Chapter 20

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January 4th, 1864Today I visited the stables and talked to Old Abe. As usual, he was pleased to see me. I offered him a handful of oats, and he bobbed his head. The sun was warm in the stall. I stood by, as Abe munched. I could believe that he knew I was thanking him for my escape yesterday.My hat is lying on my bed—a bullet hole right through the crown. A good hat. If Abe hadn’t bolted someone might have shot again. We were lucky it was growing dark, Abe and I.I offered him more oats.Stablemen were arriving. Bill Slade appeared.“Good mawnin’, Mistah President. How is you this mawnin’?”A fine person, Bill Slade—from Kentucky.I must give away that telltale hat. It cost me eight dollars. Certainly, Mary must never find it; that would mean severe hysteria.I have been considering the purchase of a taller horse. No, Old Abe will serve me. I must shorten the stirrups. I appreciate his easy gaits. Gentleness—something hard to come by these days.DeskWilliam Seward—I wanted to call him Will, wanted to bridge the gap that exists between us, a gap some three years wide. As my Secretary of State he has assisted the government through his foreign diplomacy; as an ardent anti‑slave man he has successfully blocked the Confederacy through foreign influence. As governor of New York he left an enviable record; as senator he is above re­proach. With his friendly Irish spirit, he has favored Irish immigration. With his eye on the presidency he has not spared me.As friend of Jefferson Davis and his wife, I have had to work to allay suspi­cions, suspicions that have proved ungrounded. Seward’s eye on the presidency will continue beyond my stay in the White House. He has an intense desire to improve our nation, to push on; I admire his faith in tomorrow. Unfortunately, he has not always manifested political balance. When he suggested an all-out war with Europe, to force an amalgamation of North and South, I was utterly non­plussed.Trainer of Arabian horses, owner of Arabian horses, breeder of Arabians, Seward is many things. He is sixty, has white hair, slouches, swears, smokes ci­gars. When asked by an hysterical officer, when Washington was threatened with invasion at the time I took office, “What shall I fire at?,” Seward responded coolly: “Fire at the crisis!”One winter’s afternoon, Louis Agassiz drove up to the White House, with his brilliant wife, Elizabeth. A Swiss-American, he speaks English with a marked but dis­tinguished accent. We three had a long walk through the December garden and our conservatory, and he emphasized the value of studying from nature. Bustling to his carriage, parked on the driveway, he returned with his four-volume study,Natural History of the United States.He was pleased to present it to me—and inscribed the first volume. Elizabeth did her best to enlighten me on scientific points since I have never studied the sciences, a brief elementary course, I might call it. I found the two remarkable. When I can, I dip into hisHistory.Later, he sent hisRecherches sur les poissons fossiles,this study in French. I have bequeathed it to the Library.The visit of this pair has shown me depths that lie in Europe—depths I must explore.Executive Mansion1/14/64I reviewed my Emancipation Proclamation to the best of my ability. Lights were on, the house quiet. Rain streaked the windows. I wanted to re-test each word, wholly for myself. In these troubled times I must rescue something for myself.Thus:...I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, order and de­clare that all persons held as slaves are forever free. The Executive Government, including the military and naval authority, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons...I enjoin all people to abstain from violence. I evoke the considerate judgment of mankind...Foreverfree.Those words still ring in my mind.As I signed, I remembered slaves, slaves in a slave depot, slaves on a barge, slaves on a Kentucky plantation; I remembered the dead and the dying, brother against brother; I thought about pillaged homes, families in rags. I saw. I stared at the Proclamation and saw.Now, as I sit at my desk, it seems to me that I have been guided by experi­ence. My presidency has been justified. It seems to me, in all calmness, in objec­tivity, I have placed a permanent seal on the ages.LaterIn Boston there have been two mammoth celebrations. Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson and politicos attended. Harriet Beecher Stowe came. Beethoven’sFifthSymphonywas played.Throughout the nation, in small towns and hamlets there were schoolhouse ceremonies, church ceremonies, to honor the Proclamation. Hymns and prayers.In Norfolk, two thousand former slaves paraded.I have gone through many newspapers to read of the rejoicing.A black is quoted:“Freedom are an unbroke filly...but I gwine to mount her.”Hundreds of thousands of copies of my Emancipation have been printed and distributed.To preserve the union.OfficeSurrounded by war I try to remember what Washington was like when I first came here about eighteen years ago. What a bedraggled place it was! I stayed at Brown’s Hotel. And Washington is again a bedraggled place, in a different way now, with tents, troops, cavalry, guns, death.In ’47, I leased my house in Springfield for $90.00 a year. This time I have leased it for double. My tenants were neglectful in ’47; I expect neglect again.In the wilderness each Christmas was a day for sober thoughts. Easter was a day of inner conflict. When was time both gentle and kind? Underneath the stars on a summer’s night? Perhaps. Even then we might hear a wildcat scream. Wild­cats were more numerous than books.There was that winter when the cold and the snow killed many of us, us and our livestock. Drifts hung lean-tos on our cabin. Papa shot a deer. Wolves used the crust to raid cattle. We cut wood, lugged frozen water. A fire burned day and night.I lived ten years in that cabin.One day, in town, I met a man who offered to sell me a barrel for 50¢. I bought it. In the bottom, buried under straw, I found a book:Blackstone’sCom­mentaries.1753. It was warm at the blacksmith’s and I began to study the com­mentaries there.It is very late, perhaps two or three in the morning. I forgot to wind my watch. I hear men on the street, men and horses; this city never rests; there is weather here but I do not think of weather. The climate of dread has assumed a reality beyond all else. When you control men and control armies you lack inner core.White HouseJanuary 15, 1864In spite of myself, I recall the meals I had as a boy, the meals when there was nothing to eat but potatoes. There were better times, when we had perch or cat­fish, wild pig, grouse, or venison. But, eating potatoes, here in the White House, brings to mind that struggle. Memory. How constant, how untrustworthy, how valuable. Here, my Shakespearean-aside, will, like a juggler, toss up thoughts, three or four at a time, potatoes.In those Illinois days I was lucky when I earned 30 cents a day, working on a farm. Walk to the farm, walk home. At dark I climbed my peg ladder to the cabin loft and slept on corn husks, my grizzly bear rug not always warm enough. Lying among the husks and the squeaky mice I puzzled, knowing that soon I must leave. I determined I must get away. Living there I lived like an Indian, an Illinois Indian, barefooted all summer, moccasined during the winter. Like an Indian, I knew the meaning of silence, the dread of silence and its comfort. My father taught me to work but he never taught me to love drudgery.Some of those pioneers used to say:“Don’t see all you see; don’t hear all you hear.”That is sound advice. It applies here in Washington. Many aspects of my life have assumed ridiculous proportions among these people. The fact that I was a wrestler affronts some; that I could plow with oxen annoys others. My humor shocks many. My lizard joke, that I thought very amusing, is now in bad taste. If I said: “Spit against the wind and you spit in your own face” ...well, certain politi­cians might understand and appreciate that.I see people and more people. My office is often crowded. I am criticized for the amount of time I devote to the public. My secretaries try to restrain me.I’ll do the very best I can, the very best I know how. And I mean to keep doing so to the end. If the end brings me out all right what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.People have asked me how it feels to be president, and I sometimes say, if there is an appropriate moment:You have heard about the man tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail? A man in the crowd asked him how he liked it, and his reply was that if it wasn’t for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.W. H.January 20The other night I had a dream and in that dream I observed myself in a huge mirror; my face had two distinct images, one more or less superimposed on the other, the underneath face much paler than the upper face. The dream has per­plexed me; something about it, its shadowiness maybe, seems part of my wilder­ness life, the shadowiness of those star-roofed nights. Mary was disturbed by my dream. She interpreted it, saying that it meant that I would be re-elected for a second term. The pale image meant I would not finish that term. As she talked about the dream I remembered how emphatically I felt that I would never return to Springfield, an emotion that nearly overwhelmed me as I waved from the train.W. H.1864It was only a few years ago that John Quincy Adams was swimming in the Potomac with his son. Adams used to rise at five, to read the Bible, Commen­tary, and then read the newspapers. He was about fifty-seven when he was President. I recall his vivid description of abolitionist Lovejoy’s printing press tragedy, in Alton, in ’37, how the mob destroyed the man’s press and murdered him, such a fate for a truly conscientious man! A martyr to the cause of freedom! Adams recounts preacher Joseph Cartwright’s plea for money, for $450 to buy the freedom of his own three grandchildren. What a meaningful exemplification of slavery!JQA—fine President!White HouseJanuary 24, ’64Job seekers have besieged me. It must be the new year that sends so many. They come from every part of our nation, even the deep South. Some of the job seekers feel they have every right to storm my office; some are pitifully humble. Some bring recommendations; some have prepared a little speech; some have no credentials. Yesterday an elderly woman burst into tears as she pled for a job. I helped her to sit down. I offered her a drink of water. I did my best to console her. In her case there seemed to be no job available; I asked her to return in a few days; I had to ask my secretary to show her out. I am resolved to permit my countrymen access to my office. I can understand my country through these seekers. If some are loath to leave, I can sit up later over my important docu­ments. Of course there are not enough oats for all these hosses.February 2, ’64The howitzers and the rifles and the bayonets and the ammunition and the sandbags are gone from our public buildings. The invasion crisis is forgotten. Some say that 10,000 men guard Washington, perhaps 8,000; I am wary of sta­tistics today.There is a hint of spring in the air today.I stand on the steps of the White House and shout for a boy to bring me the morning paper.How do I obtain accurate information?I learn that two million dollars have disappeared from our national treasury.I learn that General Grant is seriously ill.I learn that the Confederate forces plan to invade Wilmington tomorrow at noon.I learn that I have assumed dictatorial powers.I read that the Confederacy has 220,000 men under arms.Tomorrow the Cabinet meets... I will point out some of these items to my Secretary of War, my Secretary of State, my Secretary of the Treasury.February 5, 1864I think that my strength as wrestler, ox driver, and rail splitter helps me. I channel it into my cabinet meetings, office hours, discussions, late hours. Chase, Sumner, Seward, Trumbul, Usher—each receives some of that energy. I repeat that the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present. I re-affirm that we must act anew. We must continually disenthrall ourselves.Fellow citizens...we of this Congress...ours is a mutual concern at this time...And at all times there is someone who wishes to enter by the back door, who has a special message or a letter of prime importance...Some of my friends predict a final cataclysm; some believe that by wheedling we can conquer; some voice the old voice of the abolitionists; some offer a packet of new tricks; theirs is a jack-in-the-box credibility.White HouseFebruary 8th, 1864This morning, early, I heard a low rap-rap on my office door.  S. O. S.The Morse code... S. O. S.Tad, still in his nightgown, climbed onto my lap.Together, we figured out how many bales of hay we should order for his pony, and Willie’s pony. How many bushels of grain. We decided that the pony’s halter should be re-adjusted, a new strap over the nose, or a new buckle. We also puzzled over what should be done about the small hole in the new red saddle.If these were not matters of state, we made them as important—until I showed Tad my pile of correspondence; then, with a wild kiss, he rushed off, banging the door.February 18, 1864I suppose that Willie and Tad—although strictly forbidden—will rig another toy cannon on the roof of the White House. That flat roof is an ideal playground for those scoundrels. With their cannon in place the boys fire invisible bullets at invisible enemy ships and troops.How I laughed when Tad gobbled all the fresh strawberries intended for a state dinner last June. Pranks such as that annoy the kitchen staff—and I am blamed. They cannot possibly understand that when my boys go berserk I am relieved of war anxiety for the moment. When Willie and Tad ambush me in some room or corridor, that tumbled mass of arms and legs and heads is my medal for the day. As we tumble, Jip growls and barks and joins in.Their doll, Jack, a long-legged, blue-jacketed Zouave, has been put on trial re­cently. Because he fell asleep while on picket duty the boys sentenced him to death, and he was to be buried under a bush in the garden.“Jack is pardoned. By order of the President,” I wrote, and signed my name.However, if I am away, Jack may be accused again and they may destroy him.Tad’s BirthdayTad received a pair of snow-white kittens, toys, a wooden box of stick candy, and then a boat ride on the Potomac. The spring afternoon was calm and beauti­ful. Tad loved every moment—especially when the skipper allowed him to steer the sloop. He dashed about the cabin, hung over the bow, waved a flag at the stern. His grinning face is unforgettable.Back in the White House, he became the devoted master of his kittens. With them lying on his bed, he stuck each toy in front of a nose, saying :“Isn’t that a nice one! Look at this little frog, kitty!”Tad met a woman in the hall, a woman in homespun. She told Tad that her girls and boys were hungry and sick, because their father was in prison in Washington. Tad believed her; taking in every word she said he ran to me. I was at my desk; I had been hearing bad news of deserters; deserters present a grave problem; often there are complications that make judgment difficult.Tad’s tear-streaked face shocked me, and, little by little, as he sat on my lap, as I cuddled him, we put together the woman’s story. He kissed me and clasped me around the neck and begged me to intercede. I promised I would.Dashing into the hall, he knelt by the woman, and cried that she was to have her husband back, that her children were going to have something to eat.“Papa promised,” I heard him say. “Papa promised.”March 3rdMany object to Tad, to his vivacity, his dashing into my office, throwing his arms around me, staying or dashing off. There are those who think I, in my of­fice, my high office, should be above love. Some of those same people object to my rural humor.I carry Tad to his bed. I tell him stories. I linger, linger until he falls asleep. Young as he is he knows that death is around the city. I ask his fate: shall he ex­perience an early death, live to be old and wise, remembering some of these days in Washington, some of the war stories? A father can ask questions.Make a noise, Tad, dash into my office tomorrow, jump on me, kiss me.I remember the presidential chair vilified, pilloried. I see the grim cartoons lampooning me. A child offsets those.Tuesday eveningThis morning I visited one of the hospitals, a tent hospital by the river. Rain was everywhere. The wounded felt it, that was easy to see. I went among them, shaking hands, enquiring; this was not my first visit; I knew some of the men by name.“Abraham,” I heard a man whisper to his cot mate.Can a name influence a life?Abraham—“father of a multitude.”Through the centuries, thousands of infants have been christened Abraham. What has it meant? And what kind of father am I? In the deep of the night, or during a cabinet meeting, or while playing with my sons, I ask. Which of the wounded, which of the dead, was my responsibility?Now and then the candle beside my bed does not want to go out.Mid-afternoonRainIn Springfield, Billy de Fleurville’s barbershop was my favorite barbershop. We were friends, Billy and I. Billy is a Haitian. His English is a remarkable mix­ture of soft, sometimes incomprehensible sounds. A stable person, he has raised a family and has been a civic influence for fifteen years or more. He initiated a committee that brought about a school for blacks. He loves his rabbit paws and his jokes; while he shaves you or trims your hair, he entertains. Since Billy loves gumbo and fricasseed chicken I saw to it that he had more than his share through the years.At the depot, as the train pulled out for Washington, he was there, handing me a farewell note, to read on the train.He writes me that tenants are taking proper care of my house and yard.“Filibuster has kittens,” he adds, in a postscript. “One brown, two yellows.”EveningDeskI treasure a letter from a child named Grace Bedell. Grace wrote me :“I have four brothers and part of them will vote for you anyway, and if you let your whiskers grow, I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better, for your face is so thin.”Grace’s suggestion amused me...and I might glean those two votes! So, I let my beard grow, and Billy de Fleurville trimmed it for my inaugural. In Westfield, at the depot, my train was on a siding. While it was there I asked the crowd:“Is Grace Bedell here?”She came running to the train, and I was able to hug and kiss her.The White HouseSundayThey were good days in Springfield, our children growing, bursting with en­ergy, up to antics day in and day out. They helped and hindered boisterously, helped pitch-fork the cow’s stall, water the horse, carry in the wood for the stove; they hindered by being unreliable, off somewhere when needed.I liked pulling the little ones in their red wagon, up and down our street, the kids yelping or fussing happily. It would be pleasant to be in Springfield, but not the same, with Robert away at school. But, I would stretch my legs onto a foot­stool and lie back on the old horsehair sofa.No, a thousand slaves are throwing up fortifications in Richmond, in Charleston, in Atlanta....fortifications to enslave more enslavement.Someone, in the south, has written me:“I warn you... I will kill you before long. You are destroying the nation. You have no right to be President...”March 24th, 1864Here is another anonymous letter:“Dear Mr. President—“In addressing you, I am prompted by the kindest motives. I wish to warn you of the peril you are facing if you remain in office. The South has strong motives for desiring your death and has resolved to take your life in the event of your not relinquishing your office. The blacks are dis­illusioned by your presidency. The whites can not, without endangering more lives, allow you to remain in the seat of government...”So another letter, with “kindest motives,” has reached me. How many have, though both secretaries screen my mail. There is no doubt that anonymity makes a man courageous.April 2, 1864EveningThe North commits atrocities. The South commits atrocities. War is, without the shadow of a doubt, a form of insanity. As Commander-in-Chief I can order troops to attack; with the cessation of military activities I can not order 50,000 men to reconstruct a devastated area. The legality of such an order has never been questioned, as far as I know, by any victorious power. Perhaps, during my second term in office, I can weigh the consequences of such an official directive.Think of Libby Prison, consider Andersonville. They are collective atrocities.Was it two years ago a man handed me two red apples at a depot in Ohio, bowing, and wishing me well?I insist that the United States form a strictly federal community, that the states are essential to its welfare as is the central government, and North must never dominate the South or the South dominate the North. I also insist that the Chief Executive remain as center of the government. If the President uses his power justly, the people will justify him; if he abuses it, he is in their hands to be dealt with by all the modes they have reserved to themselves under the constitu­tion. This is essentially a people’s contest, I repeat. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government where the leading object is to elevate the condition of man...can I repeat this too often?The White HouseLibraryThere is room enough for all of us to be free, and that it not only does not wrong the white man that the negro should be free, but it positively wrongs the mass of the white man that the negro should be enslaved.Here among a heap of newspapers I pause...April 6thWhite House(windows open)When brought to my final reckoning, may I have to answer for robbing no man of his goods; yet, more tolerable even this, than for robbing one of himself and all that was his. When, a year or two ago, professedly holy men of the South met in the semblance of prayer and devotion, and, in the name of Him who said, “As ye would all men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them,” appealed to the Christian world to aid them in doing to a whole race of men as they would have no man do unto themselves, to my thinking they contemned and insulted God and His church...but let me forebear, remembering it is also written, “Judge not lest ye be judged.”My words, my record, this diary, seem obtuse at times; I attempt to write down what I think and the writing evolves another way.In pensive mood I realize that President Jefferson Davis sits at his desk in his White House. I sit at my desk in my White House. He orders his army to move across the chessboard of war. I order my army to move across the same chess­board. His men fight for their homeland. My men fight for a nation. It seems to me that this is an ancient form of puppetry, a puppetry that came into being in days before the time of Christ. It is obvious, then, that we have gained nothing in the realm of diplomacy.The cause of slavery has little to do with puppetry; it has much to do with man’s future. The nation must have freedom as its base, a living freedom, a worker’s freedom, a thinker’s freedom.Executive MansionDeskApril 16, 1864Some folk still call me “Old Abe,” “Honest Abe,” “The Backwoods­man,” “Rail Splitter.” I like those names; they come out of my wilderness; they can be warm. They helped me through those stormy debate days and still help me in this prolonged struggle to save our country.Lincoln:  1,866,452 votesDouglas: 1,376,957 votesThose numbers are printed in my mind’s eye. I am proud that I beat Stephen Douglas, a great man, who, often impartial, said good things about me as we contested, as we debated. How was he able to carry on so valiantly? A sick man—I’ve seen him stagger from fatigue. I’ve seen him fall asleep, on the plat­form, after final arguments. Yet, next day he was on his feet again:1,866,452I saw those figures as I walked along Pennsylvania Avenue after the inauguration ceremony, as I walked through the White House garden. That was my lucky number, my lottery number. Destiny, hard work, luck, time—they dovetail.I felt the loss keenly, when Douglas died in ’61. He wore himself out in his effort to save the union.The White HouseApril 24, 1864At the outset of this war, we had a military force of about 16,000 men. Few of these men could be classed as professionals. After the loss of Fort Sumter, I called for 75,000 volunteers. Moving into combat, in those early days, men fought with antiquated guns and poor equipment; however, our artillery, at least, was superior.Our soldiers were fortunate to have field tents. They bivouacked in mule yards. Uniforms were issued willy-nilly. Hats had to be stuffed with newspapers. Some men had to survive on desiccated vegetables—cakes of them. On the march their knapsacks fell apart.I see that war is fought on folly. I half-believe there were sane men who could have steered us without conflict. Day after day, hour after hour, I walk through this tragedy. I question my judgment and the judgment of others. I study a war map and realize I am studying a map of corpses, men, women, and children.I wake in the middle of the night. There’s a bell, a drum.The White HouseWe have 3,200,000 slaves in our country.What man would not want to set them free?Among them there must be many a man and woman who is among the  fin­est. Among them there must be inventors, lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers—men who never had a chance. It is my duty, my dedication, to liberate them as soon as possible. The world can not be a better place until they are freed.Three million men and women and children, bound in irons, what a world! I will do my best to strike those irons, take away every shackle, so these people can look at the sun and say:this is myworld to make something of, it is my chance to get something out of life.The White HouseDeskMay 1, 1864Three or four times I have hidden (incognito?), in the wings of a theatre to hear an opera.Tales ofHoffmanwas performed last week, and I sat in a red leather chair behind the curtains. Back home I used to watch magic lantern shows; they were fine antidotes to melancholy; theTales of Hoffmanminimized the Washing­ton volcano.I escape some of our war tragedy by reading Spencer. In my bedroom I read till sunup. Every man must skin his own skunk and I skin mine through books. At sunup I can lay down my book and sleep, until someone wakes me.Tonight I would like to bowl at Caspari’s but bowling, because of the war, is off-limits for me. Somebody’s afraid a strike might make me laugh. I had a few good strikes before the war.The White House is asleep. Perhaps I should find a ruler and compass and attempt to square the circle.And so to bed...My wife is one of the loneliest women in Washington. Her hospitality, her lavish entertainments, have bred enemies and have engendered no rewarding friendships. Because Mary exceeded her Congressional allotment for essential White House expenditures, the press has attacked her. I have volunteered to pay the bills out of my salary. I have cautioned her against ostentation: “War is no time for preening.”Elizabeth Keckley, her seamstress, a former slave, is her confidante. With three brothers fighting in the Confederate army there are those who accuse Mary of treason. Injustice can strike. And the sad face, the sad thoughts continue. Poor Mary. Sharing intimate emotions with Elizabeth Keckley is a mistake. I do not dare reproach her.Today’s cabinet meeting was a bitter one.Yes, it is true Mary has relatives fighting for the Southern cause. So has Gen­eral Grant and other officers. Does this imply some form of subterfuge? I am well aware of my wife’s integrity. I respect her family sympathies. To impugn the loyalty of my spouse is tantamount to accusing me of treason.When I learned that a secret committee had been formed to investigate the loyalty of my wife I made a point of appearing dramatically, by a seldom used door to the committee room. I stepped inside without a word—hat in hand.A dozen men were sitting around a long table. Rain was streaking the win­dows. No one spoke. I waited. I stared at first one and then the other, searching the faces. I knew most of the men well.I said:“I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, appear of my own voli­tion before this Senate Committee to say that I, of my own knowledge, know that it is untrue that any member of my family holds treasonable communication with the enemy.”I walked out.I have heard no more from that committee or any other; however, my re­sentment lingers, sticks in my craw. Who could forget such calumny?I have attended lectures at the Smithsonian Institute, where Horace Greeley has been outspoken on the abuse of slavery in our nation. His influence, through his lectures and his associates, through his editorials in theNewYorkTribune,is an influence I intend to curry.At the Smithsonian he drew me aside and thought it important to inform me that he is a vegetarian, a teetotaler—that he would never stoop to smoking a ci­gar. He seemed to be sounding me out by cataloging his qualities. Grasping my arm, he grinned and said: “I want to share this one...since you like stories. I have loaned considerable sums to the son of Commodore Vanderbilt. Last week the Commodore burst into my office and rapped on my desk with his cane. When I glanced up, he said: ‘I will not be responsible for my son’s borrowing money from you.’ I said to the Commodore: ‘Who the Hell asked you to.’ ”At another Smithsonian lecture, I met George Bancroft, our distinguished elder historian. Obviously disgruntled and tired, he wanted to know: Why is General McClellan living in an aristocratic style in an aristocratic mansion? Is it true that John Jacob Aster pays his salary?When I introduced Bancroft to McClellan, he questioned Mac about the condition of the cavalry: Is it true that half the horses purchased for the army are unfit for service? Was it true that in the District of Columbia, horses have been chained to trees, where they gnawed bark, leaves and branches until they died?McClellan was not happy with Bancroft. I was not happy with Bancroft and McClellan. Since the General has become known in Washington as the “general most gifted at masterly inactivity,” I am seriously considering taking to the field as Commander-in-Chief. My qualification: integrity.I can not sleep.In Chicago, one windy night, I attended my first symphony concert. I was in the city working on the McCormick lawsuit. The concert was all Italian. Verdi. I recognized, as I listened to the rich outpouring, how much I had missed during my prairie years. There were no available seats in the theatre, but that was unim­portant; I leaned against a wall, in the foyer, hat in hand. Mama would have rejoiced over such music! Why must so many die young and deprived?Drums passing.The White HouseLibraryMay 5th, 1864De Tocqueville wrote that there are few calm spots in this country for medi­tation; yet, in this library, there is a spot. This afternoon it seems to me that these ancient books, with their ancient wisdom, ask what is freedom? Is it something nailed in pain against the morning sky? I think not. Surely freedom is not to limit mankind; it is to share life’s values. I remember these lines, learned as a boy, “What avail the plow or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?” It is our duty to know and analyze freedom, however illusive. I hear it is a flame. Then, if that is true, we must keep it burning in our minds. The altar of freedom is an expres­sion that illustrates how sacred freedom is. Freedom, if we can say it briefly, is the dignity of man.White HouseMay 9Can a truly religious person support war, I query?I am my brother’s keeper, I am instructed.In the core of night, knowing that my countrymen are waging fratricidal car­nage, I perceive that I have been nurtured on violence: I countenance war.As Commander of the military forces, whose intention is victory, I am begin­ning to see that war is a form of slavery. Generals Grant and Sherman, Generals Johnson and Lee confirm this. So, we, the people, with our armies, fight slavery with slavery.No doubt others have mulled over these or similar tenets. But I return to the cost, the human cost, the countless lives lost, the shattered families, shattered homes. Our lintels are hung with crepe.The White HouseDeskSurely, I should kneel in prayer each night, but for years I have not been able to pray, not even the simple prayers my mother taught me. Now, with the war pressing down on mind and country, prayer is needed. But this war, this tragedy and my part in that tragedy, controls me.Mary has taught Tad to pray. His little prayers, as he lies in bed or kneels be­side it, trouble me because of my lacks.Dear God —The White HouseOfficeMay 14th, ’64He, too, has to die.I see an old man and this thought occurs. I see a child playing: he, too, has to die. I see a beautiful woman, and I hear the same words. We are doomed. Let us be brothers.In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity. Nobody has ever expected me to be president. In my poor, lean lank face nobody has ever seen that cabbages were sprouting.Executive MansionJune 1, 1864It has been a couple of weeks since I have written here. No matter. Some of the things I write are as thin as the homoeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death.Tonight the ticking of my watch is audible—it is meaningful following a long day listening to men and women express their desires. As I sit in my bedroom, my watch my companion, I feel that time is not on my side. Time is slow at bringing the war to an end. Time cares nothing for us. In the garden I have studied the sundial on sunny and cloudy days. We are also time pieces.For years I wished to own a watch and chain, a gold one with a gold chain. It is time to pick up the key and wind my watch again.Willie’s BirthdayIn our dining room our dining table was festive—for Willie. His friend, Charlie Mathers, was special guest, Charlie, so splendid in his freckles and red hair. Both boys were dressed in their Sunday togs.I gave Willie a Zeiss field glass, an antique ship’s compass from Italy, I be­lieve; also a red handkerchief and books.Mary gave him a British belt buckle with lion and unicorn, a set of brushes and tubes of pigment...Charlie brought a box of candy.Willie, at the head of the table, opened his gifts sedately, barely commenting, shy, rather like a little prince, not a kid from Illinois.Tad pleased him with a checker set, board and pieces handmade.(Today’s war casualties are shocking.)The White HouseJune 21, ’64During the last year I have had several consultations with White House and Washington physicians. They are encouraging about Tad. They believe that he may be able to speak normally as he grows older, that he may be able to learn to read and write, that his frenzied actions may diminish as he matures. I had a White House doctor observe Tad for over a month; he is quite optimistic.Dear Tad—Mary and I love you.When I hold him in my arms he has no defects. I think his ponies and goats and dogs and cats have helped him. He is always kind to his little friends. The soldiers love him. He’s their Illinois Lieutenant. The blacks, too, are fond of him.Mary loves to cradle him in her arms, in the peace of her bedroom. Some­times he sleeps with me. Of course we spoil him. We spoil Willie too. When I am in conference and Tad dashes in it is amazing how intolerant some people can be over his effusiveness.Well...when I am with Tad I forget the war.July 20, 1864OfficeWhat does my old freckle-faced pastor think of me, now that I am in Wash­ington? He never writes. Does he think I have forgotten Springfield?He forgave Tad for whittling on a pew; he tolerated my long absences when I rode circuit; he preached directly, discreetly from the Bible, eager to please his congregation. Today he is probably sermonizing from Job: the war must weigh on him because he is a just and careful man. I imagine he remembers that Tho­mas Jefferson kept slaves. Does he know that there are some 200,000 blacks serving in our army? I would like to sound him out. How does he feel about the importance of a country united? If I could drop by...listen...if I could ride circuit for a fortnight I would learn much.I notice that I have not written here for about a month. Pressures. Here, as I write, I seem to coordinate myself.July 24, 1864Executive Mansion—office—I believe it was arson.Someone set fire to the White House stables. I rushed out when I saw the flames and heard men shouting. Our fire engine crew arrived too late. Willie’s pony died. Tad’s pony died. Four horses died, three survived, among them Old Abe. The fire occurred at night, while Willie and Tad slept. How much more disastrous it would have been if they had been awake. A number of us worked for five or six hours, to calm the surviving horses, to drag away the ponies on a sledge, for later burial. In the morning it was a very hard task to inform the boys.With Tad sprawled on the bedroom floor, and Willie slumped in a chair, Mary and I attempted to comfort them. They were not to be comforted. We promised replacement ponies. They wailed and cringed at “replacements.” The day was lost.Arson, yes, everyone thinks it was arson. Some of the stable hands feel that the fire was set to bring me to the stables at night—a possible assassination at­tempt.The White HouseThe LibraryI have sought sanctuary in the library.Willie is dead.He was thirteen, handsome, intelligent, gentle, fond of each of us. For two weeks he battled for survival, his doctors helping little or not at all. When his doctor left him, when I was alone with him, I felt his cold face and held his cold hands. I thought, he’s not really dead. It must be an error. He isn’t dead because I feel his presence in the room, hear his voice.Typhoid killed him.Mary, hysterical, suffered grave headaches at his death. She is unable to com­fort Tad. She is unable to speak coherently. She sometimes fancies that he is not dead: she wants to go into the bedroom and speak to him. She says she hopes to communicate with him through a séance. Only I have a chance at comforting Tad. Sitting on my lap, his head against my shoulder, he sleeps. Certainly he knows the sleeve of care, the worn sleeve.Today we buried our Willie. Mary and Robert and Tad and I stood side by side at the grave.It was like burying a part of my own body... I felt the earth strike my hands, my arms, my face, my mouth.Cabinet members attended, military men, friends, White House staff. Tad held Jip in his arms. It rained some.I’m a tired man. Sometimes I’m the tiredest man on earth.August ’64Mary has passed days in her darkened bedroom, wracked by headaches, scarcely able to communicate, hardly able to eat. Her faithful Mrs. Keckley looks after her. There is little or no response when I attempt to comfort her. God, she claims, has deserted her.I return to my office.Now the war is my distraction. There is a hellish healing power in the roll of drums, the rumble of caissons, the tramp of a regiment. Washington’s armed camp is always on the move.Willie...Maybe he is fortunate. At least he has been spared the confrontation of brother against brother.I return to Mary’s bedroom.I offer coffee. She declines.Robert came and knelt by her. He will go back to Harvard next week. Tad lay asleep at the foot of Mary’s bed. Sometimes, when the four of us are in the bed­room I feel that grief is fourfold.I retreated.Jip comes.AugustAfter Willie’s death I received a warm and understanding letter from Billy Herndon, my Billy. Each word weighed carefully.Through the years he was much more patient than I; when I read aloud, back in the back of the office, he overlooked the nuisance. He tolerated my kids when they burst in on me. They sometimes wrecked havoc. He never brought his kids, never permitted them to come to the office...or if he did, they were no problem.Billy could prepare his cases faster than I.“Abe, are you still lingerin’ over that Moffit suit?”When he stood before a jury he was accurate and his accuracy taught me to prepare my cases with care.Billy liked Willie. Well, he liked all my chil­dren.How often we spread ourselves in my parlor and talked. Billy is like a cedar post, deeply imbedded.Maybe he misses the buffalo stampede of my kids.SummerPersonal tragedy strikes most of us. At this time personal loss is the fabric of this country.What does a man do, does he sit in his chair, in the middle of a room, and wait?I have not adjusted to Willie’s death.    Just a few days ago he was alive, riding on his pony; then, then the four of us stood around his grave.The night he died I sat up all night; I worked with letters, documents, senate papers, proposals for a rail west, telegrams reporting the war. Someone brought me coffee.Jip came in, and sat on my lap.It is one thing to encounter personal loss in the theatre, another to read a tragedy; certainly it is another emotion to face it yourself, to realize that no power can reinstate.The disciples had their hands full when their Lord and Master was crucified. I do not measure my little boy as any kind of lord but he was my son, a promise. The father in me does not go away.I go, now, to curry Old Abe.I would like to chop wood a while.White HouseSummerAgain I am besieged by office seekers. I can name a hundred: Whitney, Schurz, Collaman, Blair, Wallace. They seek posts as consuls, envoys, inspectors, paymasters, commissioners, postmas­ters. Although I now have fixed hours, they intrude. Favors, all wish favors! I am accused of nepotism by the press, by staff and cabinet mem­bers. How would they shuffle the cards? Respon­sible positions are wrestled over by Vermonters and New Yorkers vying with Missourians and Ohioans.Note:Speak to Capt. Dobson about balloon obser­vations. Work out telegraphic communication with the balloon observer.August 20thI woke early. It is already hot. No breeze.I look out of the windows at the tents of the wounded. Behind the tents is the river, flattened by the heat. I have been inside of each tent several times. I have seen inside some of those men; I listen; I wait and listen. There are men with letters from home, men with Bibles beside them. Men or boys. Perhaps there is no essential difference when one is wounded. Man or boy is lost. There is no catching up for him. His trip home will show him a different world; if he goes home in a coffin—his homecoming makes that home unreal forever. One boy shows me aminiéball extracted from his leg. One man tells me how much we need a balloon corps. Another grasps my hand but can’t say a word. At the very back of the tent someone is playing a harmonica, the “Camp Town Races”...or so it was yesterday.The White HouseSummerToday I have been able to pardon two boys accused of dereliction of duty, Company K, while on guard near Washington. Regardless of reports I feel that they had carried the Union on their bayonets. Cramer and Phillips will have a second chance.The heat of the afternoon has been oppressive; to cool me off, my mulatto brought me a cool drink on her famous tray; then a chaplain and a private spun stories of regimental pets. Once again I heard of the eagle in the 8th Wisconsin Volunteers. He is still alive after being in battles in seven states. His six-and-a-half-foot wingspread has been crippled by bullets; they say he screams when his Corps sees action.A Minnesota unit manages to keep a half-grown bear; they swear he is the best picket-duty man. A black and white dog, named Jacko, has been dubbed a “brave soldier dog,” because he has been wounded twice, while his men were in action.I have also learned that there are gamecocks, a coon, and several badgers in the field. Mascots all.Militiamen, who visit me, talk a language I understand: jaggers, hardtack, barbed wire, pup tents, canteens, bivouacs, sutlers, coffee...There are stories about dysentery: one boy said, “I jus’ cut out the bottom of my trousers!”The LibrarySummerMary’s kindness resumes. She visits the hospitals, the injured, taking flowers, food. The men are delighted to have her. People bring her newspapers and magazines, and she distributes them...she has made a little friend of a one-armed boy; sitting beside him, she becomes his mother.Last week she brought about the abolishment of a death sentence. Due to her perseverance there will be no firing squad for Richard Miller, a youngster who fell asleep on duty. My “Lady President” obtained a reprieve from General McClellan.The Press wars against Mary. Reporters ridicule her when she goes shopping in New York or Philadelphia, in her attempts to refurbish the White Rouse. If she visits Robert at Harvard, that too is criticized. Her letters to relatives are sometimes confiscated. I am aware that there are spies in the White House, but not Mary!Is this why I assumed the Presidency! It is very difficult to curb my resent­ment.Tonight, I will be spending a while with Frank Carpenter, watching him paint his Emancipation scene. He is a quiet, serious fellow, and I enjoy his company. I appreciate his skill, as he slowly brings his figures to life. He is still working in the dining room. He’ll bring me a rocker and I will stretch out.The White House—My desk—I have little admiration for Napoleon; I have less for my little Napoleons who believe or half-believe this is a war of conquest. Again and again I remind them of emancipation. They nod. The negro? The slave? Can it be that there is a moral issue? It is possible that our government can wipe out slavery and free thousands of blacks? A few are astute enough to understand the potential here. A few are astute enough to project themselves in time, asking how are we to repair the devastation caused by General Grant and General Sherman. How long did it take for our men to burn Atlanta? How long does a city burn? Some say that Rome is still burning.Andersonville—a prison... Libby—a prison. Thousands of men are incarcer­ated. Who pays for these criminal acts? All of us pay. We pay as though we were buying sugar at $12.00 a pound. A man weighs about 160 pounds. If he loses weight while he is imprisoned do we pay less?SummerWith my watch lying on the desk, the seconds seem to move all too swiftly. Nine, ten, twelve...each second a life around Washington...cabinet mem­bers...family...friends. Here at 9:58 is Willie’s birth; here at 4:00 is Tad’s birth. A few more seconds pass and I am delivering my inaugural address. The war is threatening, the war has overcome us.I put away the watch.When Billy Herndon presented me with that watch I thought I would spend the rest of my life in Springfield. I thought our partnership would go on and on. I was lying on the old sofa, tired after a circuit ride.Billy handed me the watch; I opened its box; then he said :“We’ve been working together for ten years.”He brushed his fingers through his shaggy beard and sat down at his desk.A gold watch —Executive MansionSeptember 1st, 1864“This is a beautiful country,” said John Brown, as the hangman hung him.He was no black Christ: no gentle Uncle Tom; yet, he is becoming a black Christ as we continue this civil war, as we become more and more harassed by casualties. We will need black Christs if we are to free the negro.UncleTom’sCabinmust add space—room by room, year by year.All the powers of earth seem to be combining against the chattel slave. Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows, and the theology of the day is joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him; and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of every key—the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distance places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.This evening I heard negroes singing, as I worked at my desk, the windows open. I heard that song in New Orleans on my first visit; I heard it later when on the Mississippi, when we were on our cargo-raft, when we tied up at a wharf. That was quite a scrap. The blacks almost threw us off our raft.Oh, was you ev – er in Mo – bile Bay,Low – lands, low – lands, A – way, –My John, – A – screw – ing cot – ton –By the day, My dol – lar and a half a day.Poverty...those days were poverty days.And after this war is over we will have greater poverty in the South. Poverty will be a pestilence in the South. It will require years of work to wipe it out. Pov­erty will breed treachery and crime. What police force will be able to contend with it? I will urge Congress to pass an aid bill. I will propose groups of citizenry who can advise.The White HouseSaturday eveningHere are some interesting figures I encountered:Less than one-half a day’s cost of this war could pay for the slaves in the State of Delaware, at $400 per person.All slaves by 1860 census:1,798Cost of these slaves:$719,200One day’s cost of the war:$2,000,000Less than 87 days’ cost of this war could, at the same $400 figure, pay for the slaves in the States of Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri:Cost of the slaves:$173,048,80087 days of war:$174,000,000Would compensation to all the slave owners satisfy them? Of course not. Their honor is at stake. If we do not make common cause to save the good old ship of the Union on this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her on an­other voyage.Note:Write General Grant regarding the improve­ment of all military telegraph service. Suggest a military Telegraphic Corps.The White HouseSeptember 8, 1864When I reviewed the Army of the Potomac, when the greatest cavalry in the world rode past, I felt no pride, only sorrow, for the military pomp. To those of pensive turn, the military implies death, men in uniform are death-men, dealers and receivers. They work in the counting house of death.Tad rode with the cavalry, his little shoulders wrapped in a grey cloak.Dear Tad, what do you know of pain? You will sit on my lap and babble and then ride horseback, and imagine yourself a great general.There are no great generals, Tad.I salute the officers but take off my hat to the men in the ranks. They are the great men. There are no victors—not if there is heart and memory among men, consideration for the maimed, the widows, the orphans, the deceased.Some men war for glory. No...peace is the glory.There is only one cause: the country, its flag, a united people from coast to coast. I know that of thousands of men, chosen from the ranks, there would be a thousand reasons why they fought. Perhaps that is not quite right.The men in review, the thousands who rode and walked past, were soon to retreat. Mishandled by General Hooker, 20,000 were killed, died in a wilderness of trees and thickets.Wilderness of trees and thickets...so is much of my concept of this war, due largely to inadequate reports or reports that arrive too late to be of any use.My colored pins, on the fields of battle, designate more than battle lines, regiments, infantry, artillery, cavalry, fortifications...those pins are men, my men, my country.I understand that some of the New Englanders dumped their Bibles on their long marches—their knapsacks too heavy. I can see those Bibles, dropped beside a fence post, left under­neath a tree, regretfully placed on the side of a corncrib.For my dear Son, Charles—love, MotherI read most of my mother’s Bible. It was a solace and a threat; it was a puz­zlement because I could not disentangle legend from fact.Was there such a city as Zidon?Was there a Goliath?My mother’s Bible had a few maps—they led me to travel by camelback, through Egypt and Assyria. At night, in my attic, I imagined the sacred taberna­cle, the pyramids. I repeated some of theSong of Songs.September 20, 1864The LibraryTo a great extent, this war is capitalism versus a kind of feudalism. On one hand we have free labor and on the other slave labor. The North boasts more millionaires than the South, in normal times. New York City probably has more millionaires than the entire South. John J. Astor is an example of an individual who has amassed wealth by canny manipulations—his kind is unseen in the South. As I understand it, Northern labor practices are questionable at times, shackling the workers; this must be leveled out in years to come.Strange, seeing beggars on Northern streets; yet none in the South.As the war continues I learn that Southern railroad cars lack windows for lack of factory labor. House glass can not be replaced; conventional glassware for the table can not be replaced. If a man wishes a prescription filled he must furnish his own bottle or packet. Needles, pins, scissors, knives are smuggled in and sold on the black market. Drugs have vanished from pharmacopoeia.The White HouseOctober, 1864Tonight my watch lies on my chest of drawers. Ah yes, the seconds are pass­ing, the minutes are passing. Jim Maitland is dead. Colonel James Maitland, Mas­sachusetts man. His handsome face, his humor, leadership, bravery, gone. I thought him my protégé and friend. I was to grant him a Major’s commission.The seconds, the minutes, ran out too quickly for Maitland. As I stare down at the second hand, in its small circle, I see his face; I see him dressed in his Zouave uniform.Tad will miss him.For a moment he held the enemy flag in his hands, then a shotgun blast.Executive MansionOctober 2, 1864An officer has given me a war diary kept by a Southern soldier, Fred Parker, corporal. Rain has soaked its pages; pages are missing. Here are four entries, written during the Wilderness Campaign:May 6, 1864. Face-to-face fighting all day. Rifles. Pistols. No help from our cavalry or artillery. Pine woods surround. Trees close together. Weather poor. Fred died beside me at midday. Jeffrey has had his leg shot at the knee; knee shattered; men carried him away. We hide, shoot, duck, lie down.May 7. Not much to eat. Awful hungry. Rifle fire constant.May 8. Grant’s forces surround us. 120,000 men.May 9. Dead and wounded everywhere, behind trees, under bushes. I see pieces of a sweater. Shoes. Boots. A hat. Bayonets. Broken musket. A brass belt buckle.The diary tells me that life must be more than a belt buckle.Executive MansionOctober 15, 1864Hamlet’s thoughts, his moods, fit the conflict that assails our country....We defy augury; there is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all; since no man has aught of what he leaves what is it to leave betimes? Let be.Let be. Do we?Little Tad heard Mary speaking about Maitland’s shotgun death; he climbed onto Mary’s bed and talked about our friend’s funeral—tearful details about the White House ceremony, details bitter for childish emphasis.Perhaps it is repugnant to write here when men are dying. Perhaps my diary should not have been written; perhaps I should have been attending the wounded in the hospitals. But that confusion, that confusion of pain and sorrow, would not, could not, carry me forward.Executive MansionOctober 21st, ’64My deskHow vividly I summon up the hundreds of exhausted soldiers in the streets of Washington.I watched them from the White House, a stream of muddy, rain-soaked men, walking through a downpour, going nowhere. Men without guns, without knap­sacks; some men covered with blankets. Some staggered. Some fell, lay on the street. Women brought coffee. There were Michigan men, New York men, Minnesota men—defeated, defeated at Bull Run. The broken regiments strug­gled all along Pennsylvania Avenue. Victims of panic—defeat. Not a drum sounded. All took place in rain-washed silence. Men without shoes, men leaning on one another.I ordered the White House staff and military guard to provide coffee, food, blankets, shelter.Hundreds passed...all day long.For a long while after this there were conferences, men realizing that Wash­ington could be attacked. A long time before the city was protected.Defeat, I am told, is a particular kind of crucifixion. I know. I have thought—October 24, ’64I wish I could go bowling, swap yarns.When I bowl I really never care whether I win. When I make a good score it is luck. It is talk I enjoy. It gives me an uplift. It’s an exchange, maybe, if I relate one of my circuit stories.I can not go bowling when men are dying. There is no escape. I should not look for an escape. I want cessation of conflict. Enduring peace. I wish to com­mand a strong nation, a great nation that can stand before the world as an exam­ple of what men can achieve.A sadness pervades our White House gardens, a more than autumn sadness.Mary and I tried to make a haven of our garden whenever possible. Sunsets have been Potomac sunsets, wilderness and prairie sunsets. Nevertheless, that great stillness intrudes as we walk and talk about our family and obligations. Flowers lie in Mary’s lap, as we sit on a bench. She smiles.Now four years have come and gone.We measure those years, wanting to understand. We no longer speculate about the future, our future. Life, for the moment, is held in balance like an up­raised oar.Was it yesterday, after the rain, with a faint rainbow, that the sentries paced along the far side of the gardens, and a white duck waddled toward us?The White HouseNovember 3rd, 1864“We have seen our courthouse in chains, two battalions of dragoons, eight companies of artillery, twelve companies of infantry, the whole constabulary force of the city police, the entire disposable marine of the United States, with its artillery loaded for action, all marching in support of a Praetorian band, consist­ing of 120 friends and associates of the United States Marshall, with loaded pis­tols and drawn swords, and in military costume and array—for what purpose? To escort and conduct a poor trembling slave from a Boston courthouse to the fetters and lash of his master! This display of military force the mayor of this city officially declared to be necessary,” so wrote our Harvard University friend, old Josiah Quincy. He also added, that summer in ’54, “Slaveholders have multiplied their black cattle by the million; and are every day increasing their numbers, and extending their cattle field into the wilderness...”I respond to those impressive words with mine, since the slave issue dies hard.The ant who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest will furiously defend the fruit of his labor against whatever robber assails him. So plain that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master does constantly know that he is wronged. So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume after volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it by being a slave himself.Certainly, though a man may escape death and injury in the front lines, changes brought about by the war may alienate him at home, after he leaves the army, if he still has a home. The black who has fought for the North may find his Southern neighbors have become enemies. The black who has found a meas­ure of recognition while serving will find a lack of recognition after the war.We have made little or no provision for the wounded. Our hospitals are in­adequate. Southerners will return to their farms with little more than the horse that saw combat. Custom dictates that he reject the negro.As a nation, we are in a maelstrom of change. It is my hope that the church may help democratize. As I study the Washington archive I learn essential facts, but these facts are not disseminated. How are we to coordinate these state laws? Missouri hardly comprehends the laws of Massachusetts.Justice—many strive for justice. Efforts must be doubled. I hope it may be said that I was just.There are nights when I can not sleep. I get up and pace the floor of my bed­room or go into my office.Many continue to threaten my life; so I do not walk the streets of Washing­ton. If I were home again I could walk freely. In Springfield, it is pleasant to imagine, I would shake off the war trauma. I think old skies would reassure me. But days in Springfield will not return. I have lost more than half my life here—but it was not the ax that cut me down. What was it, in all truth? Craving for glory? For power? I accept those weaknesses but above them is my desire to help my country, to balance the welfare of our people.The White House—cold, rainy—Very often my commanding officers prove to be inadequate and I have to substitute one for another. Most officers, I find, shun advice or suggestions. Grant and Sherman are the best listeners. Ours is a mutual respect. Grant has the essential military skill to control the entire armed force. He also has ample cour­age for his job (it takes courage to fling men into battle; I also send men to death).Sleep continues to be difficult to come by...peace is difficult to come by we know by now...hope is hard to come by.It is curious and amusing to look at life across time: man knows his detours: it is incredible how he has fumbled his way through the centuries. In spite of the fumbling, I believe in mankind.Executive MansionChristmasCHRISTMAS—1864.Mary and Robert and I have exchanged gifts.We have given many presents to Tad.Late in the afternoon, we placed a wreath on Willie’s grave.This evening I received this telegram from General Sherman:“I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah.– William T. Sherman”WintryRain beats on the White House, rain mixed with snow.Old newspaper clippings remind me that six thousand soldiers died in an hour at the battle of Cold Harbor.Another clipping reminds me of Gettysburg.Another...I have been reading the fifth chapter of Isaiah. It does not help. It seems there are days when nothing helps.If re-elected, how shall I live through a second term? But I must; there is work to be done; I am the best to carry out honesty for all. I want no recrimina­tions.Perhaps I can find peace, someday, in Europe. My son, Robert, is ill-disposed toward me. There is Tad, poor little wounded Tad.Mary is ill, seriously ill.Now, I shall open the Bible once more.

January 4th, 1864

T

T

oday I visited the stables and talked to Old Abe. As usual, he was pleased to see me. I offered him a handful of oats, and he bobbed his head. The sun was warm in the stall. I stood by, as Abe munched. I could believe that he knew I was thanking him for my escape yesterday.

My hat is lying on my bed—a bullet hole right through the crown. A good hat. If Abe hadn’t bolted someone might have shot again. We were lucky it was growing dark, Abe and I.

I offered him more oats.

Stablemen were arriving. Bill Slade appeared.

“Good mawnin’, Mistah President. How is you this mawnin’?”

A fine person, Bill Slade—from Kentucky.

I must give away that telltale hat. It cost me eight dollars. Certainly, Mary must never find it; that would mean severe hysteria.

I have been considering the purchase of a taller horse. No, Old Abe will serve me. I must shorten the stirrups. I appreciate his easy gaits. Gentleness—something hard to come by these days.

Desk

William Seward—I wanted to call him Will, wanted to bridge the gap that exists between us, a gap some three years wide. As my Secretary of State he has assisted the government through his foreign diplomacy; as an ardent anti‑slave man he has successfully blocked the Confederacy through foreign influence. As governor of New York he left an enviable record; as senator he is above re­proach. With his friendly Irish spirit, he has favored Irish immigration. With his eye on the presidency he has not spared me.

As friend of Jefferson Davis and his wife, I have had to work to allay suspi­cions, suspicions that have proved ungrounded. Seward’s eye on the presidency will continue beyond my stay in the White House. He has an intense desire to improve our nation, to push on; I admire his faith in tomorrow. Unfortunately, he has not always manifested political balance. When he suggested an all-out war with Europe, to force an amalgamation of North and South, I was utterly non­plussed.

Trainer of Arabian horses, owner of Arabian horses, breeder of Arabians, Seward is many things. He is sixty, has white hair, slouches, swears, smokes ci­gars. When asked by an hysterical officer, when Washington was threatened with invasion at the time I took office, “What shall I fire at?,” Seward responded coolly: “Fire at the crisis!”

One winter’s afternoon, Louis Agassiz drove up to the White House, with his brilliant wife, Elizabeth. A Swiss-American, he speaks English with a marked but dis­tinguished accent. We three had a long walk through the December garden and our conservatory, and he emphasized the value of studying from nature. Bustling to his carriage, parked on the driveway, he returned with his four-volume study,Natural History of the United States.He was pleased to present it to me—and inscribed the first volume. Elizabeth did her best to enlighten me on scientific points since I have never studied the sciences, a brief elementary course, I might call it. I found the two remarkable. When I can, I dip into hisHistory.

Later, he sent hisRecherches sur les poissons fossiles,this study in French. I have bequeathed it to the Library.

The visit of this pair has shown me depths that lie in Europe—depths I must explore.

Executive Mansion

1/14/64

I reviewed my Emancipation Proclamation to the best of my ability. Lights were on, the house quiet. Rain streaked the windows. I wanted to re-test each word, wholly for myself. In these troubled times I must rescue something for myself.

Thus:

...I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, order and de­clare that all persons held as slaves are forever free. The Executive Government, including the military and naval authority, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons...

I enjoin all people to abstain from violence. I evoke the considerate judgment of mankind...

Foreverfree.

Those words still ring in my mind.

As I signed, I remembered slaves, slaves in a slave depot, slaves on a barge, slaves on a Kentucky plantation; I remembered the dead and the dying, brother against brother; I thought about pillaged homes, families in rags. I saw. I stared at the Proclamation and saw.

Now, as I sit at my desk, it seems to me that I have been guided by experi­ence. My presidency has been justified. It seems to me, in all calmness, in objec­tivity, I have placed a permanent seal on the ages.

Later

In Boston there have been two mammoth celebrations. Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson and politicos attended. Harriet Beecher Stowe came. Beethoven’sFifthSymphonywas played.

Throughout the nation, in small towns and hamlets there were schoolhouse ceremonies, church ceremonies, to honor the Proclamation. Hymns and prayers.

In Norfolk, two thousand former slaves paraded.

I have gone through many newspapers to read of the rejoicing.

A black is quoted:

“Freedom are an unbroke filly...but I gwine to mount her.”

Hundreds of thousands of copies of my Emancipation have been printed and distributed.

To preserve the union.

Office

Surrounded by war I try to remember what Washington was like when I first came here about eighteen years ago. What a bedraggled place it was! I stayed at Brown’s Hotel. And Washington is again a bedraggled place, in a different way now, with tents, troops, cavalry, guns, death.

In ’47, I leased my house in Springfield for $90.00 a year. This time I have leased it for double. My tenants were neglectful in ’47; I expect neglect again.

In the wilderness each Christmas was a day for sober thoughts. Easter was a day of inner conflict. When was time both gentle and kind? Underneath the stars on a summer’s night? Perhaps. Even then we might hear a wildcat scream. Wild­cats were more numerous than books.

There was that winter when the cold and the snow killed many of us, us and our livestock. Drifts hung lean-tos on our cabin. Papa shot a deer. Wolves used the crust to raid cattle. We cut wood, lugged frozen water. A fire burned day and night.

I lived ten years in that cabin.

One day, in town, I met a man who offered to sell me a barrel for 50¢. I bought it. In the bottom, buried under straw, I found a book:Blackstone’sCom­mentaries.1753. It was warm at the blacksmith’s and I began to study the com­mentaries there.

It is very late, perhaps two or three in the morning. I forgot to wind my watch. I hear men on the street, men and horses; this city never rests; there is weather here but I do not think of weather. The climate of dread has assumed a reality beyond all else. When you control men and control armies you lack inner core.

White House

January 15, 1864

In spite of myself, I recall the meals I had as a boy, the meals when there was nothing to eat but potatoes. There were better times, when we had perch or cat­fish, wild pig, grouse, or venison. But, eating potatoes, here in the White House, brings to mind that struggle. Memory. How constant, how untrustworthy, how valuable. Here, my Shakespearean-aside, will, like a juggler, toss up thoughts, three or four at a time, potatoes.

In those Illinois days I was lucky when I earned 30 cents a day, working on a farm. Walk to the farm, walk home. At dark I climbed my peg ladder to the cabin loft and slept on corn husks, my grizzly bear rug not always warm enough. Lying among the husks and the squeaky mice I puzzled, knowing that soon I must leave. I determined I must get away. Living there I lived like an Indian, an Illinois Indian, barefooted all summer, moccasined during the winter. Like an Indian, I knew the meaning of silence, the dread of silence and its comfort. My father taught me to work but he never taught me to love drudgery.

Some of those pioneers used to say:

“Don’t see all you see; don’t hear all you hear.”

That is sound advice. It applies here in Washington. Many aspects of my life have assumed ridiculous proportions among these people. The fact that I was a wrestler affronts some; that I could plow with oxen annoys others. My humor shocks many. My lizard joke, that I thought very amusing, is now in bad taste. If I said: “Spit against the wind and you spit in your own face” ...well, certain politi­cians might understand and appreciate that.

I see people and more people. My office is often crowded. I am criticized for the amount of time I devote to the public. My secretaries try to restrain me.

I’ll do the very best I can, the very best I know how. And I mean to keep doing so to the end. If the end brings me out all right what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

People have asked me how it feels to be president, and I sometimes say, if there is an appropriate moment:

You have heard about the man tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail? A man in the crowd asked him how he liked it, and his reply was that if it wasn’t for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.

W. H.

January 20

The other night I had a dream and in that dream I observed myself in a huge mirror; my face had two distinct images, one more or less superimposed on the other, the underneath face much paler than the upper face. The dream has per­plexed me; something about it, its shadowiness maybe, seems part of my wilder­ness life, the shadowiness of those star-roofed nights. Mary was disturbed by my dream. She interpreted it, saying that it meant that I would be re-elected for a second term. The pale image meant I would not finish that term. As she talked about the dream I remembered how emphatically I felt that I would never return to Springfield, an emotion that nearly overwhelmed me as I waved from the train.

W. H.

1864

It was only a few years ago that John Quincy Adams was swimming in the Potomac with his son. Adams used to rise at five, to read the Bible, Commen­tary, and then read the newspapers. He was about fifty-seven when he was President. I recall his vivid description of abolitionist Lovejoy’s printing press tragedy, in Alton, in ’37, how the mob destroyed the man’s press and murdered him, such a fate for a truly conscientious man! A martyr to the cause of freedom! Adams recounts preacher Joseph Cartwright’s plea for money, for $450 to buy the freedom of his own three grandchildren. What a meaningful exemplification of slavery!

JQA—fine President!

White House

January 24, ’64

Job seekers have besieged me. It must be the new year that sends so many. They come from every part of our nation, even the deep South. Some of the job seekers feel they have every right to storm my office; some are pitifully humble. Some bring recommendations; some have prepared a little speech; some have no credentials. Yesterday an elderly woman burst into tears as she pled for a job. I helped her to sit down. I offered her a drink of water. I did my best to console her. In her case there seemed to be no job available; I asked her to return in a few days; I had to ask my secretary to show her out. I am resolved to permit my countrymen access to my office. I can understand my country through these seekers. If some are loath to leave, I can sit up later over my important docu­ments. Of course there are not enough oats for all these hosses.

February 2, ’64

The howitzers and the rifles and the bayonets and the ammunition and the sandbags are gone from our public buildings. The invasion crisis is forgotten. Some say that 10,000 men guard Washington, perhaps 8,000; I am wary of sta­tistics today.

There is a hint of spring in the air today.

I stand on the steps of the White House and shout for a boy to bring me the morning paper.

How do I obtain accurate information?

I learn that two million dollars have disappeared from our national treasury.

I learn that General Grant is seriously ill.

I learn that the Confederate forces plan to invade Wilmington tomorrow at noon.

I learn that I have assumed dictatorial powers.

I read that the Confederacy has 220,000 men under arms.

Tomorrow the Cabinet meets... I will point out some of these items to my Secretary of War, my Secretary of State, my Secretary of the Treasury.

February 5, 1864

I think that my strength as wrestler, ox driver, and rail splitter helps me. I channel it into my cabinet meetings, office hours, discussions, late hours. Chase, Sumner, Seward, Trumbul, Usher—each receives some of that energy. I repeat that the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present. I re-affirm that we must act anew. We must continually disenthrall ourselves.

Fellow citizens...we of this Congress...ours is a mutual concern at this time...

And at all times there is someone who wishes to enter by the back door, who has a special message or a letter of prime importance...

Some of my friends predict a final cataclysm; some believe that by wheedling we can conquer; some voice the old voice of the abolitionists; some offer a packet of new tricks; theirs is a jack-in-the-box credibility.

White House

February 8th, 1864

This morning, early, I heard a low rap-rap on my office door.  S. O. S.

The Morse code... S. O. S.

Tad, still in his nightgown, climbed onto my lap.

Together, we figured out how many bales of hay we should order for his pony, and Willie’s pony. How many bushels of grain. We decided that the pony’s halter should be re-adjusted, a new strap over the nose, or a new buckle. We also puzzled over what should be done about the small hole in the new red saddle.

If these were not matters of state, we made them as important—until I showed Tad my pile of correspondence; then, with a wild kiss, he rushed off, banging the door.

February 18, 1864

I suppose that Willie and Tad—although strictly forbidden—will rig another toy cannon on the roof of the White House. That flat roof is an ideal playground for those scoundrels. With their cannon in place the boys fire invisible bullets at invisible enemy ships and troops.

How I laughed when Tad gobbled all the fresh strawberries intended for a state dinner last June. Pranks such as that annoy the kitchen staff—and I am blamed. They cannot possibly understand that when my boys go berserk I am relieved of war anxiety for the moment. When Willie and Tad ambush me in some room or corridor, that tumbled mass of arms and legs and heads is my medal for the day. As we tumble, Jip growls and barks and joins in.

Their doll, Jack, a long-legged, blue-jacketed Zouave, has been put on trial re­cently. Because he fell asleep while on picket duty the boys sentenced him to death, and he was to be buried under a bush in the garden.

“Jack is pardoned. By order of the President,” I wrote, and signed my name.

However, if I am away, Jack may be accused again and they may destroy him.

Tad’s Birthday

Tad received a pair of snow-white kittens, toys, a wooden box of stick candy, and then a boat ride on the Potomac. The spring afternoon was calm and beauti­ful. Tad loved every moment—especially when the skipper allowed him to steer the sloop. He dashed about the cabin, hung over the bow, waved a flag at the stern. His grinning face is unforgettable.

Back in the White House, he became the devoted master of his kittens. With them lying on his bed, he stuck each toy in front of a nose, saying :

“Isn’t that a nice one! Look at this little frog, kitty!”

Tad met a woman in the hall, a woman in homespun. She told Tad that her girls and boys were hungry and sick, because their father was in prison in Washington. Tad believed her; taking in every word she said he ran to me. I was at my desk; I had been hearing bad news of deserters; deserters present a grave problem; often there are complications that make judgment difficult.

Tad’s tear-streaked face shocked me, and, little by little, as he sat on my lap, as I cuddled him, we put together the woman’s story. He kissed me and clasped me around the neck and begged me to intercede. I promised I would.

Dashing into the hall, he knelt by the woman, and cried that she was to have her husband back, that her children were going to have something to eat.

“Papa promised,” I heard him say. “Papa promised.”

March 3rd

Many object to Tad, to his vivacity, his dashing into my office, throwing his arms around me, staying or dashing off. There are those who think I, in my of­fice, my high office, should be above love. Some of those same people object to my rural humor.

I carry Tad to his bed. I tell him stories. I linger, linger until he falls asleep. Young as he is he knows that death is around the city. I ask his fate: shall he ex­perience an early death, live to be old and wise, remembering some of these days in Washington, some of the war stories? A father can ask questions.

Make a noise, Tad, dash into my office tomorrow, jump on me, kiss me.

I remember the presidential chair vilified, pilloried. I see the grim cartoons lampooning me. A child offsets those.

Tuesday evening

This morning I visited one of the hospitals, a tent hospital by the river. Rain was everywhere. The wounded felt it, that was easy to see. I went among them, shaking hands, enquiring; this was not my first visit; I knew some of the men by name.

“Abraham,” I heard a man whisper to his cot mate.

Can a name influence a life?

Abraham—“father of a multitude.”

Through the centuries, thousands of infants have been christened Abraham. What has it meant? And what kind of father am I? In the deep of the night, or during a cabinet meeting, or while playing with my sons, I ask. Which of the wounded, which of the dead, was my responsibility?

Now and then the candle beside my bed does not want to go out.

Mid-afternoon

Rain

In Springfield, Billy de Fleurville’s barbershop was my favorite barbershop. We were friends, Billy and I. Billy is a Haitian. His English is a remarkable mix­ture of soft, sometimes incomprehensible sounds. A stable person, he has raised a family and has been a civic influence for fifteen years or more. He initiated a committee that brought about a school for blacks. He loves his rabbit paws and his jokes; while he shaves you or trims your hair, he entertains. Since Billy loves gumbo and fricasseed chicken I saw to it that he had more than his share through the years.

At the depot, as the train pulled out for Washington, he was there, handing me a farewell note, to read on the train.

He writes me that tenants are taking proper care of my house and yard.

“Filibuster has kittens,” he adds, in a postscript. “One brown, two yellows.”

Evening

Desk

I treasure a letter from a child named Grace Bedell. Grace wrote me :

“I have four brothers and part of them will vote for you anyway, and if you let your whiskers grow, I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better, for your face is so thin.”

Grace’s suggestion amused me...and I might glean those two votes! So, I let my beard grow, and Billy de Fleurville trimmed it for my inaugural. In Westfield, at the depot, my train was on a siding. While it was there I asked the crowd:

“Is Grace Bedell here?”

She came running to the train, and I was able to hug and kiss her.

The White House

Sunday

They were good days in Springfield, our children growing, bursting with en­ergy, up to antics day in and day out. They helped and hindered boisterously, helped pitch-fork the cow’s stall, water the horse, carry in the wood for the stove; they hindered by being unreliable, off somewhere when needed.

I liked pulling the little ones in their red wagon, up and down our street, the kids yelping or fussing happily. It would be pleasant to be in Springfield, but not the same, with Robert away at school. But, I would stretch my legs onto a foot­stool and lie back on the old horsehair sofa.

No, a thousand slaves are throwing up fortifications in Richmond, in Charleston, in Atlanta....fortifications to enslave more enslavement.

Someone, in the south, has written me:

“I warn you... I will kill you before long. You are destroying the nation. You have no right to be President...”

March 24th, 1864

Here is another anonymous letter:

“Dear Mr. President—

“In addressing you, I am prompted by the kindest motives. I wish to warn you of the peril you are facing if you remain in office. The South has strong motives for desiring your death and has resolved to take your life in the event of your not relinquishing your office. The blacks are dis­illusioned by your presidency. The whites can not, without endangering more lives, allow you to remain in the seat of government...”

So another letter, with “kindest motives,” has reached me. How many have, though both secretaries screen my mail. There is no doubt that anonymity makes a man courageous.

April 2, 1864

Evening

The North commits atrocities. The South commits atrocities. War is, without the shadow of a doubt, a form of insanity. As Commander-in-Chief I can order troops to attack; with the cessation of military activities I can not order 50,000 men to reconstruct a devastated area. The legality of such an order has never been questioned, as far as I know, by any victorious power. Perhaps, during my second term in office, I can weigh the consequences of such an official directive.

Think of Libby Prison, consider Andersonville. They are collective atrocities.

Was it two years ago a man handed me two red apples at a depot in Ohio, bowing, and wishing me well?

I insist that the United States form a strictly federal community, that the states are essential to its welfare as is the central government, and North must never dominate the South or the South dominate the North. I also insist that the Chief Executive remain as center of the government. If the President uses his power justly, the people will justify him; if he abuses it, he is in their hands to be dealt with by all the modes they have reserved to themselves under the constitu­tion. This is essentially a people’s contest, I repeat. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government where the leading object is to elevate the condition of man...can I repeat this too often?

The White House

Library

There is room enough for all of us to be free, and that it not only does not wrong the white man that the negro should be free, but it positively wrongs the mass of the white man that the negro should be enslaved.

Here among a heap of newspapers I pause...

April 6th

White House

(windows open)

When brought to my final reckoning, may I have to answer for robbing no man of his goods; yet, more tolerable even this, than for robbing one of himself and all that was his. When, a year or two ago, professedly holy men of the South met in the semblance of prayer and devotion, and, in the name of Him who said, “As ye would all men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them,” appealed to the Christian world to aid them in doing to a whole race of men as they would have no man do unto themselves, to my thinking they contemned and insulted God and His church...but let me forebear, remembering it is also written, “Judge not lest ye be judged.”

My words, my record, this diary, seem obtuse at times; I attempt to write down what I think and the writing evolves another way.

In pensive mood I realize that President Jefferson Davis sits at his desk in his White House. I sit at my desk in my White House. He orders his army to move across the chessboard of war. I order my army to move across the same chess­board. His men fight for their homeland. My men fight for a nation. It seems to me that this is an ancient form of puppetry, a puppetry that came into being in days before the time of Christ. It is obvious, then, that we have gained nothing in the realm of diplomacy.

The cause of slavery has little to do with puppetry; it has much to do with man’s future. The nation must have freedom as its base, a living freedom, a worker’s freedom, a thinker’s freedom.

Executive Mansion

Desk

April 16, 1864

Some folk still call me “Old Abe,” “Honest Abe,” “The Backwoods­man,” “Rail Splitter.” I like those names; they come out of my wilderness; they can be warm. They helped me through those stormy debate days and still help me in this prolonged struggle to save our country.

Lincoln:  1,866,452 votes

Douglas: 1,376,957 votes

Those numbers are printed in my mind’s eye. I am proud that I beat Stephen Douglas, a great man, who, often impartial, said good things about me as we contested, as we debated. How was he able to carry on so valiantly? A sick man—I’ve seen him stagger from fatigue. I’ve seen him fall asleep, on the plat­form, after final arguments. Yet, next day he was on his feet again:

1,866,452

I saw those figures as I walked along Pennsylvania Avenue after the inauguration ceremony, as I walked through the White House garden. That was my lucky number, my lottery number. Destiny, hard work, luck, time—they dovetail.

I felt the loss keenly, when Douglas died in ’61. He wore himself out in his effort to save the union.

The White House

April 24, 1864

At the outset of this war, we had a military force of about 16,000 men. Few of these men could be classed as professionals. After the loss of Fort Sumter, I called for 75,000 volunteers. Moving into combat, in those early days, men fought with antiquated guns and poor equipment; however, our artillery, at least, was superior.

Our soldiers were fortunate to have field tents. They bivouacked in mule yards. Uniforms were issued willy-nilly. Hats had to be stuffed with newspapers. Some men had to survive on desiccated vegetables—cakes of them. On the march their knapsacks fell apart.

I see that war is fought on folly. I half-believe there were sane men who could have steered us without conflict. Day after day, hour after hour, I walk through this tragedy. I question my judgment and the judgment of others. I study a war map and realize I am studying a map of corpses, men, women, and children.

I wake in the middle of the night. There’s a bell, a drum.

The White House

We have 3,200,000 slaves in our country.

What man would not want to set them free?

Among them there must be many a man and woman who is among the  fin­est. Among them there must be inventors, lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers—men who never had a chance. It is my duty, my dedication, to liberate them as soon as possible. The world can not be a better place until they are freed.

Three million men and women and children, bound in irons, what a world! I will do my best to strike those irons, take away every shackle, so these people can look at the sun and say:this is myworld to make something of, it is my chance to get something out of life.

The White House

Desk

May 1, 1864

Three or four times I have hidden (incognito?), in the wings of a theatre to hear an opera.Tales ofHoffmanwas performed last week, and I sat in a red leather chair behind the curtains. Back home I used to watch magic lantern shows; they were fine antidotes to melancholy; theTales of Hoffmanminimized the Washing­ton volcano.

I escape some of our war tragedy by reading Spencer. In my bedroom I read till sunup. Every man must skin his own skunk and I skin mine through books. At sunup I can lay down my book and sleep, until someone wakes me.

Tonight I would like to bowl at Caspari’s but bowling, because of the war, is off-limits for me. Somebody’s afraid a strike might make me laugh. I had a few good strikes before the war.

The White House is asleep. Perhaps I should find a ruler and compass and attempt to square the circle.

And so to bed...

My wife is one of the loneliest women in Washington. Her hospitality, her lavish entertainments, have bred enemies and have engendered no rewarding friendships. Because Mary exceeded her Congressional allotment for essential White House expenditures, the press has attacked her. I have volunteered to pay the bills out of my salary. I have cautioned her against ostentation: “War is no time for preening.”

Elizabeth Keckley, her seamstress, a former slave, is her confidante. With three brothers fighting in the Confederate army there are those who accuse Mary of treason. Injustice can strike. And the sad face, the sad thoughts continue. Poor Mary. Sharing intimate emotions with Elizabeth Keckley is a mistake. I do not dare reproach her.

Today’s cabinet meeting was a bitter one.

Yes, it is true Mary has relatives fighting for the Southern cause. So has Gen­eral Grant and other officers. Does this imply some form of subterfuge? I am well aware of my wife’s integrity. I respect her family sympathies. To impugn the loyalty of my spouse is tantamount to accusing me of treason.

When I learned that a secret committee had been formed to investigate the loyalty of my wife I made a point of appearing dramatically, by a seldom used door to the committee room. I stepped inside without a word—hat in hand.

A dozen men were sitting around a long table. Rain was streaking the win­dows. No one spoke. I waited. I stared at first one and then the other, searching the faces. I knew most of the men well.

I said:

“I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, appear of my own voli­tion before this Senate Committee to say that I, of my own knowledge, know that it is untrue that any member of my family holds treasonable communication with the enemy.”

I walked out.

I have heard no more from that committee or any other; however, my re­sentment lingers, sticks in my craw. Who could forget such calumny?

I have attended lectures at the Smithsonian Institute, where Horace Greeley has been outspoken on the abuse of slavery in our nation. His influence, through his lectures and his associates, through his editorials in theNewYorkTribune,is an influence I intend to curry.

At the Smithsonian he drew me aside and thought it important to inform me that he is a vegetarian, a teetotaler—that he would never stoop to smoking a ci­gar. He seemed to be sounding me out by cataloging his qualities. Grasping my arm, he grinned and said: “I want to share this one...since you like stories. I have loaned considerable sums to the son of Commodore Vanderbilt. Last week the Commodore burst into my office and rapped on my desk with his cane. When I glanced up, he said: ‘I will not be responsible for my son’s borrowing money from you.’ I said to the Commodore: ‘Who the Hell asked you to.’ ”

At another Smithsonian lecture, I met George Bancroft, our distinguished elder historian. Obviously disgruntled and tired, he wanted to know: Why is General McClellan living in an aristocratic style in an aristocratic mansion? Is it true that John Jacob Aster pays his salary?

When I introduced Bancroft to McClellan, he questioned Mac about the condition of the cavalry: Is it true that half the horses purchased for the army are unfit for service? Was it true that in the District of Columbia, horses have been chained to trees, where they gnawed bark, leaves and branches until they died?

McClellan was not happy with Bancroft. I was not happy with Bancroft and McClellan. Since the General has become known in Washington as the “general most gifted at masterly inactivity,” I am seriously considering taking to the field as Commander-in-Chief. My qualification: integrity.

I can not sleep.

In Chicago, one windy night, I attended my first symphony concert. I was in the city working on the McCormick lawsuit. The concert was all Italian. Verdi. I recognized, as I listened to the rich outpouring, how much I had missed during my prairie years. There were no available seats in the theatre, but that was unim­portant; I leaned against a wall, in the foyer, hat in hand. Mama would have rejoiced over such music! Why must so many die young and deprived?

Drums passing.

The White House

Library

May 5th, 1864

De Tocqueville wrote that there are few calm spots in this country for medi­tation; yet, in this library, there is a spot. This afternoon it seems to me that these ancient books, with their ancient wisdom, ask what is freedom? Is it something nailed in pain against the morning sky? I think not. Surely freedom is not to limit mankind; it is to share life’s values. I remember these lines, learned as a boy, “What avail the plow or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?” It is our duty to know and analyze freedom, however illusive. I hear it is a flame. Then, if that is true, we must keep it burning in our minds. The altar of freedom is an expres­sion that illustrates how sacred freedom is. Freedom, if we can say it briefly, is the dignity of man.

White House

May 9

Can a truly religious person support war, I query?

I am my brother’s keeper, I am instructed.

In the core of night, knowing that my countrymen are waging fratricidal car­nage, I perceive that I have been nurtured on violence: I countenance war.

As Commander of the military forces, whose intention is victory, I am begin­ning to see that war is a form of slavery. Generals Grant and Sherman, Generals Johnson and Lee confirm this. So, we, the people, with our armies, fight slavery with slavery.

No doubt others have mulled over these or similar tenets. But I return to the cost, the human cost, the countless lives lost, the shattered families, shattered homes. Our lintels are hung with crepe.

The White House

Desk

Surely, I should kneel in prayer each night, but for years I have not been able to pray, not even the simple prayers my mother taught me. Now, with the war pressing down on mind and country, prayer is needed. But this war, this tragedy and my part in that tragedy, controls me.

Mary has taught Tad to pray. His little prayers, as he lies in bed or kneels be­side it, trouble me because of my lacks.

Dear God —

The White House

Office

May 14th, ’64

He, too, has to die.

I see an old man and this thought occurs. I see a child playing: he, too, has to die. I see a beautiful woman, and I hear the same words. We are doomed. Let us be brothers.

In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity. Nobody has ever expected me to be president. In my poor, lean lank face nobody has ever seen that cabbages were sprouting.

Executive Mansion

June 1, 1864

It has been a couple of weeks since I have written here. No matter. Some of the things I write are as thin as the homoeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death.

Tonight the ticking of my watch is audible—it is meaningful following a long day listening to men and women express their desires. As I sit in my bedroom, my watch my companion, I feel that time is not on my side. Time is slow at bringing the war to an end. Time cares nothing for us. In the garden I have studied the sundial on sunny and cloudy days. We are also time pieces.

For years I wished to own a watch and chain, a gold one with a gold chain. It is time to pick up the key and wind my watch again.

Willie’s Birthday

In our dining room our dining table was festive—for Willie. His friend, Charlie Mathers, was special guest, Charlie, so splendid in his freckles and red hair. Both boys were dressed in their Sunday togs.

I gave Willie a Zeiss field glass, an antique ship’s compass from Italy, I be­lieve; also a red handkerchief and books.

Mary gave him a British belt buckle with lion and unicorn, a set of brushes and tubes of pigment...

Charlie brought a box of candy.

Willie, at the head of the table, opened his gifts sedately, barely commenting, shy, rather like a little prince, not a kid from Illinois.

Tad pleased him with a checker set, board and pieces handmade.

(Today’s war casualties are shocking.)

The White House

June 21, ’64

During the last year I have had several consultations with White House and Washington physicians. They are encouraging about Tad. They believe that he may be able to speak normally as he grows older, that he may be able to learn to read and write, that his frenzied actions may diminish as he matures. I had a White House doctor observe Tad for over a month; he is quite optimistic.

Dear Tad—Mary and I love you.

When I hold him in my arms he has no defects. I think his ponies and goats and dogs and cats have helped him. He is always kind to his little friends. The soldiers love him. He’s their Illinois Lieutenant. The blacks, too, are fond of him.

Mary loves to cradle him in her arms, in the peace of her bedroom. Some­times he sleeps with me. Of course we spoil him. We spoil Willie too. When I am in conference and Tad dashes in it is amazing how intolerant some people can be over his effusiveness.

Well...when I am with Tad I forget the war.

July 20, 1864

Office

What does my old freckle-faced pastor think of me, now that I am in Wash­ington? He never writes. Does he think I have forgotten Springfield?

He forgave Tad for whittling on a pew; he tolerated my long absences when I rode circuit; he preached directly, discreetly from the Bible, eager to please his congregation. Today he is probably sermonizing from Job: the war must weigh on him because he is a just and careful man. I imagine he remembers that Tho­mas Jefferson kept slaves. Does he know that there are some 200,000 blacks serving in our army? I would like to sound him out. How does he feel about the importance of a country united? If I could drop by...listen...if I could ride circuit for a fortnight I would learn much.

I notice that I have not written here for about a month. Pressures. Here, as I write, I seem to coordinate myself.

July 24, 1864

Executive Mansion

—office—

I believe it was arson.

Someone set fire to the White House stables. I rushed out when I saw the flames and heard men shouting. Our fire engine crew arrived too late. Willie’s pony died. Tad’s pony died. Four horses died, three survived, among them Old Abe. The fire occurred at night, while Willie and Tad slept. How much more disastrous it would have been if they had been awake. A number of us worked for five or six hours, to calm the surviving horses, to drag away the ponies on a sledge, for later burial. In the morning it was a very hard task to inform the boys.

With Tad sprawled on the bedroom floor, and Willie slumped in a chair, Mary and I attempted to comfort them. They were not to be comforted. We promised replacement ponies. They wailed and cringed at “replacements.” The day was lost.

Arson, yes, everyone thinks it was arson. Some of the stable hands feel that the fire was set to bring me to the stables at night—a possible assassination at­tempt.

The White House

The Library

I have sought sanctuary in the library.

Willie is dead.

He was thirteen, handsome, intelligent, gentle, fond of each of us. For two weeks he battled for survival, his doctors helping little or not at all. When his doctor left him, when I was alone with him, I felt his cold face and held his cold hands. I thought, he’s not really dead. It must be an error. He isn’t dead because I feel his presence in the room, hear his voice.

Typhoid killed him.

Mary, hysterical, suffered grave headaches at his death. She is unable to com­fort Tad. She is unable to speak coherently. She sometimes fancies that he is not dead: she wants to go into the bedroom and speak to him. She says she hopes to communicate with him through a séance. Only I have a chance at comforting Tad. Sitting on my lap, his head against my shoulder, he sleeps. Certainly he knows the sleeve of care, the worn sleeve.

Today we buried our Willie. Mary and Robert and Tad and I stood side by side at the grave.

It was like burying a part of my own body... I felt the earth strike my hands, my arms, my face, my mouth.

Cabinet members attended, military men, friends, White House staff. Tad held Jip in his arms. It rained some.

I’m a tired man. Sometimes I’m the tiredest man on earth.

August ’64

Mary has passed days in her darkened bedroom, wracked by headaches, scarcely able to communicate, hardly able to eat. Her faithful Mrs. Keckley looks after her. There is little or no response when I attempt to comfort her. God, she claims, has deserted her.

I return to my office.

Now the war is my distraction. There is a hellish healing power in the roll of drums, the rumble of caissons, the tramp of a regiment. Washington’s armed camp is always on the move.

Willie...

Maybe he is fortunate. At least he has been spared the confrontation of brother against brother.

I return to Mary’s bedroom.

I offer coffee. She declines.

Robert came and knelt by her. He will go back to Harvard next week. Tad lay asleep at the foot of Mary’s bed. Sometimes, when the four of us are in the bed­room I feel that grief is fourfold.

I retreated.

Jip comes.

August

After Willie’s death I received a warm and understanding letter from Billy Herndon, my Billy. Each word weighed carefully.

Through the years he was much more patient than I; when I read aloud, back in the back of the office, he overlooked the nuisance. He tolerated my kids when they burst in on me. They sometimes wrecked havoc. He never brought his kids, never permitted them to come to the office...or if he did, they were no problem.

Billy could prepare his cases faster than I.

“Abe, are you still lingerin’ over that Moffit suit?”

When he stood before a jury he was accurate and his accuracy taught me to prepare my cases with care.

Billy liked Willie. Well, he liked all my chil­dren.

How often we spread ourselves in my parlor and talked. Billy is like a cedar post, deeply imbedded.

Maybe he misses the buffalo stampede of my kids.

Summer

Personal tragedy strikes most of us. At this time personal loss is the fabric of this country.

What does a man do, does he sit in his chair, in the middle of a room, and wait?

I have not adjusted to Willie’s death.    Just a few days ago he was alive, riding on his pony; then, then the four of us stood around his grave.

The night he died I sat up all night; I worked with letters, documents, senate papers, proposals for a rail west, telegrams reporting the war. Someone brought me coffee.

Jip came in, and sat on my lap.

It is one thing to encounter personal loss in the theatre, another to read a tragedy; certainly it is another emotion to face it yourself, to realize that no power can reinstate.

The disciples had their hands full when their Lord and Master was crucified. I do not measure my little boy as any kind of lord but he was my son, a promise. The father in me does not go away.

I go, now, to curry Old Abe.

I would like to chop wood a while.

White House

Summer

Again I am besieged by office seekers. I can name a hundred: Whitney, Schurz, Collaman, Blair, Wallace. They seek posts as consuls, envoys, inspectors, paymasters, commissioners, postmas­ters. Although I now have fixed hours, they intrude. Favors, all wish favors! I am accused of nepotism by the press, by staff and cabinet mem­bers. How would they shuffle the cards? Respon­sible positions are wrestled over by Vermonters and New Yorkers vying with Missourians and Ohioans.

Note:

Speak to Capt. Dobson about balloon obser­vations. Work out telegraphic communication with the balloon observer.

August 20th

I woke early. It is already hot. No breeze.

I look out of the windows at the tents of the wounded. Behind the tents is the river, flattened by the heat. I have been inside of each tent several times. I have seen inside some of those men; I listen; I wait and listen. There are men with letters from home, men with Bibles beside them. Men or boys. Perhaps there is no essential difference when one is wounded. Man or boy is lost. There is no catching up for him. His trip home will show him a different world; if he goes home in a coffin—his homecoming makes that home unreal forever. One boy shows me aminiéball extracted from his leg. One man tells me how much we need a balloon corps. Another grasps my hand but can’t say a word. At the very back of the tent someone is playing a harmonica, the “Camp Town Races”...or so it was yesterday.

The White House

Summer

Today I have been able to pardon two boys accused of dereliction of duty, Company K, while on guard near Washington. Regardless of reports I feel that they had carried the Union on their bayonets. Cramer and Phillips will have a second chance.

The heat of the afternoon has been oppressive; to cool me off, my mulatto brought me a cool drink on her famous tray; then a chaplain and a private spun stories of regimental pets. Once again I heard of the eagle in the 8th Wisconsin Volunteers. He is still alive after being in battles in seven states. His six-and-a-half-foot wingspread has been crippled by bullets; they say he screams when his Corps sees action.

A Minnesota unit manages to keep a half-grown bear; they swear he is the best picket-duty man. A black and white dog, named Jacko, has been dubbed a “brave soldier dog,” because he has been wounded twice, while his men were in action.

I have also learned that there are gamecocks, a coon, and several badgers in the field. Mascots all.

Militiamen, who visit me, talk a language I understand: jaggers, hardtack, barbed wire, pup tents, canteens, bivouacs, sutlers, coffee...

There are stories about dysentery: one boy said, “I jus’ cut out the bottom of my trousers!”

The Library

Summer

Mary’s kindness resumes. She visits the hospitals, the injured, taking flowers, food. The men are delighted to have her. People bring her newspapers and magazines, and she distributes them...she has made a little friend of a one-armed boy; sitting beside him, she becomes his mother.

Last week she brought about the abolishment of a death sentence. Due to her perseverance there will be no firing squad for Richard Miller, a youngster who fell asleep on duty. My “Lady President” obtained a reprieve from General McClellan.

The Press wars against Mary. Reporters ridicule her when she goes shopping in New York or Philadelphia, in her attempts to refurbish the White Rouse. If she visits Robert at Harvard, that too is criticized. Her letters to relatives are sometimes confiscated. I am aware that there are spies in the White House, but not Mary!

Is this why I assumed the Presidency! It is very difficult to curb my resent­ment.

Tonight, I will be spending a while with Frank Carpenter, watching him paint his Emancipation scene. He is a quiet, serious fellow, and I enjoy his company. I appreciate his skill, as he slowly brings his figures to life. He is still working in the dining room. He’ll bring me a rocker and I will stretch out.

The White House

—My desk—

I have little admiration for Napoleon; I have less for my little Napoleons who believe or half-believe this is a war of conquest. Again and again I remind them of emancipation. They nod. The negro? The slave? Can it be that there is a moral issue? It is possible that our government can wipe out slavery and free thousands of blacks? A few are astute enough to understand the potential here. A few are astute enough to project themselves in time, asking how are we to repair the devastation caused by General Grant and General Sherman. How long did it take for our men to burn Atlanta? How long does a city burn? Some say that Rome is still burning.

Andersonville—a prison... Libby—a prison. Thousands of men are incarcer­ated. Who pays for these criminal acts? All of us pay. We pay as though we were buying sugar at $12.00 a pound. A man weighs about 160 pounds. If he loses weight while he is imprisoned do we pay less?

