Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [462]
“I am here within five miles of the scene of this morning’s action,” Lincoln telegraphed Stanton from Meade’s headquarters in the field. “I have seen the prisoners myself and they look like there might be the number Meade states—1600.” Unsettled by Lincoln’s proximity to the front, Stanton replied, “I hope you will remember Gen. Harrison’s advice to his men at Tippecanoe, that they ‘can see as well a little further off.’” But for the soldiers in the field who greeted him with heartfelt cheers, Lincoln’s presence at the scene revealed that “he was not afraid to show himself among them, and willing to share their dangers here, as often, far away, he had shared the joy of their triumphs.”
Seated at the campfire that night, Lincoln seemed to Horace Porter much more “grave and his language much more serious than usual.” Undoubtedly, the grisly images of the dead and wounded were not easily dismissed. As the night wore on, the president rallied and “entertained the general-in-chief and several members of the staff by talking in a most interesting manner about public affairs, and illustrating the subjects mentioned with his incomparable anecdotes.” Toward the end of the evening, Grant asked, “Mr. President, did you at any time doubt the final success of the cause?” “Never for a moment,” Lincoln replied.
Grant then turned the conversation to the Trent affair. According to Grant, Seward had given “a very interesting account” of the tangled questions involved during his visit the previous summer. “‘Yes,’ said the President; ‘Seward studied up all the works ever written on international law, and came to cabinet meetings loaded to the muzzle with the subject. We gave due consideration to the case, but at that critical period of the war it was soon decided to deliver up the prisoners. It was a pretty bitter pill to swallow, but I contented myself with believing that England’s triumph in the matter would be short-lived, and that after ending our war successfully we would be so powerful that we could call her to account for all the embarrassments she had inflicted upon us.”
Lincoln continued, “I felt a good deal like the sick man in Illinois who was told he probably had n’t many days longer to live, and he ought to make his peace with any enemies he might have. He said the man he hated worst of all was a fellow named Brown, in the next village…. So Brown was sent for, and when he came the sick man began to say, in a voice as meek as Moses’s, that he wanted to die at peace with all his fellow-creatures, and he hoped he and Brown could now shake hands and bury all their enmity. The scene was becoming altogether too pathetic for Brown, who had to get out his handkerchief and wipe the gathering tears from his eyes…. After a parting that would have softened the heart of a grindstone, Brown had about reached the room door when the sick man rose up on his elbow and called out to him: ‘But see here, Brown; if I should happen to get well, mind, that old grudge stands.’ So I thought that if this nation should happen to get well we might want that old grudge against England to stand.” Everyone laughed heartily, and the pleasant evening drew to a close.
On Sunday morning, the River Queen carried the presidential party downriver to where Admiral Porter’s naval flotilla awaited them, “ranged in double line, dressed with flags, the crews on deck cheering.” As each vessel passed by, reported Barnes, Lincoln “waved his high hat as if saluting old friends in his native town, and seemed as happy as a schoolboy.” After lunch aboard Porter’s flagship, the River Queen sailed to Aiken’s Landing. There, arrangements were made for Lincoln to ride on horseback with Grant to General Ord’s encampment four miles away while Mary Lincoln and Julia Grant followed in an ambulance. “The President was in high spirits,” observed Barnes, “laughing and chatting first to General Grant and then to General Ord as they rode forward through the