General Abner Doubleday described the tenacious fighting, which cost 23,000 Union lives, “as being the most desperate which ever took place in the world.” He told a reporter that “nothing can picture the horrors of the battlefield around the ruined city of Gettysburg. Each house, church, hovel, and barn is filled with the wounded of both armies. The ground is covered with the dead.”
On the morning of the Fourth of July, Lincoln issued a celebratory press release that was carried by telegram across the country. For young Fanny Seward, waiting anxiously in Auburn, the day had started as “the gloomiest Fourth” she had ever known. “No public demonstration here—No ringing of bells.” Everything changed in the late afternoon when the “extra” arrived, carrying the tidings of victory. Fireworks were set off to glorify simultaneously the country’s independence and the long-awaited victory.
In New York City, George Templeton Strong exulted in the colorful newspaper accounts of Lee’s retreat. “The results of this victory are priceless,” he wrote. “Government is strengthened four-fold at home and abroad. Gold one hundred and thirty-eight today, and government securities rising. Copperheads are palsied and dumb for the moment at least.”
Triumphant news from Vicksburg followed on the heels of victory at Gettysburg. Grant’s forty-six-day siege had finally forced Pemberton to surrender his starving troops. Welles had received the first tiding that Vicksburg had surrendered to Grant in a dispatch from Admiral David Porter. The bespectacled, “slightly fossilized” Welles hurried to the White House, dispatch in hand. Reaching the room where Lincoln was talking with Chase and several others, Welles reportedly “executed a double shuffle and threw up his hat by way of showing that he was the bearer of glad tidings.” Lincoln affirmed that “he never before nor afterward saw Mr. Welles so thoroughly excited as he was then.”
The elated president “caught my hand,” recorded Welles, “and throwing his arm around me, exclaimed: ‘what can we do for the Secretary of the Navy for this glorious intelligence—He is always giving us good news. I cannot, in words, tell you my joy over this result. It is great, Mr. Welles, it is great!’” With the fall of Vicksburg, as Linclon later said, “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.”
Dana described the surrender in a telegram to Stanton the next day. “The rebel troops marched out and stacked arms in front of their works while Genl. Pemberton appeared for a moment with his staff upon the parapet of the central post…. No troops remain outside—everything quiet here. Grant entered the city at 11 o’clock and was rec’d by Pemberton,” whom he treated with great “courtesy & dignity.” Dana estimated the number of prisoners, for whom rations were being distributed, to be about thirty thousand.
Lincoln expressed his joyful appreciation to Grant in a remarkable letter. “I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country,” he began. He conceded that while he had approved most of the general’s maneuvers during the long struggle, he had harbored misgivings over Grant’s decision to turn “Northward East of the Big Black” instead of joining General Banks. “I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.”
Word of Vicksburg’s surrender unleashed wild celebrations throughout the North. In Washington, a large crowd, led by the 34th Massachusetts Regimental Band, formed at the National Hotel and marched to the White House to congratulate the president. Lincoln appeared before the cheering multitude, revealing the preliminary thoughts that would coalesce in his historic Gettysburg Address. “How long is it—eighty odd years—since on the Fourth of July for the first time in the history of the world a nation, by its representatives, assembled and declared as a self-evident truth that ‘all men are created equal.’” He went on to recall the signal events that had shared the anniversary of the nation’s birth, beginning with the twin deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4, and ending with the Union’s twin victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg on the same day. “Gentlemen,” the president declared, “this is a glorious theme, and the occasion for a speech, but I am not prepared to make one worthy of the occasion.” Instead, he spoke of the “praise due to the many brave officers and soldiers who have fought in the cause of the Union.”
The band played some patriotic airs, and the crowd pressed on to the War Department, where Stanton paid generous tribute to General Grant. Although several more speeches followed and songs were played, the people had not exhausted their euphoria. Marching to Lafayette Square, they joined another throng at Seward’s house, cheering for the secretary to appear. The indefatigable Seward happily obliged, delivering a long, animated speech tracing the conflict from its troubled early days to its recent triumphs, which, he assured them, foretold “the beginning of the end.”
The following day, little work was accomplished in the offices of government. In every building, Noah Brooks reported, the official bulletins were read “over and over again,” producing “cheer upon cheer from the crowds of officers and clerks.” On the streets, “Union men were shaking hands wherever they met, like friends after a long absence,” while the Copperheads had “retired to their holes like evil beasts at sunrise.”
The joyous occasion was marred for the Lincolns by a serious carriage accident that took place on the second day of the Gettysburg battle. As Rebecca Pomroy related the events, the Lincolns were returning to the White House from the Soldiers’ Home. Lincoln was riding on horseback while Mary followed behind in their carriage. The night before, presumably targeting the president, an unknown assailant had removed the screws fastening the driver’s seat to the body of the carriage. When the vehicle began to descend from a winding hill, the seat came loose, throwing the driver to the ground. Unable to restrain the runaway horses, Mary tried to leap from the carriage. She landed on her back, hitting her head against a sharp stone. The wound was dressed at a nearby hospital, but a dangerous infection set in that kept her incapacitated for several weeks. With the Battle of Gettysburg in full swing, Lincoln was unable to minister to Mary’s needs. He brought Mrs. Pomroy to the Soldiers’ Home to nurse his wife round the clock. Robert Lincoln believed that his mother “never quite recovered from the effects of her fall,” which exacerbated the debilitating headaches that she already endured.