Summer

With my watch lying on the desk, the seconds seem to move all too swiftly. Nine, ten, twelve...each second a life around Washington...cabinet mem­bers...family...friends. Here at 9:58 is Willie’s birth; here at 4:00 is Tad’s birth. A few more seconds pass and I am delivering my inaugural address. The war is threatening, the war has overcome us.

I put away the watch.

When Billy Herndon presented me with that watch I thought I would spend the rest of my life in Springfield. I thought our partnership would go on and on. I was lying on the old sofa, tired after a circuit ride.

Billy handed me the watch; I opened its box; then he said :

“We’ve been working together for ten years.”

He brushed his fingers through his shaggy beard and sat down at his desk.

A gold watch —

Executive Mansion

September 1st, 1864

“This is a beautiful country,” said John Brown, as the hangman hung him.

He was no black Christ: no gentle Uncle Tom; yet, he is becoming a black Christ as we continue this civil war, as we become more and more harassed by casualties. We will need black Christs if we are to free the negro.UncleTom’sCabinmust add space—room by room, year by year.

All the powers of earth seem to be combining against the chattel slave. Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows, and the theology of the day is joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him; and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of every key—the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distance places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.

This evening I heard negroes singing, as I worked at my desk, the windows open. I heard that song in New Orleans on my first visit; I heard it later when on the Mississippi, when we were on our cargo-raft, when we tied up at a wharf. That was quite a scrap. The blacks almost threw us off our raft.

Oh, was you ev – er in Mo – bile Bay,

Low – lands, low – lands, A – way, –

My John, – A – screw – ing cot – ton –

By the day, My dol – lar and a half a day.

Poverty...those days were poverty days.

And after this war is over we will have greater poverty in the South. Poverty will be a pestilence in the South. It will require years of work to wipe it out. Pov­erty will breed treachery and crime. What police force will be able to contend with it? I will urge Congress to pass an aid bill. I will propose groups of citizenry who can advise.

The White House

Saturday evening

Here are some interesting figures I encountered:

Less than one-half a day’s cost of this war could pay for the slaves in the State of Delaware, at $400 per person.

All slaves by 1860 census:

1,798

Cost of these slaves:

$719,200

One day’s cost of the war:

$2,000,000

Less than 87 days’ cost of this war could, at the same $400 figure, pay for the slaves in the States of Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri:

Cost of the slaves:

$173,048,800

87 days of war:

$174,000,000

Would compensation to all the slave owners satisfy them? Of course not. Their honor is at stake. If we do not make common cause to save the good old ship of the Union on this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her on an­other voyage.

Note:

Write General Grant regarding the improve­ment of all military telegraph service. Suggest a military Telegraphic Corps.

The White House

September 8, 1864

When I reviewed the Army of the Potomac, when the greatest cavalry in the world rode past, I felt no pride, only sorrow, for the military pomp. To those of pensive turn, the military implies death, men in uniform are death-men, dealers and receivers. They work in the counting house of death.

Tad rode with the cavalry, his little shoulders wrapped in a grey cloak.

Dear Tad, what do you know of pain? You will sit on my lap and babble and then ride horseback, and imagine yourself a great general.

There are no great generals, Tad.

I salute the officers but take off my hat to the men in the ranks. They are the great men. There are no victors—not if there is heart and memory among men, consideration for the maimed, the widows, the orphans, the deceased.

Some men war for glory. No...peace is the glory.

There is only one cause: the country, its flag, a united people from coast to coast. I know that of thousands of men, chosen from the ranks, there would be a thousand reasons why they fought. Perhaps that is not quite right.

The men in review, the thousands who rode and walked past, were soon to retreat. Mishandled by General Hooker, 20,000 were killed, died in a wilderness of trees and thickets.

Wilderness of trees and thickets...so is much of my concept of this war, due largely to inadequate reports or reports that arrive too late to be of any use.

My colored pins, on the fields of battle, designate more than battle lines, regiments, infantry, artillery, cavalry, fortifications...those pins are men, my men, my country.

I understand that some of the New Englanders dumped their Bibles on their long marches—their knapsacks too heavy. I can see those Bibles, dropped beside a fence post, left under­neath a tree, regretfully placed on the side of a corncrib.

For my dear Son, Charles—

love, Mother

I read most of my mother’s Bible. It was a solace and a threat; it was a puz­zlement because I could not disentangle legend from fact.

Was there such a city as Zidon?

Was there a Goliath?

My mother’s Bible had a few maps—they led me to travel by camelback, through Egypt and Assyria. At night, in my attic, I imagined the sacred taberna­cle, the pyramids. I repeated some of theSong of Songs.

September 20, 1864

The Library

To a great extent, this war is capitalism versus a kind of feudalism. On one hand we have free labor and on the other slave labor. The North boasts more millionaires than the South, in normal times. New York City probably has more millionaires than the entire South. John J. Astor is an example of an individual who has amassed wealth by canny manipulations—his kind is unseen in the South. As I understand it, Northern labor practices are questionable at times, shackling the workers; this must be leveled out in years to come.

Strange, seeing beggars on Northern streets; yet none in the South.

As the war continues I learn that Southern railroad cars lack windows for lack of factory labor. House glass can not be replaced; conventional glassware for the table can not be replaced. If a man wishes a prescription filled he must furnish his own bottle or packet. Needles, pins, scissors, knives are smuggled in and sold on the black market. Drugs have vanished from pharmacopoeia.

The White House

October, 1864

Tonight my watch lies on my chest of drawers. Ah yes, the seconds are pass­ing, the minutes are passing. Jim Maitland is dead. Colonel James Maitland, Mas­sachusetts man. His handsome face, his humor, leadership, bravery, gone. I thought him my protégé and friend. I was to grant him a Major’s commission.

The seconds, the minutes, ran out too quickly for Maitland. As I stare down at the second hand, in its small circle, I see his face; I see him dressed in his Zouave uniform.

Tad will miss him.

For a moment he held the enemy flag in his hands, then a shotgun blast.

Executive Mansion

October 2, 1864

An officer has given me a war diary kept by a Southern soldier, Fred Parker, corporal. Rain has soaked its pages; pages are missing. Here are four entries, written during the Wilderness Campaign:

May 6, 1864. Face-to-face fighting all day. Rifles. Pistols. No help from our cavalry or artillery. Pine woods surround. Trees close together. Weather poor. Fred died beside me at midday. Jeffrey has had his leg shot at the knee; knee shattered; men carried him away. We hide, shoot, duck, lie down.

May 7. Not much to eat. Awful hungry. Rifle fire constant.

May 8. Grant’s forces surround us. 120,000 men.

May 9. Dead and wounded everywhere, behind trees, under bushes. I see pieces of a sweater. Shoes. Boots. A hat. Bayonets. Broken musket. A brass belt buckle.

The diary tells me that life must be more than a belt buckle.

Executive Mansion

October 15, 1864

Hamlet’s thoughts, his moods, fit the conflict that assails our country.

...We defy augury; there is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all; since no man has aught of what he leaves what is it to leave betimes? Let be.

Let be. Do we?

Little Tad heard Mary speaking about Maitland’s shotgun death; he climbed onto Mary’s bed and talked about our friend’s funeral—tearful details about the White House ceremony, details bitter for childish emphasis.

Perhaps it is repugnant to write here when men are dying. Perhaps my diary should not have been written; perhaps I should have been attending the wounded in the hospitals. But that confusion, that confusion of pain and sorrow, would not, could not, carry me forward.

Executive Mansion

October 21st, ’64

My desk

How vividly I summon up the hundreds of exhausted soldiers in the streets of Washington.

I watched them from the White House, a stream of muddy, rain-soaked men, walking through a downpour, going nowhere. Men without guns, without knap­sacks; some men covered with blankets. Some staggered. Some fell, lay on the street. Women brought coffee. There were Michigan men, New York men, Minnesota men—defeated, defeated at Bull Run. The broken regiments strug­gled all along Pennsylvania Avenue. Victims of panic—defeat. Not a drum sounded. All took place in rain-washed silence. Men without shoes, men leaning on one another.

I ordered the White House staff and military guard to provide coffee, food, blankets, shelter.

Hundreds passed...all day long.

For a long while after this there were conferences, men realizing that Wash­ington could be attacked. A long time before the city was protected.

Defeat, I am told, is a particular kind of crucifixion. I know. I have thought—

October 24, ’64

I wish I could go bowling, swap yarns.

When I bowl I really never care whether I win. When I make a good score it is luck. It is talk I enjoy. It gives me an uplift. It’s an exchange, maybe, if I relate one of my circuit stories.

I can not go bowling when men are dying. There is no escape. I should not look for an escape. I want cessation of conflict. Enduring peace. I wish to com­mand a strong nation, a great nation that can stand before the world as an exam­ple of what men can achieve.

A sadness pervades our White House gardens, a more than autumn sadness.

Mary and I tried to make a haven of our garden whenever possible. Sunsets have been Potomac sunsets, wilderness and prairie sunsets. Nevertheless, that great stillness intrudes as we walk and talk about our family and obligations. Flowers lie in Mary’s lap, as we sit on a bench. She smiles.

Now four years have come and gone.

We measure those years, wanting to understand. We no longer speculate about the future, our future. Life, for the moment, is held in balance like an up­raised oar.

Was it yesterday, after the rain, with a faint rainbow, that the sentries paced along the far side of the gardens, and a white duck waddled toward us?

The White House

November 3rd, 1864

“We have seen our courthouse in chains, two battalions of dragoons, eight companies of artillery, twelve companies of infantry, the whole constabulary force of the city police, the entire disposable marine of the United States, with its artillery loaded for action, all marching in support of a Praetorian band, consist­ing of 120 friends and associates of the United States Marshall, with loaded pis­tols and drawn swords, and in military costume and array—for what purpose? To escort and conduct a poor trembling slave from a Boston courthouse to the fetters and lash of his master! This display of military force the mayor of this city officially declared to be necessary,” so wrote our Harvard University friend, old Josiah Quincy. He also added, that summer in ’54, “Slaveholders have multiplied their black cattle by the million; and are every day increasing their numbers, and extending their cattle field into the wilderness...”

I respond to those impressive words with mine, since the slave issue dies hard.

The ant who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest will furiously defend the fruit of his labor against whatever robber assails him. So plain that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master does constantly know that he is wronged. So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume after volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it by being a slave himself.

Certainly, though a man may escape death and injury in the front lines, changes brought about by the war may alienate him at home, after he leaves the army, if he still has a home. The black who has fought for the North may find his Southern neighbors have become enemies. The black who has found a meas­ure of recognition while serving will find a lack of recognition after the war.

We have made little or no provision for the wounded. Our hospitals are in­adequate. Southerners will return to their farms with little more than the horse that saw combat. Custom dictates that he reject the negro.

As a nation, we are in a maelstrom of change. It is my hope that the church may help democratize. As I study the Washington archive I learn essential facts, but these facts are not disseminated. How are we to coordinate these state laws? Missouri hardly comprehends the laws of Massachusetts.

Justice—many strive for justice. Efforts must be doubled. I hope it may be said that I was just.

There are nights when I can not sleep. I get up and pace the floor of my bed­room or go into my office.

Many continue to threaten my life; so I do not walk the streets of Washing­ton. If I were home again I could walk freely. In Springfield, it is pleasant to imagine, I would shake off the war trauma. I think old skies would reassure me. But days in Springfield will not return. I have lost more than half my life here—but it was not the ax that cut me down. What was it, in all truth? Craving for glory? For power? I accept those weaknesses but above them is my desire to help my country, to balance the welfare of our people.

The White House

—cold, rainy—

Very often my commanding officers prove to be inadequate and I have to substitute one for another. Most officers, I find, shun advice or suggestions. Grant and Sherman are the best listeners. Ours is a mutual respect. Grant has the essential military skill to control the entire armed force. He also has ample cour­age for his job (it takes courage to fling men into battle; I also send men to death).

Sleep continues to be difficult to come by...peace is difficult to come by we know by now...hope is hard to come by.

It is curious and amusing to look at life across time: man knows his detours: it is incredible how he has fumbled his way through the centuries. In spite of the fumbling, I believe in mankind.

Executive Mansion

Christmas

CHRISTMAS—1864.

Mary and Robert and I have exchanged gifts.

We have given many presents to Tad.

Late in the afternoon, we placed a wreath on Willie’s grave.

This evening I received this telegram from General Sherman:

“I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah.

– William T. Sherman”

Wintry

Rain beats on the White House, rain mixed with snow.

Old newspaper clippings remind me that six thousand soldiers died in an hour at the battle of Cold Harbor.

Another clipping reminds me of Gettysburg.

Another...

I have been reading the fifth chapter of Isaiah. It does not help. It seems there are days when nothing helps.

If re-elected, how shall I live through a second term? But I must; there is work to be done; I am the best to carry out honesty for all. I want no recrimina­tions.

Perhaps I can find peace, someday, in Europe. My son, Robert, is ill-disposed toward me. There is Tad, poor little wounded Tad.

Mary is ill, seriously ill.

Now, I shall open the Bible once more.

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