NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS ONE OF PILLARTOPOST.ORG'S MOST POPULAR POSTS. Originally published 2016
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While the President fought the Civil War in public; he endured the uncivil wars in private
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MRS. LINCOLN VS.
THE GENERALS’ WIVES
Compiled
by the Editors of PillartoPost.org Daily Online Magazine.
The
following is a review by this blog of an historical event as seen through the
eyes and writings of eyewitnesses and historians.
The Belligerents:
Mary Todd
Lincoln, First Lady of the United States
vs.
Julia Grant,
wife of the General of the Union Army
Sallie
Carroll Griffin, blueblood wife of Union General Charles Griffin
Mary Ord,
wife of Union General Edward Ord
Scene:
Outskirts of
Richmond VA, the besieged capital of the Confederacy.
Pillar to Post preface--In late March 1865, as the American
Civil War was drawing to a close, President Abraham Lincoln accepted an
invitation from General of the Army Ulysses S. Grant to visit the front in
Virginia. Lincoln, according to
historians, viewed it as a working vacation.
His family, Mary Todd Lincoln and son Tad, joined him in the trip to
City Point, VA, where Grant had his headquarters.
Mrs.
Lincoln, who had become even more imperial than her belle of Illinois days, found
it difficult making her rounds in her Victorian era garb through the rough-hewn
battle zone. The rainy spring made
traveling conditions difficult. She was
not getting her way with the weather or the muddy roads.
As a
expected the Union officers desired to show respect for the President’s visit
by staging several troop reviews. The
first on March 25 was postponed because of a surprise confederate attack on Ft.
Stedman, a few miles from Lincoln’s riverside encampment.
After Ft.
Stedman’s bloody battle, Lincoln reviewed the aftermath in person. From that point, the President participated
in three reviews, One review was a sail-by on the James River as Lincoln’s
party returned the salutes of a Union naval flotilla. On land, two of military reviews were the
occasion for Mrs. Lincoln to display never seen or heard before verbal vitriol
by a First Lady in public.
The first
occurred on March 26 when the Presidential party was enroute to
review of
General Samuel Crawford’s division. That morning Mrs. Lincoln’s choler got the
best of her. On the bumpy ride to the
parade grounds, Mrs. Lincoln was informed by a passing officer that that
General Charles Griffin’s young wife Sallie had been allowed to ride ahead with
the President. Mrs. Lincoln demanded to
know who authorized her presence with the President. She was outraged that Mrs. Griffin, who was
even younger and more attractive than Mrs. Mary Ord, was allowed to be alone
with the President. More on Mrs. Ord
follows.
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| First Lady at 28 years. |
When none
other than General George Meade assured Mrs. Lincoln that it was Secretary of
War Edwin Stanton, who issued the parade pass for Mrs. Griffin, only then did
the First Lady calm down.
But there
was more trouble ahead in this river city.
On March 27,
the Presidential party was off to review the Army of the James (encamped on the
North side of the James River). Cranky at best because the President went ahead
without her in the company of Generals Grant and Ord (and Mrs. Ord), Mrs.
Lincoln’s mood only darkened because of the uncomfortable carriage ride (some
historians claim the carriage driver lost his way) plus she feared the parade would
start without her because of her delay.
President
Lincoln upon arriving at the reviewing rounds he learned the Army had been standing
in ranks for several hours waiting for the Commander-in-Chief to arrive. After hearing the troops had missed their
mid-day meal, Lincoln ordered the review to begin immediately.
As Mrs.
Lincoln and her entourage arrived, she couldn’t help but realize the party had
gone on without her. She had missed her limelight
opportunity
to salute the troops. What was worse for
her temper was seeing that the soldiers were being reviewed by the President,
Grant, Ord and another woman!
Realizing now
that another General’s wife, this time the attractive Mrs. Ord, was in the
reviewing party, Mrs. Lincoln went off in a massive public display of rage
aimed at her military escorts, including Mrs. Julia Grant. Bitter and foul words of accusation roared
like cannon grapeshot out of Mrs. Lincoln’s mouth aimed at Mary Ord and Sallie
Griffin.
Eyewitnesses
and historians agree, Mrs. Ord was reduced to tears, not quite understanding
why Mrs. Lincoln was so hostile toward her. Meanwhile Mrs. Griffin stood her
ground and insisted she had a right to be there and the general’s wives did
nothing wrong.
The spat did
much to roil historical gossip that effectively soiled Mrs. Lincoln’s mental
unstableness in the eyes of the world.
But, this
writer can only gasp at wondering what was the President thinking to bring
himself and his family to a war zone (a bloody battle occurred only miles away
when the Lincolns were visiting).
Because of the physical danger and the obvious inconvenience of a First
Lady traveling in Victorian garb, it might have been wiser for the Chief
Executive to leave his family in Washington DC.
Had the
starving rebels been more fed, rested and armed, the attack on Fort Stedman
could have extended right into the City Point bivouac where Lincoln, Grant,
Sheridan and Sherman were camped. March
25 could have been a seriously black day for the nation had Confederate General
John Brown Gordon had more troops.
But this
battle is not about Ft. Stedman, which was lost and regained in one afternoon,
but about the war Mrs. Lincoln waged against three wives of prominent U.S. Army
generals.
Excerpted
here are other writings on Mrs. Lincoln’s most uncivil war. The first three narrations are by Union
generals, Adam Badeau, William T. Sherman and U.S. Navy Lt. Commander John S.
Barnes. Barnes and Badeau, who were eyewitnesses
to the First Lady’s verbal blood letting of March 26 and 27, 1865.
Much of what
Barnes and Badeau wrote appears to be the main references for latter day
historians, including Carl Sandburg, Shelby Foote, Pulitzer Prize winner Doris
Kearns Goodwin and even brought a mention by Gore Vidal, in his excellent
fiction “Lincoln.” Even icon general William
T. Sherman mentioned the affair in his memoirs published ten years later.
[Excerpt #1.]
The Grants and the
Lincolns.
Excerpt from
the public domain.
Chapter 41 “The Grants and the
Lincolns’ from the biography “Grant in Peace” by U.S. Army General Adam Badeau.
The first time that I saw [President
Abraham Lincoln’s wife,] Mary Todd Lincoln was when I accompanied Mrs. [Julia] Grant
to the White House, for her first visit there as wife of the General-in-Chief.
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Julia Grant, who later
became First Lady |
The next
occasion that I recall was in March, 1865, when Mrs. Lincoln, with the
President, visited City Point. They went on a steamer, escorted by a naval
vessel of which Captain John S. Barnes was in command, and remained for several
weeks in the James River under the bluff on which the headquarters were
established. They slept and usually took their meals aboard, but sometimes both
ascended the hill and were entertained at the mess of General Grant.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
General Adam Badeau, U.S. Grant’s
military secretary and aide-de-camp and one of the closest friends General
Grant ever had, was detailed to escort Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant during the
President’s visit to City Point, VA in late March 1865. Badeau sat on the front seat of the carriage,
facing them with his back to the horses. He was an eyewitness to all that
occurred during that visit.
[Spat
#1]
By late afternoon on the 25th of March
a distinguished party from Washington joined them, among whom I remember,
especially, Mr. Geoffroi, the French Minister. It was proposed that an
excursion should be made to the front of the Army of the Potomac, about ten or
twelve miles off.
Because of a
surprise attack by the rebels at 4 am that morning; the troop review was
postponed until 3 pm later that day when it was deemed the area was secure of
further enemy action. The escursion was
reset and a military railroad took the illustrious guests a portion of the way,
and then the men were mounted, but Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Lincoln went on in an
ambulance, as it was called—a sort of half-open carriage with two seats besides
that for the driver. I was detailed to escort them, and of course sat on the
front seat facing the ladies, with my back to the horses.
In the
course of conversation, I chanced to mention that all the wives of officers at
the army front had been ordered to the rear—a sure sign that active operations had
been occuring. I said not a lady had
been allowed to remain, except Mrs. Griffin, the wife of General Charles
Griffin, who had obtained a special permit from the President. At this Mrs.
Lincoln was up in arms, ‘What do you mean by that, sir?’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you
mean to say that she saw the President alone? Do you know that I never allow
the President to see any woman alone?’ She was absolutely jealous of poor, ugly
Abraham Lincoln.
I tried to
pacify her and to palliate my remark, but she was fairly boiling over with
rage. ‘That's a very equivocal smile, sir,’ she exclaimed: ‘Let me out of this
carriage at once. I will ask the President if he saw that woman alone.’ Mrs.
Griffin, afterward the Countess Esterhazy, was one of the best known and most
elegant women in Washington, a Carroll, and a personal acquaintance of Mrs.
Grant, who strove to mollify the excited spouse, but all in vain. Mrs. Lincoln
again bade me stop the driver, and when I hesitated to obey, she thrust her
arms past me to the front of the carriage and held the driver fast.
But Mrs.
Grant finally prevailed upon her to wait till the whole party alighted, and
then General Meade came up to pay his respects to the wife of the President. I
had intended to offer Mrs. Lincoln my arm, and endeavor to prevent a scene, but
Meade, of course, as my superior, had the right to escort her, and I had no
chance to warn him. I saw them go off together, and remained in fear and
trembling for what might occur in the presence of the foreign minister and
other important strangers. But General Meade was very adroit, and when they
returned Mrs. Lincoln looked at me significantly and said: ‘General Meade is a
gentleman, sir. He says it was not the President who gave Mrs. Griffin the
permit, but the Secretary of War.’ Meade was the son of a diplomatist, and had
evidently inherited some of his father's skill.
At night on
the 25th, when we were back in camp, Mrs. Grant talked over the matter with me,
and said the whole affair was so distressing and mortifying that neither of us
must ever mention it; at least, I was to be absolutely silent, and she would
disclose it only to the General. But the next day I was released from my
pledge, for ‘worse remained behind.’
[Spat
#2]
The same party went in the morning of
March 26 to visit the Army of the James on the north side of the river,
commanded by General Ord. The arrangements were somewhat similar to those of
the day before. We went up the river in a steamer, and then the men again took
horses and Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant proceeded in an ambulance. I was
detailed as before to act as escort, but I asked for a companion in the duty;
for after my experience, I did not wish to be the only officer in the carriage.
So Colonel Horace Porter was ordered to join the party. Mrs. Ord accompanied
her husband; as she was the wife of the commander of an army she was not
subject to the order for return; though before that day was over she wished
herself in Washington or anywhere else away from the army, I am sure. She was
mounted, and as the ambulance was full, she remained on her horse and rode for
a while by the side of the President, and thus preceded Mrs. Lincoln.
