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00:00On March 17, 1862, Abraham Lincoln at last got some good news.
00:20General George McClellan's mighty Army of the Potomac was finally on the move.
00:30121,000 men, 14,000 horses and mules, 1,100 wagons were heading south.
00:53It would take three weeks to get it all to their jumping off point, Fort Monroe, Virginia.
01:00McClellan promised great heroic exertions, rapid and long marches, desperate combats,
01:07all leading to the capture of the Confederate capital at Richmond, just 70 miles away.
01:13His strategy for victory was fairly simple.
01:17Take a huge army down the Potomac, march up the Yorktown Peninsula, encircle Richmond,
01:24try to draw out the Confederate Army.
01:26If they came out, fight them with overwhelming odds.
01:29And this would be the end of the Civil War.
01:32Richmond would surrender.
01:33He'd be a national hero and he'd be president in 1864.
01:36And he had presidential ambitions from the very beginning.
01:38But McClellan soon stalled.
01:42He had persuaded himself that his enormous army was somehow outnumbered
01:47by the small rebel force that stood in his way at Yorktown.
01:52Instead of attacking it, he settled in for a siege and began calling for reinforcements.
01:58While McClellan dug in, the president impatiently studied maps of the peninsula and called for action.
02:11To Major General McClellan, you now have over 100,000 troops with you.
02:18I think you better break the enemy's line from Yorktown to Warwick River at once.
02:22They will probably use time as advantageously as you can.
02:28A. Lincoln
02:28The president, the general wrote his wife, very coolly telegraphed me
02:35that he thought I had better break the enemy's lines at once.
02:39I was much tempted to reply that he had better come here and do it himself.
02:44To Major General McClellan,
02:46Once more, let me tell you, it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow.
02:53I am powerless to help this.
02:56I have never written you in greater kindness of feeling than now,
03:00nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you.
03:03But you must act.
03:04Six weeks after Willie Lincoln's death,
03:17the little family in the executive mansion was still grieving.
03:22Mary refused to see most visitors,
03:24but on April 5th, draped in morning black,
03:28she met in the red room with an old friend,
03:30a clergyman from Springfield.
03:32The clergyman was astonished by the ferocity of her loyalty to the Union
03:38and to her husband.
03:41One of her brothers, three half-brothers, and three brothers-in-law
03:45were now fighting for the Confederacy.
03:50Mary said she hoped they would all be killed or captured.
03:53They would kill my husband if they could
03:57and destroy our government,
04:00the dearest of all things to us.
04:03The next day, in a wood filled with spring blossoms
04:12near a little whitewashed Mississippi church called Shiloh,
04:16Union forces under Carlos Buell
04:18and a general from Illinois named Ulysses S. Grant
04:22won what seemed like a great victory.
04:24The whole North celebrated.
04:30Lincoln rejoiced at the news.
04:39But when the lists of casualties began appearing in the newspapers,
04:43the celebration abruptly ended.
04:45More than 20,000 men had been killed or wounded.
04:53Among the dead was Mary's half-brother, Sam,
04:57shot through the head as he led a Confederate charge.
05:00That May, Union armies seemed poised for a series of victories.
05:17Union vessels had blasted their way up the Mississippi
05:20to take the Confederacy's most important port, New Orleans.
05:25And McClellan's Army of the Potomac
05:27was once more driving toward Richmond.
05:30Now, just six miles away.
05:36Then, McClellan halted
05:37and again demanded reinforcements.
05:42Lincoln was in a very tough position with McClellan.
05:46Lincoln thought that a well-led army
05:48marching into the South would be able to carry the day.
05:52But it just didn't happen
05:53because the army was not as well-led
05:55as Lincoln expected it would have been.
05:57The trouble with McClellan was that he was psychologically unable
06:02to commit this mechanism that he had created to battle.
06:08He was afraid that having created this wonderful machine,
06:11if he started it up, he might destroy it.
06:14Meanwhile, Richmond's Confederate defenders got a new commander.
06:20A soldier from Virginia, thought so brilliant
06:23that the Lincoln administration had once offered him command of the Union armies.
06:28Every day, Lincoln walked to the War Department next door to the White House
06:43and sat alongside the telegraph,
06:46desperate for news of the fighting.
06:52Lee struck first at Mechanicsville
06:54on June 26th.
06:59In a series of battles that followed over the next seven days,
07:04Gaines Mill,
07:05Savage's Station,
07:08Fraser's Farm,
07:11Lee forced McClellan to retreat.
07:12After 14 weeks,
07:22McClellan had accomplished nothing whatsoever.
