Looking at a Civil War Though the Lens of Time
J. Michael Sharman

By 1864, if Abraham Lincoln had listened to the media, popular opinion, the opposition party, or even the members of his own party, he would have known it was long past time to end his foolish war efforts.

He may have thought he was engaged in a great war for the preservation of his nation, but his main battles were not between the armies, and they were not always fought in the South.

Coming into office with only 40% of the popular vote, Lincoln was the subject of general scorn and ridicule. He was called a “gorilla”, a “giraffe”, a “third rate lawyer”, a “duffer”, a “rough farmer”, a “western hick”, and a “nullity”. He just wasn’t much liked by anyone.

When Lincoln relieved General George McClellan of command after 23,582 men died in a single day at Antietam, McClellan held nothing but scorn for President Lincoln, saying: "The president is nothing more than a well-meaning baboon. He is the original gorilla. What a specimen to be at the head of our affairs now!"

The media didn’t much care for the President’s new choice to head the Army. The Cincinnati Observer said that General Grant “is a jackass in the original package. He is a poor drunken imbecile.” They concluded, “General Grant will fail miserably, hopelessly, eternally.”

The fact that Mrs. Lincoln’s four brothers fought for the Confederacy didn’t do much to help the President's relations with the Northern public and Congress.

And Congress' view of Lincoln wasn’t very high: "I never did see or converse with so weak and imbecile a man" said Democratic Senator Willard Saulsbury of Delaware, "the weakest man I ever knew in high place. If I wanted to paint a despot, a man perfectly regardless of every constitutional right of the people, I would paint the hideous, apelike form of Abraham Lincoln."

Another congressmen noted, “I am heartsick at the mismanagement of the army.” The Union troop morale was admittedly low, so consistently low that 200,000 men deserted from the Union army during the war.

When Lincoln attempted during the war to give official recognition to a transitional Unionist government in Louisiana, Northerners organized a protest against him and called him a dictator. His plan ended, said the New York Herald, when Senator Sumner “kicked the pet scheme of the President down the marble steps of the Senate Chamber.”

In New York City during the long, hot summer of 1863, 70,000 people rioted, looted, burned and killed in a fit of rage over Lincoln's Conscription Act drafting men to fight in the Union Army. To protect its own building and workers, the New York Times had three Gatling guns placed on its roof and in its windows. Racial hatred flared and whites lynched blacks. Even children were not safe, and the Colored Orphan Asylum was put to the torch. The four-day long storm of fury ended only when Lincoln ordered in five regiments from Gettysburg to stop the riots.

Presidential historian Jay Winik writes that: “Everywhere Lincoln turned, there were fervent antiwar rallies…[There were] storms of protest throughout the Midwest to stop the war… [B]attalions of peace movements had cropped up across the North…”

These peace movements became  the basis for the Democratic Party platform of 1864 which said: “After four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war… [we] demand immediate efforts for a cessation of hostilities.”

Lincoln told a member of the Christian Commission, "If it were not for my firm belief in an overruling Providence, it would be difficult for me, in the midst of such complications of affairs, to keep my reason on its seat. But I am confident that the Almighty has His plans, and will work them out; and whether we see it or not, they will be the best for us."

Today, we look back in relief that Lincoln’s confidence allowed him to ignore the incredible weight of short-sighted popular opinion and to write his commanders to “Hold on with a bull-dog grip”; “Hold firm, as with a grip of steel”; and simply, to “Stand firm.”

            Sometimes it is only through the lens of time that we can clearly see the wisdom of a leader’s actions.

By J. Michael Sharman Click here for bio and archived articles