March 5, 1865---"Lincoln's Sword"*

MARCH 5, 1865:       

Among the mass of spectators who attended the Inauguration is John Wilkes Booth, within only a few yards of Lincoln as the President speaks. Within six weeks, the famous actor will kill the President.

As day dawns on a world altered by the Second Inaugural, small battles are raging in northern Florida, near Philadelphia, Mississippi, and outside of Petersburg, Virginia.  In South Carolina, General Sherman burns the town of McPherson.

The author and historian Douglas L. Wilson refers to Lincoln’s skill with words as “Lincoln’s Sword,” and in an eponymous book, Wilson titles the chapter on the Second Inaugural simply as “ A Truth That Needed To Be Told.” The Second Inaugural, along with the “House Divided” speech of the prewar years,  Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech in Brooklyn and the “Lost Speech” at Chicago, the lyric but ultimately ineffective First Inaugural, and the Emancipation Proclamation form the canons of what historian Gabor Boritt calls “The Gettysburg Gospel” along with the Gettysburg Address itself. In these remarkable public announcements, Lincoln laid the true foundations of the secular religion that is America. Building upon the work of The Founders, Lincoln changed America from a minor provincial democratic republic into a world superpower, though in Lincoln’s lifetime that power that was America lay quiescent, a quickening seed which would birth a mighty offspring in its appointed season. Indeed, with the Second Inaugural, Lincoln became one of The Founders.

Over the course of the war, Lincoln had written perhaps thousands of short reflections, epigrams, and notes on both the practical and philosophical aspects of the conflict. Meant for no one but himself, they constituted what he referred to as “Meditations.”  Some survive. No doubt many have been lost to time. Sometime in 1864, he wrote a few thoughtful paragraphs which, quite unusually, he felt were worthy of being shared in their rough state. He read them out loud to the portraitist Francis B. Carpenter during one of their frequent sittings. Carpenter later said that Lincoln himself seemed arrested by the pith of his own thoughts: “Lots of wisdom in that document, I suppose,” Lincoln mused. Quite characteristically for Lincoln the wisdom lay in the document, not in the mind that had produced it. Carpenter later heard its phrases in the Second Inaugural.

The Second Inaugural is a call to end the war, and a call to remake the United States as “a more perfect Union.” Clearly, Lincoln abjures slavery, seeing in it the fundamental bedrock reason for the conflict, but in quoting St. Matthew --- “Judge not” --- he looks not toward blame but toward mutual healing, rapproachment, and sublime change. In Lincoln’s vision, the terrible war takes on a cast of inevitability not because of the South’s intransigence but because of the failure of all Americans to dispassionately and humanely address the issue of bondage throughout nearly nine decades of the national life.  Importantly, indeed critically, in the last words of the Second Inaugural he distinguishes not at all between North and South nor Black and White. Had Lincoln’s successors taken to heart the lessons which this man’s soul had wrung out of the agony of the Civil War, the United States would be a much different and far finer nation today.

The Second Inaugural is more. It is a glimpse at the face of Divine Providence --- Lincoln was not conventionally religious but was deeply spiritual --- and he perfectly describes the next and ongoing task of We The People:

To bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

As is the custom until today, the Vice-President was sworn in before the President. Then as now it was customary for the new Vice-President to make a few brief remarks.  In a foreshadowing of future troubles, the newly-inaugurated Andrew Johnson is drunk at the podium, and rambles incoherently for some minutes before he is led back to his seat. Lincoln does not bother himself to see his new Vice-President again until the afternoon of April 14^th.

As was common in the Nineteenth Century, the Inaugural speech was delivered prior to the actual swearing-in. After speaking, Lincoln takes the Oath of Office from his old political rival and Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, who he elevated to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after the death of Roger B. Taney in 1864. 

*I have borrowed the title of Douglas Wilsom's excellent work on Lincoln's writings for the title of this post.

 

THE FOURTH YEAR: THE TORTUROUS PATH TO PEACE: March 4, 1865---". . . With malice toward none, with charity for all . . . "

MARCH 4, 1865:       

Abraham Lincoln gives his Second Inaugural Address on the steps of the newly-domed Capitol as he begins his second term as President of the United States.