IN THE WAKE OF the triumphs at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Lincoln anticipated a quick end to the rebellion. General Meade, he told Halleck, had only to “complete his work, so gloriously prosecuted thus far, by the literal or substantial destruction of Lee’s army.” In the days that followed, both Halleck and Lincoln urged Meade to go after Lee, to attack him vigorously, to capture his army before he could escape into Virginia. Robert Lincoln later said that his father had sent explicit orders to Meade “directing him to attack Lee’s army with all his force immediately, and that if he was successful in the attack, he might destroy the order, but if he was unsuccessful he might preserve it for his vindication.” The order has never been found. If Meade did receive it, he nonetheless failed to move against Lee. As the days passed, Lincoln began “to grow anxious and impatient.”
Lincoln’s worst fears were realized on July 14, when he received a dispatch from Meade reporting that Lee’s army had escaped his grasp by successfully crossing the Potomac at Williamsport, Maryland, into Virginia. At the cabinet meeting that day, Stanton was reluctant to share the news, though his face clearly revealed that he “was disturbed, disconcerted.” Welles recorded that, when asked directly if Lee had escaped, “Stanton said abruptly and curtly he knew nothing of Lee’s crossing. ‘I do,’ said the President emphatically, with a look of painful rebuke to Stanton.” Lincoln revealed what he had learned and suggested that the cabinet meeting be adjourned. “Probably none of us were in a right frame of mind for deliberation,” Welles wrote. Certainly, he added, the president “was not.”
Lincoln caught up with Welles as his navy secretary was leaving and walked with him across the lawn. His sorrow that Lee had once again managed to escape was
palpable. “On only one or two occasions have I ever seen the President so troubled, so dejected and discouraged,” Welles wrote. “Our Army held the war in the hollow of their hand & they would not close it,” Lincoln said later. “We had gone through all the labor of tilling & planting an enormous crop & when it was ripe we did not harvest it.”
Later that afternoon, Lincoln wrote a frank letter to General Meade. While expressing his profound gratitude for “the magnificent success” at Gettysburg, he acknowledged that he was “distressed immeasurably” by “the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely.” Before sending the letter, which he knew would leave Meade disconsolate, Lincoln held back, as he often did when he was upset or angry, waiting for his emotions to settle. In the end, he placed the letter in an envelope inscribed: “To Gen. Meade, never sent, or signed.”
Lincoln later told Connecticut congressman Henry C. Deming that Meade’s failure to attack Lee after Gettysburg was one of three occasions when “better management upon the part of the commanding general might have terminated the war.” The other two command failures he attributed to McClellan during the Peninsula Campaign and Hooker at Chancellorsville. Still, he acknowledged, “I do not know that I could have given any different orders had I been with them myself. I have not fully made up my mind how I should behave when minie-balls were whistling, and those great oblong shells shrieking in my ear. I might run away.”
Troubling events in New York City soon diverted the nation’s attention. For weeks, authorities had worried about the potential for violence on July 11. On that date, the names of all the men eligible for the first draft in American history would be placed in a giant wheel and drawn randomly until the prescribed quota was filled. The unpopular idea of coercing men to become soldiers had provided traction for Copperhead politicians. Speaking on July 4, Governor Seymour had told an immense crowd that the federal government had exceeded its constitutional authority by forcing men into an “ungodly conflict” waged on behalf of the black man. The antagonistic Daily News, read by the majority of working-class Irish, claimed that the purpose of the draft was to “kill off Democrats.”
A provision in the Conscription Act that allowed a draftee to either pay $300 or provide a substitute provoked further discontent. Both Stanton and Lincoln had objected to this feature of the bill, but Congress had insisted. Opponents of the draft gained powerful ammunition that this was “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” Still, the first day of the draft proceeded peacefully, leaving the city woefully unprepared for the violent uprising that accompanied the spinning of the wheel on the second day. “Scarcely had two dozen names been called,” the New York Times reported, “when a crowd, numbering perhaps 500,” stormed the building “with clubs, stones, brickbats and other missiles.” Entering through the broken windows, they stoned the drafting officers, smashed the giant wheel, shredded the lists and records, and then set the building on fire.
Returning to the street, the mob, composed mainly of poor Irish immigrants, turned its vengeance against anyone it encountered. “It seemed to be an understood thing,” the Times reporter noted, “that the negroes should be attacked wherever found, whether they offered any provocation or not. As soon as one of these unfortunate people was spied, whether on a cart, a railroad car, or in the street, he was immediately set upon by a crowd of men and boys.” Terror unfolded as the rioters beat their victims to death and then strung their bodies on trees. An orphanage for black children was burned to the ground, hundreds of stores were looted, and dozens of policemen lost their lives. More than a thousand people were killed or wounded.
