Lincoln Lincoln miscalculation......

[wilber6150]

Think what you like, but Current quotes Hurlbut as including in his report to Lincoln: "I solemnly believe that the Seven States are irrevocably gone – except perhaps Texas and Louisiana, as to which I have no information." The quotation marks are Current's, underlined for emphasis – me. page 74

If you have questions about Richard N. Current as a historian the below link may be helpful.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/us/richard-n-current-civil-war-historian-dies-at-100.html?_r=0

If you have questions about his book Lincoln and the Last Shot, You can find an inexpensive used copy at: http://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-First-Richard-Nelson-Current/dp/0881334987

If you have a question about Current's end note, it is on page 216.

Its not what I think but its what he did , hes basing his report on South Carolina alone which I grant you had the least amount of any Union support of any Southern state and had been trying to seceed for years..

 

[CSA Today]

Its not what I think but its what he did , hes basing his report on South Carolina alone which I grant you had the least amount of any Union support of any Southern state and had been trying to seceed for years..

I see. Perhaps the late historian Richard N. Current was a secret Neo-Confederate and altered the Hurlbut report..

"I solemnly believe that the Seven States are irrevocably gone – except perhaps Texas and Louisiana, as to which I have no information."

 

[wilber6150]

I see. Perhaps the late historian Richard N. Current was a secret Neo-Confederate and altered the Hurlbut report..

"I solemnly believe that the Seven States are irrevocably gone – except perhaps Texas and Louisiana, as to which I have no information."

Stop building a strawman in none of my posts have I even mentioned the author..I'm talking about the report itself and the places the man went to..The fact is that he did not visit the other states like Georgia or Alabama which had strong pockets of Unionism..And how does even know whats going on in Texas or Louisana? And I notice you didn't comment on the part in Hurlbets report about the secessionists wanting to start a war to unify the South..Wasn't that something you were denying?

 

[wilber6150]

So my question is why should have Lincoln put more weight on Hulberts report about states that he never visited then he would on newspaper articles and other people coming from those states themselves?

 

[CSA Today]

So my question is why should have Lincoln put more weight on Hulberts report about states that he never visited then he would on newspaper articles and other people coming from those states themselves?

I find Richard N. Current's Lincoln and the First Shot informative and a handy source to turn to for the events leading up to the firing on Fort Sumter. But my interest here is not to discuss every intention, intrigue, etc. by either side -- the book is there for those interested. My interest, for this purpose of this thread, was there anything to indicate, as some on this forum would have us to believe, that President Davis' decision to fire on Fort Sumter was predicated by fear that if he didn't open on the fort soon these supposedly numerous, hard core unionists might lead the seceded states back into the old union. My emphasis in my posts have been the Hurlbut Report to Lincoln. I have typed what Current has to say from the beginning of Chapter 3 (Decision) to his first end note. The end note includes seven sources not all dealing directly with the Hurlbut Report but I included it all here lest I be accused of leaving something out.

Current doesn't address how Hurlbut obtained his information about the state of unionism in all states except for Lousiana and Texas, but it seems reasonable that if there were any hard cord unionists in the South, some of them would have been trusted enough by Lincoln government to get that information to Hurlbut in South Carolina.

Richard N. Current Lincoln and the First Shot Chapter 3 (Decision) pp.71-75

During the next several days, while hesitating, Lincoln undertook to test some of the assumptions on which his advisor based their advice. Was it, after all, impossible to provide relief for Sumter without grave risks of both bloodshed and failure? Was it really probable that, as Bates and Seward argued, a retreat from Sumter would bring about an upsurge of Unionist feeling, a rebellion against the rebellion, throughout the South?
To learn more about the practicability of a provisioning expedition, Montgomery Blair proposed that his brother- in-law Fox make an on-the-spot investigation, and Lincoln told Fox to go ahead. "Our Uncle Abe Lincoln has taken high esteem of me," Fox wrote to his wife, "and wishes me to take dispatches to Major Anderson at Fort Sumpter with regard to its final evacuation and to obtain a clear statement of his condition which his letters, probably guarded, do not fully exhibit." Fox thought it advisable thus to mislead his wife about the impending "final evacuation," lest his true mission leak out through some tampering with his mail or through some indiscretion on her part.

