The American Civil War was the culmination of generations of increasing antagonism between North and South, centered in no small part around the institution of slavery. The war pitted sibling against sibling, parent against child, and led to catastrophic losses on both sides. At the start, both sides anticipated rapid victory. In all, the active part of the war would last five years. Abraham Lincoln’s tenure as president spanned the entirety of the Civil War, which started just a month after his first inauguration and ended mere days before his death; the two are deeply and irrevocably entwined.
This is the second in our series of “exhibits” that focus on and contextualize pivotal years in American history (see our previous post on 1776). In this case, we explore 1861, closely examining historical documents that illuminate the events before and after the breaking point.
Historical Documents of the Antebellum Period
The trouble between the North and the South that would boil over in 1861 had been brewing for decades. As early as 1842, John C. Calhoun, a former vice president turned senator from South Carolina, was actively participating in the political discussion around states’ rights and whether states had the authority over federal laws.
In a letter to John Letcher, later wartime governor of Virginia, Calhoun articulates his philosophy that only state sovereignty could save the Union, mentioning the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 which claimed that states could declare federal laws void. He writes, “We regard it not only as a victory over Whigs and Whiggery, but indicating a thorough return to the old and long cherished doctrines of ’98. The longer I live, the deeper is my conviction that they and they only can save us politically.
The Compromise of 1850
The dual issues of states’ rights and slavery continued to divide the United States throughout the 1840s. Congress passed the Compromise of 1850, a slate of bills meant to address these issues, but it proved temporary and controversial. The agreement helped preserve the Union for a decade, but it played a role in heightening tensions and bringing on the Civil War.
Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky had introduced the Compromise in January 1850 and won the support of Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, who believed the measure promoted nationalism over sectionalism and would keep the Union intact. In this letter from May 1850, Webster also correctly predicted that failure to support the Compromise would tear his political party–the Whigs–apart.
Webster’s stance was unpopular in the North, especially among abolitionists, as the Compromise not only made it easier for slave owners to recover runaways under the Fugitive Slave Act, but required citizens to assist in their recapture.
Clay, for his part, fought to maintain the Fugitive Slave law. In this letter to a social reformer from November 1850, Clay explains why a proposal for paying slave owners for escaped slaves would not work. “The Fugitive Slave bill is every where taking strong ground against its repeal or eventual modification. I fear that your remedy of paying a portion of the value of un-reclaimed Slaves, if practicable to be adopted, would be liable to serious objections, and lead in operation to fraudulent results. I hope that the law can be maintained….”
The proponents of the Compromise of 1850 had hoped to avoid war, but the ensuing decade only brought increased polarization and bitterness between the North and the South.
In May 1860, Jefferson Davis, the soon-to-be president of the newly formed Confederate States of America, made a speech on the Senate floor in which he indicated that secession would be justified as a consequence of Northern actions.
A manuscript quotation from that speech, written in Davis’s hand, addressed to the Ladies of the Fair at Bangor, carries his message: “That the affection, the mutual desire for the mutual good, which existed among our Fathers, may be weakened in succeeding generations by the denial of right and by hostile demonstrations, until the equality guaranteed but not secured within the Union, may be sought for without it; must be evident to even a careless observer of our race. It is time to be up and doing. There is yet time to remove the causes of dissension and alienation, which are now distracting, and have for years past divided the country.”
Civil War Documents
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election. He was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, by which time, seven states had already seceded to join the Confederacy. A month later, Confederate forces opened fire at Fort Sumter, signaling the beginning of the Civil War.
Six months later, as the Union rallied to secure funds, someone had the extraordinary idea to ask patriotic leaders to sign something that could then be auctioned for the United States Sanitary Commission, a civilian organization that provided medical and sanitary assistance to the Union forces during the Civil War.
Lincoln and his Team of Rivals took up their pens. This unique broadside, signed by scores of “Patriots of 1861,” with hand-drawn artwork, is a veritable snapshot of the Union leadership, heroes, and notables at the start of the Civil War.
During the next two years, military engagements proceeded, mainly in the South, from the Battle of Antietam in the fall of 1862 to the Siege of Vicksburg in the spring of 1863. The Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863, would turn out to be the bloodiest of the war, with about 51,000 soldiers killed, wounded, or captured. The Confederate defeat dashed General Robert E. Lee‘s hopes for a successful invasion of the North and buoyed Lincoln’s belief that the Union would prevail.
Still, there was work to be done, and Lincoln was directly involved in decisions and appointments. This is illustrated in a letter from later that year, in which he intervenes to reinstate an officer who had been dismissed from the army for being derelict of duty and breaching arrest. Lincoln asks for the record of the incident, and for justice’s sake, to have the details of the case reported directly to him. Showing his great compassion for those who serve, Lincoln would see to it that the officer, a veteran of many battles, would be restored to the army.
After Gettysburg, General Lee retreated to Virginia, but the war wasn’t over. A decision to transfer some troops westward left his calvary vulnerable to an attack in September of 1863, one Lee would summarize in an original battle report to Jefferson Davis the day after the Yankees–led by General George A. Custer–forced their withdrawal from Culpeper.
In the signed manuscript report, Lee writes, “A little after Midnight on Sept. 13th General Stuart received notice of an intended Advance by the enemies cavalry and made his preparations accordingly…. He was greatly out numbered, the enemy had 3 Divisions of cavalry with infantry, and he having 3 Brigades, the fourth being Fitz Lee’s is still at Fredericksburg. He reports that his men behaved with bravery, and that his men took a considerable number of prisoners.”
