Editor's Note: Edward
H. Bonekemper is the author of several Civil War books. This article is an
excerpt from the introduction to his latest book,
Lincoln and Grant: The Westerners Who Won the Civil War,
and appears here through the courtesy of
the author.
In the course of writing two
earlier books,
A Victor, Not a Butcher: Ulysses S. Grant's Overlooked Military
Genius and
Grant and Lee: Victorious American and Vanquished Virginian , I discovered the increasingly close
working relationship between President Abraham Lincoln and General
Ulysses S. Grant as the Union moved toward victory in the Civil War.
Astounded to discover that there has been no book-length treatment
exclusively about their significant relationship, I decided to
examine their backgrounds, experiences and wartime interactions in
order to demonstrate how these two men, working together, won the
Civil War.
This book is the result. It is not
intended to be a thorough biography of either man but instead a
sufficient study of their lives and Civil War activities to
understand and appreciate their extraordinary individual and
collaborative achievements. It examines Lincoln and Grant’s
similarities, and differences, and describes how their relationship
grew into one of the most significant in American history. It
terminates with Lincoln’s death on April 15, 1865.
The relationship of the president
as commander-in-chief with his generals in uniform had been and
remains a critical issue in American government. In doing little
more than designating the president as commander-in-chief and giving
congress the power to declare war, the U.S. Constitution does not
provide any real guidance. The War of 1812 lacked national military
organization or coordination on the part of the United States. The
Mexican-American War saw President James K. Polk first appoint
Zachary Taylor as his leading general to keep Winfield Scott out of
the limelight and then replace Taylor with Scott after Taylor’s
military successes – all primarily for political reasons.
Therefore, Lincoln was treading in
essentially uncharted territory as he undertook a gigantic war and
experimented with civilian-military relations. As discussed in this
book, Lincoln’s relationship with generals-in-chief Scott, George B.
McClellan and Henry Halleck were less than satisfactory. Between the
terms of the latter two, he and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton even
tried running the war without a designated general-in-chief. It was
only with the elevation of Grant to that position in March 1864 and
the quickly-developing cooperation between Lincoln and Grant that an
effective civilian-military relationship became a reality. Their
development of a civilian-controlled, militarily effective
relationship, with virtually no precedent upon which to build, was
astounding and provided a model for future American wars.
Lincoln and Grant’s positive
relationship was enhanced by many similarities in their
personalities and life experiences. Both were born in modest
circumstances west of the Appalachian Mountains in what was regarded
in the early nineteenth century as the American frontier. They were
men of the river – born near the Ohio and understanding the uses and
value of the nation’s inland river systems. They were humble,
self-effacing individuals who worked their ways from the bottom to
the top of American society. Both battled internal demons but
stubbornly pursued the critical goals of their lives. They overcame
numerous obstacles and eventually prevailed as two of America’s
greatest leaders at a time when the nation needed them most.
Parallel experiences in their
personal lives included marriages into slave-owning families,
distracting interferences in their lives from other relatives
(Lincoln’s wife and Grant’s father and father-in-law), their
self-taught mastery of the English language, and their different but
effective inter-personal skills.
They also shared some personality
traits. James M. McPherson described Grant: “shy with strangers,
uncomfortable in the limelight, notoriously taciturn, Grant earned a
reputation as ‘the American Sphinx.’ Yet wherever he went, things
got done–quietly, efficiently, quickly, with no wasted motion. In
crisis situations during combat, Grant remained calm. He did not
panic. He persevered and never accepted defeat even when he appeared
to be beaten.” Although Lincoln was more retrospective than shy,
much of this description could be applied to him as well; he faced
his own forms of combat.
Significantly, some of Lincoln’s
and Grant’s positive attributes contrasted with, and complemented,
those of the other. For example, Lincoln was a political genius
while Grant had military acumen. Unlike the Confederacy’s President
Jefferson Davis, Lincoln did not insist on micro-managing the war.
In fact, Lincoln delegated more and more military authority to Grant
as the general earned the president’s confidence. For his part,
Grant yielded to Lincoln’s political expertise on most significant
issues, including the movement toward emancipation and the use of
black soldiers. Grant also deferred to Lincoln on most major
military strategic issues – a demonstration that Lincoln indeed was
the senior partner in their successful partnership.
Grant and Lincoln were men of the
new American West, an area far removed in miles and milieu from the
original thirteen colonies of the Eastern Seaboard. Today’s Midwest
was the West of antebellum America. Lincoln was born in Kentucky,
moved to Indiana, and established his permanent home in Illinois.
Grant was born in Ohio, married and lived in Missouri, and moved to
Illinois. Although Lincoln was a long-term resident of Illinois,
Grant had arrived there less than a year before the Civil War
erupted – in just enough time to benefit from his Illinois political
connections.
Grant’s most effective
congressional political supporter was Congressman Elihu B. Washburne,
a Galena, Illinois neighbor and the senior Republican in the U.S.
House of Representatives. He had been a friend and political
associate of Lincoln since the 1840s. Washburne was a loyal
supporter of both Lincoln and Grant throughout the war. Most
significantly, the congressman had earned Lincoln’s trust and used
that relationship to protect Grant against vicious attacks from
reporters, jealous military competitors, and others seeking to
advance their own interests.
Their shared Illinois and
Midwestern heritage enhanced Lincoln and Grant’s relationship. One
astute analyst commented, “A man of the border state, Lincoln could
see all sides, could feel the Civil War and all of its issues
founded on race and place in his very bones.” Lincoln’s 1862 annual
report to Congress provided insights into his view of the adverse
impact of Southern secession on the Upper West, which he described
as the “great interior region, bounded east by the Alleghanies
[sic], north by the British dominions, west by the Rocky mountains,
and south by the line along which the culture of corn and cotton
meets . . . .”
After discussing that area’s great
potential for population growth and agricultural production, he
explained the effect of secession: “As part of one nation, its
people now find, and may forever find, their way to Europe by New
York, to South America and Africa by New Orleans, and to Asia by San
Francisco. But separate our common country into two nations, as
designed by the present rebellion, and every man of this great
interior region is thereby cut off from some one or more of these
outlets, not perhaps, by a physical barrier, but by embarrassing and
onerous trade regulations. . . . These outlets, east, west, and
south, are indispensable to the well-being of the people inhabiting,
and to inhabit, this vast interior region.”
The vital importance of the
Mississippi River to the Midwest was a clear implication of
Lincoln’s words. In mid-1863, Union army chaplain John Eaton related
Lincoln’s mid-war interest in the Mississippi: “He was eager for
details of Vicksburg, and his references to the Mississippi River
proved that his memories of it had stayed by him, filling his mind
with the significance of the commercial influence of the great
waterway, and of its effect not only upon the country at large, but
particularly upon the Negro population, which, now that the
Mississippi was open from the source to its mouth, would swarm to
the river as a channel of escape into the North.” Clearly, Grant’s
successful 1862-63 efforts to gain Union control over the
Mississippi, Tennessee and Cumberland rivers reflected a Westerner’s
geographic awareness that meshed perfectly with Lincoln’s conception
of the significance of those rivers to the nation as a whole.
Grant’s increasing value to Lincoln
and Lincoln’s support and protection of Grant during the Civil War
are reflected in two widely reported apocryphal tales. There are
many reports that Lincoln, when confronted with rumors and false
reports of Grant’s heavy drinking and drunkenness, stated that he
wanted to know what whiskey Grant consumed so that he could provide
a barrel to each of his generals. In response to recommendations
that Grant be removed from command (particularly after the bloody
April 1862 Battle of Shiloh), Lincoln is reputed to have said, “I
cannot spare this man; he fights.” The reason these unverified
stories have received such credence is that they appear to reflect
Lincoln’s actual attitude toward Grant.
