geeky
The one place that Lincoln's train did not stop to greet the crowd was in Baltimore. Intelligence provided to him by detective Allan Pinkerton was that a plot to kill Lincoln was underway in that city. Samuel Felton, president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad, had hired Pinkerton to protect Lincoln, and Pinkerton obtained information that an attempt would be made on Lincoln's life would be made in Baltimore. As a result of the threat, the travel schedule was altered, tracks were closed to other traffic, and the telegraph wires were cut to provide greater security. Lincoln, dressed in an overcoat, muffler, and soft wool hat, passed through Baltimore's waterfront at around 3 o'clock in the early morning of February 23, and arrived safely in the nation's capital a few hours later.
Lincoln realized that his inaugural address would be delivered in an atmosphere filled with fear and anxiety, and amid an unstable political landscape. There was heavy security for the March 4, 1861 presidential inauguration at the Capitol, with two thousand volunteer soldiers commanded by Colonel Charles P. Stone, 653 regular troops, and marines were on duty, supplemented by local police, cavalry patrolling the streets, and sharpshooters located on the tops of buildings. Plain clothes detectives moved through the crowd of around 40,000 people on the Capitol grounds.
In his inaugural address, Lincoln opened by assuring the South that he had no intention or constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in states where it already existed. He promised to enforce the fugitive slave laws and spoke favorably about a pending constitutional amendment that would preserve slavery in the states where it currently existed. After giving these assurances, however, Lincoln called secession was "the essence of anarchy" and said that it was his duty to "hold, occupy, and possess the property belonging to the government". In his closing remarks Lincoln spoke directly to the secessionists, telling them that no state could secede from the Union "upon its own mere motion" and emphasized that it was his duty to "preserve, protect, and defend" the laws of the land. He concluded with these words:
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Previously in November of 1860, the general-in-chief of the army, Winfield Scott, had prepared a memorandum for President Buchanan in which he warned that there was a danger of "the seizure of a number of federal forts on the Mississippi River and on the Eastern coast, including the vulnerable installations at Charleston harbor". Scott recommended that "all those works should be immediately so garrisoned as to make any attempt to take any one of them by surprise ridiculous". Buchanan refused to follow Scott's advice. He thought that doing so would provoke and antagonize the south. Lincoln became concerned as southern state governments seized federal property, but he had no official ability to act until his inauguration on March 4, 1861. By the time Lincoln assumed office seven states had declared their secession and had seized all federal property within their bounds, except for: Fort Sumter near Charleston, Fort Pickens near Pensacola, and a couple of small forts in the Florida Keys.
On his first full day in office, Lincoln received a letter from Major Robert Anderson, the commander at Fort Sumter, stating that his troops would run out of provisions within four to six weeks. General Scott had recommended that Fort Sumter be abandoned. Scott saw four options for the administration—a full-scale military operation to subdue the South, endorsement of the Crittenden Compromise to win back the seceded states, the closure of southern ports and the collection of duties from ships stationed outside the harbors, or directing the seven southern states that had declared secession to "depart in peace".
Lincoln first addressed the immediate question of whether to maintain or abandon Fort Sumter. At a meeting on March 7, Scott and John G. Totten, the army's chief engineer, said that simply reinforcing the fort was not possible. Navy Secretary Gideon Welles and his assistant Silas Stringham disagreed. Scott advised Lincoln that it would take a large fleet, 25,000 troops, and several months of training in order to defend the fort. On March 13 Montgomery Blair and his brother-in-law, Gustavus V. Fox, presented a plan for a naval resupply and reinforcement of the fort. The plan had been approved by Scott during the last month of the previous administration, but Buchanan had rejected it. Scott advised Lincoln that it was too late for the plan to be successful, but the President was receptive to the proposed mission. The Fox proposal was discussed at a cabinet meeting on March 15. Lincoln dispatched Fox to Charleston to talk to Anderson and independently assess the situation. Lincoln also sent Illinois friends Stephen A. Hurlbut and Ward Lamon to the city on an intelligence-gathering mission.
