Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

CHAP. VIII. friendship, and none of them more sincerely than Mr. Stanton. The President found support in the outspoken counsel and robust energy of his war minister; the Secretary yielded trustfully to the superior sagacity and authority of the President. Lincoln began by giving his new Secretary that full discretion which his selection properly implied, and which the vast and responsible duties expected of him unavoidably demanded. It may safely be asserted that Stanton employed this trust with high patriotic aspiration. In comparison with the general correctness of his judgment and the value of his advice and action, his few mistakes which might be pointed out become trivial. The occasional exhibitions of temper and brusqueness of manner which have been observed in him, are chargeable to the harassing perplexity of his duties; naturally he was genial and kind, and his words often evinced a deep tenderness of feeling. As he did not spare his own health and strength in the public service by day or by night, so he required from every subordinate, whether a general or a private, whether in Washington or in the farthest camp, unremitting activity, devotion, sacrifice. Both the War Department and the army instantly felt the quickening influence of his rare organizing power, combined with a will which nothing but unquestioning obedience would satisfy. He insisted rigidly upon military system, discipline, and duty. There was indeed urgent need for their enforcement. The hundreds of thousands of civilians suddenly called to arms as soldiers or officers did not take kindly to the subordination and restraints of the camp. The flood of promotions which at

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

tended the organization of brigades and divisions CHAP. VIII. produced an unhealthy rivalry in all grades of command, showering Congress, the War Department, and the Executive Mansion with applications. The evil of officers' furloughs to come to Washington to further their promotions became so great as to excite the wit of the newspapers. "The other day," ran a paragraph, "a boy threw a stone at a dog on Pennsylvania Avenue and hit three BrigadierGenerals."

Stanton took hold of such abuses with an energetic hand. He banished self-seeking "shoulderstraps" from the capital. He centered the telegraph in the War Department, where the publication of military news, which might prematurely reach the enemy, could be supervised, and, if necessary, delayed. He expanded and vivified his various military bureaus. He found some Congressmen, like some contractors, misrepresenting his peremptory refusals of the special favors they arrogantly demanded; to correct this abuse, he for a period stood every day at a stated hour beside a tall desk in one of the rooms of the War Department, where he compelled each applicant or interviewer, high or low, to state his request publicly and audibly in presence of the assembled throng, so that the stenographer at his elbow could record it as well as the Secretary's answer, and verbal solicitations and personal interviews diminished suddenly under this staring publicity. It was Stanton's habit to go personally with news or official papers to the Executive Mansion, informally, at all hours; it was Lincoln's practice to go as informally to Stanton's office at the War Department, and in times of great

CHAP. VIII. suspense, during impending or actual battles, to spend hour after hour with his War Secretary, where he could read the telegrams as fast as they were received and handed in from the adjoining room. Under such conditions there grew up between them an intimacy in which the mind and heart of each were given without reserve to the great work in which they bore such conspicuous parts. When the time for Mr. Lincoln's reëlection came, no man desired or labored for it more earnestly than Edwin M. Stanton, while no one appreciated more clearly or valued more highly than President Lincoln the splendid abilities and services of his Secretary of War.

The anecdotes of his occasional blunt disregard of the President's expressed wishes are either untrue or are half-truths that lead to erroneous conclusions, and originated probably in a certain roughness of Stanton's manner under strong irritation. Lincoln never magnified trifles; Stanton seldom neglected a plain duty. Nevertheless, in

the multifarious details of their daily labors they sometimes found each other at cross-purpose in regard to some minor and relatively unimportant matter. Stanton, carrying out the great operations of the War Department, in which system and order were essential, was predisposed to insist upon adherence to established rules. Lincoln, on the other hand, governing the greater machine of administration, which included the temper and drift of public opinion equally with the rules and articles of war, was by nature as well as by reason constantly moved, not merely to the pardoning power with which he was specially invested by the Con

stitution, but also to that unwritten dispensing CHAP. VIII. authority enfolded within the broad scope of Executive discretion, and was prone to temper the harsh accidents of civil war by a generous and liberal construction of law and duty. It is quite possible that Stanton thought the President too ready to yield to the hundreds of personal petitions which besieged him for clemency or relief, and we have the written evidence that in the following case at least (though we believe the authentic instances are rare), the President's written direction was neglected by his Secretary until reminded of his proper duty by this note from Mr. Lincoln:

"A poor widow, by the name of Baird, has a son in the army, that for some offense has been sentenced to serve a long time without pay, or at most with very little pay. I do not like this punishment of withholding pay-it falls so very hard upon poor families. After he had been serving in this way for several months, at the tearful appeal of the poor mother, I made a direction that he be allowed to enlist for a new term, on the same conditions as others. She now comes, and says she cannot get it acted upon. Please do it." Stanton had his

warm-hearted as well as his hot-tempered and stubborn moods, and it is not likely, after this patient explanation, that he hesitated an instant to carry out the President's request. The strong will of Stanton met in Lincoln a still stronger personality, which governed not merely by higher legal authority, but by the manifestation of a greater soul and a clearer insight justifying his decisions with a convincing logic. To show how effectively and

Lincoln to

Stanton,

March 1,

1864. MS.

CHAP. VIII. yet how prudently the President wielded this weapon, we quote another letter written by him upon a kindred class of topics:

"I am so pressed in regard to prisoners of war in our custody, whose homes are within our lines and who wish to not be exchanged, but to take the oath and be discharged, that I hope you will pardon me for again calling up the subject. My impression is that we will not ever force the exchange of any of this class; that, taking the oath and being discharged, none of them will again go to the rebellion; but the rebellion again coming to them, a considerable percentage of them, probably not a majority, would rejoin it; that by a cautious discrimination, the number so discharged would not be large enough to do any considerable mischief in any event, would relieve distress in at least some meritorious cases, and would give me some relief from an intolerable pressure. I shall be glad, therefore, to have your cheerful assent to the discharge of those whose names I may send, which I will only 1864. MS. do with circumspection." In answer to the above letter, Stanton, on the next day, wrote: "Mr. Presto Lincoln, ident: Your order for the discharge of any prisoners of war will be cheerfully and promptly obeyed."

Lincoln to
Stanton,
March 18,

Stanton

March 19. 1864. MS.

As Lincoln thus always treated Stanton, not as a department clerk, but with the respect and consideration due a Cabinet minister, questions of difference rarely came to a head. There were very few instances in which they ever became sufficiently defined to leave a written record. One such was when the President ordered Franklin's division to join McClellan, against Stanton's desire that it should be kept with McDowell's army moving by

« AnteriorContinuar »