Lincoln's autocrat

[richard petersen]

In today's Wall Street Journal on page A11, there is a review on Lincoln's Autocrat, the Life of Edwin Stanton by William Marvel.
The review is by Harold Holzer, winner of the 2015 Lincoln Prize for "Lincoln and the Power of the Press", is the editor of "President Lincoln Assassinated!"

I apologize as I am not familiar on how to download the review.

[RJNorton]

Many thanks, Richard, for noting this review! Here is the article:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Character Assassination

Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln’s secretary of war, was fierce, conniving and unlikable. But he built the army that won the war.

By
Harold Holzer

Forget the “Team of Rivals” camaraderie on view in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln”—particularly the scene showing the president and his secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, grasping hands in the telegraph office as they breathlessly await news from the battlefront. The Stanton whose portrait William Marvel paints in “Lincoln’s Autocrat”—or more accurately, defaces—in this scathing biography seems incapable of holding hands with anyone, except perhaps to take his own political pulse.

The pig-faced, bespectacled, portly, long-bearded Stanton—so fierce that Lincoln almost timidly dubbed him “Mars”—has never been easy for writers or readers to like. But he emerges from this latest study not only as the “autocrat” of its title but as a conniving, obsequious, social-climbing, duplicitous, abusive self-promoter, loyal to nothing but his own ambition. Stanton manifested what his onetime Buchanan administration colleague John C. Breckinridge delicately called a “duplex character,” and Mr. Marvel has uncovered countless examples of how Stanton “ingratiated himself to opposing factions by privately voicing support for each, at least until he could determine which side might prevail.”

The trouble is, Mr. Marvel offers us few leavening virtues. His Stanton lacks even the prodigious administrative talent that previous biographers, like Harold Hyman, have ascribed to him. Mr. Marvel actually faults his subject for hiring more clerks than any previous secretary of war, discounting the fact that Stanton’s bureau, responsibilities and workload grew exponentially as the Civil War progressed.

From time to time writers, including Otto Eisenschiml, and, more recently, Bill O’Reilly have advanced the absurd notion that Stanton conspired in the Lincoln assassination. Serious scholars dispute that calumny, and Mr. Marvel will have none of it either. But that is about the only crime he does not accuse Stanton of committing.

That Stanton rose because of his enormous legal skills is something the author does not dispute. He even puts the lie to the long-held myth that Stanton once gruffly insulted fellow attorney Abraham Lincoln when the Illinoisan traveled to Cincinnati in 1855 to serve as co-counsel in a patent case. Generations of historians have cited the story to demonstrate Lincoln’s magnanimity in appointing such a boor to his cabinet seven years later. Mr. Marvel convincingly shows why the incident could never have occurred.

A Democrat in politics, Stanton gravitated to Washington before the war in search of bigger cases and wealthier clients. As James Buchanan’s last attorney general during the first throes of the secession crisis, Stanton tried steering that vacillating lame-duck president to the defense of the Union, as Mr. Marvel concedes. He reminds us, however, that earlier in his career, eager to please the powerful, Stanton had flattered secession-minded slavery advocates and assured them that he believed firmly in states’ rights. In 1862 Stanton got his second chance to serve in a presidential cabinet, this time replacing incompetent, corrupt Simon Cameron at Lincoln’s war department. Over the next three years, Stanton becomes, in Mr. Marvel’s portrayal, a power-mad Rasputin, cracking down harshly on dissent (arguably with Lincoln’s approval) while ridiculing the president behind his back.

Most members of Lincoln’s official family found Stanton as irascible and self-important as Mr. Marvel does—always the last to arrive at cabinet meetings and making melodramatic entrances to boot. Attorney General Edward Bates thought him “a bullying coward.” Postmaster General Montgomery Blair loathed him so thoroughly that even Mr. Marvel dismisses Blair as a reliable source. Noah Brooks, the journalist Lincoln would likely have named his chief of staff had he lived, thought Stanton “coarse, abusive and arbitrary” but conceded that he was also “industrious and apparently devoted to the interests of the Government.” Lincoln himself believed Stanton “terribly in earnest.” That did not inhibit Gen. William T. Sherman from committing one of the era’s most shocking public acts of insubordination, shunning Stanton’s outstretched hand at the otherwise joyful May 1865 Army Grand Review in Washington. The petulant Sherman was seething because Stanton had rejected his overgenerous post-Appomattox peace offering to Confederate Gen. Joseph Johnston—a capitulation that well deserved to be overturned.

