the doomed city on one of
the crowded and overloaded railroad trains on the night of
April second, beginning a southward flight that ended only with

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mister Davis's capture. About a month later, the legislature of
Virginia and the governor of the state departed hurriedly on
a canal boat in the direction of Lynchburg, while every
possible character vehicle was pressed into service by the inhabitants,
all frantic to get away before their city was desecrated
by the presence of the Yankees. By the time the

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military left early on the morning of April three, the
town was on fire. The Confederate Congress had ordered all
government too and other public property to be burned. The
rebel General Ewell, who was in charge of the city,
asserts that he took the responsibility of disobeying, and that
the fires were not started by his orders. Be that

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as it may. They broke out in various places, while
a mob, crazed with excitement and wild with the alcohol
that had run freely in the gutters the night before,
rushed from store to store, breaking in the doors and
indulging in all the wantonness of pillage. And grieved public
spirits seemed paralyzed. No real effort was made to put

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out the flames, and as a final horror, the convicts
from the penitentiary, overpowering their guards, appeared upon the streets,
a maddened, shouting, leaping crowd, drunk with liberty. It is
quite possible that the very size and suddenness of the
disaster served in a measure to lessen its evil effects.
For the burning of seven hundred buildings, the entire business

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portion of Ritch All in the brief space of a
day was a visitation so sudden, so stupefying, and unexpected
as to overawe and terrorize even evildoers. Before a new
danger could arise. Help was at hand. General Whitzel, to
whom the city surrendered, took up his headquarters in the

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house lately occupied by Jefferson Davis, and promptly set about
the work of relief, fighting the fire, issuing rations to
the poor, and restoring order and authority. That a regiment
of black soldiers assisted in this work of mercy must
have seemed to the white inhabitants of Richmond the final
drop in their cup of misery. Into the rebel capital

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thus stricken and laid waste, came President Lincoln on the
morning of April fourth. Never in the history of the
world has the head of a mighty nation and the
conqueror of a great rebellion entered the captured chief city
of the insurgents in such humbleness and simplicity. He had
gone two weeks before to City Point for a visit

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to General Grant and to his son, Captain Robert Lincoln,
who was serving on Grant's staff, making his home of
the steamer that brought him, and enjoying what was probably
the most RESTful and satisfactory holiday in which he had
been able to indulge during his whole presidential service. He
had visited the various camps of the Great Army in
company with General, cheered everywhere by the loving greetings of

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the soldiers. He had met Sherman when that commander hurried
up fresh from his victorious march from Atlanta, and after
Grant had started on his final pursuit of Lee, the
President still lingered. It was at City Point that the
news came to him of the fall of Richmond. Between
the receipt of this news and the following four noon,

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before any information of the great fire had reached them,
a visit to the rebel capital was arranged for the
President and rear Admiral Porter. Ample precautions for the safety
was taken. To start, the President went in his own steamer,
the River Queen, with their escort, the bat and a
tug used at City Point. In landing from the steamer,

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Addmiral Porter went in his flagship, while a transport carried
a small cavalry escort, as well as ambulances for the party.
Barriers in the river soon made it impossible to proceed
in this fashion, and one unforeseen accident after another rendered
it necessary to leave behind the larger and even the
smaller boats, until finally the party went on in the

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Admiral's barge, rowed by twelve sailors, without escort of any kind.
In this manner, the President made his entry into Richmond,
landing near Libby Prison. As the party stepped ashore, they
found a guide among the contrabands, who quickly crowded the
streets for the possible coming of the President had already
been noised through the city. Ten of the sailors, armed

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with carbines, were formed as a guard, six in front
and four in rear, and between them, the President and
Admiral Porter, with the three officers who accompanied them, walked
a long distance, perhaps a mile and a half, to
the center of the town. Imagination could easily fill in
the picture of a gradually increasing crowd, principally of Negroes,

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following the little group of marines and officers with the
tall form of the President in its center, and when
they learned that it was indeed Maslinkum, expressing their joy
and gratitude in fervent blessings and in the deep emotional
cries of the colored race. It is easy also to
imagine the sharp anxiety who had the president's safety in
their charge. During this tiresome and even foolhardy marched through

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a town still in flames, whose white inhabitants were sullenly
resentful at vest and whose grief and anger might at
any moment break out against the man they looked upon
as the chief author of their misfortunes. No accident befell him.
He reached General Whitesell's headquarters in safety, rested in the
house Jefferson Davis had occupied while President of the Confederacy,

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and after a day of sight seeing, returned to his
steamer and to Washington, there to be stricken down by
an assassin's bullet, literally in the house of his friends.
End of Chapter twelve. Recording by Tom Weiss Tom's Audio
books dot Com.