Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief: Part 1

you you that worked pretty well good evening on behalf of the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences at Villanova University I'm pleased to welcome you to the first lecture in the lower Kephart distinguished historians lecture series before I introduce this evening speaker I would like to thank the people who made this event possible professors Judith Keyes Berg Lawrence little holly sonders and Paul steggy from the history department christine filiberty also from the history department robert blanchard assistant dean in the College of Arts and Sciences Mary wearing and Claire Beulah and the office of development Vince Perkins from the University store and the staff for the Connelly Center who have made all these seats available to you I also want to give special thanks to Diane Brockie the Administrative Coordinator office of external relations in the College of Arts and Sciences as far as I can tell that job title means to Diana's a person who thinks of everything and then she makes sure it all gets done finally a most important wall the members of Department of History wish to thank Horace Kephart and the Kephart family for generously endowing this lecture series their distinguished historians lecture series honors the memory memory of Lorca Park who after raising a family returned to college and graduated from Villanova with a major in history and political science after earning her degree Laura remained involved in the life of the history department through her sponsorship and editing of the department's undergraduate journal velour Kephart distinguished historians lecture series is a fitting tribute to Laura's desire to improve the public's understanding of how the past shapes the world today in bringing to Villanova historian of national reputation who has demonstrated an ability to reach out to the broader public and that's certainly the case this evening the distinguished historians lecture series will put into action Laura's belief that of vigorous engagement with ideas should be a lifelong process that is not confined to the classroom we are privileged to launch this series with a lecture by Professor James McPherson the foremost historian of the American Civil War James McPherson began his career during the civil rights era by writing several books that focused on the activities of the abolitionists and documented the experience experiences of African Americans as they fought for their freedom and equality during the Civil War these books rehabilitated the reputations of the abolitionists who had previously been characterized as by historians as irresponsible zealots and helped remind us excuse me of a central role played by African Americans in the Civil War recognizing that the success of the abolitionists and the former slaves depended on political circumstances and ultimately the wielding of military force professor McPherson subsequently directed his attention towards the political military leadership of the work that effort culminated in several books including the Pulitzer prize-winning book battle cry of freedom widely acclaimed as the best one vol history of the war since then James McPherson has twice won the coveted Lincoln Prize and was named the Jefferson lecturer in 2000 by the National Endowment for the Humanities his writing on the Civil War also moved in new directions in the 1990s he sensitively explored motivations of soldiers who fought the war and his prize winning for cause and comrades he also became leading activist for preserving Civil War battlefields from commercial development throughout his career James McPherson has his scholarship has been distinguished by graceful prose meticulous research and careful but unflinching judgment on the civil wars most controversial subjects there will not be any controversy tonight however after all tonight's lecture on Lincoln as commander-in-chief deals with events from both I'm long ago back when the country was in turmoil and an armed opposition challenged the authority of a president from Illinois please join me in welcoming James McPherson well thanks so much mark and thanks to all of you for your warm welcome I'm enormously impressed by the turnout this evening and very highly honored to be able to give the first lecture in the Kephart series I had a wonderful dinner experience before the lecture this evening with the Kephart family who have endowed this lecture series and who have deep interest in history and a great deal of knowledge about it as I learned from dinner this evening so I'm looking forward to this experience this evening in delivering the lecture but also in responding to your questions after the end of the lecture that's usually my favorite part of a speaking engagement is interacting with the audience in the Q&A session when the American Civil War began with a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861 the United States President Abraham Lincoln was far less prepared for his task as commander-in-chief than was his southern adversary Jefferson Davis had graduated from West Point he had commanded a regiment that fought courageously at Buena Vista in the Mexican War and had served as an outstanding Secretary of War in the Franklin Pierce administration in the 1850s while Lincoln's only military experience had come back in 1832 when he was captain of a militia unit from Illinois that saw no action in a Blackhawk war during Lincoln's one term in Congress he made a speech on the floor of