Mr. Marvel cannot even bring himself to endorse the claim that Stanton declared, at Lincoln’s deathbed, “Now he belongs to the ages”—the inspiration for an entire recent book by Adam Gopnik. “If Stanton actually uttered such a haunting and memorable phrase, it seems odd that no reporters quoted it at the time,” Mr. Marvel concludes, conceding only: “He did draw the window shades closed.”

Along the way, a few errors creep into the well-written text. By the tradition of the day, Lincoln gave his first inaugural address before being sworn in, not after. Constitutional amendments require three-fourths of the states for ratification, not two-thirds. The journalist behind the bogus 1864 presidential proclamation on further conscription, the publication of which ignited a New York press crackdown, was Joseph, not James, Howard, and he no longer worked for the New York Times but for the Brooklyn Eagle.

In the end, Mr. Marvel allows his readers a momentary twinge of sympathy when, in 1869, a fatally ailing Stanton yearns for and belatedly receives appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, only to die before he can assume the seat. But quickly we learn that Stanton has cruelly disinherited his only son. Almost gleefully, Mr. Marvel reports the ultimate comeuppance: Stanton’s longtime orders that he be interred alongside the boy’s mother, his first wife, are ignored by his second. Long before that moment arrives, however, Edwin Stanton has been effectively buried by William Marvel.

Mr. Holzer, winner of the 2015 Lincoln Prize for “Lincoln and the Power of the Press,” is the editor of “President Lincoln Assassinated!!”

Lincoln’s Autocrat

By William Marvel
North Carolina, 624 pages, $35


SOURCE: http://www.wsj.com/articles/character-as...1433715026

[Gene C]

Thanks Richard & Roger, you just save me $35.
I had heard from another member on the forum that this book seemed to be overly critical of Stanton.

[Thomas Thorne]

Since I just retired, I will have more time to read interesting books such as this.

One of the things which critics of Stanton ascribe to him is an inordinate ambition. Yet he never sought political office and his personality and temperament seemed ill fit for politics. We know he sought appointment to the Supreme Court and would have preferred the Chief Justiceship after Taney died but Lincoln deemed him too valuable in the War office.

If I were the Stanton of legend, i would have preferred having a ringside side to winning the war and shaping Reconstruction policy than dealing with the often arcane constitutional jurisprudence that would have gladdened the heart of the lawyer within him but would seem to be a less than satisfactory outlet for his demonic energies.

What would the world of the Lincoln assassination be like without Edwin M Stanton?

Tom the Retired Thorne

[LincolnMan]

Scathing review. If ES didn't utter than "Now he belongs to the ages" remark- how did it come into the narrative of history?

[RJNorton]

With reference to the part of Mr. Holzer's review which says:

"That Stanton rose because of his enormous legal skills is something the author does not dispute. He even puts the lie to the long-held myth that Stanton once gruffly insulted fellow attorney Abraham Lincoln when the Illinoisan traveled to Cincinnati in 1855 to serve as co-counsel in a patent case. Generations of historians have cited the story to demonstrate Lincoln’s magnanimity in appointing such a boor to his cabinet seven years later. Mr. Marvel convincingly shows why the incident could never have occurred."

Does anyone know the specifics of why this is regarded as a myth? Most books I have read say things did not go well in Cincinnati.

The web page at

http://abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/abra...n-stanton/

is representative of what I have usually read. Quoting from that page:

"The relationship between Stanton and Mr. Lincoln got off to a bad start in 1855 when Mr. Lincoln was hired to work on the Manny Hanny patent case. Because the case might be tried in Illinois, a local lawyer was hired, but when the case was heard in Cincinnati, Mr. Lincoln was rudely frozen out of the company’s legal team by Stanton as lead counsel. He and his legal preparation were ignored and he was not even invited to sit at their table in the courtroom.

Both Stanton and Mr. Lincoln retained poor impressions of the other. Attorney Jeremiah Black recalled that Stanton “knew Mr. Lincoln personally and the account he gave of him was anything but favorable.” Mr. Lincoln did not remember Stanton favorably either. He told William Herndon that he had been “roughly handled by that man Stanton.” According to Herndon, "Lincoln felt that Stanton had not only been very discourteous to him, but had purposely ignored him in the case, and that he had received rather rude, if not unkind, treatment from all hands. Stanton, in his brusque and abrupt way, it is said, described him as a ‘long lank creature from Illinois, wearing a dirty linen duster for a coat, on the back of which the perspiration had splotched wide stains that resembled a map of the continent."

