Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [237]
Chase later noted proudly that in the early days of the war, Lincoln relied on him to carry out functions that ordinarily belonged to the War Department. According to Chase, he assumed “the principal charge” of preventing the key border states of Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee from falling into secessionist hands. He authorized a loyal state senator from Kentucky to muster twenty companies. He drew up the orders that allowed Andrew Johnson, the only senator from a Confederate state who remained loyal to the Union, “to raise regiments in Tennessee.” He believed himself instrumental in keeping Kentucky and Missouri in the Union, seriously underestimating Lincoln’s critical role.
Indeed, Chase would never cease to underestimate Lincoln, nor to resent the fact that he had lost the presidency to a man he considered his inferior. In late April, he presumptuously sent Lincoln a New York Times article highly derogatory of the administration. “The President and the Cabinet at Washington are far behind the people,” the Times argued. “They are like a person just aroused from sleep, and in a state of dreamy half-consciousness.” This charge, Chase informed Lincoln, “has too much truth in it.” Lincoln did not reply, well understanding Chase’s implacable yearning for the presidency. But for now he needed the Ohioan’s enormous talents and total cooperation.
Cameron, meanwhile, found the task of running the War Department unbearable. Unable to manage his vast responsibilities, he turned to both Seward and Chase for help. “Oh, it was a terrible time,” Cameron remembered years later. “We were entirely unprepared for such a conflict, and for the moment, at least, absolutely without even the simplest instruments with which to engage in war. We had no guns, and even if we had, they would have been of but little use, for we had no ammunition to put in them—no powder, no saltpetre, no bullets, no anything.” The demands placed on the War Department in the early days of the war were indeed excruciating. Not only were weapons in short supply, but uniforms, blankets, horses, medical supplies, food, and everything necessary to outfit the vast numbers of volunteer soldiers arriving daily in Washington were unobtainable. It would have taken thousands of personnel to handle the varied functions of the quartermaster’s department, the ordnance office, the engineering department, the medical office, and the pay department. Yet, in 1861, the entire War Department consisted of fewer than two hundred people, including clerks, messengers, and watchmen. As Cameron lamented afterward: “I was certainly not in a place to be envied.”
Lincoln later explained that with “so large a number of disloyal persons” infiltrating every department, the government could not rely on official agents to manage contracts for manufacturing the weapons and supplies necessary to maintain a fighting force. With the cabinet’s unanimous consent, he directed Chase to dispense millions of dollars to a small number of trusted private individuals to negotiate and sign contracts that would mobilize the military. Acting “without compensation,” the majority of these men did their utmost under the circumstances. A few, including Alexander Cummings, one of Cameron’s lieutenants, would bring shame to the War Department.
AS SPRING GAVE WAY to the stifling heat of a Washington summer, Lincoln began work on the message he would deliver to Congress when the House and Senate assembled in special session on July 4. Needing time to think, he placed an “embargo” on all office seekers, “so strict” that they were not even allowed entry into the White House. As he labored in his newfound quiet, congressmen and senators gathered at Willard’s and Brown’s hotels, exchanging greetings and trading stories. They all anticipated, one reporter stated, that they would “soon ascertain the exact intentions of the Administration,