the House in 1848 mocking his military experiences did you know I am a military hero he said I fought bled and came away after charges upon the wild onions and the good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes so when President Lincoln called state militia into Federal service on April 15 1861 to put down what he called combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings he faced a steep learning curve as commander-in-chief he worked very hard at the task his experience as a largely self-taught lawyer with the Keen analytical mind who had once taught himself Euclidean geometry just for mental exercise enabled him to to learn on the job he read and absorb works on military history and strategy he observed the successes and failures of his own and the enemy's military commanders and drew apt conclusions he made mistakes and learned from them he applied this large quotient of common sense to slice through the obfuscation Xand excuses of some of his military subordinates why 1862 the second year of the Civil War is grasped of strategy and of operations was firm enough almost to justify the overstated but not entirely wrong conclusion by the historian T Harry Williams who wrote a classic book more than half a century now back in 1952 called Lincoln and his generals Williams wrote in that book Lincoln stands out as a great war president probably the greatest in our history and a great natural strategist a better one than any of his generals the one thing in that statement I might disagree with is Williams reference to Lincoln as a great natural strategist I don't think there was anything natural about that it worked very hard to learn and to grasp the elements of strategy and command and leadership that he eventually demonstrated as commander chief in time of war a president performs or oversees three and possibly four Lincoln's case for functions in diminishing order of importance first policy second national strategy third military strategy and then in Lincoln's case at least operations now neither Lincoln nor anyone else to find those functions in a systematic way during the Civil War if they had that definitions might have sounded something like this policy refers to war aims that is the political goals of the nation in time of war what are we fighting for what's the mission national strategy refers to the mobilization of the political economic diplomatic and psychological as well as military resources to achieve those political goals military strategy refers to plans for the employment of ardent forces the wind victories that will further their political goals as well and then finally operations refers to the actual organization logistics and movements of armies in particular campaigns to carry out the purposes of military strategy what I want to do this evening is to look at Lincoln's performance in each of these four categories first as president of the nation and leader of his party as well as commander in chief Lincoln was principally responsible for shaping defining articulating national policy from first to last that policy was preservation of the United States as one nation indivisible and as a republic based on majority rule the same majority rule that had elected Lincoln to office but had also provoked initially seven slave states to secede in May 1861 Lincoln explained that the central idea pervading this struggle is the necessity that is upon us of proof that popular government is not an absurdity we must settle this question now whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose on another occasion Lincoln defines the session as the essence of anarchy because if one state may see seed so may any or all others until there is no government and no nation in the Gettysburg Address Lincoln offered his most eloquent statement of policy the war was a test whether the nation conceived in 1776 might live war would perish from the earth this issue for Lincoln this issue of national sovereignty over a union of all the states was non-negotiable no compromise between a sovereign United States and a separately sovereign Confederate States was possible this issue Lincoln said in 1864 when the war was now three years old this issue is distinct simple and inflexible it is an issue which can only be tried by war and decided by victory the next level of Lincoln's duty as commander-in-chief was to mobilize the means to achieve that policy by winning the war the president of course shared with Congress and key cabinet members the tasks of raising organizing and sustaining an Army and Navy preventing foreign intervention in the conflict maintaining public support for the war but no matter how much these facets of national strategy required maximum effort at all levels of government and society the ultimate responsibility was the president's in his dual roles as president and commander-in-chief and this responsibility was as much a political as a military one especially in a civil war whose origins lay in an intern political conflict and had been precipitated by political decisions Lincoln's election the decision of southern states to secede Lincoln administration's decision not to accept the legitimacy of secession and so on well though Lincoln never read the famous treatise by the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz title foam kreega on war Lincoln's actions were a consummate expression of Klaus ovitzes central argument which in an English translation goes like this the political objective is the goal war is the means of reaching it and