Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [354]
Lincoln retained his high spirits through much of the summer, buoyed by the thought that “the rebel power is at last beginning to disintegrate.” In his diary, Hay described a number of pleasant outings, including an evening journey to the Observatory. They viewed the moon and the star Arcturus through a newly installed telescope before driving out to the Soldiers’ Home, where Lincoln read Shakespeare to Hay—“the end of Henry VI and the beginning of Richard III till my heavy eye-lids caught his considerate notice & he sent me to bed.”
The route Lincoln traveled to and from the Soldiers’ Home took him down Vermont Avenue past the lodgings of Walt Whitman. “I see the President almost every day,” Whitman wrote. “None of the artists or pictures has caught the deep, though subtle and indirect expression of this man’s face. There is something else there. One of the great portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed.” Whitman proudly noted that “we have got so that we exchange bows, and very cordial ones. Sometimes the President goes and comes in an open barouche. The cavalry always accompany him, with drawn sabers. Often I notice as he goes out evenings—and sometimes in the morning, when he returns early—he turns off and halts at the large and handsome residence of the Secretary of War, on K Street.”
All summer, Stanton harbored hopes that he and Lincoln might escape to the mountains of Pennsylvania. “The President and I have been arranging to make a trip to Bedford,” he told Ellen, “but something always turns up to keep him or me in Washington. He is so eager for it that I expect we shall accomplish it before the season is over.” In fact, though Stanton finally joined his wife during the first week of September, Lincoln journeyed no farther that summer than the Soldiers’ Home.
The president was rarely alone, however. In addition to Hay and Stanton, he could rely on Seward for good companionship. John Hay witnessed a typically wide-ranging conversation between them as the three rode to the Capitol on August 13 to view a sculptural work, The Progress of Civilization, recently installed in the eastern pediment of the north wing of the Capitol. The conversation opened on the topic of slavery, slipped back to the time of the Masons and anti-Masons, then turned to the Mexican War. Both Seward and Lincoln agreed that “one fundamental principle of politics is to be always on the side of your country in a war. It kills any party to oppose a war.” As, indeed, Lincoln knew from his own experience in opposing the Mexican War.
The following day, Seward left for a two-week tour of upstate New York with foreign ministers, including those from England, France, Spain, Germany, and Russia. Seward had engineered the trip to counter the impression abroad that the lengthy war was starting to exhaust the resources of the North. With Seward as their guide, members of the diplomatic corps journeyed up the Hudson, stopping in Albany, Schenectady, and Coopers-town. They sailed on the Finger Lakes, visited Niagara Falls, and spent the night in Auburn, where they were joined by Seward’s neighbors and friends for a picnic on the lake.
“All seemed to be enjoying themselves very much,” Frances noted. Seward, extroverted as always, provided a sparkling commentary, excellent food, abundant drink, and good cheer. After months of tense wrangling over the status of the Confederacy, the European ministers saw a different side of Seward and enjoyed his easy camaraderie.