USA > Washington DC > Washington DC > Washington : the capital city and its part in the history of the nation > Part 12
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" SECRETARY OF WAR,-Please see this Pitts- burg boy. He is very young, and I shall be satisfied with whatever you do with him.
" A. LINCOLN.
"August 21, 1863."
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The original of this note is in possession of William B. Post, now a citizen of Washington, Pennsylvania. Post enlisted when less than six- teen years of age, was stricken with fever shortly after entering the service, and sent to a hospital in Washington. When able to leave his bed he requested his captain to allow him to return home, promising that so soon as he recovered he would gladly take up his musket and go to the front. The captain, however, turned a deaf ear to his entreaties, and as a last resort Post sought an audience with the President.
" My boy," said Mr. Lincoln, as the lad con- cluded his story, "if you want to go home to your mother you shall. You were too young to go into the war, and the man who permitted you to enlist should be dismissed from the service. I admire your courage and patri- otism, but your place is at home with your mother."
The President then wrote the note quoted above, handed it to Post, and, telling him that would put him through his troubles, dismissed him with a " God bless you!" Secretary Stan- ton gave him a furlough and transportation home. When he regained his health and
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strength he returned to the army, and fought with his regiment until the close of the war.
Save for an occasional visit to the theatre there was little recreation in Mr. Lincoln's life in the White House. He dined at six o'clock, and spent most of his evenings in his office, where, writes John Hay, "he was not often suffered to be alone. He frequently passed the evening there with a few friends in frank and free conversation. If the company was all of one sort he was at his best; his wit and rich humor had free play; he was once more the Lincoln of the Eighth Circuit, the cheeriest of talkers, the riskiest of story-tellers; but if a stranger came in he put on in an instant his whole armor of dignity and reserve. Where only one or two were present he was fond of reading aloud. He passed many of his sum- mer evenings in this way when occupying his cottage at the Soldiers' Home. He would there read for hours with a single secretary for au- dience."
Herndon, his old law partner, somewhere declares that Mr. Lincoln read less and thought more than any man of his sphere in America. A few books, however, he read and reread with
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loving care. The Bible and Shakespeare were scarcely ever out of his mind; he was fond of Burns and Hood, and he found delight in the verses of Bryant, Whittier, and Holmes, whose " The Last Leaf" he knew by heart, and used often to repeat with deep feeling. Many of his published writings bear witness to Mr. Lincoln's close and reverent acquaintance with the Bible, and nothing is more certain than that the most vital influence in his life and conduct during his last years was his belief in and de- pendence upon a personal God. And it was an influence whose force was felt by all who shared or came into close touch with his daily life. Joshua F. Speed, a friend of Mr. Lincoln's youth, being in Washington in the summer of 1864, was invited out to the Soldiers' Home to spend the night. Entering the President's room unannounced, he found him sitting near a window intently reading his Bible.
"I am glad to see you so profitably engaged," said Speed.
" Yes," was the reply, "I am profitably en- gaged."
" When I knew you in early life," continued Speed, "you were a sceptic, and so was I. If
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you have recovered from your scepticism, I am sorry to say I have not."
" You are wrong, Speed," said the President, placing his hand on his friend's shoulder and gazing earnestly into his face. "Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man."
Mr. Lincoln's reliance upon a personal God has been thought by many to date from the bitter private sorrow which marked the close of his first year in the Presidency. His tender sympathy for all children early became familiar to the public; so did his passionate affection for his own. Willie Lincoln was ten years old, and his brother Tad two years younger, when the family entered the White House. Both fell sick early in February, 1862, and Willie, a bright and cheery lad, died on the twentieth day of that month. This was the most crushing affliction that had ever come to the President, who for the moment was completely prostrated by his loss, thoughi after the solemn pause which rests over every home wherein lies the unburied dead, he found the help he needed in the Chris- tian faith. Ere long his wonted serenity and
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cheerfulness returned to him, but he was rarely heard to speak the dead boy's name, while sor- row for the lost gave an added intensity and tenderness to his love for the younger son who remained to him.