means can never be considered an isolation from their purpose therefore it is clear that war should never be thought of as something autonomous but always as an instrument of policy some professional men tended to think of war as something autonomous and they deplored the intrusion of political considerations into military matters take the notable some might say notorious example of what were called during the Civil War political generals who existed on both sides but were more prominent or at least more famous on the Union side Lincoln appointed numerous prominent politicians with little or no military training or experience to the rank of brigadier or major-general some of them received these appointments so early in the war that they subsequently outranked professional West Point trained officers Lincoln also commissioned the important ethnic leaders with little regard to their military merits some of those political and ethnic generals proved to be incompetent on the battlefield and as one of the consummate professionals Henry W Halleck who at the time was General in chief lamented in 1864 it seems but a little better than murder to give important commands to such men as Nathaniel banks Benjamin Butler John McLennan and Lew Wallace but HELOCs I'd it seems impossible to prevent it historians who likewise deplore the abundance of political generals sometimes cite an anecdote to mock the whole process one day in 1862 so the story goes Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M Stanton were going over a list of Colonels for promotion to Brigadier General coming to the name of Alexander Chimel fennec the president said there has got to be something done unquestionably in the interest of the Dutch Deutsche German and to that end I want Chimel fanuc promoted Stanton protested that there were better qualified German Americans no matter about that Lincoln said his name will make up for any difference there may be well as some of you may be aware general schimmelpenninck is remembered today mainly for hiding three days in the woodshed next to a pig pen at Gettysburg to escape capture by the Confederates other political generals are also remembered more for their military defeats or supposed blunders than for any positive achievements Nathaniel banks for example for the Red River campaign and other defeats John C Fremont for the mess he made of affairs in Missouri and then later in West Virginia Daniel sickles for endangering the honor endangering the Army of the Potomac and losing his leg by moving out to the peach orchard on the second day at the Battle of Gettysburg Benjamin Butler for alleged corruption in New Orleans and for botching the first attack on Fort Fisher and so on often forgotten in this litany of condemnation of political generals are the excellent military records of several of them for example John a Logan of Illinois a congressman the beginning of the war and Francis P Blair of Missouri also a congressman at the beginning of the war both of whom turned out to have a great deal of military aptitude and rose to corps command in general Sherman's army in some West pointers notably ulysses s grant and William Tecumseh Sherman might have languished in obscurity if it had not been for this initial sponsorship of grant by congressman Elihu Washburne of Illinois the end of Sherman Barre his brother John a Congress senator state United States Senator from Ohio but even if all political generals or generals in whose appointments politics had played a part had turned out to have mediocre military records that process would still have had a positive impact on national strategy the main purpose of commissioning prominent political and ethnic leaders was to mobilize their constituencies for this massive and initially voluntary war effort the United States Army on the eve of the war consisted of approximately 16,000 men a tiny Regular Army in the nation of 32 million people by April 1862 when the war was a year old the Union Army not not even including the the Confederate Army the Union Army alone consisted of six hundred and thirty seven thousand men and later rose to a million this mass mobilization overwhelmingly of volunteers could not have taken place without an enormous effort by local and state politicians as well as by prominent ethnic leaders in New York City for example the Tammany Democrat Daniel sickles raised a brigade and thereby earned a commission as Brigadier General the Irish born Thomas Maher helped raise the famous Irish Brigade and the German American leader Karl shirts helped raise several German regiments and eventually became a Major General northern state governors nearly all Republicans played an essential part in raising in organizing these volunteer regiments and claimed Brigadier General ships for their political allies in return at the same time Lincoln needed the allegiance of prominent Democrats like John McClelland and John Logan in southern Illinois for example where support initially support for the war was questionable as even the staunch Republican newspaper the Chicago Tribune rarely had anything good to say about Democrats as they acknowledge these two Democrats that Tribune acknowledge to have labored night and day to instruct their fellow citizens and the true nature of the contest and to organize their aroused feelings into effective military strength they have succeeded nobly and both Logan & McLennan eventually became Major Generals and of course prominent Republicans could not be ignored Lincoln's party supplied most of the