President Lincoln's "Blind Memorandum"

[David Lockmiller]

According to Doris Kearns Goodwin, in her book Team of Rivals at pages 654-655, President Lincoln was correct in his reasoning:

"If McClellan's victory "was expected," George Templeton Strong confided to his diary, "the baseness of the platform on which he is to run was unexpected. Jefferson Davis might have drawn it. The word 'rebel' does not occur in it. It contemplates surrender and abasement." Pressed upon the party by the peace contingent, the platform declared that "after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war," the time had come to "demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities."

For Democrats, the capitulation called for in their platform proved to be exceedingly ill timed. Three days later came the stunning news that Atlanta had fallen. "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won," Sherman wired Washington on September 3. This joyous news, which followed on the heels of Admiral David Farragut's capture of Mobile Bay, Alabama, prompted Lincoln to order that one hundred guns be fired in Washington and a dozen other cities to celebrate the victories. Jubilant headlines filled Northern newspapers. "Atlanta is ours," the New York Times repeated. . . . George Templeton Strong instantly understood the importance of Atlanta's fall. "Glorious news this morning," he exulted, "it is (coming at this political crisis [Emphasis added]) the greatest event of the war."