As soon as
Mrs. Lincoln discovered this her rage was beyond all bounds. ‘What does the
woman mean,’ she exclaimed, ‘by riding by the side of the President? and ahead
of me? Does she suppose that he wants her by the side of him?’ She was in a
frenzy of excitement, and language and action both became more extravagant
every moment. Mrs. Grant again endeavored to pacify her, but then Mrs. Lincoln
got angry with Mrs. Grant; and all that Porter and I could do was to see that
nothing worse than words occurred. We feared she might jump out of the vehicle
and shout to the cavalcade. Once she said to Mrs. Grant in her transports: ‘I suppose
you think you'll get to the White House yourself, don't you?’ Mrs. Grant was
very calm and dignified, and merely replied that she was quite satisfied with
her present position; it was far greater than she had ever expected to attain.
But Mrs. Lincoln exclaimed; ‘Oh! you had better take it if you can get it. 'Tis
very nice.’ Then she reverted to Mrs. Ord, while Mrs. Grant defended her friend
at the risk of arousing greater vehemence.
When there
was a halt Major Seward, a nephew of the Secretary of State, and an officer of
General Ord's staff, rode up, and tried to say something jocular. ‘The
President's horse is very gallant, Mrs. Lincoln,’ he remarked; ‘he insists on
riding by the side of Mrs. Ord.’ This of course added fuel to the flame. ‘What
do you mean by that, sir?’ she cried. Seward discovered that he had made a huge
mistake, and his horse at once developed a peculiarity that compelled him to
ride behind, to get out of the way of the storm.
Finally the
party arrived at its destination and Mrs. Ord came up to the ambulance. Then
Mrs. Lincoln positively insulted her, called her vile names in the presence of
a crowd of officers, and asked what she meant by following up the President.
The poor woman burst into tears and inquired what she had done, but Mrs.
Lincoln refused to be appeased, and stormed till she was tired. Mrs. Grant
still tried to stand by her friend, and everybody was shocked and horrified.
But all things come to an end, and after a while we returned to City Point.
[Spat
#3]
That night of the 26th the
President and Mrs. Lincoln entertained General and Mrs. Grant and the General's
staff at dinner on the steamer, and before us all Mrs. Lincoln berated General
Ord to the President, and urged that he should be removed. He was unfit for his
place, she said, to say nothing of his wife. General Grant sat next and
defended his officer bravely. Of course General Ord was not removed.
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| General and Mrs. Ord and daughter |
During all
this visit similar scenes were occurring. Mrs. Lincoln repeatedly attacked her
husband in the presence of officers because of Mrs. Griffin and Mrs. Ord, and I
never suffered greater humiliation and pain on account of one not a near
personal friend than when I saw the Head of the State, the man who carried all
the cares of the nation at such a crisis—subjected to this inexpressible public
mortification. He bore it as Christ might have done; with an expression of pain
and sadness that cut one to the heart, but with supreme calmness and dignity.
He called her ‘mother,’ with his old-time plainness; he pleaded with eyes and
tones, and endeavored to explain or palliate the offenses of others, till she
turned on him like a tigress; and then he
walked away, hiding that noble, ugly
face that we might not catch the full expression of its misery.
General
Sherman was a witness of some of these episodes and mentioned them in his
memoirs many years ago. Captain Barnes, of the navy, was a witness and a
sufferer too. Barnes had accompanied Mrs. Ord on her unfortunate ride and
refused afterward to say that the lady was to blame. Mrs. Lincoln never forgave
him. A day or two afterward he went to speak to the President on some official
matter when Mrs. Lincoln and several others were present. The President's wife
said something to him unusually offensive that all the company could hear.
Lincoln was silent, but after a moment he went up to the young officer, and
taking him by the arm led him into his own cabin, to show him a map or a paper,
he said. He made no remark, Barnes told me, upon what had occurred. He could
not rebuke his wife; but he showed his regret, and his regard for the officer,
with a touch of what seemed to me the most exquisite breeding imaginable.
Shortly
before these occurrences Mrs. Stanton had visited City Point, and I chanced to
ask her some question about the President's wife. ‘I do not visit Mrs.
Lincoln,’ was the reply. But I thought I must have been mistaken; the wife of
the Secretary of War must visit the wife of the President; and I renewed my
inquiry. ‘Understand me, sir?’ she repeated; ‘I do not go to the White House; I
do not visit Mrs. Lincoln.’ I was not at all intimate with Mrs. Stanton, and
this remark was so extraordinary that I never forgot it; but I understood it
afterward.
Mrs. Lincoln
continued her conduct toward Mrs. Grant, who strove to placate her, and then
Mrs. Lincoln became more outrageous still. She once rebuked Mrs. Grant for
sitting in her presence. ‘How dare you be seated,’ she said, ‘until I invite
you.’ Altogether it was a hateful experience at that tremendous crisis in the
nation's history, for all this was just before the army started on its last
campaign.
[Fall
Out from the Spats]
Within days the war ended and the
President and Mrs. Lincoln had already returned to Washington when General
Grant arrived from Appomattox, bringing Mrs. Grant with him. On the 13th of
April, Washington was illuminated in honor of the victories, and Mrs. Lincoln
invited General Grant to drive about the streets with her and look at the
demonstration; but she did not ask Mrs. Grant. The next night, April 14th, was
the saddest in American history. Not only General Grant and Mrs. Grant, but the
Secretary of War and Mrs. Stanton, were invited to accompany the President and
his wife to the theatre. No answer had yet been sent when Mrs. Stanton called
on Mrs. Grant to inquire if she meant to be of the party. ‘For,’ said Mrs.
Stanton, ‘unless you accept the invitation, I shall refuse. I will not sit
without you in the box with Mrs. Lincoln.’ Mrs. Grant also was tired out with
what she had endured, and decided not to go to the play, little dreaming of the
terrible experience she was thus escaping. She determined to return that night
to Burlington, in New Jersey, where her children were at school, and requested
the General to accompany her. Accordingly a note of apology was sent to Mrs.
Lincoln, and Mrs. Stanton also declined the invitation. These ladies thus may
both have saved their husband's lives.
[Excerpt #2.]
Sherman Dodges Mrs.
Lincoln’s Wrath
Excerpt from the public domain.
From “The Memoirs of W.T. Sherman” by
William T. Sherman, General of the Army, 1875
Editor’s note:
General William T. Sherman was at City Point to meet with President Lincoln to
discuss with fellow generals: Meade, Sheridan and Grant as how they would
proceed to defeat CSA generals Lee dug in at Petersburg and Johnson in North
Carolina. Sherman missed the spats
between Mrs. Lincoln and the Generals’ wives. The following appears in
Sherman’s memoirs published in 1875. He
wrote about the spat after hearing it from eyewitness Lt. Commander John S.
Barnes, who was among the officers tasked with accompanying Mrs. Lincoln on her
City Point visit. Sherman left City Point on the USS Bat commanded by
Barnes.
“...We
steamed down James River, and at Old Point Comfort took on board my brother,
Senator John Sherman, and Mr. Edwin Stanton, son of the Secretary of War, and
proceeded at once to our destination.
“On our way
down the river, Captain Barnes expressed himself extremely obliged to me for
taking his vessel, as it had relieved him of a most painful dilemma. He
explained that he had been detailed by Admiral Porter to escort the President's
unarmed boat, the River Queen, in which capacity it became his special duty to
look after Mrs. Lincoln.
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| The River Queen berth at City Point, Virginia, March 1865 |
“The day
before [Sherman’s] my arrival at City Point, there had been a grand review of a
part of the Army of the James, then commanded by General Ord. The President
rode out from City Point with General Grant on horseback, accompanied by a
numerous staff, including Captain Barnes and Mrs. Ord; but Mrs. Lincoln and
Mrs. Grant had followed in a carriage.
“The
cavalcade reached the review-ground some five or six miles out from City Point,
found the troops all ready, drawn up in line, and after the usual presentation
of arms, the President and party, followed by Mrs. Ord and Captain Barnes on
horseback, rode the lines, and returned to the reviewing stand, which meantime
had been reached by Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant in their carriage, which had
been delayed by the driver taking a wrong road. Mrs. Lincoln, seeing Mrs. Ord
and Captain Barnes riding with the retinue, and supposing that Mrs. Ord had
personated her, turned on Captain Barnes and gave him a fearful scolding; and
even indulged in some pretty sharp upbraidings to Mrs. Ord...”
[Excerpt #3.]
Eyewitness to the
Spat
Excerpt from the public domain.
“The President Sees a Fight and a
Review” by John S. Barnes first published in Appleton’s Magazine, Vol. 9, no. 5
(May 1907) pages 515-524.
While in
command of the USS Bat in the month of March, 1865, attached to the North
Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Rear Admiral David Porter commanding, I received
orders to proceed without delay to Washington, and report in person to the
Secretary of the Navy.
Fort Fisher
had fallen and all accessible ports of the South were in our possession;
blockade running had ceased, and the Bat had been employed as a dispatch boat,
and had made many trips to Washington and Baltimore on dispatch service, also
to points South embraced by Admiral Porter's command.
On the
arrival of the Bat at Washington on the 2oth day of March, 1865, I reported to
the Navy Department, and was received by Mr. G. V. Fox, Assistant Secretary of
the Navy, immediately upon ray arrival. Mr. Fox, who had previously been my
guest, and had made a trip to City Point VA, discussed with me her interior
arrangements, the unoccupied space below decks, and then Informed me that the
President desired to visit General Grant at City Point, Grant's headquarters,
and had applied to the Navy Department for transportation, and that he thought
the Bat was, or might be made a suitable ship for him to go and return in, or
perhaps to live on board of during his visit to Grant’s HQ. I replied to Mr.
Fox that if he would place the resources of the Washington Navy Yard at my
disposal, I could in a few days make such arrangements as to insure the
personal comfort of the President as long as he desired to make the Bat his
home.
Mr. Fox then
took me over to the White House, and we were at once admitted to the President.
After introducing me as the captain of the vessel detailed by the department to
take him to City Point, Mr. Fox left us with the remark, "Now, Mr.
President, you have only to give him your orders as Commander-in-Chief of the
Army and Navy of the United States." Mr. Lincoln replied, "I'm only a
fresh-water sailor and I guess I have to trust to you salt-water folks when
afloat." After a few minutes' talk, mainly as to the size and accommodations
of the Bat, during which the President said he wanted no luxuries but only
plain, simple food and ordinary comfort — that what was good enough for me
would be good enough for him. I left him, returned lo the Navy Department, and
secured orders to Captain Montgomery, commanding the Washington Navy Yard, to
do all things needed to make the vessel ready to receive Mr. Lincoln and to
finish the work as soon as possible. The Bat was the highly developed type of
"blockade runner" built for the special purpose with several other
like vessels, by Messrs. Jones, Quiggan & Co. of Liverpool.
She was a
side-wheel steamer long and narrow, drawing about nine feet when loaded, and
driven by four oscillating engines, turning huge feathering paddle-wheels; her
hull was of steel plates three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness; under full
steam she had a speed of eighteen knots. On her maiden trip from Bermuda to
Wilmington, in command of a Captain in the English Naval Reserve, laden with
army medicines and contraband goods, she was captured in attempting to run the
blockade off Cape Fear River. Condemned as a prize, she was hastily converted
into a gunboat for blockading duty.
The next
morning early I received orders to report at the White House, and on my arrival
there I was at once shown to the President's private room— not his office. Mr.
Lincoln was there and received me with great cordiality, but with a certain
kind of embarrassment and a look of sadness which struck me forcibly and rather
embarrassed me. He appeared tired and worried, and after a few casual remarks
said that Mrs. Lincoln had decided that she would accompany him to City Point,
and could the Bat accommodate her and her maid servant. I was, in sailor's
phrase, taken "all aback." The Bat was in no respect adapted to the
private life of womankind, nor could she be made so. I ventured to state some
of the difficulties — as delicately as I could. "Well," said the
President, "I understand, but you will have to see mother," and I was
soon ushered into the presence of Mrs. Lincoln.
She received
me very graciously, standing with arms folded, and at once opened the
conversation by saying that she had learned from one of her friends. Miss
Harris, daughter of Senator Ira Harris, of New York, that I was an old
acquaintance and relative. I expressed my great satisfaction at the recognition
and remarked that Miss Clara Harris was one of my best friends also.
Mrs. Lincoln
then said, "I am going with the President to City Point, and I want you to
arrange your ship to take me, my maid, and my officer, as well as the
President." There was some other desultory talk, the general result of
which was that I would confer with Mr. Lincoln and see what I could do to meet
her wishes. In great consternation I went to the Navy Department, and explained
to Mr. Fox the situation; how utterly impossible it was to make the Bat at all
suitable for the reasonable requirements of the wife of the President. Mr. Fox
at once recognized the impossibility, and again we went to the White House,
were at once received by Mr. Lincoln, when in very funny terms the President
translated our difficulties, and Mr. Fox promised the President that be would
provide another and more appropriate craft for the transportation of his
family.
The
alterations to the Bat were stopped and the steamer River Queen was chartered
for Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln's accommodation. She was a river passenger side-wheel
boat, with the ordinary civilian officers and crew, without armament.
By the
orders of the Department, I was directed to accompany her, and keep her in
convoy, and was placed under the immediate direction of the President and
charged with his safe conduct to City Point and return.
While
probably not oblivious to the dangers of his position. President Lincoln was
much less disturbed by it than many others. Unlike the high officers of all
governments today, there were no private detectives guarding his person.
The River
Queen, closely followed by the Bat, left Washington on March 23, 1865, Mr. Lincoln
embarking at the Sixth Street wharf at 1 p.m., and anchored off City Point very
late on the evening of March 24. Communication was had with General Grant, and
it was proposed to hold a general review of the troops facing Petersburg the
next day [March 25] at about noon. I reported to Mr. Lincoln early in the
morning and was invited to breakfast with the family, and escorted Mrs. Lincoln
to the breakfast room on the lower or main deck of the Queen.
Mr. Lincoln,
who was not looking well, had been indisposed the day before, and attributed it
to the drinking water furnished the River Queen at Washington; indeed we had
stopped at Fortress Monroe the day before and taken on a supply of fresh water
in demijohns, for Mr. Lincoln's special use.
The only
persons present at the breakfast were "Thad," the youngest son, and
Captain Penrose, of the Commissary Department. Mr. Lincoln ate very little, but
was very jolly and pleasant. While at breakfast, Captain Robert Lincoln came in
from General Grant and said that there had been a fight that morning at the
front and the action was then going on; that the reports at General Grant's
headquarters were meager, but that our troops were successful in repelling an
assault upon our lines, and that the proposed review would have to be
postponed.
Mr. Lincoln
sent a dispatch to Mr. Stanton, which he wrote at the table and gave to Captain
Lincoln to have sent. He spoke of the fight, made light of it, calling it a
"rumpus at the front." After breakfast several officers, including
Admiral Porter, called to pay their respects; there was a general conversation,
and we all walked up to General Grant's headquarters.
There it was
learned that the fight at the front had been quite serious, but at that time
was practically over, resulting in a decided victory for our men. After some
discussion, Mr. Lincoln expressed a great desire to visit the scene of the
action, the particulars of which were still wanting, nothing being known except
the general result.
General
Grant was rather opposed to such a trip for the President, as possibly being an
exposure, but the reports from the front, coming in constantly, being
reassuring, a special train was made up at about noontime, and with a large
party we slowly proceeded over the Military Railroad, roughly constructed
between City Point and the front, to General Meade's headquarters.
On our
arrival there, and indeed before we reached the scene, while we were passing
through a portion of the field of battle, the very serious nature of the
conflict of that morning was apparent. The Confederates under General John B.
Gordon, at early daylight, had made a swift and sudden assault upon our lines
of investment of Petersburg, had captured Fort Stedman and several other
batteries, with many persons, including a general officer, and driven our men
back close to and over the railroad embankment upon which our train was then
halted.
The ground
immediately about us was still strewn with dead and wounded men. Federal and
Confederate. The whole army was under arms and moving to the left, where the
fight was still going on, and a desultory firing of both musketry and artillery
was seen and heard.
Mr. Lincoln
was taken in charge by General Meade, and mounted on horseback rode to an
eminence near by, from which a good view of the scene could be secured. Horses
had been sent out on the train, and I was fortunate in securing one. We passed
through the spot where the fight had been most severe, and where great numbers
of dead were lying, with burial parties at their dreadful work.
Many
Confederate wounded were still lying on the ground, being attended to by
surgeons and men of the Sanitary Commission, distributing water and bread. We
passed by 2,000 rebel prisoners, herded together, who had been captured within
our lines only a few hours before.
Mr. Lincoln
remarked upon their sad and unhappy condition, and indeed they were as sorry
and dirty a lot of humanity as can be imagined, but they had fought
desperately, and no doubt were glad to be at rest. Mr. Lincoln was quiet and
observant, making few comments, and listened to explanations in a cool,
collected manner, betraying no excitement, but his whole face showing
sympathetic feeling for the suffering about him.
Before
returning to the train a flag of truce was flying between the opposing lines,
now each reoccupied, and ambulances were moving and burial parties from the
Confederate lines occupied in taking off the wounded and burying the dead lying
between the lines where the slaughter of Confederates had been greatest.
Once again
on the train, to which cars filled with our wounded men had been attached, Mr.
Lincoln looked worn and haggard. The President remarked that he had seen enough
of the horrors of war, that he hoped this was the beginning of the end, and
that there would be no more bloodshed or ruin of homes. Indeed, then and many
times after did he reiterate the same hope with grave earnestness.
We returned
slowly by train to City Point. Mr. Lincoln, overcome by the excitement and
events of the day, desired to rest on the Queen with his family, and, declining
the invitation to take supper at General Grant's headquarters, saw no one again
that evening.
Briefly,
what he had that morning telegraphed to Mr. Stanton and described as a
"rumpus at the front" was a most sanguinary battle and almost the
last of the war. The losses on the Confederate side were as reported the next
day, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, nearly 5,000 men and on the Federal
side 2,000.
On the
following day, March 26th, many dead and some wounded still lay unburied and
unattended between the lines of entrenchment only a few yards apart. On the
26th, on reporting to Mr. Lincoln, I found him quite recovered from the fatigue
and excitement of the day before; reports from the front were wholly reassuring,
our troops back in their original positions, with some material advantages
gained along the lines.
The
President, while lamenting the great loss of life and the sufferings of the
wounded, expressed the greatest confidence that the war was drawing to an end.
He read me several dispatches from Mr. Stanton, expressing anxiety as to his
exposing himself, and drawing contrasts between the duty of a
"general" and a "president"; also several dispatches from
the front sent him by General Grant. He was greatly pleased to hear that
General Sheridan had reached the bank of the river at Harrison's Landing, and
that his cavalry would that day cross and join General Grant's army. After
breakfast Mr. Lincoln went to Grant's headquarters and sent some dispatches to
Mr. Stanton, saying that he would take care of himself.
General
Sheridan and General Ord were there, also several other generals and Admiral
Porter. It was suggested that, as the President had seen a "fight instead
of a review" the day before, he should employ the day in an excursion by
water to see Sheridan's troops crossing the river at Harrison's Landing, review
the naval flotilla, and then review General Ord's division then encamped on the
left bank of the James, near Malvern Hill, the scene of 1862’s earlier bloody
battle between rebel General John Magruder's and Union General George
McClellan's armies.
Horses and
ambulances for the ladies were placed on the River Queen as Mrs. Lincoln and
Mrs. Grant were to attend these ceremonies, and soon we were passing down the
river to the point of the crossing of Sheridan's troops. General Sheridan was
of the party, and the President very kindly insisted that I should "come
along," as he expressed it.
The scene
was a lively one, and the President enjoyed it hugely. A pontoon bridge had
been thrown across the river, over which were passing, in a stream, Sheridan's
cavalry, while the bank of the river was lined with them, some bathing and
watering their horses, laughing and shouting to each other and having a fine
time. They soon found out that the President was watching them and cheered
vociferously. A few moments were given to this, and then the River Queen turned
and passed through the naval flotilla, ranged in double line, dressed with
flags, the crews on deck cheering as the River Queen passed by.
Admiral
Porter had sent his orders ahead before starting, and the ships made a brave
show and the President was apparently de-lighted and the Admiral naturally very
proud of his command. Mr. Lincoln as he passed each vessel waved his high hat
as if saluting old friends in his native town, and seemed as happy as a
schoolboy.
On reaching
the Malvern Admiral Porter's flagship, the Queen went alongside, and we found
there spread out in her spacious cabin a grand luncheon. How the Admiral could
have gotten up such a repast on so short a notice was a source of wonder and
surprise to Mr. Lincoln, as it was to everyone who enjoyed it. It was the cause
of funny comments and remarks by the President, contrasting army and naval
life, as was witnessed by the laughter among the group immediately about him,
of which he was the moving spirit. Luncheon over, we all re-embarked on the
Queen, and she proceeded to Aitken's Landing, where the horses and ambulances
were put ashore.