energy and manpower for the war effort Jhansi fremont who had been the first Republican presidential candidate back in 1856 and Nathaniel P banks former Speaker of the House and governor of Massachusetts were made major generals early in the war well the second year of the war though the need for these politically motivated Commission's to mobilize support cement allegiances reward support had declined performance in action became the principal determinate for promotion though as you might well met imagine politics could never be completely absent from the process nevertheless the national strategy of mobilizing political support for the war through military patronage had largely served its purpose and as a recent historian of the Union Army has written the political generals reputation for Battlefield defeats is certainly accurate for many in this group but this Orthodox caricature neglects their vital contribution in rallying support for the war and convincing the people to join the mass citizen army as volunteers and Lincoln would certainly have agreed with that evaluation some of those higher ranking political generals helped shape military strategy and thus straddled the boundary between national and military strategy and in a few moments I'll take a closer look at military strategy but first another important issue that began as a question of national strategy eventually crossed the boundary in the other direction to become policy as well and that was the issue of slavery and emancipation during the first year of the war one of Lincoln's top priorities as a matter of national strategy was to keep border state unionists that is the border slave states like Kentucky Maryland Missouri that had remained in the union to keep them in his war coalition and also to keep northern anti abolitionist Democrats on board for this war effort the issue of union united these groups with Lincoln's Republican Party but the issue of slavery and especially as the war went on the issue of emancipation sharply divided them so Lincoln feared with good reason that the balance in three important border slave states might tip to the Confederacy if his administration took premature steps toward emancipation when General Fremont in August 1861 early in the war you should a Military Order freeing the slaves of Confederate supporters in Missouri Lincoln revolted in order to quell an outcry from the border state unionists and northern Democrats to have sustained Fremont's order Lincoln wrote to one of his allies who had criticized him for revoking the order to have sustained it would alarm our Southern Union friends and turn them against us perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky I think that to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game Kentucky gone we cannot hold Missouri nor as I think Maryland these all against us in the job in our hands is too large for us we would as well consent to separation at once including the surrender of this capital that was in September 1861 but during the next nine months or so the thrust of national strategy on this issue began to shift away gradually by fits and starts with a lot of banking and filling the shift away from the from conciliating the border states and anti emancipation Democrats toward a harder anti-slavery policy the anti-slavery Republic and constituents the north grew louder and more demanding the argument that what they called the slave power had brought on the war and that reunion with slavery still part of the American social order would only sow the seeds of another war grew more insistent the evidence that slave labor sustained the Confederate economy and the logistics of Confederate armies grew stronger counter-offensives by southern armies in the summer of 1862 wiped out many of the Union gains in the previous winter and spring so by the summer of 1862 many Northerners including now Lincoln became convinced that bolder steps were necessary to win and to win a war over an enemy fighting for and sustained by slavery the argument went the North must act against slavery so in July 1862 Lincoln decided on a major change in national strategy instead of deferring to the border states and northern Democrats he would activate the dynamism of the northern anti-slavery majority that had elected him weaken the Confederate economy and mobilized the potential of black manpower for the north by issuing a proclamation of freedom for slaves in the rebellious States at an historic cabinet meeting on July 22nd 1862 Lincoln told his cabinet as recorded by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles had kept a famous diary decisive and extreme measures must be adopted Lincoln said emancipation he went on is a military necessity absolutely necessary to the preservation of the Union we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued the slaves are undeniably an element of strengths of those who have their service and we must decide whether that element should be with us or against us we want the army to strike more vigorous blows the administration must set the army an example and strike at the heart of the rebellion slavery after a wait of two months for a union military victory to give such an emancipation edict credibility as a positive war measure instead of a desperate appeal for a slave uprising Lincoln issued a preliminary Proclamation five days after the limited but important Union victory in the Battle of Antietam in that preliminary Proclamation on September 22nd 1862 Lincoln warned that On January 1st 