Abraham Lincoln

A

6

Lincoln and the Union

By his executive orders, Lincoln showed that he was going to be a strong president. But his executive leadership went far beyond the mere administration of the war. By word and deed he became, to many people in the North, a symbol of the Union. Without this strong belief in the Union, the war could not have been won. Despite the superior manpower and resources of the North, the Confederacy had one great advantage. This was the same advantage George Washington had had against the British in the American Revolution. It is far more expensive and time consuming to invade an area than it is to defend it. The North had to carry the battle to the South and defeat the rebel army. This meant that progress in the war was slow at first, and Lincoln used all the persuasive powers at his command to prevent the North from becoming disillusioned.

Lincoln never lost sight of his responsibility to preserve the Union. Even the crusade against slavery remained a secondary purpose of the war. “What I do about slavery and the colored race,” he wrote to newspaper publisher Horace Greeley, “I do because I believe it helps to save the Union.” By this sentiment, Lincoln was able to sustain the spirit of the North through numerous defeats and failures in the bloodiest war the world had yet known. Lincoln never recognized the Confederacy as an independent nation. He considered the Southern states only to be in rebellion against the federal government.

Beyond preservation of the Union lay an even more profound issue, the future of democracy throughout the world. The United States had long been a symbol of hope to democrats the world over, and Lincoln realized that the future of representative government might depend on the outcome of the war. “This is essentially a people's contest,” Lincoln told Congress. It was the destiny of the Union “to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry out an election can also suppress a rebellion; and ballots are the rightful successors to bullets...”

A

7

Wartime President

Lincoln had little military training or experience, but was often called upon to make decisions that would ordinarily be made by professional military people. Although the advice he got on military matters was often conflicting, most of his decisions were good. Political considerations played an important part in shaping Lincoln's military strategy.

---

---

During the spring and summer of 1861 many people in the North called for military action against the South. The North expected a brief struggle and an easy victory. But the first Union offensive put an end to this optimism. In July, Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, leading the federal Army of the Potomac, was defeated in Virginia in the first Battle of Bull Run, or First Manassas, as it is called in the South. For the first time the North realized that it faced a long, hard war. After this defeat, Lincoln removed McDowell and placed Major General George B. McClellan in command of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan soon restored the army's morale and whipped it into a superb fighting force.

Despite his strong distaste for war, Lincoln was not afraid to wage total war to achieve total victory. Finding a general who was both competent and willing to carry the fight to the Confederacy was his greatest military problem. He had to appoint many politicians to important field commands and, while some made excellent soldiers, others blundered tragically. McClellan was a capable professional soldier but proved overly cautious after his strong start. When Lincoln finally settled on General Ulysses S. Grant as his overall commander in 1864, he never wavered in giving Grant his complete support, although victory came slowly and the casualties were appallingly high.

A

8

The Jacobins

Early in the war a group of radical Republicans, called the Jacobins, began to oppose Lincoln's policies. The Jacobins called for immediate action against the South, freeing of the slaves, and punitive measures against Southern leaders. Some of them thought the war should be fought as a holy crusade to destroy the evil, slaveholding South. Others wanted merely to extend Republican influence into the South by taking political power away from the white man and giving it to the freed black population. They confidently expected that blacks would thereafter vote Republican.

The Jacobins also believed that Lincoln had usurped congressional power in his conduct of the war. They controlled the joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, led by the radical Senator Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, and used it to try to dictate the direction of the war. The Jacobins were especially opposed to McClellan, who was a conservative Democrat. Despite continuous pressure, Lincoln supported the general. He told McClellan, “...you must not fight till you are ready.”

A

9

The Trent Affair

In the winter of 1861 the Union became involved with Britain in an incident, known as the Trent Affair, that almost led to war. The Confederacy had sent James Murray Mason and John Slidell to Britain and France to win support for the Southern cause. After slipping through the Northern blockade to Cuba, they boarded the British ship Trent. On its first day at sea the ship was stopped and searched by a Union naval captain, Charles Wilkes, and the two Southerners were taken off the ship as prisoners. Wilkes's act was a violation of the international law over which the United States had gone to war with Britain in 1812. Britain demanded an apology and the release of the two prisoners. Wilkes was a hero in the North, and many Union partisans were demanding war against Britain. Lincoln patiently let the agitators have their say. Then he released the Southern envoys, and Britain agreed to accept Lincoln's assurance that Wilkes had acted without authority. In this way, Lincoln averted what might have been a fatal conflict with Britain.

B

Second Year in Office

In the spring of 1862, McClellan began the so-called Peninsular Campaign. He advanced by way of the peninsula between the James and York rivers in Virginia, with the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, as his goal. Fearing an attack on Washington by Confederate forces led by General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, Lincoln diverted 40,000 of McClellan's troops for the defense of the capital. But the Army of the Potomac was still larger than its adversary. McClellan advanced on Confederate troops protecting Richmond, and his army fought well in the resulting Seven Days' Battle. McClellan, however, was unwilling to commit his troops for a decisive offense, and he ordered a retreat even though he had suffered fewer casualties than his opponent. In August the Confederates led by General Robert E. Lee defeated Major General John Pope's Army of Virginia in the second Battle of Bull Run. Finally, in September, the Union won a minor victory at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. Lincoln chose this opportunity to issue his Emancipation Proclamation.

	More from Encarta
	•  7 tips for funding an online degree •  How to succeed in the fashion industry without being a top designer •  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain