Both presidents liked to keep their fingers on the pulse of the war. The pulse that Lincoln felt was the electrical current of the telegraph. Abraham Lincoln spent many hours in the War Department’s telegraph office reading and replying to dispatches from the front. Jefferson Davis, too, played a hands-on role with his generals in orchestrating the Confederate war effort.
Despite the advances in technology that allowed Lincoln and Davis to dictate war strategy from Washington and Richmond, respectively, both commanders-in-chief often sought to get closer to the war in person.
Davis took a special train from Richmond to Manassas Junction on July 21, 1861, to satiate his appetite for news from the front and to confer with his generals. Lincoln debouched from Washington for the front multiple times in 1862. In May 1862, he helped lead the taking of Norfolk, Virginia. Two months later, following the Federal defeat in the Seven Days Campaign, Lincoln traveled to Harrison’s Landing to visit with the Army of the Potomac and its commanding general, George McClellan. When the stakes were high, both presidents wanted to be in the field with their armies.
The stakes of the Civil War were perhaps never higher than in September 1862. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had just won a victory approximately 25 miles from Washington, DC, at Second Manassas. Spurred by this victory, Lee turned his army north toward Maryland. The Old Line State had long been targeted by the Confederate government as a prospect for a new star to be added to the fledgling nation’s flag. Once he learned that Lee’s army was in Maryland, Davis made preparations to join his soldiers and rally the state to the Confederate cause.
Initially, Lee asked for the services of former Maryland governor Enoch Louis Lowe to muster Maryland’s support. After the war, General James Longstreet claimed Lee also gave “deliberate and urgent advice to President Davis to join him and be prepared to make a proposal for peace and independence from the head of a conquering army.”[1] None of Lee’s contemporary correspondence to Davis mentions bringing the President himself north of the Potomac, only Lowe.[2] Regardless, the message reached Lowe, likely passed on by Davis. Lowe said, “I left Richmond and pressed forward towards the army with all the speed which the most imperfect means of transportation could afford.”[3] Unable to forego the opportunity of being at the front at such an important time in the war, Davis accompanied Lowe.
Davis and Lowe departed Richmond on Sunday, September 7. “That he should go off, therefore, on the holy Sabbath, implies that something had occurred since Friday, calling for his immediate personal attention in another quarter,” commented a Confederate correspondent. Davis must have known about the Army of Northern Virginia’s advance into Maryland, the newspaperman reasoned, and left “that he should be present while the organization of the new State government of Maryland was going on.”[4]
The two politicians boarded a “special train” for the mission.[5] At Rapidan Station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, Davis wrote a dispatch to Lee “informing me of your intention to come on to Leesburg,” Lee wrote in reply.[6] After scribbling out the note to his general, Davis, Lowe, and their aides crossed the Rapidan River on horseback, as the railroad bridge spanning the river was inoperable.[7] They may have taken a train from the Rapidan to the banks of the Rappahannock River, but no further than that due to that river’s bridge also being destroyed. Continuing on horseback, Davis and Lowe reached Warrenton either on September 7 or 8. Their stay in the Fauquier County seat did not last long.
It is unclear why Davis did not proceed any closer to Maryland. His health may have plagued him, as evidenced by another dispatch from Lee, in which the general regretted “that you should have exposed yourself while indisposed, to the fatigue of travel…”[8] Davis may also have realized that continuing onto Maryland following in the path of the Army of Northern Virginia was not safe. Lee even sent one of his staff officers, Major Walter Taylor, to meet Davis and “explain to you the difficulties and dangers of the journey, which I cannot recommend you to undertake.”[9] Taylor arrived in Warrenton after Davis had already departed, and by the time the president received Lee’s warning, he was already back in Richmond. If safety was the reason for Davis turning back, he reached that conclusion on his own.
Lowe continued his journey to Winchester. Davis returned to Richmond on September 8. A newspaper correspondent caught a glimpse of Davis at Gordonsville during the president’s return trip. In “his plain blue homespun, [Davis] took a seat, almost unnoticed, in the humble shed. Though he was soon recognized, respectfully saluted by some, and regarded with interest by all, nothing in his manner, nor in that of a crowd, indicated the presence of a high official.”[10]
The exact nature of Davis’ “flying trip to Warrenton” and what he hoped to accomplish is unclear.[11] James Longstreet claimed after the war, “it had been arranged that the Southern President should join the troops [in Maryland], and from the head of his victorious army call for recognition.”[12] The Richmond-embedded correspondent of the Charleston Mercury speculated Davis “made the trip merely for recreation and to have a quiet talk with the Governor [Lowe].”[13] Whatever his purpose, Davis never fulfilled it. Soon, Lee’s army likewise tumbled southward out of Maryland following the battles of South Mountain and Antietam.