1863 he would invoke his war powers as commander-in-chief to seize enemy property being used to wage war against the United States in this case slaves by proclaiming emancipation in all states or parts of states then still in rebellion January first came the rebellion of course still raged and Lincoln issued his historic proclamation the Emancipation therefore became a crucial part of the North's national strategy by trying to convert a Confederate resource slave labor to Union advantage but this step opened up a potential inconsistency between national strategy and policy the Emancipation Proclamation might free many slaves if Northern armies could conquer the states to which it applied but what about slaves in the states to which it did not apply five of the fifteen slave states were exempted because they were deemed not to be at war with the United States the Emancipation Proclamation was also an emergency war measures that would cease to have any legal validity in time of peace could the north fight a war using a strategy of emancipation to restore a union in which slavery would still exist and to uphold the Constitution that's still sanctioned the institution during the last two years of the war the abolition of slavery evolved from a means of winning the war to a war aim that is from national strategy to national policy and resolve this inconsistency Lincoln was reelected in 1864 on the platform calling for unconditional surrender of the Confederacy and a 13th amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery everywhere and forever Lincoln underwent a similar shift just a month or two slower from a national strategy of opposing the recruitment of black soldiers to fight for the Union to won a vigorous support for that measure the idea of putting arms in the hands of black men provoked even greater hostility among northern Democrats and border state unionists than did Emancipation itself in August 1862 Lincoln told delegates from Indiana who offered to raise two black regiments that the nation cannot afford to lose Kentucky at this crisis he's still worried about Kentucky and that to arm the Negroes would turn fifty thousand bayonets from the loyal border states by that he meant fifty thousand White's soldiers from those states that were fighting on the Union side who turned fifty thousand million bayonets from the loyal border states against us that were for us three weeks later though Lincoln quietly authorized the War Department to begin organizing black regiments on the South Carolina sea islands then came the final Emancipation Proclamation of January 1st 1863 which openly endorsed the recruitment of black soldiers and sailors and by March 1863 Lincoln told his military governor of occupied Tennessee that the colored population is the great available but yet on event on availed of force for creating for restoring the Union the bare sight of fifty thousand armed and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once and who doubts that we can present that sight if we but take hold and earnest a prediction proved a bit over optimistic fifty thousand black soldiers on the banks of Mississippi would end the rebellion at once but in August 1863 after black regiments had proved their worth at Fort Wagner and elsewhere Lincoln told opponents of their employment and there were still many opponents in the north told those opponents that in the future there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this great consummation while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they have strove to hinder it a year later now with more than a hundred thousand black soldiers and sailors under arms lincoln consider their contribution essential to victory without those soldiers he said we cannot longer maintain the contest abandon all the posts now possessed by black men and we would be compelled to abandon the war in three weeks Lincoln's dominant role in determining policy and national strategy the two themes I've been focusing on so far is scarcely surprising but he also took a more active hands-on part in shaping military strategy than presidents have done in any other war that was not necessarily by choice Lincoln's lack of military training inclined him at first to defer to general and chief Winfield Scott's America's most celebrated soldier since George Washington but Scott's age his poor health is lack of energy his desire to retire place the greater burden on the president than he had anticipated Lincoln was also disillusioned by Scots advice back in March 1861 to yield up both Fort Sumter and Pickens and by the seemingly passive strategy of Scots so-called Anaconda plan that is impose a blockade on the Confederates gained control of the Mississippi River and then just sit down and wait for them to give up Scott did retire on November 1st 1861 but his successors as general and chief first George General George B McClellan and then General Henry W Halleck proved to be even greater disappointments to Lincoln in that capacity nor did several of his prominent field commanders that his commanders of field armies such as John Pope Ambrose Burnside Joseph Hooker William Rosa Cannes Don Carlos Buell and of course above all George B McClellan did they measure up to initial expectations when ulysses s grant became general and chief in March 1864 Lincoln told him according to Grant's memoirs that and grant is here paraphrasing Lincoln he had never professed to be a military man or to know how campaigns should be conducted and never wanted to interfere in them