07:26But he stubbornly insisted he had not been defeated.
07:30He had merely failed to win, he said,
07:32because he had been overpowered by superior numbers.
07:36As news of McClellan's retreat came in,
07:46Lincoln got much of the blame.
07:49Even members of Lincoln's own party
07:51faulted the president's leadership.
07:54Lincoln may be honest,
07:56wrote one prominent abolitionist,
07:58but nobody cares whether the tortoise is honest or not.
08:02As long as you keep the present turtle at the head of the government,
08:07you dig a pit with one hand and fill it with the other.
08:19Lincoln couldn't sleep,
08:21couldn't eat.
08:23He lost so much weight,
08:25seemed so careworn,
08:26that an old friend told him he feared for his health.
08:30I cannot take my vittles regular,
08:33he told the doctor.
08:35I kind of just browse around.
08:43With McClellan's retreat from Richmond,
08:47Lincoln now came to realize
08:48that the war would be long and bloody.
08:53Lincoln had felt that one climactic battle
08:55could carry the day and end the Civil War.
08:57He didn't measure the enemy correctly.
09:01He didn't see the tenacity of the South.
09:05He didn't perceive early on the nature of the war,
09:09the deep-going feelings for secession in the South.
09:12That summer, the Lincolns left the executive mansion
09:26with all its sad memories
09:27and moved to the outskirts of town
09:30to a cottage on the grounds of the soldiers' home.
09:33Our home is very beautiful.
09:39The grounds around us are enchanting.
09:41The world still smiles and pays homage.
09:45Yet everything appears a mockery.
09:51When I can bring myself
09:53to realize that Willie has indeed passed away,
09:55my question to myself is,
09:58can life be endured?
10:02Months had passed since Willie's death,
10:05but Mary was still wracked by spasms of weeping,
10:09often unable to get out of bed for days at a time,
10:12paralyzed by depression.
10:15Lincoln began to fear for his wife's sanity.
10:18She had already begun to show certain signs
10:21of imbalance, of instability,
10:24and Lincoln worried about this.
10:26Now, with Willie's death,
10:27it's almost as if she and he
10:29walked down very opposite paths.
10:31The continued absorption and distance of Lincoln
10:34as the war intensified and deepened,
10:37combined with her agonies,
10:42her yearnings, her confusions,
10:44her deep depression over the loss,
10:47and she had no way of trying to comprehend it.
10:53Madam Harris,
10:55I am in need of a mourning bonnet.
10:58I want one made with folds of black crepe,
11:01the finest jet black English crepe.
11:06I want it got up with great taste and gentility.
11:13Mary continued to try to find comfort in possessions.
11:17She bought new dresses, hats.
11:22It was said that in three months,
11:24she purchased 300 pairs of gloves.
11:27Many of her purchases were never even unpacked.
11:32After Willie's death,
11:33the shopping becomes even more obsessive.
11:37Somehow, as the world seems to be spinning out of control,
11:41the only thing to take her mind off the sadness was shopping.
11:46And it became a desperate effort on her part
11:51to find something she could hold on to
11:53that most of all would not die and leave her.
11:56A chair or a desk or a dress doesn't go away.
12:00It doesn't die.
12:01It doesn't leave you.
12:01As North and South faced off,
12:25thousands of slaves fled toward the Union lines.
12:29They refused to wait for anyone else to free them.
12:34Union officers ordered them to go back.
12:39They kept coming anyway.
12:41Many within the president's own Republican Party
12:49demanded that he declare an end to slavery.
12:53Destroy once and for all the institution
12:56that had brought on the war they seemed incapable of winning.
12:59Henceforth, said the abolitionist Frederick Douglass,
13:07himself a former slave,
13:10let the war cry be down with slavery,
13:13the cause of treason.
13:17But Lincoln refused to act.
13:20Under great pressure to do something about slavery,
13:23Lincoln held back for a very long period of time.
13:26The Constitution protected slavery where it existed.
13:31And Lincoln's policy, the Republican policy,
13:33had always been,
13:35let us confine slavery,
13:37let us prohibit its extension to the territories,
13:40and the hope was
13:41that it will ultimately be contained and die out.
13:45Lincoln would not be pushed.
13:49When two impetuous generals issued orders
13:53meant to liberate the slaves in their districts,
13:56he demanded that the orders instantly be withdrawn.
14:00And when his Secretary of War,
14:01on his own initiative,
14:03called for the arming of the slaves,
14:05Lincoln sent him off to be his minister to Moscow.
14:08The Republicans who controlled Congress
14:15grew more and more impatient.