Fox returned to Washington and reported to Lincoln 0n March 25. He had reached the fort after dark four days earlier, he said, and had remained there two hours. Anderson told him that an entrance from the sea was out of the question. "But as we looked upon the water from the parapet," Fox now said, "it seemed very feasible. More especially as we heard the oars of a boat near the fort, which sentries hailed, but we could not see through the darkness until she almost touched the landing." Anderson informed him that the provisions on hand might be stretched, but only by putting the men on short rations. "I made no arrangements with Major Anderson for reinforcing or supplying the fort, nor did I inform him of my plan."

During the next few days Fox talked frequently with Blair and Lincoln. "Blair is nearly run to death with office seekers." He wrote his wife. "The president is equally beset. I have seen Abe often, also Mrs. L. She is lady like, converses easily, dresses well and has the Kentucky pronunciation like old Mrs. Blair," that is, like Mrs. Fox's mother.

Meanwhile, to find out more about Southern Unionism, Lincoln sent another mission to Charleston. The man he chose for this, Stephen S. Hurlbut, seemed well suited for the job. Hurlbut was an old Illinois friend of Lincoln's, but he had been born and raised in Charleston, and still had friends there. On March 21 he happened to be in Washington, and Lincoln called him to the White House. Lincoln said to him: Seward maintains that Unionism is potentially strong in the South, even in the state of South Carolina itself. Go and see. Hurlbut agreed to go, and with him went another of Lincoln's old acquaintances, Ward H. Lamon (the man who had served as Lincoln's body guard on that unscheduled February train ride to Washington).

Hurlburt and Lamon spent two days in Charleston, Hurlbut staying at his sister's home, Lamon at a hotel. Hurlbut visited a number of former friends and neighbors. Taking Lamon surreptitiously along, he talked for more than two hours with James L. Petigru under whom he once studied law. Petigru was a witty and likable old man, as well as a distinguish one. At the time South Carolina seceded he had been quoted as saying that the state was too small for a nation and too large for an insane asylum. After leaving Petigru, Hurlburt and Lamon separated again to avoid arousing the suspicion that Hurlbut was Lincoln's agent. Lamon attracted much the more public attention. He made a trip to Fort Sumter and gave Anderson to believe that the fort was about to be abandoned. He saw the governor of South Carolina, Francis W. Pickens and told him the same thing. Actually Lamon was acting more as Seward's agent than as Lincoln's. Before departing Charleston he wrote to Seward that he was "satisfied of the policy and propriety of immediately evacuating Fort Sumter."

Back in Washington, on March 27, Hurlbut filled sixteen foolscap pages with his report to the president. There is, he said "no attachment to the Union" among the Carolinians. The Stars and Stripes are nowhere to be see except at Sumter. Petigru is the only Unionist left in Charleston. Unionism appears to be almost as dead elsewhere in the South. "I solemnly believe that the Seven States are irrevocably gone – except perhaps Texas and Louisiana, as to which I have no information." So much for that, Hurlbut also puts into his report many other observations that might provide food for thought:

Item. "I learned from one of the pilots, an acquaintance in former years, that the vessels sunk to obstruct the Ship Channel had not had that effect but had been swept by the force of the current, making but a slight alteration to the bar."

Item. "I have no doubt that a ship known to contain provisions for Sumpter would be stopped & refused admittance. Even the moderate men who desire not to open fire, [who] believe in the safer policy of time and starvation" – even these men would approve firing upon a provisioning expedition if one is sent.

Item. If Sumter is abandoned, "undoubtedly this will be followed by a demand for Pickens and the Keys of the Gulf," that is, Pickens and the other two forts in Florida.

Item. "It is my deliberate judgment, from long acquaintance with the people and country of So. Carolina and… in a modified form with the other seceding States, that the attempt to fulfill the duties of the Executive Office in enforcing the laws & authority of the U.S. within their limits will be war, in fact, War
In which the seceding states will be united and the other discredited."

