President Lincoln vignettes in F.B. Carpenter's "Six Months at the White House"

[Gene C]

I haven't read the book "In Lincoln's War Cabinet"
For those of you who have, what is your opinion of the book?

[Rob Wick]

Gene,

That is the book I was talking about, although its title is "Lincoln's War Cabinet."

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(10-23-2023 12:13 PM)Gene C Wrote:  I haven't read the book "In Lincoln's War Cabinet"
For those of you who have, what is your opinion of the book?

Unfortunately, Gene, I have not done much reading of the book. I have limited myself to reading a few entries as result of surveying the index.

Burton Hendrick writes well. But the problem is the distinct possibility of other erroneous conclusions that the author has made, based on historical fact. The one example of this that I found and previously posted:

The problem is that Burton Hendrick in his book Lincoln's War Cabinet, at page 363, has a quite different interpretation of the same event after quoting extensively from Carpenter's book: "It seems a fair assumption, in view of Seward's evident hostility to emancipation, that he was seeking delay, hoping perhaps that time and events would cause the President to rescind his unhappy mistake."

Stanton was right about the advantage to the South of four million slaves. President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward both understood this. Seward said in that critical conversation: "'Mr. President, I approve of the proclamation, but I question the expediency of its issue at this juncture." President Lincoln trusted his Secretary of State with good reason.

[Gene C]

Thank you.

For those of you interested, the book (Lincoln's Cabinet) is available on Internet Archive. The print is small though.

https://archive.org/details/lincolnswarc...9/mode/2up

[RJNorton]

(10-23-2023 12:13 PM)Gene C Wrote:  I haven't read the book "In Lincoln's War Cabinet"
For those of you who have, what is your opinion of the book?

I have the book but have used it for reference, not as a book to be read cover to cover.

The author has some interesting things to say about Edwin Stanton:

(1) In his early days Stanton developed a semi-romantic relationship with the daughter of his landlady. The girl's name was Anna Howard. She died suddenly from cholera and was buried quickly. Stanton was horrified and refused to believe it. He refused to believe she was dead and thought she was buried alive. He rushed to the graveyard and exhumed the body. He convinced himself by personal inspection that the girl was indeed dead.

(2) The death of his first child, a baby girl, so affected him that after she had been buried for a time, he had her disinterred, enclosed in a metal casket, and placed on the mantelpiece in his bedroom where it was kept for several years.

(3) After his first wife's death, the Supreme Court had to suspend its sessions for a month. Stanton was arguing several cases before the court. But the court was suspended because Stanton would not leave his dead wife's grave. Every night he would put her nightcap and gown on her bed and sit beside them weeping for hours.

[Rob Wick]

Given that no book can be said to be "definitive," especially one written in 1949, I imagine some areas of Hendrick's book might be questioned today. However, David, I would suggest that you read the three or four pages before the comment you posted, given that it explains in detail why Hendricks concluded that Seward wasn't a strong supporter (at least early on) of the Emancipation Proclamation. A serious discussion can be had as to whether or not Seward was a strong supporter, and it's not something I plan to get into with you, but Hendrick came to his conclusion honestly after looking at the available evidence, which is all one can ask for in a book.

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

Doris Kearns Goodwin in Team of Rivals, at pages 464-68, wrote:

When the preliminary discussions had run long, the president scheduled another cabinet session the following day, July 22, to reveal his primary purpose in calling the meeting. This second session was likely held in Lincoln's office, as depicted in Francis Carpenter's famous painting, First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. (Page 464.)

Pages 467-68 read as follows:

William Henry Seward's mode of intricate analysis produced a characteristically complex reaction to the proclamation. After the others had spoken, he expressed his worry that the proclamation might provoke a racial war in the South so disruptive to cotton that the ruling classes in England and France would intervene to protect their economic interests. As secretary of state, Seward was particularly sensitive to the threat of European intervention. Curiously, despite his greater access to intelligence from abroad, Seward failed to grasp what Lincoln intuitively understood: that once the Union truly committed itself to emancipation, the masses in Europe, who regarded slavery as an evil demanding eradication, would not be easily maneuvered into supporting the South.