[Spat with Mrs.
Griffin]
Many
officers of General Ord's division were in waiting to accompany and escort the
President to the field review, which was to be reached over a rough corduroy
road leading to the pontoon bridge close by, connecting the right and left
wings of the army.
The
arrangements were that Mr. Lincoln should go on horseback, accompanied by
General Grant and General Ord with their respective staffs (I am not certain
that General Sheridan also was with the President), then Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs.
Grant were to be conducted to the ground in an ambulance, under the special
escort of Gen. Horace Porter and Colonel Adam Badeau.
General
Porter very kindly but reluctantly, and with some misgivings as to my
horsemanship, and jocular remarks about sailors on horseback, lent me his own
favorite steed.
There was
some delay in starting, owing, it was said, to the unreadiness of the ladies,
but at last the cavalcade got off, General Grant and General Ord, riding on
each side of the President, leading. The ambulance with Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs.
Grant was to follow.
Just as we
left, General Ord introduced me to his wife, who was also on horseback, and
then said to me: "Captain, I put Mrs. Ord in charge of the
navy." As such, Mrs. Ord and I
closed up the rear of the Presidential cavalcade. She was a remarkably handsome
woman, and a most accom-plished equestrienne, riding with extreme grace a
spirited bay horse.
There were
probably 20 or 30 officers and a few orderlies in the party, all in their best
uniforms, and as brilliant a squadron as could be expected from an army in the
field. The President was in high spirits, laughing and chatting first to
General Grant and then to General Ord as they rode forward through the woods
and over the swamps on the rather intricate and tortuous approach to the
pontoon bridge.
The distance
from City Point to General Ord's encampment was about three or four miles. The
President was dressed in a long-tailed black frock coat, not buttoned, thick
vest, low cut, with a considerable expanse of a rather rumpled shirt front, a
black carelessly tied necktie, black trousers without straps, which, as he
ambled along, gradually worked up uncomfortably and displayed some inches of white
socks.
Upon his
head he wore a high silk hat, rather out of fashion, and innocent of a brush
for many days, if ever it had been smoothed by one. He rode with some ease,
however, with very long stirrup leathers, lengthened to their extreme to suit
his extraordinarily long limbs. His horse was gentle with an easy pacing, or
single-foot, gait, and our progress was rapid; but owing to the luncheon and
delay in starting we reached the parade ground at a late hour.
Ord’s
division was under arms drawn up in a wide field at parade rest, and had been
so for several hours. After hurried conferences with the commanding officer,
General Ord reported to General Grant, who referred to the President, with the
statement that the soldiers' mealtime was long past, and asked should the
review be delayed to await the coming of Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant, not yet
arrived — in fact, as it turned out, the ambulance under charge of Porter and
Badeau had either missed the route or was en-tangled in the maze of the rough
approaches to the pontoon.
As a result,
Mr. Lincoln exclaimed against any further postponement, and in a few minutes
the review commenced; the President, with General Grant and General Ord
leading, proceeded to the right of the line and passed in front, the bands
playing, colors dipping, and the soldiers at present arms.
Mrs. Ord
asked me whether it was proper for her to accompany the cavalcade, now very
numerous. I replied that I was ignorant of army usages and ceremonies, but a
staff officer, to whom I referred the matter, said, "Of course! Come
along!" and gladly enough we fell in the rear and followed the reviewing
column.
Halfway down
the line the ambulance with the ladies drove in upon the field. Seeing it, Mrs.
Ord exclaimed, "There come Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant. I think I had
better join them." Reining out of the crowd, we galloped across the field
and drew up by the side of the wagon. Our reception was not cordial; it was
evident that some unpleasantness had occurred. Porter and Badeau looked unhappy,
and Mrs. Grant silent and embarrassed. It was a painful situation from which
the only escape was to retire. The review was over, and Mrs. Ord and myself
with a few officers rode back to headquarters at City Point.
[Spat with Mrs. Ord]
After
visiting the River Queen I retired early, rather tired with my unwonted
horseback exercise; but about eleven o'clock I was awakened by the orderly,
with a message from the President saying that he would like to see me on the
River Queen. I dressed as quickly as possible, repaired on board, and found Mr.
Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln awaiting me in the upper saloon. The President seemed
weary and greatly distressed, with an expression of sadness that seemed the
accentuation of the shadow of melancholy, which at times so marred his
features.
He took
little part in the conversation which ensued, which evidently followed some
previous discussion with Mrs. Lincoln, who had objected very strenuously to the
presence of other ladies at the review that day, and had thought that Mrs. Ord
had been too prominent in it, that the troops were led to think that she was
the wife of the President, who had distinguished her with too much attention.
Mr. Lincoln very gently suggested that he had hardly remarked the presence of
the lady, but Mrs. Lincoln was hardly to be pacified and appealed to me to
support her views. Of course I could not umpire such a ques-tion, and could
only state why Mrs. Ord and herself found ourselves in the reviewing column,
and how immediately we withdrew from it upon the appearance of the ambulance
with Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant.
It was a
very unhappy experience, the particulars of which need not be gone into, nor
would I here refer to it, but that it has been referred to by others in various
publications and bears upon the cause of the vein of sadness which ran through
the naturally cheerful disposition of the greatest and noblest man this country
has produced. I extricated myself as well as I could, but with difficulty, and
asked permission to retire, the President bidding me good night sadly and
gently.
The
following morning I reported as usual to the President, who received me with
marked kindness, read to me, in the small stateroom converted into an office,
his dispatches from Mr. Stanton and the news from the front, particularly the
reports of the casualties of the battle on the 25th, which greatly increased
the numbers previously reported on both sides. Thad was about, demonstrative as
usual, clinging to his father and caressed affectionately by him. I inquired for
Mrs. Lincoln, hoping that she had recovered from the fatigue of the previous
day. Mr. Lincoln said that she was not at all well, and expressed the fear that
the excitements of the surroundings were too great for her, or for any woman.
After a few minutes thus passed, Mr. Lincoln said he was going to General
Grant's headquarters and asked me to go there with him, which we proceeded to
do afoot.
City Point
was a busy place; the river crowded with gunboats, monitors, transports, and
colliers; the quartermaster's docks lined with vessels of every description
unloading stores and munitions for the Grand Army; large storehouses filled to
repletion covered the docks and approaches; innumerable teams were going and
coming to and from the front every hour of the day and night For convenience in
landing and returning, the River Queen had been placed alongside the dock and a
gangplank connected her with the wharf. The Martin, a similar steamboat to the
Queen, was also fastened to the dock. She was General Grant's headquarters
boat, and upon her Mrs. Grant and her family were living. It was sometimes a
question as to precedence as to which boat should lie inside — a question not
raised by Mr. Lincoln.
But Mrs.
Lincoln thought that the President's boat should have place, and declined to go
ashore if she had to do so over Mrs. Grant's boat, and several times the Martin
was pushed out and the River Queen, requiring some work and creating confusion,
despite Mr. Lincoln's expostulations. The boats came to be called “Mrs.
Lincoln's boat” and "Mrs. Grant's boat" and the open discussions
between their respective skippers were sometimes warm. Of course, neither Mr.
Lincoln nor General Grant took any notice of such trivialities.
[Excerpt #4.]
Lincoln Visits Fort
Stedman
Excerpt from “Civil War, Vol. 3, Red
River to Appomattox,” by Shelby Foote, 1974.
.
[BEGINNING
MARCH 25, 1865]
By noon on March 25, hours after the
Confederates began their withdrawal from Ft. Stedman...accordingly, General
Grant rescheduled the V Corps review, which would now be staged in rear of a
sector just south of the one where rebel general Gordon’s had exploded before
dawn. Grant decided that the President
would be safe enough in taking a look at the ground where the struggle had
raged between 4 am and 8 am that morning.
So it was
that Lincoln, going forward on the railroad to the margin of that field, saw on
a considerably larger scale more carnage than he had ever seen before. Mangled corpses were being carted rearward
for burial in the Army cemetery near City Point.
There was
pride and exhilaration in statements that Union general John G. Parke, cut off
from communication with Meade and Grant, while the fighting was in progress,
had used only his three IX Corps divisions to contain and repulse the rebels without
outside help. But for Lincoln,
interested though he always was in military matters, the pleasure he would
ordinarily taken in such reports was greatly diminished by the sight of what
they had cost.
He looked
“worn and haggard,” an officer who accompanied him declared; “He remarked that
he had seen enough of the horrors of war, that he hoped this was the beginning
of the end, and there would be no more bloodshed.”
Still
another shock was in store for the President before the day was over, this one
involving his wife.
[Spat #1]
As Mrs.
Lincoln rode with Mrs. Grant and Lt. Col. (later General) Adam Badeau, Grant’s
military secretary, in an ambulance on the way to the troop review that had
been scheduled for 3 pm. Badeau (riding
in the ambulance facing Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Lincoln happened to remark that
operations at the Ft. Stedman front were still active as all army wives had
recently been ordered to the rear: all that is, but the wife of General G.
Warren’s ranking division commander, Mrs. Charles Griffin (Sallie), who had
been given special permission by the President to attend today’s review.
The First
Lady flared up at this. “What do you
mean by that, sir?” Do you mean to say
that she saw the President alone? Do you
know that I never allow the President to see any woman alone?”
Speechless
with amazement at finding her “absolutely jealous of poor, ugly Abraham
Lincoln,” Lt. Col. Badeau tried to assume a pleasant expression in order to
show he meant no malice; but the effect was otherwise. “That’s a very equivocal smile, sir,” Mrs.
Lincoln exclaimed. “Let me out of this
carriage at once! I will ask the President if he saw that woman alone.”
Badeau and
Mrs. Grant managed to persuade her not to alight in the mud, but it was General
Meade who saved the day. Coming up to
pay his respects on their arrival at the parade grounds, he was taken aside by
Mrs. Lincoln for a hurried exchange from which she returned to the carriage to
fix the flustered Badeau with a significant look. “General Meade is a gentleman, sir” she told
Badeau. “He says it was not the
President who have Mrs. Griffin the permit, but the Secretary of War. Badeau afterwards remarked that Meade, the
son of a diplomat, “had evidently inherited some of his father’s skill.”