14:17They enacted laws that kept Union officers
14:20from returning slaves to their masters,
14:23barred slavery from the District of Columbia,
14:26finally, barred it from the Western Territories, too.
14:29But many Republicans continued to call on Lincoln
14:33to act against the institution of slavery itself.
14:37And he continued to refuse.
14:40He hated slavery.
14:42He despised slavery.
14:43He would have loved to have seen slavery ended.
14:45Lincoln, however, felt that there was something else,
14:50that there was something else more important
14:52than freedom of slaves,
14:54and that was the preservation of the Union.
14:56And so therein lies a very serious contradiction.
15:02Freeing the slaves or accomplishing anything else
15:05could not be done unless the Union was preserved.
15:10If you cannot win the war,
15:11you cannot accomplish any of the other goals
15:14that become part of the war effort.
15:17So, first and foremost, we must preserve the Union.
15:21He makes it very clear
15:23that he is the president of the nation,
15:27and he wants a nation to be president of.
15:30The northern community is very racist.
15:34He fears what would happen
15:36if he calls for emancipation immediately.
15:40If he calls for emancipation,
15:43then the border states, which are slave states,
15:45are going to balk.
15:46And there's already a lot of contention in the border states,
15:50and the northern sympathizers
15:52are having trouble hanging on as well.
15:56I would do it
15:57if I were not afraid
15:59that half the officers would fling down their arms
16:02and three more states would rise.
16:04While Lincoln hesitated,
16:13thousands of slaves continued to make their way
16:15through Confederate lines.
16:20Union officers called them contrabands.
16:28They lived crowded together
16:29in hastily built refugee camps,
16:31some within a few miles of the White House.
16:42And in spite of the dangers,
16:45more and more kept coming.
16:46While her husband continued to resist demands
17:10to end slavery,
17:12Mary Lincoln turned for comfort
17:14to a former slave,
17:16a skilled seamstress
17:17who had become her constant companion,
17:20Elizabeth Keckley.
17:24Elizabeth Keckley
17:25had once worked for the woman
17:27who was to become the First Lady
17:29of the Confederate States of America,
17:31Mrs. Jefferson Davis.
17:33Now, Elizabeth
17:35was one of the few people
17:37Mary felt she could trust.
17:38Mary Ketley
17:39Keckley dressed her,
17:41made her clothes,
17:42fixed her hair,
17:43and Keckley listened,
17:45empathized,
17:46and Mary felt
17:47she could talk to Elizabeth
17:49in a way that she could not talk
17:51to the gossiping,
17:53jealous women of Washington.
17:55So,
17:56they became confidants.
17:57As their friendship deepened,
18:08Elizabeth found a way
18:09to help Mary.
18:11Elizabeth, too,
18:12had lost a son
18:13during the war,
18:14but she had learned
18:15not to let her grief
18:17overwhelm her.
18:19Keckley could say,
18:20I know what you're going through.
18:22I lost my son, too.
18:24and one way
18:26of dealing with it
18:27for me
18:27is to involve myself
18:29in ways of alleviating
18:31other people's pain.
18:36To assist the thousands
18:37of ex-slaves
18:38now crowded into camps
18:40behind the Union lines,
18:42Keckley had helped form
18:43the Contraband Relief Association,
18:46dedicated to providing food
18:48and clothes
18:49and finding them jobs.
18:54I know what liberty is,
18:58she told Mary,
18:59because I know
19:01what slavery was.
19:05Mary was kind of impulsive,
19:08and she reacted
19:10from the heart
19:11and became very interested
19:14in the plight
19:14of African Americans.
19:16And gradually,
19:18Mary began to help
19:19the Contrabands
19:20with Elizabeth Keckley.
19:21It opened up
19:24a different world
19:25for Mary.
19:27And in one way,
19:28it was an extension
19:29of her grief,
19:30but in another way,
19:31it was a way
19:32of dealing with it.
19:35But her husband
19:37did not have
19:38a real strong relationship
19:40with any African Americans.
19:42African Americans
19:43were pretty much
19:44of a mystery
19:44to Abraham Lincoln.
19:47That summer,
19:48he called a delegation
19:49of black leaders
19:50to the White House.
19:52It was the first time
19:54such a delegation
19:55had ever been asked
19:56to the executive mansion.
19:58He wanted their reaction
19:59to a plan
20:00he was considering.
20:02Your race
20:03is suffering
20:04the greatest wrong
20:05inflicted on any people.
20:07On this broad continent,
20:09not a single man
20:10of your race
20:11is made the equal
20:12of a single man
20:13of ours.