but that procrastination on the part of commanders had compelled him to take a more active part grants account here doesn't ring entirely true by that time that is March 1864 Lincoln had pretty definite ideas on how campaigns should be conducted but it is certain that procrastination as Grant had Lincoln saying especially by link by McClellan and Buell cause Lincoln to become in effect his own general and chief as well as commander in chief during several key campaigns in the war we don't have time this evening to discuss all of these campaigns instead what I want to do is to focus on a few key facets of Lincoln's military strategy as it evolved over the course of the war the first of those was Lincoln's emphasis on what military analysts call concentration in time to counteract the Confederacy's ability to use interior interior lines to concentrate in space well what does that mean use your knowledge of geography to envision the Union and the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865 Confederacy is really bounded on the north and the west by the United States and on the south and the east by the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean to invade and conquer the eight hundred thousand square miles of the Confederate States of America Union forces were compelled by these geographical circumstances to operate mainly on exterior lines that is to move from outside the perimeter of the Confederate States toward some interior point the Confederacy defending that territory could use interior lines within the boundaries of the Confederacy to shift forces from one or more less threatened points to the most threatened ones to illustrate in January 1862 generals Henry W Halleck and Don Carlos Buell commanded two Union armies in Missouri in Kentucky respectively that Lincoln wanted to cooperate with each other in the joint campaign against Confederate defenses in Kentucky and Tennessee both generals stalled and made excuses for their inability to cooperate and Lincoln would have to get used to these excuses and Alec lectured Lincoln by letter to operate on exterior lines against an enemy occupying a central position will fail talak wrote to Lincoln it is condemned by every military authority I have ever read but Lincoln by this time January 1862 had been reading his own military authorities in a kind of cram course to learn military's more about military strategy and his response to HELOCs showed how well he had learned a key lesson I state my general idea this war Lincoln wrote that we have the greater numbers and the enemy has the greater facility of concentrating forces upon the points of collision that we must fail unless we can find some way of making our advantage and overmatch for his and that this can only be done by menacing him with superior forces at different points at the same time concentration in time so that we can safely attack one or both if he makes no change and if he weakens one to strengthen the other forbear to attack the strengthen one but seize and hold the weakened one gaining so much that's one of the clearest expressions of this strategy of concentration and in time that I've read by advancing on two or more fronts simultaneously Union forces could neutralize the Confederacy's use of interior lines to shift troops to endangered front because they'd all be equally in danger the proof of Lincoln's point came pretty soon when after Grant whose forces were part of hallux Army in February 1862 captured forts Henry and Donaldson in that month and then hallux and mules armies advanced more or less simultaneously and forced the enemy out of Kentucky and out of most of Tennessee two years later when grant became general and chief he put Lincoln strategy of simultaneous advances against several enemy points into effect on the major fronts of the war by over a thousand miles by coordinating or trying to coordinate the invasion of key parts of Confederate territory by several armies simultaneously they all went started from the start line in the 1864 campaigns in in the first week of May Lincoln told his private secretary John Hay in April 1864 after granted presented his plans to him that Grant's plans reminded them of his own this is John Hayes he was Lincoln's private secretary and captive also kept an important diary this is his direct quote of what Lincoln said reminded Lincoln of his own suggestions so constantly made and is constantly neglected to Buell and Halleck a delta movement once upon the enemies whole line so as to bring into action to our advantage our great superiority in numbers a second key aspect of Lincoln's strategy and grants was to go after enemy armies and attack them where they were rather than to maneuver to try to capture places even such important places as Richmond that was one reason why Lincoln opposed McClellan strategy to take the Army of the Potomac all the way down the Chesapeake Bay to the Virginia Peninsula in the spring of 1862 a hundred and twenty miles from Washington to begin a campaign against Richmond from there instead of attacking the enemy army where it was in Northern Virginia only twenty-five miles from Washington when Lincoln reluctantly approved mccollins plan despite his continuing skepticism about it and when McClellan then hesitated to attack a small Confederate blocking force at Yorktown despite overwhelming numerical superiority lincoln told him in a letter he wrote the McClellan on April 9th 1862 it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow you will do me the justice