[Spat #2]
Unfortunately, the Pennsylvanian
(Meade) was not on hand for a similar outburst by Mrs. Lincoln the following
day (March 26), when the troops reviewed were General Ord’s.
Arriving
late, again in an ambulance with Badeau and Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Lincoln found the
review already in progress, and there on horseback was Mrs. Ord beside the
President, who was also mounted.
Mary Ord,
who was neither as young nor as handsome as Mrs. Griffin, but that was no
mitigation in the eyes of Mary Lincoln.
“What does the woman mean by riding by the side of the President? And ahead of me! Does she
suppose that he wants her by the side of him?
The First
Lady was in full tirade, and when Mrs. Grant ventured a few words of
reassurance that no harm was meant, Mrs. Lincoln turned on her friend as well,
saying: “I suppose you think you’ll get
the White House yourself, don’t you?”
Julia
Grant’s disclaimer, to the effect that her present position was higher than any
she had hoped for, drew the reply: “Oh, you had better take it if you can get
it. “Tis very nice.”
Mrs. Ord,
seeing the carriage pull up, excused herself to the dignitaries around her
. “There comes Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs.
Grant; I think I had better join them,” she said, unaware of the outburst in
progress across the way, and set out at a canter. It was not until she drew rein beside the
ambulance that she perceived that she might have done to ride away. “Our
reception was not cordial,” and aide who accompanied her later testified discreetly. Badeau, a former newsman gave a fuller
account of Mrs. Ord’s ordeal. “Mrs.
Lincoln positively insulted her, called her vile names in the presence of a
crowd of officers, and asked what she meant by following up the President.
“Bursting
into tears, Mrs. Ord asked what she had done, but Mrs. Lincoln refused to be
appeased, and stormed until she was tired.
Mrs. Grant tried to stand by her friend, and in the end everyone was
shocked and horrified.
Badeau ended
his recollection of the spat by saying “But all things come to an end and after
a while we returned to City Point.”
[Spat #3]
Things were no better there, however,
certainly not for the President, who was host that night at a dinner given
aboard the River Queen for the Grants
and the Grants staff.
Mrs. Lincoln
with General Grant seated on her right spent a good part of the evening running
down General Ord, who she felt was unfit for his post, “not to mention his
wife.”
Making no
headway with Grant, she shifted her scorn toward her husband, up at the far end
of the table, and reproached him for his attentions to Mrs. Griffin and Mrs.
Ord.
Badeau wrote
that the President “bore it with an expression of pain and sadness that cut him
to the heart, but with supreme calmness and dignity. He called her Mother, with old-time
plainness; he pleaded with eyes and tones, and endeavored to explain or
palliate the offenses.”
Nothing
worked, either at the table or the ship’s saloon afterwards; “she turned on him
like a tigress,” said Badeau, until at last “he walked away, hiding that noble
ugly face that we might not catch the full expression of its misery.”
Yet, that
didn’t work either; she kept after him.
After the guests had retired, she summoned the skipper of the Bat, John
S. Barnes, who had been present at today’s troop review, and demanded that he
corroborate her charge that the President had been overattentive to Mrs. Ord.
Barnes
declined the role of “umpire,” as he put it, and earned thereby her enmity
forever. Barnes left the room, and when he
reported aboard next morning to inquire after the First Lady, Lincoln replied
that “she ws not at all well, and expressed the fear that the excitement of the
surroundings was too great for her, or for any woman.”
[Excerpt #5.]
A Face of a Woman Boiling
with Rage
Excerpt from
“Abraham Lincoln: The War Years,” by Carl Sandburg, 1954.
[Editor’s note: Mrs. Lincoln off to
review Crawford/Griffin/Warren’s Division]
March 25, Saturday afternoon:
While the President journeyed to the
front in and around Ft. Stedman via railway, Mrs. Lincoln was joined by Mrs.
Grant, who was living with her family on the ship Mary Martin. The two women
rode in an ambulance over a muddy, rough corduroy road. They were to join the President and Meade’s
staff in reviewing General Samuel Crawford’s division.
As the wagon
(ambulance) rolled along, Adam Badeau, Grant’s secretary, seated with his back
to the horses and facing the ladies, did his best at conversation, mentioning
that all the wives of officers at the army front had been ordered to the rear,
a sure sign of big action soon to come.
Not a lady had been allowed to stay at the [Ft. Stedman] front,
continued Badeau, unaware of what he was getting into, not a lady except Mrs.
Sallie Griffin, the wife of General Charles Griffin, she having a special
permit from the President.
Swift as a
cat leap, Mrs Lincoln asked: “What do you mean by that, sir? Do you mean to say
that she saw the President alone? Do you
know that I never allow the President to see any woman alone?”
Badeau saw
the face of a woman boiling with rage.
He tried
smiling toward the face, to show there was no malice. Badeau’s smile was timed wrong. “That’s a very equivocal smile, sir,” he now
heard from Mrs. Lincoln. “Let me out of
this carriage at once. I will ask the
President if he saw that woman alone?”
Badeau, at
the time a Lt. Colonel and later a General, and Mrs. Grant tried to smooth and
quiet her but failed. Mrs. Lincoln
ordered Badeau to have the driver stop, and Badeau hesitating, she thrust her
arms past him and took hold of the driver.
By now, however Mrs. Grant was able to coax Mrs. Lincoln to be still and
to wait.
As they
alighted at the reviewing ground General Meade walked up, paid his respects to
Mrs. Lincoln, escorted her away, later returning with her with diplomatic
skill, Mrs. Lincoln informing Badeau, “General Meade is a gentleman, sir. He says it was not the President who gave
Mrs. Griffin the permit, but the Secretary of War.” Thus ran Badeau’s account.
Badeau and
Mrs. Grant agreed “the whole affair was so distressing and mortifying that
neither of us must ever mention it again.”
[That was
not to be.]
[March 26, Sunday morning:]
On this day Lt. Commander John S.
Barnes, who was captain of the River Queen, which was the Lincoln family
floating abode while at City Point, navigated the Presidential party down the
James River and from her deck Lincoln saw the bank lined with men shouting, laughing,
swimming, watering their horses—General Phillip Sheridan’s men washing off the
dust and grit of the Shenandoah Valley.
They spotted
the President and sent him cheers. The River Queen passed through a naval
flotilla. The crews cheered the Commander-in-Chief. Barnes noted, “As he passed each vessel he
waved his hat high, as if saluting friends in his native town, and seemed as
happy as a school boy.”
The River Queen arrived at Aiken’s Landing
for a field review of part of the Army of the James.
General Ord
on one side, General Grant on the other, escorted the President on horseback
over a rough corduroy road two miles to the reviewing ground. A covered ambulance followed bringing Mrs.
Lincoln and Mrs. Grant in care of Colonel Horace Porter and Adam Badeau. Improved springs on the ambulance only served
to toss the occupants higher, but Mrs. Lincoln in feat that they would miss the
review asked Porter for more speed.
The driver
accommodated until the mud flew from the horses’ heels and the ladies’ hats
were jammed and heads bumped hard against the top of the wagon.
[After one
particular hard bump on her head, which many believe led to a migraine causing
Mrs. Lincoln’s day to turn to worse] “Mrs. Lincoln now insisted on getting out
and walking” wrote Porter, “but as the mud was nearly hub-deep, Mrs. Grant and
I persuaded her that we had better stick to the wagon as our only ark of
refuge.”
Mrs. Lincoln
and Mrs. Grant had arrived late for the review but in time for Mrs. Lincoln to
see Mrs. Mary Ord riding near the President in the reviewing column, though equally
near her husband, who was the immediatge commander of the troops under
review.
Seeing the
ambulance drive in on the parade line, Mrs. Ord excused herself with, “There
comes Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant—I think I had better join them.” The accounts of [eyewitnesses] Barnes, Porter
and Badeau as to what then happened agreed that there were embarrassing moments
and bitterly pathetic exhibitions, Badeau’s later recollections being more
complete in detail, though having slight discrepancies. It seemed, however, that as Mrs. Ord joined
them, Mrs. Lincoln furiously exclaimed: “What does this woman mean by riding by
the side of the President and ahead of me?
Does that suppose that he
wants her by the side of him?
She went
into a frenzy that mingled extravagant rage and drab petulance. “All Porter and I could do,” wrote Badeau,
“was to see nothing worse than words occurred.”
They feared some wild scene of violence enacted before the troops so
calmly standing at “present arms.”
One outburst
flung itself at Mrs. Grant: “I suppose you think you’ll get to the White House
yourself, don’t you?” Mrs. Grant kept
cool, saying she was quite satisfied with her present position, that is was far
greater than she had ever expected to attain.
Mrs. Lincoln: “Oh! You had better take it if you can get it. “Tis very
nice.” Then the slings of reproach were
sent at Mrs. Ord, with Mrs. Grant quietly and at some risk defending her
friend, Mrs. Ord.
A nephew of
Secretary Seward, a young Major and member of General Ord’s staff, a joker,
rode alongside and blurted out with a rich grin: “The President’s horse is very
gallant, Mrs. Lincoln. He insists on
riding by the side of Mrs. Ord.” That
of course helped no one. Mrs. Lincoln
cried, “What do you mean by that?” and young Major Seward shied away in a crazy
gallop.
When the
review ended—and the troops were moving toward the enemy picket lines and death
and wounds—Mrs. Lincoln in the presence of a group of officers, according to
Badeau, hurled vile names at Mrs. Ord and again asked Mrs. Ord meant by
following the President. Enough of that
sent Mrs. Ord into tears, in asking what in the world she had done.
Mrs. Lincoln
stormed until she spent her strength. A
manner of silence ensued.
Porter
believed “Mrs. Lincoln had suffered so much from fatigue and annoyances of her
overland trip that she was not in a mood to derive much pleasure from the
occasion.”
Badeau saw
“everybody shocked and horrified.”
Barnes found
Mrs. Grant silent and embarrassed. “It
was a painful situation, from which the only escape was to retire.” He added, Mrs. Ord and myself with a few
officers rode back to City Point.”
Of what
happened that evening (March 26) when the River Queen returned to her moorings
at City Point Badeau wrote: “That night
the President and Mrs. Lincoln entertained General and Mrs. Grant and the
General’s staff at dinner on the steamer, and before us all Mrs. Lincoln
berated General Ord to the President, and urged that he be removed. He was unfit for his place, she said, to say
nothing of his wife. Sitting next to
Mrs. Lincoln, General Grant defended his officer bravely.”