[Eva Elisabeth]

Here's a different version by eyewitness W. M. Dickson:

http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=86

"By the custom of the bar, as between counsel of equal standing, and in the absence of any action of the client, the original counsel speaks. By this rule, Mr. Lincoln had precedence. Mr. Stanton suggested to Mr. Lincoln to make the speech. Mr. Lincoln answered, 'No; you speak.' Mr. Stanton replied, 'I will,' and taking up his hat, said he would go and make preparation. Mr. Lincoln acquiesced in this, but was deeply grieved and mortified; he took but little more interest in the case, though remaining until the conclusion of the trial."8 Another witness said that Mr. Lincoln "felt that he had been 'tricked' out of the case & the transaction deeply affected him."9

According to Stanton biographer Frank A. Flower: "Mr. Stanton devoted himself exclusively to the law and his argument excited the admiration of all who heard it.. At time the Court regarded him in amazement, so extraordinary were his memory and power of analysis. Mr. Lincoln (apparently forgetting the presence of the Court) stood throughout Stanton's entire argument, occasionally very near him, drinking his words, and then walking back and forth in the back part of the room, closely observing the speaker all the time, wrapt in admiration. As Stanton closed and we left the room, Lincoln invited me to take a walk with him, which lasted some hours. After a considerable silence, he said: '[Ralph] Emerson, it would have been a great mistake if I had spoken in this case; I did not fully understand it.'" Flower continued: "Another long silence as we walked on, and again: 'Emerson, I am going home to study law. You know that for any rough-and-tumble case (and a pretty good one, too) I am enough for any man we have out in that country; but these college trained men are coming West. They have had all the advantages of a life-long training in the law, plenty of time to study and everything, perhaps, to fit them. Soon they will be Illinois, and I must meet them. I am just going home to study law, and when they appear I will be ready.'" 10

The sources are:
8. Francis Fisher Browne, The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 268.
9. Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, editor, "Herndon's Informants", p. 755 (Letter from William M. Dickson to Jesse W. Weik, April 17 1888).
10. Frank Abial Flower, "Edwin McMasters Stanton: The Autocrat of Rebellion, Emancipation, and Reconstruction", p. 62-63.

What is the Fehrenbachers' opinion of the "long-armed creature" incident?

[Rogerm]

In this biography of Stanton, Mr. Marvel questions the truthfulness of the original source for the story of Lincoln and Stanton in Cincinnati. I am still somewhat taken aback by how negative the portrayal of Stanton is in this book. His explosive temper has always been a source of legend. But, it is hard to believe that he was as self-centered and egotistical as depicted here. It almost seems as though the author was on a crusade to tear down Stanton's reputation.

[RJNorton]

Eva, it's given the lowest possible grade (E) which means "a quote which is probably not authentic."

In A. Lincoln: Prairie Lawyer, John J. Duff writes:

When Lincoln went to the Burnet House to confer with his fellow counsel, he was treated in a most discourteous manner. Stanton, who arrogated to himself the role of chief counsel, looked down his nose at the rumpled Midwestern lawyer, whom he treated as a person of no importance. Upon learning that Lincoln had been retained principally to make the closing argument, Stanton flew into a rage, and with characteristic hauteur, dismissed him scornfully as "that long armed baboon." Himself, a superlative trial advocate, asthmatic, ill-tempered Stanton did not fancy the prospect of relinquishing what he considered to be his definite prerogative, in favor of any backwoods lawyer from Illinois. To the ultimatum, "If that giraffe appears in the case, I will throw up my brief and leave," the Manny interests reluctantly bowed, and Lincoln was accordingly advised that his services would no longer be required."

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Roger!

Rogerm, can you tell us why he questions the truthfulness of the original source? Does he just question Stanton's rude behavior, or the entire meeting? Do all sources track back to Herndon?

The following are the "Cincinnati entries" from the Lincoln Log:
http://www.thelincolnlog.org/CalendarYea...FyLmFzcHg=

Wednesday, September 19, 1855.
-Cincinnati, OH.

Lincoln writes to James F. Joy of Illinois Central Railroad, who has responded to Lincoln's September 14, 1855 draft on company as though he never heard of Lincoln. Joy telegraphed Lincoln on 17th, who received it at railroad depot. "I ran to the Telegraph office and answered briefly, and was near being left by the cars." He recapitulates his railroad services. "The charge I made was very reasonable." Abraham Lincoln to James F. Joy, 19 September 1855, CW, 2:326
Here's the original source:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/tex...oln2%3A343


Thursday, September 20, 1855.
-Cincinnati, OH.