Tad Lincoln has long been numbered among the historic boys of America. He was the com- plete embodiment of animal spirits, a warm- hearted, fresh-faced youngster, a boisterous, rollicking, and absolutely real boy, whose pranks and companionship did much to relieve the tre- mendous strain his father suffered while in the White House. " Thousands," writes Noah Brooks, " who never saw the home apartments of that gloomy building knew the tricksy sprite that brightened the weary years which Lincoln passed in Washington. His father took great interest in everything that concerned Tad, and when the long day's work was done, and the little chap had related to the President all that had moved him or had taken up his atten- tion during the daylight hours, and had finally fallen asleep under a drowsy cross-examination, the weary father would turn once more to his desk, and work on into the night. Then, shoul- dering the sleeping child, the man for whom
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millions of good men and women nightly prayed took his way through the silent corridors and passages to his boy's bedchamber."
This grateful glimpse of the man who bore the sorrows of the nation in his own heart could ill be spared from any account of Lincoln's life in the White House. Tad Lincoln did not long survive his father. He was prostrated by a severe illness early in 1871, and, after months of suffering, died in July of that year.
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CHAPTER X
LAST DAYS OF THE WAR
T HERE is abundant evidence that from the first President Lincoln was keenly alive to the possible effectiveness of emancipation as a military measure. He would not, however, in- voke it for any other purpose, and, with his habitual caution, he willed to wait the progress of events and the final shaping of public opinion on the subject. Radicals in and out of Congress demanded prompt action, but he put their pleas aside, or found excuse for his policy of delay in a characteristic story of his early manhood. " Many years ago," he would say, "when I was a young lawyer, and Illinois was little set- tled, except on her southern border, I, with other lawyers, used to ride the circuit; journey- ing with the judge from county-seat to county- seat in quest of business. Once, after a long spell of pouring rain, which had flooded the whole country, transforming small creeks into rivers, we were often stopped by these swollen streams, which we with difficulty crossed. Still
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ahead of us was Fox River, larger than all the rest; and we could not help saying to each other, ' If these streams give us so much trouble, how shall we get over Fox River?' Darkness fell before we had reached that stream; and we all stopped at a log tavern, had our horses put out, and resolved to pass the night. Here we were right glad to fall in with the Methodist presiding elder of the circuit, who rode it in all weather, knew all its ways, and could tell us all about Fox River. So we all gathered around him, and asked him if he knew about the crossing of Fox River. 'Oh, yes,' he re- plied, 'I know all about Fox River. I have crossed it often, and understand it well; but I have one fixed rule with regard to Fox River : I never cross it till I reach it.'"
It was in the frame of mind reflected in this story that Lincoln approached the question of emancipation. He had undertaken the war not to free men, but to prevent disunion, and he would play the card which he held in reserve only when all other measures had failed to as- sure this end. Besides, throughout his entire political life he had invariably disclaimed any desire to interfere with slavery in the States
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where the Constitution recognized it. Could he have had his way he would have had Con- gress buy and free the negroes, afterwards colo- nizing them in territory purchased for the pur- pose, this upon the belief that the separation of the two races was necessary to the welfare of both. He hoped that his scheme of com- pensated emancipation would prove acceptable to the border States, whose loyal people he did not wish to offend, and he earnestly urged it upon Congress in a message which he sent to that body in March, 1862. The border State representatives in Congress, to the President's surprise and chagrin, let the proposition pass in silence, while, as time went on, the radicals of the North grew more insistent in their de- mand that he should emancipate and arm the slaves. Mr. Lincoln was slow to yield to this demand, but under the continued strain of a long and stubborn war his thought and purpose took on a more trenchant edge. And so by the early summer of 1862 he had reached the con- clusion that it would stimulate the forces of the North if the war were made a war against slavery, as well as a war for the Union. There- after, acting upon the advice of some of the
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members of his Cabinet, he waited only for a victory in the field to furnish a fitting opportu- nity for the step he had in mind.