After dinner
and after the guests left, the President called Barnes back to the River Queen. A few essentials that Captain Barnes would
disclose publicly in later years were: “Mr. Lincoln took little part in the
conversation which ensued, which evidently followed some previous discussion
with Mrs. Lincoln, who had objected strenuously at the presence of other ladies
at the troop review, and had thought that Mrs. Ord had been too prominent in
it; that the troops were led to think she was the wife of the President, who
had distinguished [Mrs. Ord] with too much attention.
“Mr.
Lincoln,” said Barnes, “very gently suggested he had hardly remarked her
presence, but Mrs. Lincoln was not to be pacified, and she appealed to me to
support her views. Of course, I could
not umpire such a question, and could only state why Mrs. Ord and myself found
ourselves in the reviewing column, and how immediately we withdrew from it upon
the appearance of the ambulance with Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant.
“I
extricated myself as well I could, but with difficulty, and asked permission to
retire, the President bidding me goodnight sadly and gently,” said Barnes.
[Barnes Gracious Defense of Mrs.
Lincoln:]
Sandburg’s
words: Amid the scenes created by the disordered brain of a tragically
afflicted woman, young Captain Barnes felt himself drawn to the one person he saw
as writhing inwardly more than any other, which the Captain wrote, “...I came
to feel an affection for him that none other inspired.”
The
melancholy of Lincoln he believed related in part to the torments Mrs. Lincoln
was under. “I had the greatest sympathy for her and for Mr. Lincoln, who I am
sure felt deep anxiety for her,” Barnes noted.
“His manner towards her was always that of the most affectionate
solicitude, so marked, so gentle and unaffected that no one could see them
together without being impressed by it.”
Though a
common undertone phrase for Mrs. Lincoln was “crazy woman,” Barnes more humanly
decent description ran: “She was at no time well; the mental strain upon her
was great, betrayed by extreme nervousness approaching hysteria, causing
misapprehensions, extreme sensitiveness as to slights or want of politeness or
consideration.”
[At City
Point, Captain Barnes view of Mrs. Lincoln’s mental state was in the minority.]
Sandburg
continues, At intervals during this City Point visit, however, several
creditable observers without particular prejudice agreed in the main with Badeau’s account that “Mrs.
Lincoln repeatedly attacked her husband in the presence of officers because of
Mrs. Griffin and Mrs. Ord.”
As for the
head of state, wrote Badeau, “He bore it as Christ might have done, with
supreme calmness and dignity; he called her ‘mother,’ pleaded with eyes and
tones, endeavored to explain or pallitate the offenses of others, until she
turned on him like a tigress; and then he walked away,” hiding his face that
others might not see it.
Toward Mrs.
Grant, Mrs. Lincoln showed no relenting, according to Badeau once rebuking the
General’s wife, “How dare you be seated until I invite you?”
[Monday, March 27, 1865:]
Barnes
reported as usual to the President, received “marked kindness,” and in a small
stateroom converted into an office heard Lincoln read aloud dispatches from
Stanton and front the front, while Tad ran in and out, sometimes “clinging to
his father and caressed affectionately by him.”
Barnes inquired about Mrs. Lincoln, hoping that she had recovered from
the fatigue of the previous day. “The
President said she was not well at all, and expressed the fear that the
excitement of the surroundings was to great for her or for any woman.”
Excerpt #6.
The Final Weeks
Excerpt from
“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” by Doris Kearns
Goodwin, 2005.
Editor’s note: If you’ve come this far, you will find that
historian Goodwin only mentions the spat with Mrs. Ord with no mention of her
difficulties with Mrs. Griffin the day before.
Overall, dismissing the
debacle with Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Griffin shows Goodwin is the more apologetic
in her coverage of Mary Lincoln at City Point than other historians presented
in this blog.
[March 26, Sunday morning:]
On Sunday morning, the River Queen carried the presidential
party downriver to where Admiral David Porter’s naval flotilla awaited
them. After lunch aboard Porter’s
flagship, the River Queen sailed to
Aiken’s Landng. There arrangements were
made for Lincoln to ride on horseback with Grant to General Ord’s encampment
four miles away while Mary Lincoln and Julia Grant followed in an
ambulance. “The President was in high
spirits,” observed River Queen
Captain John Barnes, “laughing and chatting first to General Grant and then to
General Ord as they rode forward through woods and over the swamps.”
Reaching the
parade ground ahead of the ladies, they decided to begin the review without
them, since the troops had been waiting for hours and had missed their midday
meal.
General
Ord’s wife, Mary, asked if “it were proper for her to accompany the cavalcade”
without Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant. “Of
course,” she was told. “Come along!”
Meanwhile,
the ambulance carrying the women had encountered great discomfort due to the
corduroyed road, which jounced them into the air each time a log was
struck. Concerned that the agonizingly
slow pace would make them late for the review, Mary ordered the driver to go
faster. This only made things worse, for
the first “jolt lifted the party clear off the seats,” striking their heads on
the top of the wagon. Mary “now insisted
on getting out and walking,” recalled Horace Porter, who had been assigned to
escort the ladies, “but as the mud as nearly hub-deep, Mrs. Grant and I
persuaded her that we had better stick to the wagon as our only ark of refuge.”
When Mary
finally reached the parade grounds and saw the attractive Mrs. Ord riding
beside her husband in the place of honor that should have been her own, she
erupted in an embarrassing tirade against Mrs. Mary Ord, calling her “vile
names in the presence of a crowd of officers.”
Mrs. Ord,
according to one observer, “burst into tears and inquired what she had done,
but Mrs. Lincoln refused to be appeased, and stormed until she was tired. Mrs. Grant tried to stand by her friend, and
everybody was shocked and horrified.”
[Sunday evening, March 26:]
That evening Mary continued to
harangue at dinner, manifestly aggrieving her husband, whose attitude toward
her, marveled Captain Barnes, “was always that of the most affectionate
solicitude, so marked, so gentle and unaffected that no one could see them
together without being impressed by it.”
Knowing his
wife would awake the next morning humiliated by such a public display of
temper, Lincoln had no desire to exacerbate the situation at dinner. Perhaps, as Mary’s biographer suggests, the
blow in the wagon that Mary suffered to her head had initiated a migraine
headache, spurring the irrational outburst of wrath. Whether from illness or mortification, she
remained sequestered in her stateroom for the next few days.
[Excerpt #7.]
Rethinking
Ambulances as Transportation for Ladies
Excerpt from
the public domain.“Campaigning with
Grant,” the memoirs of Horace Porter, aide-de-camp to General U.S. Grant
[Note: Horace Porter, the son of
Admiral David Porter, was an American soldier and diplomat who served as a lieutenant
colonel, ordnance officer and staff officer in the Union Army during the American
Civil War, personal secretary to General and President Ulysses S. Grant and to General William T.
Sherman.]
Sunday, March 26, 1865
It was decided that upon this day Mr.
Lincoln would review a portion of the Army of the James on the north side of
the James Biver, and Sheridan was invited to join the party from headquarters
who were to accompany the President. The boat started from City Point at eleven
o'clock.
Earlier, at
breakfast General Grant said to me: “I shall accompany the President, who is to
ride [one of my horses that was named] Cincinnati, as he seems to have taken a
fancy to him. I wish you would take Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant to the
reviewing ground in our headquarters ambulance."
Porter
wrote: “I expressed my pleasure at being selected for so pleasant a
mission, and
arranged to have the ambulance and two good horses put aboard the headquarters
boat, which was to carry the party up the river. Captain Barnes was to be one
of the party, and I loaned him my horse.
“When the
boat reached the landing on the north side of the river, I helped the two
distinguished ladies who had been entrusted to my care into the ambulance, and
started for the reviewing-ground, about two miles distant.
The horsemen
(Lincoln, Grant, Ord] got the start of us and made good time; but as the road
was swampy, and part of it corduroyed with the trunks of small trees, without
much reference to their relative size or regularity of position, the ambulance
could make but slow progress.
Finally we
reached our destination, but it was some minutes after the review had begun.
Mrs. Ord, and the wives of several of the officers, who had come up from Fort Monroe
for the purpose, appeared on horseback as a mounted escort to Mrs. Lincoln and
Mrs. Grant. This added a special charm to the scene, and the review passed off
with peculiar brilliancy, Mrs. Grant enjoyed the day with great zest, but Mrs.
Lincoln had suffered so much from the fatigue and annoyances of her overland
trip that
she was not
in a mood to derive much pleasure from the occasion. I therefore made up my
mind that ambulances, viewed as vehicles for driving distinguished ladies to
military reviews, were not a stupendous success, and that thereafter they had
better be confined to their legitimate uses of transporting the wounded and
attending funerals.
It was
nearly dark when the party returned to City Point. After dinner the band was
brought down to the steamboat, and a dance was improvised. Several ladies were
aboard, and they and the officers danced till mid-
night.
Neither the President nor General Grant joined, even in a square dance, but sat
in the after part of the boat conversing, Sheridan stayed overnight at City
Point, and started early in the morning for the cavalry
headquarters
on the Petersburg front.
[Excerpt #8.]
“You Whore...”
Excerpt from
the novel “Lincoln” by Gore Vidal, 1984, Vantage Books.
[Note: Given the eyewitness and historian’s
view of the drama between Mrs. Lincoln and the Generals’ wives, it is
interesting to note how in fiction Gore Vidal presented the events.]
Sunday, March 26, 1865:
The next day President and generals
rode out to the main encampment of the Army of the James to witness a grand
review. Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant
followed in an ambulance, which kept to a corduroy road that had been set
across a sea of red Virginia mud and swampland.
Mary had never in her life known such discomfort, not to mention pain; a
headache had now installed itself just back of her eyes and would not go away.
At the back
of the swaying and lurching ambulance the First Lady and Julia Grant sat on a
bench side by side, when they were not thrown together. One of General Grant’s aides sat opposite
them, apologizing for the state of the road.
“It’s never
comfortable,” said Mrs. Grant, clutching the wagon’s side.
“We can
endure the discomfort,” said Mary regally.
“But surely,” she addressed the officer, “we are going to be late for
the review?”
“I think
not,” said the aide, Of course, the driver is being deliberately slow.”
“Then tell
him we should like to go faster.”
“But I don’t
think that’s wise,” said Julia Grant and the eye closet to Mary turned,
impudently away.
“But we must
go faster!” Mary exclaimed. The officer
in the carriage gave the order to the driver, and the horses sprung forward
just as flat marsh gave way to a section of corduroy road made up of trees of
different sizes. The ambulance sprung
into the air. The two ladies, as one,
left their seat and would have departed the ambulance entirely had the back
section not been roofed in. As it was,
two large, splendidly decorated hats prevented the heads beneath from breaking
open but at the cost of two miraculous examples of the milliner’s craft, now
crushed. As Mary fell back into the
seat, she screamed, “Stop! Let me out! I shall walk!”