[McCormick v. Manny, set for hearing at Cincinnati to suit Judge McLean, commences. Distinguished counsel represent both parties—Edward M. Dickerson and Reverdy Johnson for McCormick; George Harding, Edwin M. Stanton , and Lincoln for Manny. Lincoln is prepared to make strong effort to win case. William M. Dickson, "Abraham Lincoln at Cincinnati," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 69 (June 1884):62.]

Friday, September 21, 1855.
-Cincinnati, OH.

[Harding and Stanton , unfavorably impressed with Lincoln's appearance, ignore him, and he does not participate in trial. Though feeling rebuff keenly, he remains in Cincinnati approximately a week. "Freed from any care in the law case that brought him here, it was to him a week of relaxation," wrote his host, William M. Dickson, Cincinnati lawyer and husband of Mrs. Lincoln's cousin. William M. Dickson, "Abraham Lincoln at Cincinnati," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 69 (June 1884):62.]

Saturday, September 22, 1855.
-Cincinnati, OH.

[Lincoln visits points of interest in Cincinnati. One such is estate of Nicholas Longworth, where he becomes interested in grounds and conservatories. He meets Longworth, who has no idea of his visitor's identity. William M. Dickson, "Abraham Lincoln at Cincinnati," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 69 (June 1884):62.]

Monday, September 24, 1855.
-Cincinnati, OH.

[One day Lincoln spends visiting suburbs of Cincinnati—Walnut Hills, Mount Auburn, Clifton, and Spring Grove Cemetery. He becomes interested in statuary on large estate he visits, and is mortified that he cannot identify one. William M. Dickson, "Abraham Lincoln at Cincinnati," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 69 (June 1884):62.

Tuesday, September 25, 1855.
-Cincinnati, OH.

[Another day Lincoln devotes to county and city courts, spending entire morning in Room No. 1 of Superior Court, where eccentric jurist and wit, Bellamy Storer, presides. Lincoln enjoys proceedings immensely and says tohis companion: "I wish we had that judge in Illinois. I think he would share with me the fatherhood of the legal jokes of the Illinois bar." William M. Dickson, "Abraham Lincoln at Cincinnati," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 69 (June 1884):62.]

Wednesday, September 26, 1855.
-Cincinnati, OH.

[This is probably day on which Lincoln leaves for home. He says to his hostess: "You have made my stay here most agreeable, and I am a thousand times obliged to you; but in reply to your request for me to come again I must say to you I never expect to be in Cincinnati again. I have nothing against the city, but things have so happened here as to make it undesirable for me ever to return." William M. Dickson, "Abraham Lincoln at Cincinnati," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 69 (June 1884):62.]

Now it would be interesting to read the Harper's New Monthly Magazine artice, and get to know where the Magazine got the information from.

[RJNorton]

Eva, the article is online here. For me, anyway, it's becoming harder than I originally thought to figure out the truth of exactly what happened in Cincinnati.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thank you, Roger - it's always amazing how and how fast you (and some others) come up with such things!

[STS Lincolnite]

I think because Stanton could undoubtedly be a bit of an ill-tempered jerk at times, the blame for many of the negative things that happened in the Lincoln administration got heaped on him (especially long after the fact, fueled and augmented by Mr. Eisenschimel's accusations). I'm sure some of the criticism is due but I also think that much of it is not.

I have intentionally avoided this particular book as I heard from several people that they did not care for it. I have read one of Mr. Marvel's other books and wasn't particularly impressed (though stylistically it was engaging). To paraphrase Mr. Lincoln, I felt that though his facts were more or less correct, he came to entirely the wrong conclusion.

I also know that Walter Stahr (who wrote the recent biography of Seward) is working on a biography of Stanton. I have met and corresponded with Walter a couple of times. He hopes to have his biography of Stanton completed for a Christmas 2016 publication date. I will wait for that one. Perhaps I will go back and read Mr. Marvel's offering afterward to compare and contrast.