20:14It is a fact
20:16with which we have
20:17to deal.
20:18I cannot alter it.
20:21It is better
20:23for us both
20:23to be separated.
20:26There is an unwillingness
20:28on the part
20:28of our people,
20:30harsh as it may be,
20:32for you free colored people
20:34to remain with us.
20:38Lincoln proposed
20:39voluntary colonization.
20:42African Americans
20:43would be encouraged
20:44to settle elsewhere.
20:45in Liberia,
20:48Haiti,
20:48Central America.
20:50It was a variation
20:51of an old scheme
20:52for solving the problem
20:53between the races.
20:56He told them
20:57that I would like
20:58to have you colonized
21:00where you can be free
21:01and achieve on your own
21:04because my race
21:06will not allow you
21:07to prosper
21:09in this country
21:09and it would be
21:10to your advantage
21:11to leave.
21:12When Frederick Douglass
21:15heard of the president's
21:16proposal,
21:16he charged Lincoln
21:17with canting hypocrisy
21:19and contempt
21:20for Negroes.
21:22His words,
21:23Douglass said,
21:23would encourage
21:24ignorant and base
21:25white men
21:26to commit all kinds
21:27of violence
21:28and outrage
21:29upon colored people.
21:31The idea
21:32of colonizing them
21:34as a way
21:34of solving
21:35the problem
21:37of race
21:38was insulting
21:39to them
21:39and they said so.
21:40they wanted none of it.
21:43Lincoln's colonization scheme
21:45revealed his
21:46desire
21:49that the problem
21:51go away,
21:52that if African Americans
21:55would just leave,
21:58then the issue
21:59would leave with them.
22:04By the summer
22:06of 1862,
22:07the war was going
22:08from bad to worse
22:09for the Union.
22:11On the peninsula,
22:13McClellan's forces
22:14had gotten nowhere.
22:17On the Mississippi,
22:19Union armies
22:20were bogged down
22:21in front of Vicksburg.
22:23In Kentucky
22:24and Tennessee,
22:26northern troops
22:27seemed unable
22:27to stop raids
22:28by Confederate cavalry.
22:32There was now
22:34new pressure
22:34on Lincoln
22:35to free the slaves.
22:36The military situation
22:43had collapsed.
22:44That had the effect
22:46of convincing
22:47Lincoln
22:48that the Union
22:49had been waging
22:50this war
22:51with kid gloves.
22:52They had not
22:53struck against
22:54the heart
22:55of the rebellion.
22:56What was the heart
22:57of the rebellion?
22:59It was the slave power.
23:01It was slavery
23:02that sustained
23:02the Confederate economy.
23:03It was to defend slavery
23:05that the South
23:07had seceded
23:07in the first place.
23:09And Lincoln
23:10began to see
23:11that the Union
23:12could never win
23:13a war waged
23:14against a slave power
23:16without striking
23:17at slavery itself.
23:19The military argument
23:20was the one
23:21that would carry
23:22the most weight
23:22with Northerners
23:23who would not favor
23:24a war against slavery
23:26on moral,
23:28ideological,
23:29or political grounds
23:31but could be convinced
23:32to support emancipation
23:34as a military measure.
23:36And he decides
23:38essentially
23:38for military reasons
23:40to attack slavery
23:42by the summer
23:43of 1862.
23:45These happily coincide
23:48with his personal
23:49moral feelings.
23:50But now,
23:51he can let
23:52his moral feelings
23:54take reign.
23:56On July 22nd,
23:59Lincoln summoned
24:00his cabinet.
24:01I said to the cabinet
24:03that I had resolved
24:04upon this step
24:05and had not called
24:06them together
24:07to ask their advice
24:08but to lay the subject
24:10matter of a proclamation
24:11before them.
24:13He began writing
24:14his emancipation
24:15proclamation
24:16quite privately,
24:18a little bit at a time,
24:19and presented it
24:20to the cabinet.
24:21I, Abraham Lincoln,
24:24President of the United States,
24:26to hereby proclaim
24:27to and warn
24:28all persons within...
24:29At that point,
24:29Seward,
24:30his secretary of state,
24:31said to him,
24:32you can't issue it now
24:33because after a series
24:35of major defeats,
24:36it would look like
24:37a last shriek
24:38on our retreat.
24:40You've got to wait
24:40for a victory.
24:43Lincoln put his
24:44emancipation proclamation
24:45back in his desk
24:47and waited.
24:48He was awake
24:49and waited.