The victory for which he waited came on September 17, when McClellan defeated Lee at Antietam, and five days later he laid before his Cabinet the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. The words with which he pref- aced it are recorded by Secretary Chase in his diary. " When the rebel army was at Fred- erick," said the President, "I determined, as soon as it should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a proclamation of emancipation, such as I thought most likely to be useful. I said nothing to any one, but I made the promise to myself and to my Maker. The rebel army is now driven out, and I am going to fulfil that promise. I have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main matter, for that I have deter- mined for myself. This I say without intending anything but respect for any one of you. But I already know the views of each on this ques- tion. They have been heretofore expressed, and I have considered them as thoroughly and care- fully as I can. What I have written is that 11 .- 17
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which my reflections have determined me to say. If there is anything in the expressions I use, or in any minor matter, which any of you thinks had best be changed. I shall be glad to receive the suggestions. One other observation I will make. I know very well that many others might, in this matter as in others, do better than I can ; and if I was satisfied that the public confidence was more fully possessed by any one of them than by me, and knew of any con- stitutional way in which he could be put in my place, he should have it. I would gladly yield it to him. But, though I believe that I have not so much of the confidence of the people as I had some time since, I do not know that, all things considered, any other person has more; and however this may be, there is no way in which I can have any other man put where I am. I am here; I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the course which I feel I ought to take."
The proclamation, which appeared in the newspapers of the following morning, gave notice that unless the Southern States yielded allegiance to the Union within a hundred days, the President should declare the slaves within
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their limits free. "I can only trust in God that I have made no mistake," said he, anxious as to the future; but, having once put his hand to the plough, he was not the man to turn back, and on the Ist of January, 1863, he kept his promise, and put forth a formal proclamation of emancipation. Then, with more than his usual care and caution, he prepared to make use of the weapon he had forged. " We are like whalers," said he, "who have been long on a chase. We have at last got the harpoon into the monster, but we must now look how we steer, or with one flop of his tail he will send us all into eternity."
Indeed, as an announcement of policy and as an expression of the spirit of the people the Emancipation Proclamation served the purpose intended by its author, but the latter well knew that abolition of a legal institution must wait upon military success; and so he addressed himself with redoubled energy to what from the first had been his most serious and anxious task,-the search for a man who could be de- pended upon to make effective use of the armies which had been put in the field. The search was a weary one, and lasted for the better part of
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three years. Scott, old and infirm, early gave place to McClellan, under whom the Army of the Potomac won its first victories and suffered its first defeats, but McClellan, though he en- deared himself to his soldiers, proved timid and over-cautious, and in November, 1862, he was finally relieved of his command. Then Burn- side and Hooker each held brief and profitless headship over the Army of the Potomac, and after them came Meade, under whom the battle of Gettysburg was fought and won. Meade, however, allowed Lee to escape with his army, and fixed in the mind of the President the belief that he could not be counted upon to harvest the fruits of victory. " Your golden opportunity is gone," wrote Lincoln, " and I am distressed immeasurably because of it."
Meantime, a man endowed with most of the qualities of a great captain was winning his way in the West. His name was Grant, and, by continuous hard fighting and a fixed habit of doing promptly the thing asked of him, he had climbed in little more than a year from the colo- nelcy of an Illinois regiment to the chief com- mand of the armies of the West. Shiloh and Vicksburg followed Belmont and Donelson, and
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when Grant, in the summer of 1863, took charge of the Army of the Cumberland, which Bragg had shut up in Chattanooga, and within a month drove the Confederates from their positions above the city, and from East Tennessee as well. Lincoln no longer doubted that at last he had found a man, master of himself both in defeat and victory, who would push always for- ward, doing his best with the material that was given him. Accordingly, in March, 1864, Grant was called from the West and put in command of all the armies of the United States, with the rank of lieutenant-general.