. . . . Seward's practical focus underestimated the proclamation's power to unleash the moral fervor of the North and keep the Republican Party united by making freedom for the slaves an avowed objective of the war.

Despite his concerns about the effect of the proclamation, Seward had no thought of opposing it. Once Lincoln had made up his mind, Seward was steadfast in his loyalty to him. He demurred only on the issue of timing. "Mr. President," he said, "I approve of the proclamation, but I question the expediency of its issue at this juncture. The depression of the public mind, consequent upon our repeated reversals, is so great that I fear . . . it may be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help . . . our last shriek, on the retreat." Better to wait, he grandiloquently suggested, "until the eagle of victory takes his flight," and buoyed by military success, "hang your proclamation about his neck." Seward's argument was reinforced later that day by Thurlow Weed, who met with Lincoln on a visit to Washington.

"The wisdom of the view of the Secretary of State struck me with very great force," Lincoln later told the artist Francis Carpenter. "It was an aspect of the case that, in all my thought upon the subject, I had entirely overlooked. The result was that I put the draft of the proclamation aside, as you do your sketch for a picture, waiting for a victory."

[Rob Wick]

Unless you can show me that Hendrick had access to Team of Rivals, I don't see your point as especially relevant.
Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

A "Reality Check" for Seward, according to Burton Hendrick, in Lincoln's War Cabinet, page 361:

Two days after Lincoln had submitted his original paper, Seward wrote John Lothrop Motley, minister to Austria, inquiring: "Are you sure that today, under the seductions and pressures that could be applied to some European powers, they would not rise up and resist an attempt to bestow freedom upon the laborers whose capacity to supply cotton and open a market for European fabrics depends, or is thought to depend, upon their continuance in bondage?" Motley's almost thunderous negation, "A thousand time No!" was evidently not exactly the response which Seward had hoped to elicit.

[David Lockmiller]

(10-24-2023 03:02 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  Unless you can show me that Hendrick had access to Team of Rivals, I don't see your point as especially relevant.
Best
Rob

Were not both authors using the same basic historical materials in order to write on the same subject?

[Rob Wick]

Quote:Were not both authors using the same basic historical materials in order to write on the same subject?

So what? One of the first things you learn in a historical methods class is that presenting evidence alone is not what makes history but rather the interpretation and analysis of that evidence, then putting it into a narrative form. Historians can look at the same evidence and come up with two totally separate conclusions.

Quote:A "Reality Check" for Seward, according to Burton Hendrick, in Lincoln's War Cabinet, page 361:

Two days after Lincoln had submitted his original paper, Seward wrote John Lothrop Motley, minister to Austria, inquiring: "Are you sure that today, under the seductions and pressures that could be applied to some European powers, they would not rise up and resist an attempt to bestow freedom upon the laborers whose capacity to supply cotton and open a market for European fabrics depends, or is thought to depend, upon their continuance in bondage?" Motley's almost thunderous negation, "A thousand time No!" was evidently not exactly the response which Seward had hoped to elicit.

Motley's response to Seward was an indication by Hendrick that not everyone believed the same as Seward. To me, it's no more than providing a different interpretation and is something real historians do.

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(10-24-2023 07:23 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  

Quote:Were not both authors using the same basic historical materials in order to write on the same subject?

So what? One of the first things you learn in a historical methods class is that presenting evidence alone is not what makes history but rather the interpretation and analysis of that evidence . . . .

Best
Rob

I agree.

The question considered by both Pulitzer Prize winning historian authors: What was the mindset of Secretary of State Seward at the time of issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862?

Both authors addressed this question after considering basically the same historical evidence.

Doris Kearns Goodwin in Team of Rivals, at pages 467-68 reads as follows:

William Henry Seward's mode of intricate analysis produced a characteristically complex reaction to the proclamation. After the others had spoken, he expressed his worry that the proclamation might provoke a racial war in the South so disruptive to cotton that the ruling classes in England and France would intervene to protect their economic interests. As secretary of state, Seward was particularly sensitive to the threat of European intervention. Curiously, despite his greater access to intelligence from abroad, Seward failed to grasp what Lincoln intuitively understood: that once the Union truly committed itself to emancipation, the masses in Europe, who regarded slavery as an evil demanding eradication, would not be easily maneuvered into supporting the South.