President Abraham Lincoln likewise considered leaving the safety of his capital and accompanying his army into Maryland. Whereas Davis looked for victory and independence, Lincoln hoped for a victory to preserve the Union and provide him a reason to announce the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Though Davis’ aborted journey may have been fueled by a desire to rally support for the Confederacy from a position of strength, Lincoln’s likely stemmed from wanting to keep an eye on the Army of the Potomac and its commanding general, George B. McClellan.
In early September, Lincoln reluctantly turned to McClellan to save Washington and liberate Maryland from Lee’s army. Lincoln told one of his aides that McClellan “can’t fight himself,” though “he excels in making others ready to fight.”[14] This opinion had been forming in Lincoln’s mind for some time.
After spending days organizing the Army of the Potomac for its campaign into Maryland against the Confederate army, McClellan departed the capital and took the field. Lincoln was impressed by the general’s ability to restore the army, but he still held reservations. On September 8, the day after McClellan’s departure, Lincoln told Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, “I can never feel confident he will do anything effectual.”[15]
The president closely followed the army’s progress in Maryland. Lincoln, as he was want to believe about McClellan, moved too slowly. McClellan “can’t go ahead–he can’t strike a blow,” the president fumed on September 12, though it seems clear he had been thinking this way before that rant.[16]
Aware of the stakes, Lincoln considered personally taking the field to prod the army and its commander along. He polled both General-in-Chief Henry Halleck and commander of the Washington defenses General Nathaniel Banks about the safety of doing so. Both replied to the president on September 12.
Halleck succinctly told Lincoln “no.” “Considering the consequences which might result, I respectfully advise against your going beyond the lines of Washington.”[17]
Banks elaborated on why Lincoln should remain in Washington. “The enemy is undoubtedly in force at Leesburg, and from the mountains via Leesburg to Frederick constitutes their base of operations,” he began. “Their cavalry is likely to cross the [Potomac] River, at any, time in the rear of our troops, and a crossing by cavalry any-where this side [of] the Monocacy would intersect the line of travel proposed by you.” Thus, Banks concluded, “It seems to me that the danger is too great, of such an incursion to allow any one to move upon that line with safety.” Instead of the President leaving Washington, Banks suggested that McClellan be recalled to Rockville to meet him. Stating his point once more, Banks ended his word of caution to Lincoln: “I doubt even if a journey, that may extend to evening, can be undertaken with entire safety to that point [Rockville].”[18]
Ultimately, Lincoln stayed behind the defenses of Washington and monitored the army’s progress from afar. No meeting with McClellan took place at Rockville. Had Lincoln proposed it, the general might have had to decline doing so. On September 12, his army reached Frederick, Maryland, on the tail of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
Neither president was able to take the field with their respective armies in Maryland. Both thought their presence would increase the chances of success for their campaigns. The stakes in Maryland were high in September 1862, and both Davis and Lincoln wanted to play the role of commander-in-chief in person.
[1] Longstreet, Manassas to Appomtattox, 204.
[2] See Lee to Davis, September 4, 1862, and Lee
to Davis, September 7, 1862, in Clifford Dowdey and Louis H. Mandarin, eds., The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee, 294,
298.
[3] “Maryland: Her Sympathies and Situation,” Richmond Dispatch, October 1, 1862.
[4] “Letter from Richmond,” Memphis Daily Appeal, September 15, 1862.
[5] Diary
of Captain Henry A. Chambers, 57.
[6] Lee to Davis, September 9, 1862, in Clifford
Dowdey and Louis H. Mandarin, eds., The
Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee, 303. Davis’ letter to Lee of September 7 has
not been located.
[7] See Lee to Davis, September 5, 1862, in Wartime Papers, 295, for information
from Lee indicating that the bridge carrying the railroad over the Rapidan
River was not yet rebuilt.
[8] Lee to Davis, September 13, 1862, in Wartime Papers, 306.
[9] Lee to Davis, September 9, 1862, in Wartime Papers, 303.
[10] “Our Army Correspondence,” Richmond Dispatch, September 20, 1862.
[11] “Returned,” Richmond Enquirer, September 9, 1862.
[12] Longstreet, Manassas to Appomattox, 285.
[13] “The News from Richmond,” Charleston Mercury, September 12, 1862.
[14] Burlingame and Ettlinger, eds., Hay Diary, 38.
[15] Beale, ed., Welles Diary, vol. 1, 116.
[16] Ibid., 124.
[17] Henry Halleck to Abraham Lincoln, September
12, 1862, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress.
[18] Nathaniel Banks to Abraham Lincoln, September
12, 1862, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress.
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