On the same day he received that report, Lincoln also had other things to occupy his time, among them the duty of greeting a foreign ambassador, Chevalier Bertinatti. Dressed in all his finery, the Chevalier arrived at the White House with the Secretary of State Seward, his son, Fred Seward, and London Times correspondent, William H. Russell. Soon there entered, as Russell viewed him, a tall, lank, lean man with a shambling loose gait and with long pendulous arms, a man dressed in an ill-fitting, wrinkled black suit and a shirt with a turned down collar that revealed a sinewy, muscular yellow neck, "As he advanced through the room," Russell afterwards wrote, " he evidently controlled a desire to shake hands all around with everybody, and smiled good humouredly till he was suddenly brought up by the staid deportment of Mr. Seward, and by the profound diplomatic bows of the Chevalier Bertinatti." Russell had no understanding of the weight that lay on Lincoln's mind and spirit. 1

Richard N. Current Lincoln and the First Shot Chapter 3 (Decision) pp.71-75
During the next several days, while hesitating, Lincoln undertook to test some of the assumptions on which his advisor based their advice. Was it, after all, impossible to provide relief for Sumter without grave risks of both bloodshed and failure? Was it really probable that, as Bates and Seward argued, a retreat from Sumter would bring about an upsurge of Unionist feeling, a rebellion against the rebellion, throughout the South?
To learn more about the practicability of a provisioning expedition, Montgomery Blair proposed that his brother- in-law Fox make an on-the-spot investigation, and Lincoln told Fox to go ahead. "Our Uncle Abe Lincoln has taken high esteem of me," Fox wrote to his wife, "and wishes me to take dispatches to Major Anderson at Fort Sumpter with regard to its final evacuation and to obtain a clear statement of his condition which his letters, probably guarded, do not fully exhibit." Fox thought it advisable thus to mislead his wife about the impending "final evacuation," lest his true mission leak out through some tampering with his mail or through some indiscretion on her part.

Fox returned to Washington and reported to Lincoln 0n March 25. He had reached the fort after dark four days earlier, he said, and had remained there two hours. Anderson told him that an entrance from the sea was out of the question. "But as we looked upon the water from the parapet," Fox now said, "it seemed very feasible. More especially as we heard the oars of a boat near the fort, which sentries hailed, but we could not see through the darkness until she almost touched the landing." Anderson informed him that the provisions on hand might be stretched, but only by putting the men on short rations. "I made no arrangements with Major Anderson for reinforcing or supplying the fort, nor did I inform him of my plan."
During the next few days Fox talked frequently with Blair and Lincoln. "Blair is nearly run to death with office seekers." He wrote his wife. "The president is equally beset. I have seen Abe often, also Mrs. L. She is lady like, converses easily, dresses well and has the Kentucky pronunciation like old Mrs. Blair," that is, like Mrs. Fox's mother.

Meanwhile, to find out more about Southern Unionism, Lincoln sent another mission to Charleston. The man he chose for this, Stephen S. Hurlbut, seemed well suited for the job. Hurlbut was an old Illinois friend of Lincoln's, but he had been born and raised in Charleston, and still had friends there. On March 21 he happened to be in Washington, and Lincoln called him to the White House. Lincoln said to him: Seward maintains that Unionism is potentially strong in the South, even in the state of South Carolina itself. Go and see. Hurlbut agreed to go, and with him went another of Lincoln's old acquaintances, Ward H. Lamon (the man who had served as Lincoln's body guard on that unscheduled February train ride to Washington).

Hurlburt and Lamon spent two days in Charleston, Hurlbut staying at his sister's home, Lamon at a hotel. Hurlbut visited a number of former friends and neighbors. Taking Lamon surreptitiously along, he talked for more than two hours with James L. Petigru under whom he once studied law. Petigru was a witty and likable old man, as well as a distinguish one. At the time South Carolina seceded he had been quoted as saying that the state was too small for a nation and too large for an insane asylum. After leaving Petigru, Hurlburt and Lamon separated again to avoid arousing the suspicion that Hurlbut was Lincoln's agent. Lamon attracted much the more public attention. He made a trip to Fort Sumter and gave Anderson to believe that the fort was about to be abandoned. He saw the governor of South Carolina, Francis W. Pickens and told him the same thing. Actually Lamon was acting more as Seward's agent than as Lincoln's. Before departing Charleston he wrote to Seward that he was "satisfied of the policy and propriety of immediately evacuating Fort Sumter."