The
ambulance stopped. The ornamental
pheasant that had been the central decoration of Mrs. Grant’s hat had slipped
forward onto her forehead, and one glossy wing now pathetically caressed her
round cheek. “Mrs. Lincoln, no! Please.”
Mary was
halfway out of the carriage, when the officer pulled her back in. “Madam,” he said, soothingly, “the mud is
three feet deep here. No one can walk.”
“Oh, God!”
shouted Mary, directly to the Deity, who did not answer her. As she said back in the bench, head throbbing
and eyes shut, she felt, one by one, the wax cherries that had made beautiful
her hat come loose and fall to the ambulance floor exactly as the originals
would have done when ripe.
[Spat #1]
But Mary had
predicted correctly. They were late for
the review. On a great muddy field, an
army division was going through its paces.
Mrs. Grant helpfully, identified the commanding general in the distance,
James Ord. Meanwhile, as the ambulance
approached the review stand, a slender woman on a great horse cantered past
them. “Who is that?” asked Mary. “I thought women were forbidden at the
front?”
“They are,”
said Julia Grant, “but that is General Griffin’s wife. She has a special permit.”
“From the
President himself,” said the aide, with a smile which was, for Mary,
lasciviousness writ scarlet in the air.
She responded with a scream; and was pleased to see some the redness go
from those hideous, mocking lips.
“She has had
an interview with the President? Is that
what you are hinting at? A private
interview?” Mary could hear a mocking snigger from Mrs. Grant at her side. They were all in this together. “Yes, that is what you want people to
believe. But no woman is ever alone with the President. So tell as many lies as you please...”
General
Meade was now at the ambulance. Mary
turned to him for alliance. As he helped
her down, she said, most craftily, she thought, “General Meade, it has been
suggested to me that that woman on the horse has received special permission to
be at the front, given her by the President himself.”
Meade said,
“No, Mrs. Lincoln. Not by the
President. Such permissions are given, and
very rarely, by Mr. Stanton.
“See?” Mary
wheeled on her tormentors. She addressed
the corrupt officer/aide. “General Meade
is a gentleman, sir. It was not the
President but the Secretary of War who gave permission to this slut.” Mary savored her triumph.
General
Meade, from one of Philadelphia’s oldest families, acted as if nothing had
happened as he escorted her to the reviewing stand. But Mary was conscious that her two mortal
enemies (Grant’s aide Adam Badeau and Julia Grant) were just behind her, heads
together, whispering obscenities to each other.
Well, she would bide her time.
[Spat #2]
As Mary took
her seat facing an entire division drawn up at present arms, she saw the
President, flanked by Generals Grant and Ord, begin his ride down the long
dark-blue line of troops. As the
President came to each regiment, the men would cheer him and he would remove
his hat. Back of Lincoln Grant and Ord,
there were a dozen high-ranking officers, and a good-looking young woman on a
horse.
“Who is that?”
asked Mary.
Mrs. Grant
said, “It is Mrs. Ord, the general’s wife.”
“She is
riding next to my husband.”
“She is
actually riding next to her husband, General Ord,” said Mrs. Grant, gently.
Mary turned
to General Meade for assistance but he had moved away to the telegraph hut at
the end of the reviewing stand. In his
place, there was a solicitous colonel (either aides Horace Porter or Adam
Badeau were there and were colonel’s).
“Sir, has that woman been riding with the President all during the review?”
Mary watched his face very carefully; she knew that she could tell in an
instant if he was lying; it was as if her eyes could see with perfect clarity
straight past his dull face and deep into his brain.
“Why, yes,”
said the colonel.
“Actually,
she is with her husband, Mrs. Lincoln,” began Mrs. Grant.
Interrupting,
Mrs Lincoln said, “I am quite capable of calculating the distance—look
now!” Mrs. Ord was indeed alongside the
President. “My God!” Mary exclaimed. “She is pretending to be me! They will thank that that vile woman is
me! Does she suppose that he wants her
at his side like that?”
A young
major rode up. The colonel said,
quickly, “here is Major Seward, the nephew of the Secretary of State.”
“Mrs.
Lincoln.” The major saluted the First Lady.
“I know all
about Mr. Seward,” Mary began, noticing the young man’s parrot’s beak of a
nose, so like that of his uncle, her enemy.
Major Seward
was aware that they had been watching the President and Mrs. Ord, who were now
riding side by side. “The President’s
horse is very gallant,” said Major Seward, with all the corrupt insolence of
his uncle. “He insists on riding by the
side of Mrs. Ord’s horse.”
“What,” Mary
cried, pushed now to the very edge of public humiliation, “do you mean by
that?”
Major
Seward’s response was an abrupt retreat.
Meanwhile, President and generals had moved off the field toward
Petersburg front while Mrs. Ord toward the reviewing stand. Mary could not believe her eyes. The woman’s insolence was beyond anything
that she had ever had to endure in her life. The woman dismounted; and walked
over to the reviewing stand. “Welcome,
Mrs. Lincoln,” Mary Ord said.
Mary Lincoln
rose to her feet. She felt exalted. At last, she could strike at her enemies a
mortal blow. “You whore!” said Mary,
delighted that she was able to control so well her voice. Then, word by word, sentence by sentence,
effortlessly, she told the slut what she thought of her and of her behavior. Mary felt as if she were floating over the
landscape like a cloud, a thundercloud, true, but a serene one. All that needed to be said to this now
scarlet-faced woman was said. From high
up, the cloudlike Mary saw the tears flow down the vicious face; saw the
Colonel as he tried to divert her from her necessary task; saw Julia Grant as
she dared to interrupt her.
In a way,
Julia Grant was the worst, of course.
Whores were whores everywhere and the good wife could always manage to
shame them, if they were truly shameless, to drive them away. But Mrs. Grant was a threat. Mrs. Grant was the wife of a hero—a
butcher-hero, of course, but still a hero to the stupid public. Mrs. Grant was also insolent. She had sat unbidden in the presence of the
First Lady. But then it was no secret
that she was already scheming to be herself First Lady one day. “I suppose,” said Mary, with incredible
cunning and the kindliest of smiles, “that you think you’ll get to the White
House yourself, don’t you?”
Mrs.
Grant—whose eyes were as crossed and flawed as her character-dared to answer,
“We are quite happy—where we are, Mrs. Lincoln.”
“Well, you
had better take it if you can get it.”
Mary was delighted with her own subtlety. She was, however, somewhat taken aback by the
sound of a woman screaming. Could it be
Mrs. Ord? No, she was weeping silently. Mary then wondered where the screaming was
coming from as she said, coolly, “It’s very nice, the White House.” Then Mary saw the fiery nimbus around Julia
Grant’s head; and then Mary realized that the screaming that she heard was herself. Then Mary ceased to be conscious of where she
was.
[Spat #3]
But it was
not The Headache, because that same evening, aboard the River Queen, Mary was almost herself again. Naturally, she had been humiliated by Mrs.
Ord in public view; and insulted by Mrs. Grant in private. But Mary presided at the dinner table with,
she thought, admirable poise. She did find it disturbing that she could not
recall how she had got from the reviewing stand back to the ship.
In fact, as
they sat at dinner with six staff officers—and Mrs. Grant to the President’s
right and General Grant to Mary’s right, she was not entirely certain how the
dinner had begun. But now that everything was going so smoothly, she felt that
she could murmur to Grant, “I hope that you will, in future, control Mrs. Ord,
whose exhibition today, in pursuit of my husband, caused so much unfavorable
comment.”
General
Grant’s response was not clear. But the
President said, “Now Mother, I hardly knew the lady was present.”
“For no want
of trying,” Mary was regal. “Anyway, why
should she, or any woman, be here?”
Ord needs
her,” said Grant.
“The way
General Grant needs me at times,” said Mrs. Grant.
“Oh, we all
know about those times,” Mary
began. But the President cut her
off. “Mother, the army band is coming
aboard after dinner. There will be
dancing.”
“We thought
it might be gay,” said Mrs. Grant. “In
all this horror. To forget for a
moment.’
“I am glad
it makes you glad.” Mary was consummately gracious. She turned to Lincoln. “Everyone seems agreed that General Ord is
the principal reason the Army of the James has been stopped here for so many,
many months now. Mary felt that she had
now outflanked the Grants. “If he were
to be replaced might we not be able to win the war more quickly?”
“Now,
Mother...” Lincoln seemed very distant from her at this end of the table. She had some difficulty in hearing his voice
but she had no difficulty hearing General Grant, who said, “Ord is a fine
officer. I cannot do without him.”
As Mary explained
to General Grant the urgent need to replace Ord, she felt a sudden swimming
ecstasy that suffused her entire body and mind.
Simultaneously, again like a cloud or, perhaps, the moon, she was
floating far, far above the table. She
was a little girl in Lexington again; and there were her dolls, far below, at a
tea party.
[Excerpt #9]
Mary Lincoln’s High
Dudgeon
Excerpt from
“Mary Todd Lincoln, A Biography,” By Jean H. Baker, 1987
In one spectacular public instance,
the President was mortified by her behavior on the parade grounds near Malvern
Hill on the south side of the James River on March 26, 1865.
Late that
morning Mary Lincoln left the River Queen
and, accompanied by Julia Grant, entered the slow moving ambulance carriage
that had been assigned to her. The grand
review was planned for early afternoon, but it seemed that she would never
arrive. Passage along corduroyed roads
made of lashed together striplings was nerve-rackingly slow and constantly
jarring. Once after a terrific bounce her head slammed against the top of the
ambulance and a migraine started. She
began to fear that she would miss the parade.
Increasingly
impatient and angry, Mary Lincoln berated horses, driver, aides, and Julia
Grant. At one point she tried to abandon
the coach and walk, but the mud of Virginia’s springtime proved as impassable
as the roads.
When Mary
Lincoln finally arrived, the review had begun.
From her inconspicuous position on the parade grounds, she immediately
spied her husband on horseback, his top hat visible above everything save the
flags and battle standards. Alongside
him, in an elegant feathered Robin Hood’s cap (the kind popularized by Empress
Eugenie), rode the handsome Mrs. Mary Ord, astride a magnificent bay that she
handled, as Mary Lincoln heard once too often, with splendid horsemanship.