24:49Transcription by CastingWords
25:20Mary Lincoln was desperate to communicate somehow with her dead sons.
25:26In the darkness of the medium's parlor, drums tapped, horns blew, bells rang, mysterious voices were heard, all said to be messages from the dead.
25:40With thousands of men dying on the battlefields, Mary was one of many who turned to spiritualists for comfort.
25:51Only a very slight veil separates us from the loved and lost.
26:05The ones seen by us, they are very near.
26:08At the soldiers' home, at a clairvoyance house in Georgetown, even in the White House, Mary attended seances.
26:22Lincoln himself sat in on at least one.
26:28Seances, he said, reminded him of cabinet meetings.
26:32The spirits, like members of his cabinet, gave contradictory advice.
26:36But he felt that charlatans were exploiting his wife's grief.
26:48Mary's behavior continued to alarm him.
26:51One evening at the White House, Elizabeth Keckley remembered,
26:54Lincoln steered Mary to a window and pointed to a distant building, an asylum.
27:02Mother, do you see that large white building on that hill yonder?
27:08Try and control your grief.
27:10Or it will drive you mad.
27:13And we may have to send you there.
27:14Mary struggled to regain her equilibrium, for Lincoln's sake, if not her own.
27:28The Lincolns began visiting Army hospitals together.
27:32They brought bunches of flowers and delicacies from the White House kitchen.
27:37And they tried not to show their emotions at the terrible sights they saw all around them.
27:44Mary would sit with the soldiers.
27:56She would talk to them.
27:57And I think give them great comfort and take great comfort herself
28:00from being with others who were experiencing the pain of the war.
28:04She was able to stand up against the worst conditions,
28:10the smells, the sounds, the groans,
28:12and get through it somehow when, if a door slammed or a book fell at home,
28:17she would jump five feet.
28:23It took a certain strength to be willing to put herself through that.
28:28It must have reminded her of those last moments with Willie.
28:30When the president had other duties, Mary often made her visits alone.
28:39She read aloud to the men, served as waitress,
28:44donated $300 worth of lemons and oranges to combat scurvy.
28:50Sometimes wounded soldiers asked her to write letters home.
28:53I am sitting by the side of your soldier, boy.
29:02He has been quite sick, but is getting well.
29:07He tells me to say that he is all right.
29:13With respect for the mother of the young soldier,
29:17Mrs. Abraham Lincoln.
29:18Grateful Patience named a hospital for her.
29:26But Mary kept her visits to the wounded out of the press.
29:30If she were worldly wise, one of her husband's aides wrote,
29:34she would carry newspaper correspondence every time she went.
29:38Then she would bring the writers back to the White House
29:41and give them some cake and coffee.
29:44That August, Lincoln haunted the War Department.
30:00He paced the floor and bent anxiously over the coded messages
30:04coming in from the front.
30:08The reports were all bad.
30:14On August 30th, another federal advance toward Richmond
30:17ended in defeat on the same bull-run battlefield
30:20where the Union had been beaten a year earlier.
30:26The great victory Lincoln needed still seemed far away.
30:33Then on September 5th, Robert E. Lee,
30:36with a rebel army of 55,000 men,
30:39crossed the Potomac into Maryland
30:41and seemed bent on attacking Baltimore or Washington itself.
30:47To stop him, Lincoln turned again to George McClellan,
30:51who, despite his performance in battle,
30:53still had an enormous following.
30:58Members of the cabinet protested
31:00that McClellan was sure to fail.
31:03Lincoln answered only,
31:04we must use the tools we have.
31:08The president implored McClellan,
31:10please do not let Lee get off without being hurt.
31:20At first, the news from Maryland was good.
31:24McClellan caught up with Lee
31:25near the little town of Sharpsburg on Antietam Creek,
31:29had even captured copies of his battle plans.
31:32But instead of attacking right away,
31:35McClellan hesitated once again,
31:38giving Lee's army time to get into position.
31:45The battle that finally began the next morning,
31:48September 17th,
31:49would mark the bloodiest day in American history.
31:53The two great armies slammed at each other
32:04around the Dunkard Church,
32:08through the cornfield,
32:13along a sunken country road
32:19that came to be called Bloody Lane.
32:23Union forces twice seemed on the brink
32:26of destroying the rebel army.
32:29Each time, McClellan refused to order a final assault,
32:33persuaded that Lee had reserves
32:35hidden somewhere out of sight.
32:41By nightfall,
32:42though the Union army had lost more men,
32:45it had destroyed nearly one-third of Lee's forces.
32:48The battle,
32:52the battle, McClellan wrote his wife,
32:53had been sublime.
