Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [385]
Edward Bates, too, had reason to be gladdened. Though he remained despondent over the defection of his son Fleming to the Confederate Army, the rest of his large brood were doing well. Coalter had fought at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and remained on General Meade’s staff. Woodson would soon graduate from West Point. Barton and Julian were both in Missouri, where Barton was a judge of the state Supreme Court and Julian a surgeon in the Missouri militia. His two daughters lived with the family at home. Even Dick, his troubled eighth child, who had struggled with alcoholism, seemed to be improving.
Of all the causes for holiday thanksgiving, Bates was most grateful for his wife’s complete return to health after her stroke. After forty years of marriage, he still believed that “no man has been more blessed.” He was proud to make the rare claim that “in all that time,” Julia had never committed “an unkind act” toward him, nor spoken a disparaging word against him. On Christmas Day, he attended a funeral for the wife of one of his closest friends. The couple had been married for more than half a century. “I know not how he can bear the loss of such a companion,” he wrote, speaking for himself as well as for his friend. “I am prepared to see him sink rapidly and die soon.”
Christmas Day found Welles rejoicing at his son Edgar’s return from Kenyon College, though holiday festivities immediately brought back memories of the children he had lost. “The glad faces and loving childish voices that cheered our household with ‘Merry Christmas’ in years gone by are silent on earth forever.” His mood was lightened, however, by the situation in the country. “The year closes more satisfactorily than it commenced,” he wrote; “the heart of the nation is sounder and its hopes brighter.” Although the president still faced “trying circumstances,” Welles predicted that his leadership would “be better appreciated in the future than now.”
The Stantons’ domestic life had brightened with the birth of a new baby girl, Bessie, eleven months after the death of their infant son, James. As Ellen prepared for the baptismal celebration, Stanton spent Christmas visiting wounded soldiers. He shared with the men his renewed faith that “when the next anniversary of the day you are now celebrating occurs, this war will be ended, and you will have returned to your homes and your firesides. When you shall have so returned, you will be considered as honored guests of the nation.”
Lincoln invited Stanton to accompany him “down the river” to visit the Union prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland. He had heard that a significant number of the rebel prisoners had expressed willingness to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and swear acceptance of emancipation in return for a full presidential pardon. The general in charge of the prison confirmed this hopeful intelligence when Lincoln and Stanton arrived, prompting Stanton to make plans for carrying Lincoln’s “10% plan” into the Deep South, where it might spur further disaffection in Confederate strongholds.
As 1863 drew to a close, even the carping Count Gurowski had to admit that the Union’s position had improved. “Oh! dying year! you will record that the American people increased its sacrifices in proportion to its dangers; that blood, time, and money were cheerfully thrown into the balance against treason—inside and outside. And brighter hopes dawn.” The surly count remained unwilling to acknowledge the president’s role in the improved situation, but other former critics revealed a new appreciation of Lincoln. Charles Francis Adams, the American minister to Britain, had been unimpressed by his first encounter with Lincoln in 1861, describing