The Patriot Post® · Saving the Union

More books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than about any other president, and still more are being outlined in authors’ proposals today. Rather than question the enigmatic puzzle that Lincoln provides for historians, I voluntarily joined their ranks years ago. He remains one of the most fascinating men whose lives I have studied, whose writings I have poured over with curiosity and admiration, and whose willingness to offer his very existence to the people of this nation resembles a “greater love” moment in time.

Elected by a minority of the popular vote, representing a new political party taking control after an ineffectual president and facing a nation long divided by geographic and philosophical differences, the task before him was real. He found himself faced with saving the Union while answering unanswerable questions that had troubled the people since the settling of the colonies.

His inauguration accelerated the conflict that awaited. While I would love to wallow in every decisive troop movement, cavalry charge, and the lovely sound of the artillery batteries (yes, I’m a certified cannon gal!), before this becomes a Civil War series, let’s examine how and why Lincoln moved in the ways in which he moved.

Even before we gained our independence from Britain, our military was a force combined with professional soldiers and volunteers. The Continental Line during the American Revolution boasted men who had served in the French and Indian War and regional skirmishes as part of an organized state militia. But its ranks swelled with those men who served in local militias and responded when a menace arose, threatening “hearth and home.” The Scots, Scots-Irish, and Irish who had settled along the frontier, joined by the descendants of the thirty-plus German provinces, were descendants of people who had sought liberty for hundreds of years — often aided by armed conflict. Now, the United States of America and the Confederate States of America both required organized, trained, and armed forces, and the call went out.

Save the Union! Liberty and Union!

States’ Rights — A Sovereign Nation of Many Sovereign States!

While the calls differed, the request was the same: fight for your beliefs, family, and future.

As we always have and always will, men — and women in support — responded, trading their futures for a vision of tomorrow that they each believed would better their children and their children’s children. And thus it began.

So how was the president to arm the Union? First, citizens volunteered in stints that often involved a 90- to 120-day commitment. Reenlistments were accompanied by bonuses and increased responsibilities; rank, based on performance, also meant increased wages and future hopes of reward. By 1863, the armies on both sides were faced with troops demoralized by the continuing fight, lack of supplies, the brutality of war, and concerns about the families left behind to survive with little assistance.

President Lincoln authorized Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, a former rival but now a trusted colleague, to coordinate the war effort with each Union state. The War Department became a supply-chain entity, linking the states together to supply soldiers, farms, and industries to modernize the war by careful planning and execution. (Think spreadsheets of needs and fulfillment plans but before spreadsheets, computers, or PERT sheets.) Stanton oversaw a staff whose ability to connect the dots still amazes me.

Was every need supplied? No. Why? Imagine the farms and industries operating while so many of the able-bodied men were on the fields of battle. But the Home Guard and many “left behind” rolled up their sleeves and produced, produced, and produced. The Union’s advantage was that it had BOTH industry and farms, while the Confederacy struggled with a lack of industrial might.

Perhaps Lincoln’s greatest gift was his humanity, his ability to connect with those from whom he was asking great sacrifice. He wrote many of the notification letters to families, understanding the impact that death had on families as he struggled with his own personal losses. He visited the encampments near D.C. to encourage the young soldiers and war-weary veterans, occasionally intervening with pardons when his empathy surfaced. Mr. Lincoln wrote and spoke eloquently about the men in uniform; he understood the commitment, courage, and sacrifice necessary for success in saving the Union — and mourned his role in that plan.

But the Union’s survival was paramount, or the noble experiment sketched in Philadelphia was to end in fire and destruction.