I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field instead of fighting at or near Manassas where the Confederate Army was was only shifting and not sir mounting a difficulty that we would find the same or equal entrenchments at either place the country will not fail to note he is now noting that the president hesitation to move upon an entrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated Lincoln went on to assure McCallum that he still had the president's support but then ended the letter with four short words that he underlined for emphasis but you must act however the general who had acquired the nickname of tardy Jorge never learned that lesson Lincoln who liked to make important points with with metaphors came up with a good one to describe McClellan when he told McClellan supporter that he had given up trying to bore with an augur too dull to take hold and he removed McClellan the dull augur from command however he had similar problems with some of McClellan successors when the Army of Northern Virginia began to move north and the campaign that led to Gettysburg the then Union commander general commanding the Army of the Potomac General Joseph Hooker proposed to cut in behind them and attack Richmond Lincoln rejected that idea Lee's army and not Richmond is your true objective point he wired Hooker on June 10th 1863 if he comes toward the upper Potomac follow follow on his flank and on the inside track shortening your supply lines while tea lengthens his fight him when opportunity offers a week later as the enemy was entering Pennsylvania Lincoln told Hooker that this invasion gives you back the chance I thought McClellan last lost last fall after after the Battle of Antietam and McClellan failed to to push forward the attack gives me back the chance I thought McClellan lost last fall to Lee's army far from its base hookers complaints and bickering with general and chief Halleck finally caused Lincoln to replace Hooker On June 28th with General George Gordon Meade who punished but did not destroy Lee at Gettysburg after that battle when the heavy rains caused the Potomac River to rise to flood stage and trap Lee and Maryland Lincoln urged Meade to claw in for the kill if Meade could Lincoln wrote complete his work so gloriously prosecuted thus far by the literal or substantial destruction of Lee's army the rebellion will be over Lincoln was distressed by Meade's congratulatory order to his army on July 4th 1863 the day after the Battle of Gettysburg an order which closed with the words that the country now looks to the army for greater efforts to drive from our soil every vestige of the presence of the invader when Lincoln read these words he threw up his hands and said Great God will our generals never get their idea out of their heads the whole country is our soil then after all was the point of the war the war could never be won in Lincoln's view by merely driving the enemy back to Virginia but only as he had put it by the literal or substantial destructions of enemy armies when word came that the river had gone down and that Lee had escaped across the Potomac on July 14th Lincoln was both angry and depressed he sat down and write a letter to me which started out as a letter to congratulate him for his great victory at Gettysburg but quickly turned into something quite different my dear general I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape he was within your easy grasp historians might debate that and who have closed upon him would in connection with our other late successes grants capture of Vicksburg on July 4th the capture of Port Hudson giving the Union forces complete control of the Mississippi River a few days later advances in Tennessee in connection with our other late successes would have ended the war as it is the war will be prolonged indefinitely your golden opportunity is gone and I am distressed immeasurably because of it but having gotten these feelings off his chest Lincoln filed that letter away unsent but he never changed his mind and two months later when the Army of the Potomac was again maneuvering and skirmishing over the devastated land between Washington and Richmond the president declared that to attempt to fight the enemy back to his entrenchments in Richmond is an idea I've been trying to repudiate for quite a year I have constantly desired the Army of the Potomac to make Lee's army in not Richmond it's subjective point if our army cannot fall upon the enemy and hurt him where he is it is plain to me it can gain nothing by attempting to follow him over a succession of entrench lines into a fortified city Lincoln saw Confederate offensives like Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania more as an opportunity than as a threat five times in the war Lincoln tried to get his field commanders to seize that opportunity to try to trap enemy armies that were raiding or invading northward by cutting in south of them blocking their routes of retreat forcing them to fight a disadvantage far from their home base these five occasions were Stonewall Jackson's drive north through the Shenandoah Valley in May 1862 Lee's invasion of Maryland in September that led to the Battle of Antietam Confederate Army of Tennessee his invasion of Kentucky in the same month of September 1862 then of course Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania in June 1863 he and finally general Confederate General Jubal Early's raid all the way to the outskirts of Washington in July of 1864 each time his generals failed him and in