The riots continued unchecked for five days, becoming “the all engrossing topic of conversation” in Washington. The inability of the authorities to restore law and order prompted Chase to announce his desire to “have the power for a week.” The mob violence finally ended when a regiment of soldiers, returning from Pennsylvania, entered the city. Although some advised Lincoln to suspend the draft indefinitely, he insisted that it go forward.
The turmoil in New York created foreboding throughout the North as other cities prepared to commence their own drafts. In the days preceding Auburn’s draft on July 23, Frances Seward lived “in daily apprehension of a riot.” In frequent letters to her husband, she reported that Copperheads were spreading “malicious stories” blaming Seward’s “higher law” for the riots in New York. Tensions in Auburn escalated when several Irishmen fought with blacks, resisted arrest, and threatened to destroy the Seward home. Frances awoke one morning to find that a large rock had been thrown into the room where she regularly sat to read. After discovering the damage, she advised her daughter-in-law to remove anything she considered valuable. “So that afternoon,” Jenny recalled, “I took my husband’s photograph down to my mother’s house, it being, to my mind, the most valuable thing that I possessed.”
From Washington, Seward sought to placate his wife. “Do not give yourself a thought about the house. There will hardly be any body desperate enough to do you personal harm, and if the country, in its unwonted state of excitement, will destroy our home, the sacrifice will be a small one for our country, and not without benefit.” Frances persevered, retaining her calm during these difficult days, as she had done years before during the trial of William Freeman. “As to personal injury,” she told her husband, “I fear more for the poor colored people than for others—They cannot protect themselves and few persons are willing to assist them.”
On the morning of Auburn’s draft, Frances reported to her son Fred that while everyone was “somewhat anxious,” she was feeling “more secure” since the local citizenry had organized a volunteer police force. The New York Times reported the successful results of the efforts in Auburn. “The best of order was observed and the best spirit was manifested” by the two thousand citizens who had gathered to witness the draft. As local officials addressed patriotic speeches to the crowd, the drafted men cheered for “The Union,” “Old Abe,” “The Draft,” and “Our recent victories.”
Even before such reassuring accounts reached him, Seward had predicted that the disturbances in New York, like a “thunder shower,” would “clear the political skies, of the storms” that the Copperheads had been “gathering up a long time.” His words proved prescient, for when the loss of life and property was tallied in the wake of the New York riots, public opinion turned against Governor Seymour. His incendiary Fourth of July speech was seen by many as a direct “incitement to the people to resist the government.” John Hay learned from a visiting New Yorker that Seymour was “in a terrible state of nervous excitement,” precipitated “both by the terrible reminiscence of the riots” and the virulent condemnation by the press for his handling of the situation. The news that Seymour had “lost ground immensely with a large number of the best men” engendered great satisfaction in the Lincoln administration. And when the draft was eventually resumed in New York City, everything went smoothly.
“The nation is great, brave, and generous,” Seward confidently told Frances. “All will go on well, and though not without the hindrance of faction at every step, yet it will go through to the right and just end. How differently the nation has acted, thus far in the crisis, from what it did in 1850 to 1860!”
Within twenty-four distressing hours, the president had learned of both Lee’s escape and the disgraceful riots in New York. Nonetheless, he was able to shake off his gloom within a matter of days. On Sunday morning, July 19, Hay reported that the “President was in very good humour.” He had written a humorous verse mocking the “pomp, and mighty swell” with which Lee had gone forth to “sack Phil-del.” While he remained fully cognizant of the consequences of Lee’s escape, he had willed himself to reconsider his outlook on General Meade and the Battle of Gettysburg. “A few days having passed,” he assured one of Mead
e’s commanding generals, “I am now profoundly grateful for what was done, without criticism for what was not done. Gen. Meade has my confidence as a brave and skillful officer, and a true man.”
Oddly enough, Lincoln’s good spirits that Sunday morning were due in part to the six straight hours he had spent with Hay the previous day reviewing one hundred courts-martial. Whereas the young secretary was “in a state of entire collapse” after the ordeal, Lincoln found relief and renewed vigor as he exercised the power to pardon. As they went through the cases, Hay marveled “at the eagerness with which the President caught at any fact which would justify him in saving the life of a condemned soldier.”
Confronted with soldiers who had been sentenced to death for cowardice, Lincoln typically reduced the sentence to imprisonment or hard labor. “It would frighten the poor devils too terribly, to shoot them,” he said. One case involved a private who was sentenced to be shot for desertion though he had later re-enlisted. Lincoln simply proposed, “Let him fight instead of shooting him.” Lincoln acknowledged to General John Eaton that some of his officers believed he employed the pardoning power “with so much freedom as to demoralize the army and destroy the discipline.” Although “officers only see the force of military discipline,” he explained, he tried to comprehend it from the vantage of individual soldiers—a picket so exhausted that “sleep steals upon him unawares,” a family man who overstayed his leave, a young boy “overcome by a physical fear greater than his will.” He liked to tell of a soldier who, when asked why he had run away, said: “Well, Captain, it was not my fault. I have got just as brave a heart as Julius [Caesar] but these legs of mine will always run away with me when the battle begins.”