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RE: I would rather be defeated with the soldier vote behind me than to be... - AussieMick - 03-14-2020 03:03 PM
The above posts are fascinating.
I'd like to make a , maybe obvious, point . But first I need to say that I view everything about Lincoln through rose-tinted glasses.
Political polling these days is notoriously prone to error. In 1864 it would not have been better ! Neither Stanton nor Lincoln could have been certain that the soldier vote would have been in favour of Lincoln. .... they must have had doubts.
I believe , thru my rosey glasses, that both men had a desire to ensure the soldiers could exercise their democratic duty .... and vote .... whichever way they chose.
The quickest way to end the war would have been for Lincoln to lose the election. What soldier wouldn't have been tempted by thoughts of home and peace?
P.S. Missing Laurie too.
RE: I would rather be defeated with the soldier vote behind me than to be... - RJNorton - 03-14-2020 03:29 PM
Here is what Henry Wing wrote:
"I crawled out of a rebel camp at Manassas Junction at
dusk Friday, May 6, 1864, and hustled down the railroad
track to Bull Run, where I came into our lines and learned
that our people had no news from the front. I realized that
I was probably the only one of four or five newspaper men
who had succeeded in getting through. As my paper would
have no issue after the following morning until Monday,
May 9, my news would be stale unless it went through that
night. There was no train, I could not get a horse, so I
offered $500 for a hand-car and two men to run it, but all to
no avail. So I kept on until I reached a military telegraph
office and asked the operator to let my report go through;
but he refused, his orders being to send no newspaper reports
over government wires. I then sent a despatch to my friend,
Charles A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, to the effect
that I had left Grant at four o'clock that morning. That
waked up the Department in which there was the utmost
anxiety. Instantly Secretary Stanton asked me where Grant
was when I left him. This assured me I had a corner on
the news from the front. I replied that my news belonged
to the "Tribune," but if he would let one hundred words go
through to my paper I would tell him all I knew. Stan-
ton's response was a threat to arrest me as a spy unless I
uncovered the news from the army. This made me very
anxious, but still I refused. I was disgusted that after all
my enterprise my paper would not get my important news.
But just then Lincoln must have come into the War Office
for I was asked if I would tell the President where Grant
was. I repeated my previous offer and he accepted the
terms at once. I did not have a scrap of paper about my
person (discreet correspondents in the field never took any-
thing of that sort through the lines), so I dictated to the
operator while he transmitted my despatch, which Lincoln
would not limit to one hundred words and which was tele-
graphed direct to New York and appeared in Saturday's
Tribune," May 7. Mr. Lincoln ordered a locomotive to be
sent out on the road to bring me to Washington, about
thirty miles; and at two o'clock in the morning I reached the
White House travel-stained and weary, but delighted at
my success in having brought the first news from Grant's
army, and especially in being honored by the President's
special favor. That early morning interview with Lincoln
was the beginning of a strong friendship accorded to me, a
mere boy, by that wonderful man, the memory of which is
a precious treasure in my heart. Mr. Lincoln told me that
to relieve the anxiety of the whole country regarding Grant's
first contest with Lee he decided to let my despatch come
through; also that he had arranged with Managing Editor
Gay to give a summary to the Associated Press to appear
in all the papers."
Source: pp. 245-247 of David Homer Bates' Lincoln in the Telegraph Office.
RE: I would rather be defeated with the soldier vote behind me than to be... - David Lockmiller - 03-15-2020 05:11 AM
(03-14-2020 03:03 PM)AussieMick Wrote: The quickest way to end the war would have been for Lincoln to lose the election. What soldier wouldn't have been tempted by thoughts of home and peace?
P.S. Missing Laurie too.
The following is from "A Reporter for Lincoln" at pages 70-72:
Lincoln’s deepest concern in August of 1864 was not civilian and official opposition, however strong and bitter it might be. He was more concerned with the army’s view of things.
“Henry,” he said in one of their long night talks in this dreary period, “I would rather be defeated with the soldier vote behind me than to be elected without it.”
“You will have it, Mr. Lincoln. You will have it,” was his repeated insistence. “They’ll vote as they shoot,” and his close association with the soldiers only intensified this faith.
What he [Henry Wing] had become convinced of was that the veterans were set on finishing their job, and not at all concerned with politics. Their pride as soldiers was stirred. There was not one of them but realized that Lee was in their grip. They never would let him loose now. They might love McClellan – most of them did; but he had not taught them to fight; it was Grant had done that. Grant had led them on, but never back. And who had given them Grant? Why, Lincoln. And who was backing Grant, even at the risk of his defeat in the approaching election? Lincoln. They would vote as they shot.
Mr. Lincoln, listening and carefully balancing what the boy was reporting from the army with what he was hearing from other quarters, met his confident assurances by saying grimly one night: “All right, Henry; but if they turn their backs to the fire and get burned they will have to sit on the blister.”
They did not turn their backs to the fire that November. At the primitive polls set up for them in the camps – a tent; a table under a tree; the end of an ambulance – three quarters of the soldiers in the Army of the Potomac dropped votes for Abraham Lincoln into ballot boxes improvised from cartridge or cracker cases, and in one case at least from an old pork barrel.
P.S. I miss Laurie also.
RE: I would rather be defeated with the soldier vote behind me than to be... - AussieMick - 03-16-2020 05:50 AM
Great post, David.
RE: I would rather be defeated with the soldier vote behind me than to be... - David Lockmiller - 03-16-2020 11:21 AM
(03-16-2020 05:50 AM)AussieMick Wrote: Great post, David.
Thank you, AussieMick.
In "Team of Rivals," Doris Kearns Goodwin covered the Battle of the Wilderness in only one page (#620) but included references to more relevant information. And, for whatever reason, she referred to Henry Wing only as an anonymous "reporter." I know that hearing the words from Grant to Lincoln at that moment must have meant a very great deal to President Lincoln and the occasion also led to an important friendship between the two men.
One of the "Team of Rivals" references is made to Schuyler Colfax and his account of related events that was published in "Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, by Distinguished Men of His Time," at pages 337-38:
The [Sunday, May 8, 1864] morning after the bloody Battle of the Wilderness [May 5-7, 1864], I saw him walk up and down the Executive Chamber, his long arms behind his back, his dark features contracted still more with gloom; and as he looked up, I thought his face the saddest one I had ever seen. He exclaimed: "Why do we suffer reverses after reverses? Could we have avoided this terrible, bloody war! Was it not forced upon us! Is it ever to end! But he quickly recovered, and told me the sad aggregate of those days of bloodshed. Of course it is perfectly well known that the Battle of the Wilderness, however, then claimed as a drawn battle, was, on the contrary, a bloody reverse to our arms, our loss in killed and wounded alone being fifteen thousand more than the Confederates. Hope beamed on his face as he said, "Grant will not fail us now; he says he will fight it out on that line, and this is now the hope of our country."
I italicized the last sentence because these words must have been spoken by Lincoln at a later date than Sunday, May 8, 1864. Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote on page 620 of her book: [Lincoln's] spirits rose further when he read the words in Grant's famous dispatch on May 11, 1864: "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."