His first appearance in Washington was in perfect keeping with his modest, unassuming nature. "It was in the early days of spring." writes an eye-witness of his arrival, "and I was living at Willard's. I had risen early, and. seated by a window which overlooked the ave- nue, in the main office, began to read the morn- ing paper. Two omnibuses were driven to the entrance on Fourteenth Street, with the rail- road passengers from the West. The crowd made the usual rush for the register, and for a few moments there was bustle and confusion. There were two passengers who did not appear
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to be in haste. One was a sunburned man of middle age, who wore an army hat and a linen duster, below which, where a small section of his trousers was visible, I caught a glimpse of the narrow stripe of the army uniform. He held the younger traveller, a lad of ten years, by the hand, and carried a small leather bag. As they approached the counter, the clerk, with- out deigning to rise, gave the register a practised whirl, so that the open page was presented to the elder traveller, observing as he did so, 'I suppose you will want a room together.' He named a room with a high number and gave the usual call, 'Front!' while the guest pro- ceeded to write his name without making any observation. The clerk removed the pen from behind his ear, and was about to enter the num- ber of the room, when-he was suddenly trans- fixed as with a bolt of lightning. He bowed, scraped, twisted, wriggled; he begged a thou- sand pardons. 'The traveller's arrival had been expected,-Parlor A, on the shady side of the house, the very best apartment in the hotel, had been prepared for his reception,-it was on the first floor, only one flight of stairs. Might he be allowed to relieve him of his travelling con-
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venience?' and the lordly creature disappeared up the stairway, like Judas, carrying the bag. My curiosity was excited to ascertain who it was that had wrought such a sudden transfor- mation. I walked to the counter, and there read the last entry on the register. It was 'U. S. Grant and son, Galena, Ill.'"
Thus simply and without ostentation did the commander of half a million men indicate his arrival at the capital. He was, however, soon furnished with emphatic proof of his popularity in Washington. It chanced that the evening of the day of his arrival was the occasion of the usual weekly reception at the White House, and thither General Grant went by special invi- tation. Thither also thronged the multitude, when it was known that he would be on view with the President, and so wild was the rush to get near him that " he was obliged at last to mount a sofa, where he could be seen, and where he was secure, at least for a time, from the madness of the crowd. People were caught up and whirled in the torrent which swept through the great East Room. Ladies suffered dire dis- aster in the crush and confusion; and many got upon sofas, chairs, and tables to be out of
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harm's way or to get a better view of the spec- tacle. It was an indescribable scene of curiosity, joy, and pleasure; and for once at least the President was not the chief figure in the pic- ture. The little, scared-looking man who stood on a crimson-covered sofa was the idol of the hour. He remained on view for a short time; then he was quietly smuggled out by friendly hands, and next day departed from the city to begin the last and mightiest chapter in his mili- tary career."
Grant's assumption of the command of all the armies marked the beginning of the end of the war. He gave the Western command to Sher- man, who had been with him at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, while he himself assumed direct control of the operations in the East, and in May, with Meade, advanced from the Potomac upon Lee, who lay between them and Richmond. There followed the bloody and desperate fight in the " Wilderness" of wood and thick under- growth lying between the Rappahannock and the York. The advantage of numbers was with Grant, but Lee operated on shorter lines and behind intrenchments, and, although forced slowly back by the flank movements of his op-
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ponent, he held Grant in hand for sixteen days of well-nigh continuous fighting before making a stand at Cold Harbor. There, on the second day of June, Grant stormed the whole Confed- erate line, but was forced to fall back within an hour with heavy losses. Thus repulsed from Lee's front, Grant threw his forces across the James to the left and advanced upon Petersburg to cut off Richmond's supplies from the South. Here again, however, he was balked of his pur- pose, and in the end was compelled to sit down before Petersburg for a nine months' siege.
This siege was still in its first stages when a part of Lee's troops under Early made a dash upon Washington which for the moment threat- ened the capture of the capital. It was to create a diversion in Grant's rear that Early was sent up through the Shenandoah Valley and across the Potomac. His command included infantry and cavalry, many of them picked veterans from Lee's second corps, and nine field batteries num- bering forty guns,-in all about ten thousand mmen. There were at the time less than five thousand soldiers in Washington available for duty, while Lew Wallace, who then commanded the Middle Department, embracing the region
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between Washington and Baltimore, had at his disposal some three thousand short-service men, and a division of the Sixth Corps under Ricketts, which had been hurried from Peters- burg to Baltimore when the enemy appeared in the valley. Three regiments of this division, however, were still on the road to join Wallace when, in the early morning of July 9, he was compelled to give battle to the oncoming Con- federates.
The place of encounter was at the cluster of bridges which cross the Monocacy, three miles south of Frederick City, Maryland, and thirty- five miles from Washington. Wallace's forces were posted on the eastern bank, Ricketts and his veterans forming the left, which it was thought would be the main point of attack. Early and his men, advancing from Frederick City, forced the passage of the river a mile be- low the Union left, and at half-past ten o'clock, with a part of his command, he charged upon Ricketts, who, meantime, had changed front so that his right rested on the river-bank. Twice Early assaulted Ricketts with heavy loss but without breaking his line, and then retired to the woods in the rear. A lull followed, but at
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half-past two o'clock in the afternoon the Con- federates moved out of the woods in full force, outnumbering the Union defence three to one, and Wallace, who saw that it was time to go, ordered Ricketts to retire by way of the Balti- more pike, which he did in good order. One of the bridges spanning the Monocacy was of wood, a second of stone, and a third an iron structure belonging to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The wooden bridge had been burned earlier in the day in order that the troops de- fending it might go to Ricketts's aid, and the stone bridge, thus made the only line of retreat for the Union forces, now became the objective- point of both armies. Tyler, who commanded the Union reserve, ordered by Wallace to hold the bridge at all hazards, defended it with stub- born valor against repeated assaults until five o'clock, when word reached him that Ricketts's last regiment was safely off the field. Then, being hemmed in by the enemy on all sides, he cut his way through the Confederate lines, and eventually joined the main army.
The capture of the stone bridge ended the battle of Monocacy, as it is called, and left the road to Washington open to Early, but Wal-
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lace's dogged resistance, though involving the loss of one-third of the entire Union force on the field, had cost the Confederate commander a day's delay, and, as will presently appear, was to prove fatal to his plans for the capture of the capital. His troops encamped the next night at Rockville, ten miles from Washington, and on the morning of July II appeared before the defences of the city. The rumors which preceded him multiplied the size of his army, and threw the city into confusion and alarm. It was felt that should Early once pass the de- fences the capital would be at his mercy, and the moral effect of its capture or sacking would be certain to work heavily against the Union cause. Events proved, however, that he had
been too long on the way. Besides the forces under Ricketts already in Maryland, another division of the Sixth Corps, numbering thir- teen thousand men, had been ordered by Grant to the defence of the capital, and, hurrying from the James in swift transports, in the afternoon of the IIth landed in Washington, being quickly followed by the Nineteenth Corps, which had come from the Gulf of Mexico by way of Fort Monroe. Meantime, every available resident,
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along with the soldiers on hospital duty, had been pressed into service by the military gov- ernor of the city. Midnight found within the fortifications of Washington sixty thousand men armed and equipped for fight, and the hour of danger had passed. There was desultory fighting July II, on the farther side of Tenally- town and at Silver Spring, where the enemy intrenched, but early on the following day Wharton's brigade of the Sixth engaged and drove back Early's skirmish line, and soon after nightfall the invaders were in full retreat. Wal- lace's gallant stand at the Monocacy had given time for the arrival of the pick of the Army of the Potomac, and had saved the capital.
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