Back in Washington, on March 27, Hurlbut filled sixteen foolscap pages with his report to the president. There is, he said "no attachment to the Union" among the Carolinians. The Stars and Stripes are nowhere to be see except at Sumter. Petigru is the only Unionist left in Charleston. Unionism appears to be almost as dead elsewhere in the South. "I solemnly believe that the Seven States are irrevocably gone – except perhaps Texas and Louisiana, as to which I have no information." So much for that, Hurlbut also puts into his report many other observations that might provide food for thought:
Item. "I learned from one of the pilots, an acquaintance in former years, that the vessels sunk to obstruct the Ship Channel had not had that effect but had been swept by the force of the current, making but a slight alteration to the bar."

Item. "I have no doubt that a ship known to contain provisions for Sumpter would be stopped & refused admittance. Even the moderate men who desire not to open fire, [who] believe in the safer policy of time and starvation" – even these men would approve firing upon a provisioning expedition if one is sent.
Item. If Sumter is abandoned, "undoubtedly this will be followed by a demand for Pickens and the Keys of the Gulf," that is, Pickens and the other two forts in Florida.
Item. "It is my deliberate judgment, from long acquaintance with the people and country of So. Carolina and… in a modified form with the other seceding States, that the attempt to fulfill the duties of the Executive Office in enforcing the laws & authority of the U.S. within their limits will be war, in fact, War
In which the seceding states will be united and the other discredited."

On the same day he received that report, Lincoln also had other things to occupy his time, among them the duty of greeting a foreign ambassador, Chevalier Bertinatti. Dressed in all his finery, the Chevalier arrived at the White House with the Secretary of State Seward, his son, Fred Seward, and London Times correspondent, William H. Russell. Soon there entered, as Russell viewed him, a tall, lank, lean man with a shambling loose gait and with long pendulous arms, a man dressed in an ill-fitting, wrinkled black suit and a shirt with a turned down collar that revealed a sinewy, muscular yellow neck, "As he advanced through the room," Russell afterwards wrote, " he evidently controlled a desire to shake hands all around with everybody, and smiled good humouredly till he was suddenly brought up by the staid deportment of Mr. Seward, and by the profound diplomatic bows of the Chevalier Bertinatti." Russell had no understanding of the weight that lay on Lincoln's mind and spirit. 1

End note 1. Hurlburt to Lincoln, March 27, 1861, in the R.T.L. Collection; Official Records, ser. I, vol. I, pp.221-22, 282; Fox, Confidential Correspondence, I, 9-11; Doubleday, Reminiscences, p.134; Russell, Diary (Pratt ed.), pp.19-27, 73; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, III, 389-92; Bancroft, Seward, II,107; Nevins, Improvised War, pp.48-49.

 

[CSA Today]

So my question is why should have Lincoln put more weight on Hulberts report about states that he never visited then he would on newspaper articles and other people coming from those states themselves?

Whatever one might say about Abraham Lincoln, I don't think it would be that he was so big a fool as to take the words of doubtful Southern newspapers or the words hard-core secessionists, bent on goading Jefferson Davis to take immediate action against the forts, over the report of a trusted spy.

 

[wilber6150]

Thank you for taking the time to post this, great stuff

 

[brass napoleon]

Whatever one might say about Abraham Lincoln, I don't think it would be that he was so big a fool as to take the words of doubtful Southern newspapers or the words hard-core secessionists, bent on goading Jefferson Davis to take immediate action against the forts, over the report of a trusted spy.

So let me try to get the gist of what you're saying here. Lincoln wasn't a fool, but Davis was? Lincoln didn't miscalculate at all; he knew exactly what was going on in the South, and Davis did not?

 

[CSA Today]

So let me try to get the gist of what you're saying here. Lincoln wasn't a fool, but Davis was? Lincoln didn't miscalculate at all; he knew exactly what was going on in the South, and Davis did not?

The gist of what I'm saying was that Lincoln wasn't taken in, at least not for long, that here was a realistic chance of Southern pro-unionist sentiment causing the seceded states reentering his union. As for Davis, he was under tremendous pressure to take action against the federal occupied forts because the federals were there, not because threats of howling pro-union mobs forced his hand.