Never under
strict control, Mary Lincoln’s temper was now given a very public display
before the entire high command of the Army of the Potomac. After clambering out of the hateful ambulance
toward the President, according to one officer (Adam Badeau): “Mrs. Lincoln
repeatedly attacked her husband in the presence of the officers because of Mrs.
Ord and earlier another General’s wife, Mrs. Charles Griffin (Sallie), who had
also been on the reviewing field.
“President
Lincoln, “Badeau continued, “bore it as Christ might have done with an
expression of pain and sadness that cut one to the heart, but with supreme
calmness and dignity. He called her
mother, with his old-time plainness. He
pleaded with eyes and tones, until she turned on him like a tigress and then he
walked away hiding that noble ugly face so that we might not catch the full
expression of its misery.” Though this
version was written long after, other accounts testify to Mary Lincoln’s high
dudgeon that March day of 1865.
Later that
evening, on the River Queen, she continued to vent her anger as she lashed out
at Mrs. Grant and the President within earshot of the entire dinner party
consisting of guests of honor: the Grants and Grant’s staff. She insisted that General Grant must dismiss
General Ord to atone for her humiliation.
Unfortunately
that day at City Point—at least from her perspective—the President had committed
an egregious assault on the established procedures of their marital
agreement. To a woman who still imagined
herself as his political partner, a public display of anger was justified in
return for her public embarrassment.
Later, as
she always did, Mary Lincoln paid the price for her temper. Mortified and apologetic, she stayed in her
cabin on the River Queen and was only seen walking along the bank near Point of
Rocks with Tad and Robert or sitting in a chair on the ship’s stern. Those who inquired were told that she was
indisposed, as indeed, she was. No doubt
the ride, the migraine producing bump, the anger at Mrs. Ord’s usurpation of
her limelight, and the ensuing scene had incapacitated Mary Lincoln with a bad
case of self-inflicted shame.
She and Tad
soon left for Washington leaving the President at City Point for a few more
days.
She had
arrived late to the parade grounds, and when she saw him riding alongside the
handsome Mrs. Mary Ord, the First Lady berated the President before the high
command of the Union Army.
[Excerpt #10.]
Mary was out of
control
Excerpt from
“A House Divided” PBS’ American
Experience script.
On March 23, the Lincolns boarded the
River Queen at Washington and set out for Grant's headquarters at City Point, Virginia
-- just 20 miles from the Confederate capital. The President was worn out, but
he wanted to visit the army that now seemed so close to victory. Mary insisted
on going too. She needed to be near him. She lived in fear, she wrote a friend,
that "the deep waters through which we have passed will overwhelm
me."
Three days later, Mary and Mrs. Grant were scheduled to join
their husbands at a Grand Review of the Union army. As their carriage bumped
slowly along deeply rutted roads, jolting the two women, Mary grew more and
more agitated. Her pent-up anxieties and closely guarded fears were about to
explode for all the world to see. By the time Mary reached the parade ground,
her husband was already riding down the line of troops.
Mrs. Edward Ord, the Commanding General's wife was at his
side -- in Mary's place. Mary erupted in fury, loudly accusing the innocent
woman of flirting with her husband. Mrs. Ord burst into tears.
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Historian: There was not the slightest
hint that the President was flirting with Mrs. Ord. It is true however that
Mary worried about flirtations, even when they didn't exist.
Linda Levitt Turner, Biographer: Mary was an incorrigible
flirt and I think she projected her own tendencies, which were just to make her
feel better, make her feel younger, perfectly innocent, but she projected those
fantasies in dead seriousness onto other women.
Narrator: Then Mary shouted at the President himself,
demanding that he remove the woman's husband from his command. Mrs. Grant tried
to restrain her, but Mary was out of control.
Linda Levitt Turner, Biographer: It was the first really
open public display of their differences that they had ever permitted
themselves since he became President.
Narrator: At dinner on board the steamer that evening, Mary
resumed her tirade. Embarrassed guests tried not to look.
"Lincoln bore it," one remembered, "as Christ
might have done, with an expression of pain and sadness that cut one to the
heart, but with supreme calmness and dignity. He called her 'Mother,' with his
old-time plainness... 'til she turned on him like a tigress; and then he walked
away, hiding that noble, ugly face that we might not catch the full expression
of his misery."
The Lincolns stayed on at City Point while the President
conferred with his commanders. He ordered Grant and Sherman not to let the
rebels get away this time. But he also urged them to offer the most generous
terms of surrender:
Voice of Lincoln (David Morse): "Let them all go,
officers and all, I want submission and no more bloodshed.... I want no one
punished.... We want those people to return to their allegiance to the
Union."
Narrator: After her humiliating outburst, Mary Lincoln did
not leave her cabin for three days. The President explained she wasn't feeling
well, then he sent her home to Washington. She later claimed her husband had
had a dream that the White House had burned down and had asked her to go and
see if it were true.
Lincoln remained behind. He did not want to miss the all-out
attack on Petersburg that was about to begin. He hoped it would be the final
battle of the war.
[Excerpt #11.]
Julia Grant’s Relationship
with Mary Lincoln
Certainly with pride and perhaps with
a farsighted ambition for her long-held belief her husband would become
President, towards the end of the war, Julia Grant implored her husband to
invite the President and Mrs. Lincoln to visit him at his Virginia encampment
at City Point. Ignoring his belief that, as commander-in-chief, Lincoln would
tour any military installation he wished to, she discovered from First Son
Robert Lincoln, then serving as a captain to General Grant, that his parents
welcomed an invitation, which they soon received and accepted.
At the time,
the public knew little about the tensions that developed between Julia Grant
and Mary Lincoln. As the central image of a popular drawing of the “Grand
Reception” at the White House on the occasion of Lincoln’s March 1865 second
Inauguration, Julia Grant was shown smiling as she shakes hands with the
President and the First Lady.
Much lore
exists about what amounts to a feud in the closing months of the Civil War between
First Lady Mary Lincoln and the General’s wife Julia Grant. Their initial
meeting took place at Grant’s City Point, Virginia headquarters in March of
1865, when the President and his wife arrived for an inspection tour and stay
there.
Rather than express
gratitude to Mrs. Grant for encouraging the Lincoln visit, the First Lady was
put off by her presence, remarking that she “thought ladies were not allowed in
camp.” To this, Mrs. Grant smilingly replied, “General Grant is much opposed to
their being present, but when I wanted to come I wrote him a nice, coaxing
letter, and permission was always granted.” Mrs. Lincoln, however, was not
amused by this.
Shortly
after, Mrs. Grant came to call, seating herself next to Mary Lincoln on a
coach, which provoked the latter to snap, “How dare you?” In recalling the
incident, Mrs. Grant’s sister later claimed that the general’s wife, outraged
at such rudeness, walked out.
When both
women were driven to the front after battle, to join their husbands, Grant aides
Horace Porter and Adam Badeau were eyewitness to the women’s interactions.
Badeau mentioned to them that due to reports of continued skirmishes it was
thought wiser that all women be sent into retreat and that General Charles
Griffin’s wife had sought and received permission from the President to move
forward. This sent Mrs. Lincoln into a rage, yelling, “What do you mean by
that, sir? Do you mean to say that she saw the President alone? Do you know
that I never allow the President to see any woman alone?" She then
insisted, "I will ask the President if he saw that woman alone," and
ordered the coachman to halt. Horrified at this behavior, Julia Grant gingerly
attempted to calm her, later instructing the aide to keep the incident to
himself.
When later,
Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant were delayed as they were being transported to join
the President and the General at a military review, Sally Ord, the attractive
wife of another general, alone on horseback, was told not to wait for the other
women but rather to join the President, also on horseback, who had begun the
review without waiting for his wife and Mrs. Grant. When the vehicle with the
two women finally approached within sight of the review, Mrs. Lincoln was
livid, yelling at an aide, "What does the woman mean by riding by the side
of the President and ahead of me? Does she suppose that he wants her by the
side of him?” She then turned on Mrs. Ord. According to Grant’s aide Adam
Badeau, the First Lady "positively insulted her…[with] vile names in the
presence of a crowd of officers, and asked what she meant by following up the
President."
Mrs. Ord
burst out crying, prompting Julia Grant to defend her. This then provoked Mary
Lincoln to verbally assault Julia Grant: "I suppose you think you'll get
to the White House yourself, don't you?"
Julia Grant
remained calm, remarking that she was happy with her lot in life, and it was a
greater status than she’d ever imagined she would attain. This only further
angered Mary Lincoln, who finally snapped, "Oh! You had better take it if
you can get it. ? Tis very nice."
There was at
least one other known encounter between the two women. When an aide invited by
Robert Lincoln onto the River Queen, the official vessel being used by the
President and his wife lingered with Julia Grant in an inner cabin, she noticed
Mrs. Lincoln standing alone by herself on the deck, and urged him to fetch a
chair for the First Lady. When he approached her politely with the chair, she
sharply dismissed him, and then called Mrs. Grant to her side. This encounter
was apparently friendly enough, but the First Lady asked Mrs. Grant to have the
aide removed from the River Queen. Further, Mrs. Lincoln insisted that her boat
must always be closest to the shore and would not cross over the Grant vessel,
The Martin, to walk to land.
It has been
speculated that the “feud” was less about personal animosity between the two
women and rooted more in Mary Lincoln’s initial judgment of Grant as a
“butcher,” and Julia Grant’s resentment of that sentiment. There is also some
indication that she held an ultimately sympathetic if removed perspective on
Mrs. Lincoln and the emotional instability, which the Civil War had created for
her. That point was reflected in her
published memoirs shortly after leaving the White House.
PillartoPost.org Bottom
Line Analysis:
Embarrassing as Mrs. Lincoln’s
behavior was on the 25th and 26th of March 1865, that
embarrassment would have paled in
comparison with one huge “if” that occurred on March 25. Had the starved Confederate troops under
siege and trapped in Petersburg trenches succeeded in their March 25 surprise
breakout attack on the Union troops manning Ft. Stedman, the rebels could have
easily marched into nearby City Point and rounded up Grant, Sherman, Sheridan
and the entire Presidential entourage in attendance.
That
embarrassment didn’t happen because the confederates at that stage in the war
were under nourished, under manned and under equipped in manpower and materiel
to accomplish the amazing opportunity presented to them.
Fortunately
that day, the Union troops recovered and repelled the CSA’s surprise attack
thus saving what would have been an even larger embarrassment for the nation.
The near
Union fiasco at Ft. Stedman (about 7 miles from City Point) underscored the
folly in which Abraham Lincoln exhibited in visiting the (yet unsecured) front
lines of the war in the first place.