Widely considered at least the second greatest speech given in American history (following Lincoln’s own Gettysburg Address), the Second Inaugural speaks not only of the end of the Civil War but of the restoration of national peace in ringing, Biblical tones. The lyrical beauty and gravitas of Lincoln’s words still echo down the years. The United States has been a far different nation simply because these words were uttered by that tall, gangly man on a brisk late winter day one and one-half centuries ago:

Fellow-Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. 

Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. 

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." 

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? 

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

While the Union is inaugurating a President, the Confederate Congress is approving a new national standard. Although it must have galled most Confederates to think in such terms, Major Arthur L. Rogers C.S.A. pointed out that the dimensions of the second national flag, the Stainless Banner, could cause it to be mistaken for a flag of surrender or truce at certain angles or on windless days. He lobbied for the enlargement of the “Cross and Stars” canton from a square to a rectangle, and for a broad red stripe to be added to the fly end of the flag.

The new flag quickly became known as the “Blood Stained Banner.”

Very few original Blood Stained Banners were ever manufactured. At this late point in the war, most Confederate military units were less than concerned about an essentially cosmetic change to the national flag. They continued to use the Stainless Banner (or even the Stars and Bars in some areas). Other Confederates merely sewed a strip of red cloth to existing Stainless Banners. A few Blood Stained Banners were produced for the Confederacy’s public buildings in Richmond*, and a few found their way to the Army of Northern Virginia, but the majority of Confederates had no idea that the Blood Stained Banner was their flag until after the war’s end.

*Even in 1865, most flags produced by Richmond flagmakers retained the square canton rather than the rectangular one specified by law, and most reenactor reproductions also use the square canton. It is difficult to find a Blood Stained Banner that matches the exact dimensions laid down in Confederate law.

March 3, 1865---The Freedmen's Bureau

MARCH 3, 1865:   

    

Congress creates the United States Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, otherwise known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, to assist the newly-emancipated slaves with the transition to freedom.

Congress amends the Currency Act, establishing new monetary denominations.

Congress also creates the Civil War Pension Bureau, granting pensions to all servicemen under Union arms during the Civil War as well as their widows and children. As of 2015, one child of a Civil War veteran is still receiving such pension payments.

President Lincoln issues an Executive Order regarding the terms of the eventual surrender of the Confederacy. General Grant is given plenary powers to set practical terms for the disbandment of the Confederate armies in the field. Lincoln reserves all political decisions to the Executive. 

March 2, 1865---The Battle of Waynesboro'

MARCH 2, 1865:       

The Battle of Waynesboro, Virginia.

After having been repulsed the day before by Jubal Early’s scarecrow force of 1,500 men in the fastness of the Luray Valley, Philip Sheridan returns today with 3,000 men and George Armstrong Custer under his command. Although Sheridan has been tasked to join Sherman in North Carolina, he considers Early’s force a threat to Grant’s rear and decides to clear out the Luray Valley once and for all.  Today, Early brings up his artillery, and there is a brief standoff, but Early’s thirteen remaining guns are no match for Sheridan’s multiple artillery brigades. Nor can Early resist attack from all sides. He has anchored his line in a dense woods, thinking that the Federals cannot move on him from that direction. When the Yankees come howling through the small forest, Early’s line finally cracks. Surrounded on all sides, almost all of his 1,500 men throw down their weapons and surrender.

Early himself, with just a few men, perhaps 50 in all, rides east to join Robert E. Lee at Richmond. When the patchworn General presents himself to Lee, Lee takes one look at him and his remaining force, and relieves him from command, telling him to “go home.”

Early and a few like-minded men ride for Texas where they hear Confederate holdouts are massing. This rumor turns out to be false, and for a time Early goes to Mexico and then to Canada in defiance of the Union, before returning to Virginia. His part in the Civil War is over.

  

Robert E. Lee, in the shadow of this defeat, sends a message to Grant asking for a “military convention” between them in order to end “the calamities of war.” Lee asks for a cease-fire and negotiations again between the “two Sovereign Powers”. Grant, under orders from Lincoln, responds that he can only discuss surrender terms that end in reunification.