[JosephARose]

I just submitted the following review of Lincoln’s Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton by William Marvel to On Point, The Journal of Army History:

William Marvel’s remarkable biography, Lincoln’s Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton, reads like an exposé. Up ‘til now, Secretary of War Stanton has had a reputation for being extremely effective and devoted to his job, although notorious for being a curmudgeon and roughly treating army officers. But this long and riveting book offers a highly detailed and scathing indictment of an unprincipled and repellent individual. Even if the author’s many suggestions of the merely possible instances of wrong-doing are disregarded, Mr. Marvel has amply documented Edwin Stanton’s lifetime of unsavory, arbitrary, and unethical conduct, both personal and official.

Lincoln’s Autocrat lays bare Stanton’s duplicitous behavior as the Attorney General in President James Buchanan’s cabinet. Less than a year later, after the American Civil War had begun, Stanton took office as the Secretary of War under Abraham Lincoln. The book describes the political warfare waged against Generals Charles Stone and George McClellan, as well as against President Lincoln, which was carried on by Radical Republicans, especially those on the congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. Stanton, whose principles were often difficult to pin down, joined them in their extreme partisanship. Often acting as more of a politician than as a government official, Stanton engaged in radical machinations that could have prolonged the war and might have helped turn President Andrew Johnson against a harsh (but just) reconstruction. Although usually deemed more than competent but not the equal of his irascible colleague, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles comes out looking better and better, in comparison with Secretary of War Stanton.

Page after page of Marvel’s text underscores the seamier side of Civil War history. Stanton operated with near-dictatorial authority, in opposition to the standards of the relatively new American democracy. He does receive due commendation for much of his work. Stanton’s convincing Lincoln to authorize Joseph Hooker’s expedited move to Chattanooga with elements of the Army of the Potomac to reinforce William Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland, after the defeat at Chickamauga, was perhaps his “greatest single contribution to ultimate victory.” Stanton is also exonerated of a charge of insulting Abraham Lincoln in a pre-war legal case.

At one point in the book, Mr. Marvel notes how General Ulysses S. Grant arrested a quartermaster, Reuben Hatch, suspecting him of extensive graft early in the war, and that Hatch was saved by his personal connections to Abraham Lincoln. The close relationship between Stanton and Charles Dana evidently started with Stanton’s need for editorial support earlier in the war. But Marvel overlooks how Dana was on the President’s hand-picked committee which ended up exculpating Hatch. Grant’s political protection of Hatch (and Grant’s little-known personal involvement in the corruption at Cairo) likewise goes unremarked. A footnote does indicate Reuben Hatch’s connection with the sinking of the transport Sultana—and the tragic deaths of some eighteen hundred passengers, many of whom were newly released prisoners of war heading for their homes in the North. But Marvel doesn’t shy away from remarking on how Charles Dana grasped Grant’s coattails and covered up the general’s drinking. Army politics hampered the Union’s war effort throughout.

A few of the book’s characterizations hew a little too closely to the standard, but inaccurate, version of Civil War history, when a closer analysis might suggest a different inference. For example, Marvel correctly notes how John McClernand lost command of the 1862 expedition down the Mississippi to take Vicksburg, and remarks on how the Secretary’s actions “imply some guile on Stanton’s part.” But then the book has McClernand—who received authorization to lead it from Lincoln himself—“commandeer” his own expedition. And it repeated this implication by describing how “the self-important McClernand snatched his troops away from Sherman” and subsequently captured the Confederate stronghold of Arkansas Post. Actually, it was Henry Halleck, Ulysses Grant, and William Sherman who did the commandeering and snatching. Secretary Stanton was at least partially right, furthermore, in his attempt to blame the navy for David D. Porter’s failures during the first joint expedition against Wilmington, North Carolina,. Marvel and most other historians reserve the blame for Benjamin Butler, leader of the army component.

Although Stanton may have responded too harshly to William Sherman’s surrender terms with Confederate Joseph Johnston, Marvel is too easy regarding Sherman’s blundering and almost justifies his infamous, petulant, and insubordinate refusal to shake hands with Secretary of War Stanton during the Grand Review in Washington.

In such a comprehensive work, these complaints are just trivial objections. Research into any of the major characters or issues of the American Civil War can never be considered exhaustive, but William Marvel seems to have investigated Edwin Stanton to within an inch of his remarkable, yet rather distasteful, life.

[richard petersen]

Thanks for the review Mr. Rose. Last evening on c-span William Marvel was on discussing his book. It was a speech he gave in Petersburg VA on 10/15/16. About the only positive point he made about Stanton was "he might have been good to his mother".

It sounded when it came to politics Stanton was very two faced.