most cases they soon found themselves therefore relieved of command the only one to retain his command was Meade despite Lincoln's disappointment but Meade played second fiddle to grant in the final year of the war in all of these cases the slowness of Union armies trying to intercept or pursue the enemy paid that played a key part in their failures Lincoln expressed repeated frustration with the inability of his armies to mark two marches light and as fast as Confederate armies Union armies were much better supplied than the enemy but they were actually slowed down by the abundance of their logistics most Union commanders never learned the lesson pronounced by Confederate General Richard Ewell the road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage Lincoln's efforts to get his commanders to move faster with fewer supplies brought him into active participation at the fourth level that I mentioned at the beginning that is the operational level of his armies for example in May 1862 he directed General Irvin McDowell to put all possible energy and speed into the effort to trap Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley it is for you a question of legs put in all the speed you can I have told Fremont as much and directed him to drive at them as fast as possible but Jackson's famous foot cavalry as they were called march twice as fast as the troops of Fremont and MacDonald's lead division under James Shields and the Confederates slipped through that trap with just hours to spare Lincoln was disgusted with the excuses offered by Fremont for not moving faster the weather was bad the roads were wet his men were hungry and tired as if this were not equally true for the Confederates and the same pattern of excuses from General John Don Carlos Buell deterring his pursuit of Confederate General Braxton Bragg after the Battle of Perryville in October 1862 and F by McClellan after Antietam deepen Lincoln's disgust Lincoln told Buell that I cannot understand why we cannot March as the enemy marches live as he lives and fight as he fights unless we admit the inferiority of our troops in our generals Lincoln probably did not fully appreciate the logistical difficulties of moving large bodies of troops especially in enemy territory on the other hand though he certainly did comprehend a reality expressed by the Army of the Potomac skort ur master in response to McClellan's incessant requests for more supplies more of this more of that more of everything before he could advance after Antietam the quartermaster wrote that an army will never move if it waits until all the different commanders report that they are ready and want no more supplies Lincoln told another General in November 1862 that this expanding and piling up of impedimenta has been so far almost all ruin and will be our final ruin if it is not abandoned you would be better off for not having a thousand wagons doing nothing but hauling forage to feed the animals to draw them and taking at least two thousand men to care for the wagons and animals who otherwise might be two thousand good soldiers with Grant and Sherman finally in the top commands Lincoln had generals who followed eul's dictum about the road to glory and who were willing to demand of their soldiers and of themselves the same exertions and sacrifices that Confederate commanders required to their men after the Vicksburg campaign Lincoln said of General Grant whose rapid mobility and absence of a cumbersome supply line had been a key to the success of that campaign grant is my man and I am his the rest of the war perhaps one of the reasons for Lincoln's praise was a tongue-in-cheek report from congressman L you washburn who had traveled with grant for part of that Vicksburg campaign Washburn wrote to Lincoln I'm afraid grant will have to be reproved for want of style on this whole March for five days he has had neither a horse nor an orderly or servant a blanket or overcoat or clean shirt or even a sword his entire baggage consists of a toothbrush - Lincoln the contrast with the headquarters pump and a huge supply apparatus of a McClellan or Fremont could not have been greater in the end Lincoln put together the three principal functions of commander-in-chief in such a way as to win the war and to give the nation that new birth the freedom that he invoked at Gettysburg first by refusing to compromise his policy of preserving the United States as one nation indivisible and after the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th amendment Forever Free second by a national strategy of mobilizing northern resources and weakening the enemy by destroying its resources as much as possible including slavery and finally by putting into place a team of military commanders in the final year of the war most notably grant Philip Sheridan and George Thomas who actually did destroy enemy armies and a fourth commander William T Sherman who destroyed enemy resources as well whether the war could have been won in any other way with anyone other than Lincoln as commander-in-chief is of course unknowable but frankly I doubt it well I'd be pleased to try to answer your questions and I know that some of you must have questions so if you will sing out I'll repeat the question so everybody hears it yes

Channel: villanovauniversity

Views: 9,879

Rating: 4.4375 out of 5

Keywords: Villanova, Villanova University, Lincoln, Distinguished Historians, James McPherson

Id: Xh8XnyQmK4Y

Length: 57min 38sec (3458 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 12 2009