- Joined
- Apr 4, 2017
- Location
- Denver, CO
Not in chronological order:
1. He kept the strategic and political focus on Kentucky. I doubt any of the eastern politicians who might have been President in Lincoln's place would have stayed focused on the geographic and political center of the US.
2. He kept the US in line with the Treaty of Paris, and British interests, by declaring a blockade. There were disadvantages to the blockade, and Great Britain may not have honored it. However this decision foreshadowed that Lincoln understood the economic realities of the mid 19th century. If Great Britain pushed the US administration hard enough, they could influence US policy. The threat of military intervention had to be taken seriously, but the economic threat posed by Great Britain could not be seriously disputed.
3. Lincoln focused on a naval strategy. It was going to take several months to deploy naval vessels on the internal rivers, the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico, and it was going to take another 18 months for those developments to have a limiting affect on the Confederacy. I am not sure any other potential President of the US in 1861 would have had the intestinal fortitude to commit to a long term strategy.
4. He made superb use of George McClellan. The army needed a young, handsome, vigorous image to look up to. McClellan was more than that, because he was educated and refined. He was everything the east coast thought was ideal. What the army needed, the press raved about. While the preparations continued for combined arms campaigns and war the west proceeded, McClellan kept the east coast press distracted. It was the kind of move one would expect from and Illinois politician that pulled the nomination rug out from under William Seward.
1. He kept the strategic and political focus on Kentucky. I doubt any of the eastern politicians who might have been President in Lincoln's place would have stayed focused on the geographic and political center of the US.
2. He kept the US in line with the Treaty of Paris, and British interests, by declaring a blockade. There were disadvantages to the blockade, and Great Britain may not have honored it. However this decision foreshadowed that Lincoln understood the economic realities of the mid 19th century. If Great Britain pushed the US administration hard enough, they could influence US policy. The threat of military intervention had to be taken seriously, but the economic threat posed by Great Britain could not be seriously disputed.
3. Lincoln focused on a naval strategy. It was going to take several months to deploy naval vessels on the internal rivers, the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico, and it was going to take another 18 months for those developments to have a limiting affect on the Confederacy. I am not sure any other potential President of the US in 1861 would have had the intestinal fortitude to commit to a long term strategy.
4. He made superb use of George McClellan. The army needed a young, handsome, vigorous image to look up to. McClellan was more than that, because he was educated and refined. He was everything the east coast thought was ideal. What the army needed, the press raved about. While the preparations continued for combined arms campaigns and war the west proceeded, McClellan kept the east coast press distracted. It was the kind of move one would expect from and Illinois politician that pulled the nomination rug out from under William Seward.
Bringing the