. . . . Seward's practical focus underestimated the proclamation's power to unleash the moral fervor of the North and keep the Republican Party united by making freedom for the slaves an avowed objective of the war.

Despite his concerns about the effect of the proclamation, Seward had no thought of opposing it. Once Lincoln had made up his mind, Seward was steadfast in his loyalty to him. He demurred only on the issue of timing.

Burton Hendrick in his book Lincoln's War Cabinet, at page 363, has a quite different interpretation of the same event after quoting extensively from Carpenter's book:

"It seems a fair assumption, in view of Seward's evident hostility to emancipation, that he was seeking delay, hoping perhaps that time and events would cause the President to rescind his unhappy mistake."

Let the reader decide for herself or himself. Thus far, the vote is tied at one.

[David Lockmiller]

Michael Burlingame's analysis at Chapter 27 (pages 360-61) - "The Hour Comes for Dealing with Slavery": Playing the Last Trump Card (January-July 1862):

BOMBSHELL: PROPOSAL TO ISSUE AN EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

On July 13, [1862] Lincoln took a fateful carriage ride with Welles and Seward. A day earlier he had unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the Border States to accept his gradual emancipation plan; that failure persuaded him it was time for more drastic
steps. As he rode with his secretaries of state and the navy to attend the funeral of Stanton’s infant son, Lincoln discussed issuing an emancipation proclamation. According to Welles, he “dwelt earnestly on the gravity, importance, and delicacy of the movement, said he had given it much thought and had about come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity absolutely essential for the salvation of the Union, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued, etc., etc.” This was “the first occasion when he had mentioned the subject to any one, and wished us to frankly state how the proposition struck us. Mr. Seward said the subject involved consequences so vast and momentous that he should wish to bestow on it mature reflection before giving a decisive answer, but his present opinion inclined to the measure as justifiable, and perhaps he might say expedient [fit or suitable for the purpose] and necessary.” Welles agreed. “Two or three times on that ride the subject, which was of course an absorbing one for each and all, was adverted to, and before separating the President desired us to give the question special and deliberate attention, for he was earnest in the conviction that something must be done. . . . [T]he reverses before Richmond, and the formidable power and dimensions of the insurrection, which extended through all the Slave States, and had combined most of them in a confederacy to destroy the Union, impelled the Administration to adopt extraordinary measures to preserve the national existence. The slaves, if not armed and disciplined, were in the service of those who were, not only as field laborers and producers, but thousands of them were in attendance upon the armies in the field, employed as waiters and teamsters, and the fortifications and intrenchments were constructed by them.” (Emphasis added.) (Beale, ed., Welles Diary, I:70-71.)

[David Lockmiller]

A well-deserved compliment paid to Secretary of State William Seward by author Burton Hendrick in his book Lincoln's War Cabinet at page 213:

Of all Seward's threats, his masterpiece was delivered in 1863, when the so-called "rams," under construction by the Lairds of Liverpool as Confederate raiders, were nearing completion. The Alabama, secretly built by the same firm a year before, was wreaking vast destruction at that time on American merchant shipping. These new ships were much more powerful, and should they be permitted to "escape" from the Liverpool docks, in the manner of the Alabama, the American flag would have vanished from the seas. Charles Francis Adams, under instructions from Seward, had been bringing pressure for months on Lord John Russell, presenting unmistakable evidence that the ships were Confederate property and demanding their detention by the British government. Mr. Adams, in September 1862, presented his protest, concluding an eloquent state paper with the famous words that if the rams became part of the Confederate navy, "it would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war." This declaration, and the apparent British backdown in face of it, have become one of the legends of the Civil War. The fact is that Russell, five days before this menacing note was received, had ordered the seizure of the ships, had stationed British war vessels in Liverpool Harbor to prevent their escape - with orders to sink them, if the attempt were made - and, soon after, purchased them and made them part of the British Navy. It was not Adams's threat, but the more subtle maneuvering of Seward that had persuaded the British government to change its policy.