 

[wilber6150]

The gist of what I'm saying was that Lincoln wasn't taken in, at least not for long, that here was a realistic chance of Southern pro-unionist sentiment causing the seceded states reentering his union. As for Davis, he was under tremendous pressure to take action against the federal occupied forts because the federals were there, not because threats of howling pro-union mobs forced his hand.

but because of Southeners who wanted to start a war

large minority indefatigably active and reckless who desire to precipitate collision, inaugurate war & unite the Southern Confederacy by that means

 

[brass napoleon]

The gist of what I'm saying was that Lincoln wasn't taken in, at least not for long, that here was a realistic chance of Southern pro-unionist sentiment causing the seceded states reentering his union. As for Davis, he was under tremendous pressure to take action against the federal occupied forts because the federals were there, not because threats of howling pro-union mobs forced his hand.

OK, let's please knock off the hyperbole. Nobody's talking about "howling pro-union mobs". So, you're saying that Davis attacked Fort Sumter, put himself in the odious position of firing the first shot of a civil war that would ultimately kill hundreds of thousands of people, for no other reason than 80 U.S federal soldiers "were there"?

 

[CSA Today]

OK, let's please knock off the hyperbole. Nobody's talking about "howling pro-union mobs". So, you're saying that Davis attacked Fort Sumter, put himself in the odious position of firing the first shot of a civil war that would ultimately kill hundreds of thousands of people, for no other reason than 80 U.S federal soldiers "were there"?

Should demonstrable new evidence emerge that Lincoln had serious intentions of letting the seceded states depart in peace then, in my opinion, President Davis made a serious miscalculation by firing on Fort Sumter. On the other hand, if Davis was right that Lincoln had no intention of letting the seceded states go in peace, then Davis decision to take an action that would lead to , at least, the doubling the white population of the Confederacy was a stroke of political genius once it became clear war was inevitable.

 

[CSA Today]

but because of Southeners who wanted to start a war

I would describe it more as Southerners being Southerners showing a willingness to fight to defend their independence

 

[Billy Yank]

The most glaring miscalculation, as I see it, was calling for 90 day enlistments. Of course, who knew?

 

[brass napoleon]

Should demonstrable new evidence emerge that Lincoln had serious intentions of letting the seceded states depart in peace then, in my opinion, President Davis made a serious miscalculation by firing on Fort Sumter. On the other hand, if Davis was right that Lincoln had no intention of letting the seceded states go in peace, then Davis decision to take an action that would lead to , at least, the doubling the white population of the Confederacy was a stroke of political genius once it became clear war was inevitable.

Lincoln, like Buchanan before him, knew full well that he had no authority to let the seceded states depart. Davis knew that full well also. But all of them also knew that there were peaceful ways for the seceded states to depart: if secession was constitutional, take the case to the Supreme Court; if secession wasn't constitutional, try to pass a constitutional amendment. Davis chose not to go those routes and instead started a major civil war. You can call that "a stroke of political genius" if you want, but most Americans would disagree with you on that - and they would be right.

 

[brass napoleon]

The most glaring miscalculation, as I see it, was calling for 90 day enlistments. Of course, who knew?

That was all he could call for by law, until Congress convened.

 

[brass napoleon]

I would describe it more as Southerners being Southerners showing a willingness to fight to defend their independence

So now you're disagreeing with the sources that you've been so adamant all along were right.

 

[Billy Yank]

That was all he could call for by law, until Congress convened.

I think ol' Abe had a way of getting around the law if he felt it was important enough.

 

[brass napoleon]

I think ol' Abe had a way of getting around the law if he felt it was important enough.

Let's remember that "ol' Abe" wasn't quite so ol' at this time. He was an inexperienced politician with only 2 years national experience as a junior Representative from a frontier state. He won the Presidency with less than 40% of the vote. He had no friends or allies in Washington. His own cabinet looked at him as a backwoods rube. Exactly how was he going to convince thousands of young men to sign away months or years of their lives in violation of federal law?

 

[CSA Today]

Lincoln, like Buchanan before him, knew full well that he had no authority to let the seceded states depart. Davis knew that full well also. But all of them also knew that there were peaceful ways for the seceded states to depart: if secession was constitutional, take the case to the Supreme Court; if secession wasn't constitutional, try to pass a constitutional amendment. Davis chose not to go those routes and instead started a major civil war. You can call that "a stroke of political genius" if you want, but most Americans would disagree with you on that - and they would be right.

I agree that Davis knew, and that war was inevitable if the Confederate States had any chance for national independence. I again repeat, once Davis knew, his move against Sumter was a stroke of genius to lessen the odds in the coming war for independence.