Speaker 1: And we returned to our American stories. Up next, the
Speaker 1: story about a consequential year and a consequential man. Here's
Speaker 1: the late historian Charles Braslin Flood to tell the story
Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty four and Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 2: On that New Year's Day of eighteen sixty four, the
Speaker 2: Civil War had been going on for thirty three months,
Speaker 2: on its way to being what is the bloodiest war
Speaker 2: in American history to date. In November of eighteen sixty four,
Speaker 2: there would be a presidential election that was going to
Speaker 2: be a referendum on the war. In hindsight, it's easy
Speaker 2: to say that, of course Lincoln was re elected and
Speaker 2: the North won the war, but there were an endless
Speaker 2: number of times during eighteen sixty four when it did
Speaker 2: not look that way. Please remember that military success or
Speaker 2: failure was inextricably linked with what would be Lincoln's political
Speaker 2: success or failure. Four days before the Baltimore political Convention
Speaker 2: in early June that nominated Lincoln to run for a
Speaker 2: second term, Ulysses S. Grant presided over a military disaster.
Speaker 2: His forces had been taking terrible casualties as they moved
Speaker 2: south against Roberty Lee through the battles of the Wilderness
Speaker 2: and Spotsylvania. Now he started one of the largest attacks
Speaker 2: of the war at a place in Virginia called Cold Harbor.
Speaker 2: Grant had one hundred and eight thousand men and threw
Speaker 2: them straight at Lee, whose fifty nine thousand men were
Speaker 2: well entrenched. In the first hour, and some say even
Speaker 2: within the first twenty minutes, seven thousand of Grant's men
Speaker 2: were killed or wounded. With the Union attack repulsed and
Speaker 2: nothing gained, but the bad news went on for many
Speaker 2: more weeks. At one point Grant had lost more than
Speaker 2: forty thousand men in thirty days, and that figure grew
Speaker 2: to his having lost sixty thousand men in forty five days,
Speaker 2: sixty thousand men dead and wounded to advance sixty miles.
Speaker 2: Also during that time, Juble Early once again erupted from
Speaker 2: the Shenandoah Valley. He led a massive raid that brought
Speaker 2: a force of twelve thousand men right to the edge
Speaker 2: of Washington's fortifications, five miles from the White House. Lincoln
Speaker 2: and Mary went out to Fort Stephens, the focal point
Speaker 2: of the attack. At one moment, the Confederate advance came
Speaker 2: to within one hundred and ten yards of the fort. Foolishly, Lincoln,
Speaker 2: wearing a stovepipe hat that made him a target seven
Speaker 2: feet high, climbed right up on the parapet in the open.
Speaker 2: Some Confederate snipers positioned a few hundred yards away started
Speaker 2: firing at him, missing him but wounding with a ricochet
Speaker 2: an officer who was standing just below the parapet. It's
Speaker 2: worth mentioning that this is the only time that an
Speaker 2: American president has been under enemy fire while serving in office.
Speaker 1: All of this.
Speaker 2: News frightful Union casualties throughout northern Virginia and Confederate striking
Speaker 2: at the Capitol, was coupled with bad news from Georgia.
Speaker 2: As William To comes to Sherman slowly struggled towards Atlanta
Speaker 2: on the Southern Front. That coincided with half true rumors
Speaker 2: of peace feelers going back and forth between North and South.
Speaker 2: The Northern public was increasingly confused and disappointed in Lincoln
Speaker 2: and his administration. Much of the press was coming out
Speaker 2: against Lincoln. Even his own advisers were warning him that
Speaker 2: the tide is turning against us. The Union's economy was
Speaker 2: intertwined with all this speculation and gold in New York
Speaker 2: City indicated fears that the North financial structure might collapse.
Speaker 2: The national debt was at its highest, the public credit
Speaker 2: was at its lowest, and the Treasury was running out
Speaker 2: of money paying for a war that appeared to be
Speaker 2: at a stalemate. In foreign business dealings involving valuations of
Speaker 2: the dollar, it dropped to a new wartime low of
Speaker 2: thirty seven cents. Prosperous Republicans who wanted Lincoln to be
Speaker 2: reelected were nonetheless getting rid of Greenback's by buying land.
Speaker 2: They were doing that on the theory that land would
Speaker 2: still have value even if the Democrats were elected, and
Speaker 2: to repudiate federal government securities right down to leaving the
Speaker 2: dollar worthless. On August twenty third, Lincoln involved himself in
Speaker 2: an extraordinary act that demonstrated his belief that he would
Speaker 2: lose the election. When the members of his cabinet assembled
Speaker 2: for one of their Tuesday afternoon meetings, they found Lincoln
Speaker 2: asking each of them to sign without knowing what it
Speaker 2: said the back of a folded over and sealed document,
Speaker 2: what Lincoln had written that morning, what they could not see,
Speaker 2: and what he was asking him to endorse sight unseen
Speaker 2: by placing their signatures on It was this statement this morning,
Speaker 2: as for some days past, it seems exceedingly unlikely that
Speaker 2: this administration will be re elected, then it will be
Speaker 2: my duty to so cooperate with the President elect as
Speaker 2: to save the Union between the election and the inauguration.
