Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [436]
When the order was publicized, a storm of criticism descended upon Stanton. To give a bounty to soldiers who were already in government custody seemed wasteful and wrong, as did counting the discharged prisoners against the quota that Pennsylvania, like every other state, was required to supply. Lincoln learned that Grant, too, was unhappy and blamed Stanton. “I send this,” Lincoln promptly wrote Grant, “to do justice to the Secretary of War.” He then explained that he had responded to the idea “upon pressing application…and the thing went so far before it came to the knowledge of the Secretary of War that in my judgment it could not be abandoned without greater evil than would follow it’s going through. I did not know, at the time, that you had protested against that class of thing being done; and I now say that while this particular job must be completed, no other of the sort, will be authorized, without an understanding with you, if at all. The Secretary of War is wholly free of any part in this blunder.”
In this instance, Stanton was transparently blameless, but Lincoln protected his volatile secretary even when criticism was justified, when “his firmness degenerated, at times, into sheer obstinacy; his enthusiasm, into intolerance; his strength of will, into arrogance.” Even the equitable George Templeton Strong acknowledged that it was “hard to vote for sustaining an Administration of which Stanton is a member. He is a ruffian.”
Implacable and abrasive as Stanton could be, his scrupulous honesty, energy, and determination were invaluable to Lincoln. When one caller complained bitterly about Stanton’s bearish style, Lincoln stopped him cold: “Go home my friend, and read attentively the tenth verse of the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs!” The verse reads as follows: “Accuse not a servant to his master, lest he curse thee, and then be found guilty.” When people speculated about cabinet changes after his reelection, Lincoln made it clear that Stanton would not be leaving. “Folks come up here and tell me that there are a great many men in the country who have all Stanton’s excellent qualities without his defects,” he commented. “All I have to say is, I have n’t met ’em! I don’t know ’em!”
Nor did Lincoln consider dismissing his “Neptune,” Gideon Welles. Reserved by nature, Welles did not enjoy the easy camaraderie with Lincoln that Seward did. The discreet New Englander looked askance at the curious pleasure both Lincoln and Seward took in talking with “the little newsmongers” and hearing “all the political gossip.” And he was often vexed by the odd intimacy between Lincoln and Stanton. Unlike Chase, however, he confined his complaints to his diary and remained totally loyal to the president whose natural sagacity he greatly admired.
Moreover, Lincoln recognized that Welles had accomplished a Herculean task—he had built a navy almost from scratch, utterly revamping a department initially paralyzed by subversion and strife. Even the normally critical Times of London was forced to concede the extraordinary growth of the American navy under the leadership of Gideon Welles. When Welles took office, there were only 76 vessels flying the American flag; four years later, there were 671. The number of seamen had increased from 7,600 to 51,000. In the span of only four years, the American navy had become “a first class power.”
A shrewd judge of character, Welles had assembled an excellent team, including his dynamic assistant secretary, Gustavus Vasa Fox, and the industrious commandant of the Navy Yard, John Dahlgren. Welles had opposed the blockade but, once overruled, had enforced it with determination and skill. He had fought Lincoln on the admission of West Virginia as a state and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, but he had never publicly vented his objections.
With Seward, Stanton, and Welles secure in their cabinet places, the resignation of Edward Bates provided the only opening for change in the immediate aftermath of the election. The seventy-one-year-old Bates had contemplated