CHAPTER XXV

LINCOLN AND EMANCIPATION

THE 22d of February was the day that the President had set for an advance of the army, but it was evident to both the Administration and the country that the Army of the Potomac would not then be ready to move. Nor could anybody find from McClellan what he did propose to do. The muttering of the country began again. Committee after committee waited on the President. He did his best to assure them that he was doing all he could. He pointed out to them how time and patience, as well as men and money, were needed in war, and he argued that, above all, he must not be interfered with. It was at this time that he used his striking illustration of Blondin. Some gentlemen from the West called at the White House one day, excited and troubled about some of the commissions or omissions of the Administration. The President heard them patiently and then replied:

"Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold and you had put it in the hands of Blondin, to carry across the Niagara River on a rope. Would you shake the cable or keep shouting at him, 'Blondin, stand up a little straighter-Blondin, stoop a little more go a little faster-lean a little more to the north-lean a little more to the south'? No, you would hold your breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off until he was safe over. The Government is carrying an enormous weight. Untold

treasures are in their hands; they are doing the very best they can. Don't badger them. Keep silence, and we will get you safe across."

One of the most insistent of the many bodies which beset him was the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, appointed the December before. Aggressive and patriotic, these gentlemen were determined the army should move. But it was not until March that they became convinced that anything would be done. One day early in that month, Senator Chandler, of Michigan, a member of the committee, met George W. Julian. He was in high glee. "Old Abe is mad," he said to Julian, "and the war will now go on."

Whether it would or not remained to be seen, but it was soon evident to everybody that the President was going to make another effort to have it go on for on March 8 he issued General War Orders Nos. II and III, the first dividing the Army of the Potomac into four army corps and the second directing that the move against Richmond by the way of the Chesapeake Bay should begin as early as the 18th of March and that the general-in-chief should be responsible for its moving as early as that day. In this order Lincoln made the important stipulation that General McClellan should make no change of base without leaving in and about Washington a force sufficient to guarantee its safety.

When Lincoln issued the above orders, which were finally to drive McClellan from his quarters around Washington, the war against the South had been going on for nearly a year. In that time the North

had succeeded in gathering and equipping an army of about 630,000 men, but this army had not so far materially changed the line of hostilities between the North and South, save in the West, where Kentucky and northern Missouri had been cleared of most of the Confederates. A navy had been collected, but beyond establishing a partial blockade of the ports of the Confederacy it had done little. The ineffectiveness of the great effort the North had made was charged naturally to the inefficiency of the Administration. Mr. Lincoln was ignorant and weak, men said, else he would have found generals who would have won victories. A large part of the North, the anti-slavery element, bitterly denounced him, because he had taken no action as yet in regard to slavery. They would have him employ the slaves in the armies, free those who escaped.

Lincoln understood clearly how strong a weapon against the South the arming and emancipating of the slaves might be, but he did not want to use it. Throughout his entire political life he had disclaimed any desire to meddle with slavery in the states where the Constitution recognized it. He had undertaken the war not to free men but to preserve the Union. Moreover he feared that the least interference with slavery would drive from him those states lying between the North and South, which believed in the institution and yet were for the Union.

Already they had given him much substantial aid. He hoped to win them entirely to the North. Emancipation would surely make that hope vain. It was largely because he wished to keep their support that

From a photograph loaned by Mr. Frank A. Brown of Minneapolis, Minnesota. This beautiful photograph was taken, probably in 1861, by Alexander Hesler of Chicago. It was used by Leonard W. Volk, the sculptor, in his studies of Lincoln.