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Four Star General
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- Apr 23, 2005
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Here's the remainder of the review:
AS these internal Republican feuds suggest, the party in the 1860's was a coalition of politicians who only a few years earlier had been Whigs (Lincoln, Seward, Bates), Democrats (Blair, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Vice President Hannibal Hamlin), Free Soilers (Chase), or had flirted with the short-lived anti-immigrant American Party, or Know Nothings (Cameron and Bates). In addition, several cabinet members personally disliked each other: Blair and Chase, Seward and Welles, Chase and Seward, Blair and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who replaced Cameron in January 1862. Lincoln's "political genius" enabled him to herd these political cats and keep them driving toward ultimate victory.
How did he do it? Goodwin deals with this question better than any other writer. Part of the answer lay in Lincoln's steadfastness of purpose, which inspired subordinates to overcome their petty rivalries. Part of it lay in his superb sense of timing and his sensitivity to the pulse of public opinion as he moved to bring along a divided people to the support of "a new birth of freedom." And part of it lay in Lincoln's ability to rise above personal slights, his talent for getting along with men of clashing ideologies and personalities who could not get along with each other.
This temperament was best illustrated by Lincoln's relationship with Stanton, which Goodwin analyzes with great insight. In 1855 Lincoln had been retained as one of the attorneys for the defense in a patent-infringement suit brought by the McCormick reaper company. Because the case was initially scheduled to be tried in Chicago, the defense team needed an Illinois lawyer. But when the trial was moved to Cincinnati, the defense retained Stanton, one of the country's foremost attorneys, without bothering to inform Lincoln. When he arrived in Cincinnati after careful preparation, Stanton and his colleagues ignored him; Stanton was even heard to speak contemptuously of Lincoln as a backwoods bumpkin. Lincoln was hurt by the snub but stayed to watch the trial and was impressed by Stanton's courtroom brilliance. Six years later Stanton, a Democrat, was practicing in Washington during the war's first year and referred disdainfully to Lincoln in conversations with friends. Lincoln was aware of Stanton's opinions, but when he decided to get rid of the incompetent Cameron, who had made a hash of military mobilization, he appointed none other than Stanton as secretary of war.
Stanton soon justified the appointment. He worked 15-hour days at his stand-up desk and proved to be one of the best war secretaries the country has ever had. And like Seward, he soon changed his opinion of Lincoln, forging a close relationship with the president second only to Seward's. "No men were ever so deceived as we at Cincinnati," Stanton confessed to his former associate on the reaper case. No one was more grief-stricken by Lincoln's assassination than Stanton, who spoke the imperishable words as the president breathed his last: "Now he belongs to the ages." Lincoln's private secretary and confidant John Hay subsequently wrote to Stanton: "Not everyone knows, as I do, how close you stood to our lost leader, how he loved you and trusted you, and how vain were all the efforts to shake that trust and confidence."
"Team of Rivals" invites comparison with Goodwin's prize-winning account of another wartime president and his associates, "No Ordinary Time." Both portray the extraordinary leadership qualities of the commanders in chief in America's biggest wars. But "No Ordinary Time" is really a book about two leaders, Eleanor as well as Franklin Roosevelt, and about their complicated personal as well as official relationships with the women and men who were close to them. The only women conspicuous in "Team of Rivals" are Mary Lincoln and Salmon Chase's beautiful daughter Kate, who rivaled Mary Lincoln for status in Washington social circles. But they appear only occasionally and are not essential to the story. Goodwin depicts the sometimes splenetic Mary Lincoln with more sympathy than many historians have done, but cannot turn her into an Eleanor Roosevelt.
"Team of Rivals" is about men, not men and women. It does not range over the home front of factories and farms in the manner of "No Ordinary Time." It focuses on Washington and on the men who ran the war, chiefly Lincoln, Seward, Chase and Stanton. Within that sphere Goodwin has brilliantly described how Lincoln forged a team that preserved a nation and freed America from the curse of slavery.
AS these internal Republican feuds suggest, the party in the 1860's was a coalition of politicians who only a few years earlier had been Whigs (Lincoln, Seward, Bates), Democrats (Blair, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Vice President Hannibal Hamlin), Free Soilers (Chase), or had flirted with the short-lived anti-immigrant American Party, or Know Nothings (Cameron and Bates). In addition, several cabinet members personally disliked each other: Blair and Chase, Seward and Welles, Chase and Seward, Blair and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who replaced Cameron in January 1862. Lincoln's "political genius" enabled him to herd these political cats and keep them driving toward ultimate victory.
How did he do it? Goodwin deals with this question better than any other writer. Part of the answer lay in Lincoln's steadfastness of purpose, which inspired subordinates to overcome their petty rivalries. Part of it lay in his superb sense of timing and his sensitivity to the pulse of public opinion as he moved to bring along a divided people to the support of "a new birth of freedom." And part of it lay in Lincoln's ability to rise above personal slights, his talent for getting along with men of clashing ideologies and personalities who could not get along with each other.
This temperament was best illustrated by Lincoln's relationship with Stanton, which Goodwin analyzes with great insight. In 1855 Lincoln had been retained as one of the attorneys for the defense in a patent-infringement suit brought by the McCormick reaper company. Because the case was initially scheduled to be tried in Chicago, the defense team needed an Illinois lawyer. But when the trial was moved to Cincinnati, the defense retained Stanton, one of the country's foremost attorneys, without bothering to inform Lincoln. When he arrived in Cincinnati after careful preparation, Stanton and his colleagues ignored him; Stanton was even heard to speak contemptuously of Lincoln as a backwoods bumpkin. Lincoln was hurt by the snub but stayed to watch the trial and was impressed by Stanton's courtroom brilliance. Six years later Stanton, a Democrat, was practicing in Washington during the war's first year and referred disdainfully to Lincoln in conversations with friends. Lincoln was aware of Stanton's opinions, but when he decided to get rid of the incompetent Cameron, who had made a hash of military mobilization, he appointed none other than Stanton as secretary of war.
Stanton soon justified the appointment. He worked 15-hour days at his stand-up desk and proved to be one of the best war secretaries the country has ever had. And like Seward, he soon changed his opinion of Lincoln, forging a close relationship with the president second only to Seward's. "No men were ever so deceived as we at Cincinnati," Stanton confessed to his former associate on the reaper case. No one was more grief-stricken by Lincoln's assassination than Stanton, who spoke the imperishable words as the president breathed his last: "Now he belongs to the ages." Lincoln's private secretary and confidant John Hay subsequently wrote to Stanton: "Not everyone knows, as I do, how close you stood to our lost leader, how he loved you and trusted you, and how vain were all the efforts to shake that trust and confidence."
"Team of Rivals" invites comparison with Goodwin's prize-winning account of another wartime president and his associates, "No Ordinary Time." Both portray the extraordinary leadership qualities of the commanders in chief in America's biggest wars. But "No Ordinary Time" is really a book about two leaders, Eleanor as well as Franklin Roosevelt, and about their complicated personal as well as official relationships with the women and men who were close to them. The only women conspicuous in "Team of Rivals" are Mary Lincoln and Salmon Chase's beautiful daughter Kate, who rivaled Mary Lincoln for status in Washington social circles. But they appear only occasionally and are not essential to the story. Goodwin depicts the sometimes splenetic Mary Lincoln with more sympathy than many historians have done, but cannot turn her into an Eleanor Roosevelt.
"Team of Rivals" is about men, not men and women. It does not range over the home front of factories and farms in the manner of "No Ordinary Time." It focuses on Washington and on the men who ran the war, chiefly Lincoln, Seward, Chase and Stanton. Within that sphere Goodwin has brilliantly described how Lincoln forged a team that preserved a nation and freed America from the curse of slavery.
