Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [277]
Lincoln was convinced that something had to be done. On March 11, he issued a war order that relieved McClellan from his post as general in chief but left him in charge of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln gave Halleck command of the Department of the Mississippi and, in a move that delighted the radicals, reinstated Frémont to take charge of a newly created Mountain Department. The post of general in chief was not filled, leaving Lincoln and Stanton to determine overall strategy. McClellan later recalled that he “learned through the public newspapers that [he] was displaced.” Claiming that “no one in authority had ever expressed to [him] the slightest disapprobation,” he was infuriated. Lincoln sent Ohio’s Governor Dennison to his camp to assure him that this was not a demotion. The president, Dennison explained, simply wanted General McClellan to focus his full energies on the all-important Army of the Potomac, whose actions would most likely determine the result of the war.
Lincoln anticipated that his postmaster general, Monty Blair, would stridently oppose McClellan’s removal from high command. The conservative Blair family were staunch McClellan supporters, a loyalty that would continue in the months ahead. Referring to his radical detractors, Francis Blair, Sr., warned the general “not to let the Carpet Knights in Congress,” who would sacrifice anyone’s blood but their own, “hurry or worry him into doing anything.” Meanwhile, Washington gossip spread that Monty Blair was openly berating his fellow cabinet colleague Stanton for his failure to support McClellan. While conservatives vilified Stanton, radicals upbraided the Blairs as “preservers of slavery” for defending the inert McClellan at Stanton’s expense.
Already troubled by McClellan’s loss of central control, the powerful Blair family was enraged by Lincoln’s decision to reinstall Frémont in a position of command. Monty Blair privately considered Frémont’s appointment “unpalatable” and warned his father that it would be “mortifying to Frank,” who had been humiliated by his arrest and imprisonment by Frémont. Lizzie Blair told her husband it was “urged by Chase—& Stanton who has his revenges, too,” and that her brother Frank felt it intensely. Only four days earlier, with the backing of Democrats and conservative Republicans, Frank Blair had delivered a blistering attack against Frémont on the floor of the House. Frémont had come to Washington at the request of the Committee on the Conduct of the War. For weeks, radicals on the committee had pressured Lincoln to give “the Emancipator,” as they called Frémont, a second chance. Congressman Schuyler Colfax eloquently defended their position when he rose to the floor immediately after Frank Blair to deliver a scorching point-by-point repudiation of Blair’s address.
The bitter public quarrel between the Blairs and Frémont must have given Lincoln pause as he considered reinstating Frémont. Though the appointment would thrill the radicals, it might cost him the allegiance of the Blairs and thereby destroy the delicate balance he had worked to foster between the conservatives and the radicals. As it happened, a magnanimous gesture by Lincoln just six days before Frémont’s appointment played an important role in resolving the complex situation.
On March 5, Monty Blair had come to the White House in great distress. The New York Tribune had just published a private letter that he had written to Frémont the previous summer before the family feud had begun. In the letter, furnished by Frémont to the press in an attempt to embarrass Blair, the postmaster general had complained that Lincoln’s past affiliations had brought “him naturally not only to incline to the feeble policy of Whigs, but to give his confidence to such advisers. It costs me a great deal of labor to get anything done because of the inclination of mind on the part of the President.”
Elizabeth