Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [649]
When Seward became secretary of state (48), he installed his son Fred as his second in command (49) and settled his close-knit family, including Augustus (50), Fred (left), Fanny (right), and Fred’s wife, Anna (foreground), into an elegant mansion on Lafayette Square.
Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase (51) craved the presidency with every fiber of his being, an ambition shared by his beautiful daughter Kate (53 left, and seated, right). Rumors circulated that her 1863 marriage to William Sprague (52) “was a coldly calculated plan to secure the Sprague millions” to finance her father’s 1864 campaign.
When his first war secretary, Simon Cameron (54), resigned under fire, Lincoln called on Edwin M. Stanton (55), who overcame his initial contempt for the president to embrace a deep friendship. The Lincoln and Stanton families spent their summers together at the Soldiers’ Home (56).
Francis P. Blair and his wife, Eliza (59), presided over a political dynasty that included their sons, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair (61) and Union general Frank (60). Daughter Elizabeth’s (58) voluminous letters to her husband, Captain Samuel P. Lee (57), left a vivid record of life in Washington during the Civil War.
In addition to their cabinet duties, both Navy Secretary Gideon Welles (62) and Attorney General Edward Bates (63) kept detailed diaries that recorded the inner workings of the Lincoln administration.
In letters to his wife, Mary Ellen (64), General George B. McClellan regularly derided Lincoln, his cabinet, and most of the hierarchy in the Union army, while crediting himself with every success. Admirers hailed him as a young Napoleon (65).
Lincoln went through a succession of generals, including Ambrose E. Burnside (68) and Joseph Hooker (69), before he found a winning team in Ulysses S. Grant (66) and William T. Sherman (67).
Antislavery leader Frederick Douglass (70) and Senator Charles Sumner (71) urged Lincoln to bring blacks into the Union army. Ultimately, almost two hundred thousand black men served, including this young soldier (72).
Lincoln took more than a dozen trips to the front, both to consult with his generals and to inspire the troops (73). Scenes of the dead littered on the battlefield (74) tore at his heart.
Lincoln and his son Tad walked through the Confederate capital of Richmond on April 4, 1865. Freed slaves crowded the streets, shouting, “Glory! Hallelujah!” when Lincoln came into view.
As Lincoln lay dying in the Petersen boardinghouse, he was surrounded by family, members of his cabinet, congressmen, senators, and military officials. When Lincoln died at 7:22 A.M. on April 15, 1865, Stanton proclaimed: “Now he belongs to the ages.”
Table of Contents
Maps and Diagrams
Introduction
PART I THE RIVALS
1 Four Men Waiting
2 The “Longing to Rise”
3 The Lure of Politics
4 “Plunder & Conquest”
5 The Turbulent Fifties
6 The Gathering Storm
7 Countdown to the Nomination
8 Showdown in Chicago
9 “A Man Knows His Own Name”
10 “An Intensified Crossword Puzzle”
11 “I Am Now Public Property”
PART II MASTER AMONG MEN
12 “Mystic Chords of Memory”: Spring 1861
13 “The Ball Has Opened”: Summer 1861
14 “I Do Not Intend to Be Sacrificed”: Fall 1861
15 “My Boy Is Gone”: Winter 1862
16 “He Was Simply Out-Generaled”: Spring 1862
17 “We Are in the Depths”: Summer 1862
18 “My Word Is Out”: Fall 1862
19 “Fire in the Rear”: Winter–Spring 1863
20 “The Tycoon Is in Fine Whack”: Summer 1863
21 “I Feel Trouble in the Air”: Summer–Fall 1863
22 “Still in Wild Water”: Fall 1863
23 “There’s a Man in It!” : Winter–Spring 1864
24 “Atlanta Is Ours”: Summer–Fall 1864
25 “A Sacred Effort”: Winter 1864–1865
26 The Final Weeks: Spring 1865
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Illustration Credits
About the Author
Photographic Insert