On March 28, Scott once again recommended that both Forts Pickens and Sumter be abandoned. Lincoln presented Scott's proposal to the cabinet. Blair, Welles and Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase supported reinforcement. Later that day Lincoln gave Fox the order to begin assembling a squadron to reinforce Fort Sumter. Logistical failures delayed the mission but on April 6, with the Sumter mission ready to go, Lincoln sent State Department clerk Robert S. Chew to see South Carolina Governor Francis W. Pickens and give him the following message: "I am directed by the President of the United States to notify you to expect an attempt will be made to supply Fort-Sumter with provisions only; and that, if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, will be made, without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the Fort. The message was delivered to Pickens on April 8.
Having received information of Lincoln's message, on April 10th, Confederate President Jefferson Davis decided to demand the surrender of the fort and bombard it if the demand was refused. The attack on the fort was initiated on April 12, and the fort surrendered the next day. The relief expedition sent by the Union arrived too late to intervene.
After the Battle of Fort Sumter, Lincoln learned the importance of taking immediate executive control of the war and making an overall strategy to put down the rebellion. Lincoln expanded his war powers, and imposed a blockade on all the Confederate shipping ports. He disbursed funds before their appropriation by Congress, and suspending the writ of habeas corpus, leading to the arrest and imprisonment of thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers. Lincoln was supported by Congress and the northern public for taking these actions. Lincoln also identified tow other priorities for him: (1) holding on to Union sympathies in the border slave states and (2) keeping the war from becoming an international conflict.
From the start, it was clear to Lincoln that bipartisan support would be essential to success in the war effort. Accordingly, he appointed both Republicans and Democrats to command positions in the Union Army. Later that summer, on August 6, 1861, Lincoln signed the Confiscation Act of 1861 that authorized court proceedings to confiscate the slaves of anyone who participated in or aided the Confederate war effort. The act did not specify whether the slaves were free, and this was done intentionally so that the act had appeal both to those in free states and in slave-holding states. As Union troops moved into Confederate-held territory during the first year of the War, more and more slaves came under the care of the Union Army. Some commanders put them to work digging entrenchments, building fortifications, and performing other camp work. There was inconsistency on the issue, depending on whether or not the commander had abolitionist or pro-slavery leaning. For example, later that summer, General John C. Frémont, on his own volition, issued a proclamation of martial law in Missouri. He declared that any citizen found bearing arms could be court-martialed and shot, and that slaves of persons aiding the rebellion would be freed. Lincoln overruled Frémont's proclamation because he did not wish to offend Unionists in the border states. After Lincoln did so, Union enlistments from Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri increased by over 40,000 troops. Similarly, General David Hunter, the Union Army military commander of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida, issued General Order No. 11 on May 9, 1862 freeing all slaves in areas under his command. Upon hearing of Hunter's action one week later, Lincoln immediately countermanded the order, thus returning the slaves to their former status as property in the care of the federal government.
Lincoln painstakingly monitored the telegraphic reports coming into the War Department headquarters. He kept close tabs on all phases of the military effort, consulted with governors, and selected generals based on their past success (as well as their state and party). In terms of war strategy, Lincoln articulated two priorities: to ensure that Washington was well-defended, and to conduct an aggressive war effort that would satisfy the demand in the North for prompt, decisive victory. Some major Northern newspaper editors expected victory within 90 days.
Lincoln met with his cabinet twice a week. He studied by reading the theoretical book of his chief of staff General Henry Halleck, a disciple of the European military strategist Baron Jomini. He understood the critical need to control strategic points, such as the Mississippi River.
Lincoln's first 100 days were a baptism of fire with an immediate transition into a wartime presidency. He proved to be a quick study. Unfortunately for him, the war would not pass so quickly.