32:55Those in whose judgment I rely
32:57tell me that I fought the battle splendidly
33:00and that it was a masterpiece of art.
33:04To Major General McClellan,
33:06God bless you and all with you.
33:09Destroy the rebel army,
33:11if possible.
33:12The next morning,
33:18Lee braced for McClellan to attack him again.
33:22Lee's battered force
33:24was outnumbered three to one.
33:34The attack never came.
33:36Instead, McClellan ordered his men
33:41to hold their positions.
33:43Lee and his army
33:44were allowed to melt back into Virginia.
33:48Lincoln was furious.
33:50The North had lost
33:51its greatest opportunity of the war.
33:53The losses that day
34:12were staggering.
34:14Almost 6,000 dead.
34:16Another 17,000 wounded.
34:23Antietam was a terrible victory.
34:32Still, it was a victory.
34:35Enough for Lincoln
34:36to tell the nation of his plan
34:37for an emancipation proclamation.
34:41The fact that the rebels
34:42had been driven from northern soil,
34:44he said to an aide,
34:46was a sure sign
34:47that God has decided the question
34:50in favor of the slaves.
34:51On September 22nd,
34:55Lincoln announced
34:56that all slaves
34:57in any rebel state
34:58that was not back in the Union
34:59by New Year's Day, 1863,
35:02would be officially declared free.
35:07Nine days later,
35:08Lincoln visited
35:09the Antietam battlefield.
35:12He was still fuming.
35:14He had come to believe
35:15that the war could never be won
35:17unless the rebel armies
35:18were destroyed,
35:19and he wanted to talk
35:21to McClellan in person.
35:24Their meeting was polite
35:26but tense.
35:28The president insisted
35:29there was still time
35:30to pursue the rebels
35:31and destroy the army
35:33of Robert E. Lee.
35:36If McClellan did not do so,
35:38the president hinted,
35:39he would be forced
35:40to look to someone else
35:41to lead his army.
35:43When Lincoln visited McClellan,
35:45Lincoln, of course,
35:45talked with him
35:46about pursuing Lee.
35:48Why hadn't he done so earlier?
35:50When was he going to do so?
35:52When could he, in effect,
35:53bag the Confederate army?
35:55He got evasive answers
35:56on all of these points,
35:58and McClellan was simply
35:59basking in his victory,
36:01and he wasn't willing
36:02to undertake
36:02any new campaign.
36:05Once the president
36:06was back in Washington,
36:07the general came up
36:08with even more excuses
36:10for staying put.
36:11He needed more of everything,
36:13he said.
36:14Men, arms, supplies, horses.
36:16To Major General McClellan,
36:19I have just read
36:20your dispatch
36:21about sore-tongued
36:22and fatigued horses.
36:24Will you pardon me
36:25for asking what the horses
36:26of your army have done
36:27since the Battle of Antietam
36:29that fatigue anything?
36:30Lincoln realized
36:32McClellan had had it.
36:34He had to wait for a time
36:35to remove McClellan.
36:37This was not
36:38an appropriate moment,
36:39but he realized
36:40that McClellan really had to go.
36:41New York, November 2nd, 1862.
36:51My dear husband,
36:52I have waited in vain
36:54to hear from you,
36:55yet as you're not given
36:56to letter writing,
36:57will be charitable enough
36:58to impute your silence
37:00to the right cause.
37:03Dear little Taddy is well
37:04and enjoying himself very much.
37:07I must send you his tooth.
37:08Late that fall,
37:12Mary Lincoln had traveled
37:13once again to New York,
37:15where she indulged
37:16in still more
37:17of the frenzied shopping
37:18that always seemed
37:20to calm her agitated mind.
37:28At the same time,
37:29she and Elizabeth Keckley
37:31collected funds
37:32to help former slaves
37:33huddled together in camps,
37:35desperately in need
37:36of food and supplies.
37:40Lizzie Keckley says
37:42the immense number
37:42of contrabands
37:43are suffering intensely,
37:46many without bed covering
37:47and having to use
37:48bits of carpeting
37:49to cover themselves,
37:51many dying of want.
37:55I have given her
37:56the privilege
37:57of investing $200 here
37:59in bed covering.
38:01This sum,
38:02I am sure you will not object
38:03to being used in this way.
38:04The cause of humanity
38:06requires it.
38:12This is mid-19th century America.
38:15America is a racist society.
38:17America is a society
38:19in which in most cities,
38:20African Americans
38:21cannot even ride
38:22the streetcars.