A lot of blood was spilled in 1863. In March, the U.S. Congress had resorted to the first draft in the country’s history, after volunteers dried up. By year’s end, President Lincoln and the Union leadership realized that more men were urgently needed for the army. On February 1, 1864, Lincoln called for 500,000 men to serve for three years or for the duration of the war. Then on March 15 he supplemented this with a call for 250,000 more.
In New York, this call came only a year after the city’s infamous Draft Riots. On April 23, 1864, Lincoln ordered the implementation of the draft in New York: “I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to the apportionment of the quota of troops to be furnished by the State of New York, from its several districts, dated and this day signed by me, and for so doing this shall be his warrant.”
During that spring of 1864, Lincoln was keenly aware of the toll the war was taking on his soldiers. In a letter written for the Brooklyn Sanitary Fair, a civic-minded women’s group that raised funds for the war, Lincoln expresses his personal concern for “our gallant and suffering soldiers.” He also praises the women for their patriotic efforts. As the Abraham Lincoln Quarterly once wrote, these mementos “indicate the importance of the Sanitary Fairs in the life of the Union, and Lincoln’s devotion to the amelioration of personal suffering.” They also show that Lincoln singled out for praise those patriotic people (mainly women) who were putting on the fairs to aid the soldiers.
This letter was written by Lincoln in order to be auctioned and raise much-needed funds. It is also interesting to note that Lincoln wrote this letter on the very day he appointed Grant to command all Union troops.
Historical documents from the Civil War era are not exclusively military in nature. In fact, one recently discovered letter of Mary Tood Lincoln reveals another facet of the war: jobs for women. In an undated letter written by Mrs. Lincoln sometime in 1864, we see her working to secure a job for a woman in the Treasury Department. As we in the 21st century wrangle with the legacy of the shadowy, even controversial First Lady, this letter demonstrates her generosity and willingness to intervene on behalf of young women seeking to enter the workplace.
Abraham Lincoln’s Final Days
On April 9, 1865, President Lincoln was meeting his Secretary of State William H. Seward, when Secretary of War Edwin Stanton arrived with the news that Lee had surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant earlier that day, essentially ending the Civil War. The following day, Washington, DC celebrated, and crowds awaited acknowledgement from the president. On April 11, he did just that, appearing at his second-floor window and delivering words of thanks to the “brave men” who made victory possible.
That same day, Lincoln signed a document that appointed Allen Gangewar to a treasury position. Gangewar, the editor of an anti-slavery weekly and one of the founders of the National Colored Home, had likely come to Lincoln’s attention through Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, formerly Governor of Ohio, with whom Gangewar had previously worked.
This document, long held in a private collection, was not known to have survived, making it a fascinating new discovery featured by several news outlets. It was also, as we now know, one of the last documents Lincoln signed.
After his April 11 speech, Lincoln spent the next few days meeting with advisors to discuss Reconstruction. He also spent time with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and his son, Robert.
On the fateful night of April 14, Lincoln accompanied his wife to Ford’s Theatre to see “Our American Cousin.” It was there that Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth sought him out and shot him at point-blank range.
Lincoln died early the next morning, and newspapers across the country scrambled to report the tragic news. This original report appeared in the Binghamton Daily Republican that same day, April 15, 1865, with black mourning columns. The front page, as was routine at the time, was taken up by ads. The news then began on page two. There at top left is the headline: “The Assassination of President Lincoln! A Nation in Mourning!!!”
The war was over, Lincoln was dead, and the United States was still standing.
Although Jefferson Davis was jailed for his leadership role in the Civil War, he had many Northern supporters come to his aid. In particular, Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the New York Tribune, who used his platform for political editorializing: he reluctantly supported Lincoln and he supported equality for freedmen, but he also favored a quick restoration of relations with the South and recommended Davis be released.
Greeley even took it upon himself to correspond with Mrs. Davis, as seen in this 1865 letter, to ease her mind on the matter. Greeley would later sign a bail bond for Jefferson Davis. When pressed to explain why he was helping the former president of the Confederacy, Greeley said he was being denied a timely trial, and besides, the nation needed to heal from its wounds.
Vice-President Andrew Johnson, who had taken over as president when Lincoln was killed, led the nation through Reconstruction. He did not, however, share Lincoln’s ideals. He favored the quick restoration of seceded states and pardoned Confederates. His disapproval of the ratification of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted citizenship to formerly enslaved people, led to a clash with Congress. Johnson did not win his party’s nomination to run for president in 1868.
Lincoln: “The Greatest Man of This Age”
Over the past 159 years, many articles, books, and films have explored the life of Abraham Lincoln and the fathomless depths of the Civil War years.
In our collection, one document from 1880 speaks to Lincoln’s legacy: an autograph note written by Ambrose Burnside, former Commander of the Army of the Potomac, that extols Lincoln as “The greatest man of this age.” Burnside held several military appointments but was removed from command by Lincoln after the failure of the Crater Plan in 1864. Still, Burnside’s admiration for Lincoln was undiminished.
To learn more about Civil War documents, please visit our Civil War page. To learn more about collecting historical Lincoln documents in particular, we invite you to peruse our illustrated guide, “What to Know about Buying Abraham Lincoln Autographs & Documents.”