Speaker 2: And though he was pledging himself and his cabinet to
Speaker 2: make an orderly transition to what he thought was going
Speaker 2: to be McClellan and a democratic administration. So if anybody
Speaker 2: tells you that by eighteen sixty four Union victory or
Speaker 2: Lincoln's reelection was in the bag, I would respectfully refer
Speaker 2: them to Lincoln's own estimate of the situation. He remained
Speaker 2: determined to do everything he could. He backed Grant and
Speaker 2: his other generals to the hilt, but speaking to a
Speaker 2: radical Republican, he told the man, you think I don't know,
Speaker 2: I am going to be beaten what I do, and
Speaker 2: unless some great change takes place, badly beaten. A week
Speaker 2: after Lincoln said that, Sherman sent a telegram North that read,
Speaker 2: Atlanta is ours and fairly won. Everything changed there. It
Speaker 2: was the news bringing the hope that so many in
Speaker 2: the North had lost Even the most ardent Confederates saw
Speaker 2: this as the enormous strategic victory that the Union had won. Atlanta,
Speaker 2: the south second most important city after Richmond, dead center
Speaker 2: in what had been Confederate territory, had fallen. There were
Speaker 2: still nine weeks until the election, but everything began to
Speaker 2: go Lincoln's way. He was re elected in an electoral
Speaker 2: college landslide, not so decisive in the popular vote, which
Speaker 2: came in with Lincoln winning by four hundred thousand out
Speaker 2: of four million cast. There was yet another exceedingly important
Speaker 2: factor in play, and I have to say that a
Speaker 2: number of studies, I think have not given this quite
Speaker 2: enough attention. That was the military vote. Here you had
Speaker 2: close to a million young men from families of different
Speaker 2: political persuasions. Many of these soldiers were being shot at
Speaker 2: every day. No one could be sure that they would
Speaker 2: vote to continue a war in which so many of
Speaker 2: their comrades were being killed and maimed. It's worth noting
Speaker 2: that in the military vote, ballots cast by soldiers who
Speaker 2: knew they were continuing, they were voting to continue risking
Speaker 2: their lives. He triumphed by three to one, and on
Speaker 2: Christmas Day of eighteen sixty four, Lincoln read another telegram
Speaker 2: from Sherman which said, I beg to present you as
Speaker 2: a Christmas gift the city of Savannah with one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also
Speaker 2: about twenty five thousand bales of cotton. So as eighteen
Speaker 2: sixty four ended, the war was at last winding down
Speaker 2: in thirteen more weeks Roberty Lee, which surrendered a grant
Speaker 2: at Appomatox Courthouse. Seventeen days after that, Lee's West Point
Speaker 2: classmate Joseph E. Johnston, which surrendered the Confederacy's other sizable
Speaker 2: forces to Sherman in North Carolina. Between those two surrenders,
Speaker 2: John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln in Washington on April fourteenth,
Speaker 2: eighteen sixty five. At the end of my book, I
Speaker 2: look ahead to those events of eighteen sixty five, but
Speaker 2: my detailed treatment ends where it began, with the White
Speaker 2: House New Year's Day reception of eighteen sixty five. And
Speaker 2: here again is the essential Lincoln, the ultimate politician who
Speaker 2: nevertheless transcended the political strife, the indispensable man who appeared
Speaker 2: in our nation's convulsive hour, the resolute figure who proved
Speaker 2: that character is destiny. At this reception, a nurse who
Speaker 2: served with the Union Army, Ada Smith, had come by
Speaker 2: herself to the White House to pass through the long
Speaker 2: receiving line and wish the President well. As she came
Speaker 2: through the door, she recognized a crippled lieutenant named Gosper,
Speaker 2: who had lost a leg and was hobbling forward on
Speaker 2: crutches as he made his way to the East Room
Speaker 2: in the fighting around Petersburg earlier in the year. Ada
Speaker 2: had been his nurse when he was brought in with
Speaker 2: his right leg shot off, and they became friends during
Speaker 2: the time she cared for him. They greeted each other
Speaker 2: and joined the line of hundreds that wound around the
Speaker 2: East room, waiting to shake hands with Lincoln, who had
Speaker 2: married beside him. From where he stood, Lincoln saw Gosper.
Speaker 2: He broke away from his place and came striding from
Speaker 2: the other side of the big East room to greet him.
Speaker 2: He took Gosper's hand, and what Ada remembered as and
Speaker 2: I quote a voice unforgettable, said God bless you, my boy.
Speaker 2: As they left, Gosper said to her, I'd lose another
Speaker 2: leg for a man like that, and.
Speaker 1: A special thanks to Charles Braslin Flood. This audio is
Speaker 1: from the US National Archives, and we thanked them for it.
Speaker 1: The story of eighteen sixty four, a consequential time for
Speaker 1: our nation when we were perhaps never more divided, and
Speaker 1: how Abraham Lincoln rose to the occasion. That story here
Speaker 1: on our American Stories