McPherson described Lincoln’s
primary leadership role: “As president and leader of his party as
well as commander in chief, Lincoln was principally responsible for
shaping and defining policy. From first to last that policy was
preservation of the United States as one nation, indivisible, and as
a republic based on majority rule. . . . At all levels of policy,
strategy, and operations . . . Lincoln was a hands-on commander in
chief who persisted through a terrible ordeal of defeats and
disappointments to final triumph – and tragedy – at the end.”
The late Russell F. Weigley, one of
America’s foremost military historians, proclaimed Grant’s
uniqueness as a military commander in his willingness to perform
under civilian (i.e., Lincoln’s) control: “A straightforward man
with few pretensions of any kind, Grant certainly did not claim to
be a military scholar. His genius for command was a product mainly
of clear-eyed native intelligence, even of common sense, not
primarily of more specialized professional attainments. He was,
therefore, glad to communicate with his civilian superiors with
candor and without condescension. But Grant was almost sui
generis.”
Not only was Grant willing to work
with Lincoln, but the president also was willing to concede much,
but not all, military decision-making to Grant when he became
general-in-chief. Lincoln had tried that approach unsuccessfully
with Major General George B. McClellan. Next he was effectively his
own general-in-chief both before he appointed Major General Henry W.
Halleck to that position in July 1862 and later when it became clear
that Halleck was unwilling or unable to assume the responsibilities
of that position. By the time Grant was named general-in-chief in
March 1864, Lincoln and Grant both believed “that only the utter
military defeat of the Confederacy would suffice to reunite the
nation.” Their shared non-conciliatory approach and Lincoln’s
confidence in Grant’s military judgment enabled the president to
reduce, but not eliminate, his military activity. Lincoln stayed
involved as commander-in-chief while Grant effectively performed his
role as general-in-chief.
The most significant force that
bound together Lincoln and Grant was their shared belief in the
necessity to pro-actively use appropriate and aggressive force to
carry the North’s burden of winning the Civil War. Daniel Sutherland
concluded that General John Pope’s harsh mid-1862 anti-Confederate
pronouncements (blessed by Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton) and
concurrent Union confiscation laws cleared the way for Grant’s
aggressive, “total war” campaigns of 1864-65. He stated, “Grant
benefitted [sic] enormously from the fact that a precedent
for waging total war had already been set, the legal machinery
erected, and the philosophy accepted. Lincoln knew what had to be
done, and ultimately, in the persons of Grant and Sherman, he had
the right men to do the job.” Although “total war” overstates the
hard war practiced by Grant and Sherman because they did not
deliberately kill civilians, Sutherland’s point about precedents is
valid.
Well before 1864, however, Grant
had demonstrated his propensity for aggressively pursuing and taking
enemy armies out of action. He had captured enemy armies at Fort
Donelson in 1862 (14,000 captured) and Vicksburg in 1863 (almost
30,000 captured). Grant’s aggressiveness had paid dividends by
repelling a major Confederate attack and saving his army at Shiloh
(April 1862) and dealing a crushing blow to Confederate forces at
Chattanooga (November 1863).
Beginning with his September 22,
1862 Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, the president
increasingly encouraged utilization of Negroes as a vital part of
the Union war effort. He pushed for their use in the Union army
(about 180,000 served) and navy (about 20,000) and wreaked havoc on
the South as blacks abandoned plantations to seek freedom with the
advancing Union armies. Unlike George McClellan (who fiercely
opposed emancipation) and William T. Sherman (who never outgrew his
racism), Grant fully supported Lincoln’s emancipation and black
soldier policies.
After Lincoln had brought Grant to
the East as general-in-chief and before the 1864 Overland Campaign,
the president summarized his reaction to Grant in a conversation
with his Third Secretary William O. Stoddard: “Well, I hardly know
what to think of him, altogether, I never saw him, myself, till he
came here to take the command. He’s the quietest little fellow you
ever saw. . . . The only evidence you have that he’s in any place is
that he makes things git! Wherever he is, things move!”