38:23So imagine Mary Todd Lincoln,
38:27the first lady
38:29of the United States,
38:31and Elizabeth Keckley,
38:33an African American woman,
38:34seen after freed people together.
38:38I mean, imagine the first lady
38:40involved in this kind of activity.
38:44For nearly a month,
38:46Mary remained away from home,
38:48writing her husband
38:49chatty letters
38:50and reporting
38:51the political gossip
38:52she was hearing.
38:54My dear husband,
38:55many here say
38:56they would almost worship you
38:57if you would put
38:58a fighting general
38:59in the place of McClellan.
39:01This would be splendid weather
39:02for an engagement.
39:04I've had two suits of clothes
39:05made for tatty,
39:06which will come...
39:06But Lincoln couldn't
39:07replace McClellan yet.
39:09The dashing general
39:10was still popular.
39:12And with congressional elections
39:13coming up on November 4th,
39:15the president couldn't
39:16risk alienating voters.
39:17The war was going badly,
39:21and Lincoln was already
39:22taking much of the blame.
39:27Even some Republicans
39:28agreed with the poet
39:29John Greenleaf Whittier,
39:31who wrote of Lincoln that fall,
39:33I am much afraid
39:34that a domestic cat
39:36will not answer
39:37when one wants
39:38a Bengal tiger.
39:41Lincoln seemed exhausted,
39:43as one visitor put it,
39:45literally bending
39:46under the weight
39:47of his burdens.
39:53When the results
39:54of the election were in,
39:56the Republicans
39:57had lost five states
39:58that had gone for the president
39:59in 1860,
40:01including even
40:02Lincoln's own Illinois.
40:05The very next day,
40:06with nothing more to lose,
40:08Lincoln removed McClellan
40:09from command.
40:10Just five weeks later,
40:16fighting under a new general,
40:18Ambrose Burnside,
40:19the Army of the Potomac
40:21was beaten once again,
40:23this time at
40:24Fredericksburg, Virginia.
40:31More than 12,000 Union men
40:33were cut down
40:35before Burnside,
40:36in tears,
40:37finally called a halt.
40:38That winter,
40:48an old friend
40:49from Illinois
40:49was shocked
40:50at how Lincoln looked.
40:53His hair is grizzled,
40:55he said,
40:55his gait more stooping,
40:58his countenance sallow,
40:59and there's a sunken,
41:01deathly look
41:02about the large,
41:03cavernous eyes.
41:05It is a lesson
41:06for human ambition
41:08to look upon.
41:08On the morning
41:20of New Year's Day,
41:211863,
41:22the Executive Mansion
41:23was open to the public.
41:27So many visitors
41:28were expected
41:29that the downstairs furniture
41:30had to be piled
41:31in the Red Room.
41:32Mary Lincoln chose
41:38the moment
41:38to mark her return
41:40to formal public life
41:41after Willie's death.
41:42My position requires
41:46my presence,
41:47where my heart
41:48is so far from being.
41:53Oh, how much
41:53we have passed through
41:54since last we stood here.
41:58The First Lady
41:59could not bear it for long,
42:01and at noon
42:02she retreated upstairs.
42:04her husband stayed
42:08for two more hours,
42:09shaking hundreds of hands.
42:12But he had an important
42:13task to perform.
42:15He excused himself
42:16and hurried to his office.
42:20Whereas,
42:21on the 22nd of September,
42:23in the year of our Lord,
42:241862,
42:26the time had come
42:27to sign
42:27the Emancipation Proclamation.
42:30It was to go into effect
42:32at midnight.
42:32It's the dullest thing
42:36you ever read.
42:37It has no
42:37soaring isms
42:39and appeals
42:40to universal freedom.
42:42And this is a person
42:43who could do that.
42:44When Lincoln wanted
42:45to turn it on,
42:47he had no equal.
42:49And in this document,
42:51he decided not
42:52to turn it on.
42:53It is a matter
42:54of conscious effort.
42:58Now, therefore,
42:58I, Abraham Lincoln,
43:00President of the United States...
43:01Lincoln purposely
43:03attempted to downplay
43:05the moral aspects
43:07of the Emancipation Proclamation.
43:09He wanted it to be
43:10a solid legal document.
43:14And as a fit
43:15and necessary war measure
43:16for suppressing
43:17said rebellion...
43:18The proclamation
43:19was tightly drawn.
43:20It declared free
43:22only slaves
43:23living in rebellious states.
43:25Those residing
43:26in places seized
43:27by federal troops
43:28and in the border states
43:30of Kentucky,
43:31Maryland,
43:31Missouri,
43:32and Tennessee
43:32were to remain
43:34in bondage.
