Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

As the election of 1864 draws nearer, Lincoln must continue to navigate the Copperhead threat, as northern Democrats try to undermine his position and pursue a peaceable end to the war through diplomacy with the South. The Copperhead issue reaches a new boiling point when well-known Copperhead leader Clement Vallandingham is arrested by Union forces under General Ambrose Burnside (521-22). Considered guilty of sedition, Vallandingham is ultimately banished within the Confederate lines so that “he could go where his heart already was” (522).

Decisions over domestic policy and the war cause friction between the members of Lincoln’s inner circle. Most notably, Salmon Chase is working behind the scenes in order to try to challenge Lincoln as the Republican candidate for President in 1864. He finds himself in an open quarrel with the powerful Blair family (525), and insinuates that Lincoln is the puppet of Seward (525).

However, 1863 turns into a good military year for the Union forces, as they achieve victory at both the Battle of Gettysburg and the Battle of Vicksburg. They now control the Mississippi River completely, and General Lee no longer has the manpower to threaten an invasion of the North. With the war now turning in favor of the Union forces, Lincoln attempts to institute a draft to further bolster the Union forces after his calls for volunteers does not result in the amount of bodies that he has hoped for. This, however, leads to riots in New York City, as Irish immigrants and many other whites in the city do not wish to be conscripted into service under the guise of fighting to free black men in the South. 

Kearns Goodwin writes: “The summer of 1863 marked a crucial transformation in the Union war effort—the organization and deployment of black regiments that would eventually amount to 180,000 soldiers, a substantial portion of eligible black males” (548). Frederick Douglass is enlisted to attempt to urge blacks to join the Union Army, and he undertakes this task with vigor for “he had long believed that the war would not be on so long as the North refused ‘to employ black man’s arms’” (549).

Black Regiments face discrimination amongst their white counterparts: They are often assigned trivial duties, given less pay, and black officers are a near nonentity. Still, they perform admirably and earn the respect of their white counterparts. They take part in such battles as Port Hudson, Milliken’s Bend, and Fort Wagner. Black soldiers face a greater risk of harm or death if captured by Confederate forces, and Lincoln makes a decree that the price for mistreatment of black captive soldiers will be paid by Confederates in Union custody.

Following a productive meeting with Frederick Douglass in the White House, Lincoln heads to Springfield, Illinois, to “rally Unionists in a show of strength against Copperhead influence, which remained strong in the Northwest” (553). Stanton proves his military genius by providing means to reinforce vulnerable troops on the Western front, which proved one of the greatest logistics feats in the history of modern, industrial warfare (559-60). Stanton and Lincoln grow closer as a result, alienating Chase from the cabinet and reinforcing his desire to upset Lincoln in the 1864 election.

Lincoln must contend with the border states, notably Maryland, which after the Emancipation Proclamation and the draft, are split between conservative and radical forces that could undo Lincoln’s coalition and endanger his 1864 Presidential Campaign. One of the major issues now taking place was how the Southern states should be brought back into the Union at the war’s end:

The issue divided the Republican Party. Radicals insisted that only those who had never displayed even indirect support for the Confederacy should be allowed to vote in the redeemed states […] Conservative Republicans […] argued that in every Southern state, a silent majority of non-slaveholders had been dragged into secession by the wealthy plantation owners. (564)

As such, they believed in a more lenient approach to who should be allowed suffrage following the war. Once again, Lincoln is caught between two strong poles in his party. Kearns Goodwin writes that it was “by ignoring men, and ignoring all small causes, but by closely calculating the tendencies of events and the great forces which were producing logical results” (572) that Lincoln mollified egos and kept the country’s policies moving progressively forward during its most perilous time.