Working in tandem with the
president, Grant certainly would “make things git” on a sustained
basis for the first time in the Eastern Theater. His unrelenting
1864-65 moves against Lee’s army, exactly what Lincoln wanted him to
do, almost won the war in two months and did win it in less than a
year. Just as significantly, Grant, with Lincoln’s blessing,
entrusted Sherman with adequate troops and discretion to threaten
and capture Atlanta, a significant victory that virtually ensured
Lincoln’s reelection and then to march through Georgia in late 1864
and the Carolinas in early 1865, movements that destroyed
Confederate morale, caused thousands of Rebel soldiers to desert,
and ensured the doom of Robert E. Lee’s vaunted Army of Northern
Virginia.
In summary, Grant and Lincoln
shared a frontier American heritage, as well as common sense and
dogged determination. This book describes how each man developed
those and other key traits during their childhoods, early lives, the
Mexican War (at home and abroad), and their rough-and-tumble
economic and political trials of the 1850s.
The bulk of this book, however,
describes most of the separate, and then later coordinated,
activities of Lincoln and Grant during the Civil War. Their exciting
successes and dismaying failures in the military and political
arenas brought them closer to each other and ultimately evolved into
the critical partnership that won the Civil War.
Throughout this chronological
study, you should be alert to some underlying themes that are fully
summarized in my final chapter. One thread tying these two men
together was their critical similar personality traits (specifically
humility, decisiveness, clarity of communication, moral courage and
perseverance). Beyond those shared characteristics, Lincoln and
Grant developed an increasing mutual respect for each other, which
then grew into an unshakeable loyalty to each other. Their common
traits, respect and loyalty made them victorious.
They developed a working
relationship in which each was comfortable with his and the other’s
role. The critical areas governed by this relationship were national
policy, military strategy, military operations and tactics, and
military personnel decision-making. As described in some detail in
the concluding chapter, I conclude that:
- As to national policies, Lincoln
made the decisions, and Grant accommodated and implemented them.
- As to military strategy,
although Lincoln and Grant usually agreed on it, Lincoln was in
charge and Grant understood that fact and accepted it.
- As to military tactics, the
president generally left Grant free to conduct military operations
with tactics of his own choosing.
- As to the murkier area of
military operations, particularly in the East, Lincoln did
intervene on several occasions, and Grant generally deferred to
the president’s suggestions and responded to his concerns.
- As to military personnel
decisions concerning manpower in the field, their relations were
marked by cooperation regarding manpower numbers, recruiting and
using black soldiers, and prisoner-of-war exchange policies.
- As to military personnel
decisions regarding the appointment and retention of general
officers, Grant recognized and deferred to the president’s
political needs while using face-saving organizational changes to
accomplish his military goals, and they successfully cooperated on
issues relating to promotion, retention and assignment of
generals.
In conclusion, these two Westerners
employed their critical shared traits and mutual trust to form an
effective partnership that resulted in relentless pursuit and
destruction of the enemy, effectively used black soldiers, and
ultimately proved decisive in the Civil War. Their successful
working relationship reached its peak when Lincoln as
commander-in-chief and Grant as general-in-chief brought the war to
a successful conclusion within little more than a year after Grant
assumed his new position.
 Edward Bonekemper is the author of
five books and many published articles on the Civil War. His
articles have appeared in the Washington Times, the
American Bar Association Journal and the Journal of
Afro-American History. Mr. Bonekemper has lectured or served as
an adjunct professor of history at Muhlenberg College, George Mason
University and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and has made over 250
appearances as a speaker on the Civil War to groups at the
Smithsonian Institution, the NYC Military Affairs Symposium, the
National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, as well as to Civil War
Roundtables in California, Washington State, Connecticut, Florida,
Illinois, and all the Mid-Atlantic states from New York to Virginia.
Mr. Bonekemper is a graduate of
Yale Law School and was awarded an M.A. in history by Old Dominion
University, Norfolk, VA and a B.A. in American History by Muhlenberg
College, Allentown, PA. He worked as a U.S. Government attorney for
34 years for the United States Coast Guard and the Department of
Transportation and is now retired. He lives in Willow Street, PA.
Edward Bonekemper’s books are:
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Abraham
Lincoln
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Ulysses S.
Grant
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Elihu B. Washburne
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