43:35The Emancipation Proclamation
43:36is a very limited document.
43:39It really is a beginning.
43:41It's not an end.
43:43It's only freeing
43:44those African Americans
43:45who are in rebel territory,
43:47whom he can't free anyway.
43:49But behind that
43:50is the notion
43:51that in due course
43:52the others will be free also.
43:54He couldn't say,
43:56these are going to be free
43:56and those will never be free.
43:58But he'd taken this step.
44:00And it was a process
44:01by which slaves
44:03could become free,
44:04others become free,
44:05and they finally
44:06all would become free.
44:07I think there's no question
44:08about that.
44:09The symbolism is there.
44:10It's very great,
44:10very powerful,
44:11and very effective.
44:13Secretary of State Seward
44:20and his son Fred
44:21laid the document
44:23out on the table
44:23around which
44:24the Cabinet
44:25ordinarily met.
44:28Lincoln took up
44:29a steel pen
44:30and dipped it in ink.
44:34African Americans
44:35gathered together
44:36throughout the North
44:37and waited.
44:38There was some doubt,
44:43some fear,
44:44I would say,
44:44that he wouldn't
44:45come through on it,
44:47that he wouldn't
44:47really issue
44:48this proclamation.
44:53And they said,
44:55well, this is showtime,
44:56so to speak.
44:57This is, you know,
44:58you've got to lay it down now
45:00that you can't put it off
45:01anymore.
45:01That morning,
45:05whatever doubts
45:06Lincoln may have had
45:07had vanished.
45:12I never in my life
45:14felt more certain
45:15that I was doing right
45:16than I do
45:17in signing this paper.
45:22His hand was stiff
45:24and swollen
45:24after all the handshaking.
45:27If they find
45:28my hand trembled,
45:29he said,
45:30they will say
45:31he had some
45:32compunctions.
45:33But anyway,
45:35it is going to be done.
45:38Abraham Lincoln's hand
45:40did not tremble.
45:45On the first day
45:47of January,
45:48in the year
45:48of our Lord,
45:491,863,
45:52all persons
45:53held as slaves
45:54within any state
45:56or designated
45:56part of a state,
45:58the people whereof
45:59shall then be
46:00in rebellion
46:00against the United States
46:02shall be then
46:04dance forward
46:05and forever
46:06free.
46:12It becomes
46:13a rallying cry.
46:15One of the great documents
46:16of all times
46:17that this man
46:18has set forth
46:19freedom,
46:21the right of people
46:23to be free,
46:24to be free.
46:29Free, free, free,
46:31an elderly ex-slave
46:33told a Washington
46:33newspaper man,
46:35oh, how good it is
46:37to be free
46:37and to know
46:38that what I earn
46:40is mine
46:40and that no man
46:42can ever say
46:44he owns my body
46:45or my soul.
46:46This war now
46:49was a great
46:50moral effort,
46:53a great battle
46:54for the hearts
46:56and souls
46:56of men
46:57and women.
47:01It now
47:02was not merely
47:03a mechanical
47:04or military
47:05operation
47:06to preserve
47:08the state.
47:09You could say
47:12all you wanted
47:12about saving
47:13the Union
47:13but now
47:15it's a war
47:16for freedom.
47:18It's a war
47:18for the emancipation
47:21of human beings.
47:24And that forever
47:25changed the country
47:26but also changed
47:27Lincoln himself.
47:29Having done it,
47:30he becomes
47:31a different leader
47:32and he becomes
47:33a different man.
47:35He grows.
47:36He changes.
47:37He becomes
47:38something
47:38that he wasn't.
47:46It was not a role
47:47that he really wanted
47:48and it took
47:52some growth
47:52to accept
47:53that that's what
47:55fate and destiny
47:56and providence
47:58and God
47:59had thrust upon him
48:01and to accept it
48:02and to do
48:04what he could
48:05to make
48:07it a reality.
48:08with his signature
48:14Lincoln had promised
48:15a new birth
48:16of freedom
48:17but he would
48:19somehow have
48:19to win the war
48:20to make that promise
48:21good.
48:23He would need
48:24to rally
48:24a sharply divided
48:25north
48:26and find a general
48:28who could crush
48:29the rebel armies
48:30of the South.
48:34The hardest fighting
48:35and worst hours
48:37of Lincoln's presidency
48:38still lay ahead.
48:40the chman
48:51of Lincoln's presidency
48:51is a mystery
48:53to be able to
48:54to help
48:54get the rest
48:54of the government