Union already had one scapegoat in Colonel Anderson, who had presided over the defeat at Fort Sumter—and if he was to usher in an era of goodwill, Johnson decided he didn’t need a second disgraced military leader.
A lot of men disagreed, and many of them had spent their lives in the military. William Tecumseh Sherman resigned his commission within a week of Johnson’s speech to congress, and when General George McClellan was not put in charge of what remained of the Union army, he quit after making a major speech condemning Johnson and warning that war was going to occur whether the new President wanted it or not.
A year after taking office, Johnson got his Congress and his country to pass the 14 th Amendment, but of course it didn’t apply to the states of the Confederacy, and in truth it wasn’t needed in the states that still belonged to the Union. Still, everyone felt it was an eloquent and vital addition to the Constitution.
The peace, or more accurately the truce, between the Union and the Confederacy held, but there were many strains. The Confederate currency wasn’t backed by gold, and the exchange rate made it all but impossible for those from Confederate states to purchase Northern goods. Also, no member of the Confederacy could bring his slaves with him on excursions to the Union—or rather, he could bring them, but the second they crossed the border between the two countries they were officially free men, and very few opted to go back with their ‘owner’ to the Confederacy.
By 1863 both sides were feeling the pinch of being separate—and rival—economies. The Confederacy was falling far behind in manufacturing, while the Union constantly had food shortages. Johnson felt the Union’s problem could be solved simply by expanding to fertile new lands west of the Mississippi, but his advisors counseled against it. The South was clearly hurting; who knew when they might resurrect the war, solely for economic reasons? And with Sherman and McClellan gone and the talented Ulysses S. Grant cashiered out for continued drunkenness, the army was still being commanded by General McDowell, and he was not the man one wanted the fate of the country to depend upon.
So Johnson stopped looking West, and since he felt he couldn’t very well replace McDowell for errors committed two years earlier, his alternative was to build the army to such an extent that should the Confederacy attack, it didn’t matter who the Union’s commanding general was, they would muster such an overwhelming force that no one could stand against them.
The Confederacy noted the military build-up, and President Jefferson Davis felt he had no choice but to increase the size and strength of his own army. He couldn’t match the Union’s manpower, but there was no question that in Robert E. Lee he had the most brilliant general, and Lee’s subordinates, from Beauregard and Stonewall Jackson on down, were clearly superior to what was left of their Union counterparts.
Still, despite the single-minded attention on both sides to the military, not a shot was fired. As the election of 1864 drew near, no one was more surprised than Andrew Johnson that the peace had held.
T HERE WASN’T MUCH question that Johnson was going to be re-elected. The Democrats were decimated, and the Republicans had kept the peace. He searched around for a Vice President. It would be a wholly symbolic choice; in that era the Vice President didn’t even attend cabinet meetings.
He was worried that the Confederacy might see his pursuit of peace as a sign of weakness, so he felt he needed a tough, no-nonsense Vice President, one who had argued for war back in 1859 and 1860. Even in this nation of northern states, he wanted a man recognized as a true Northerner, and finally he hit upon what he thought was the perfect choice, a Democrat turned Republican, a man Lincoln himself had considered for the office four years earlier: Senator Hannibal Hamlin of
A lot of men disagreed, and many of them had spent their lives in the military. William Tecumseh Sherman resigned his commission within a week of Johnson’s speech to congress, and when General George McClellan was not put in charge of what remained of the Union army, he quit after making a major speech condemning Johnson and warning that war was going to occur whether the new President wanted it or not.
A year after taking office, Johnson got his Congress and his country to pass the 14 th Amendment, but of course it didn’t apply to the states of the Confederacy, and in truth it wasn’t needed in the states that still belonged to the Union. Still, everyone felt it was an eloquent and vital addition to the Constitution.
The peace, or more accurately the truce, between the Union and the Confederacy held, but there were many strains. The Confederate currency wasn’t backed by gold, and the exchange rate made it all but impossible for those from Confederate states to purchase Northern goods. Also, no member of the Confederacy could bring his slaves with him on excursions to the Union—or rather, he could bring them, but the second they crossed the border between the two countries they were officially free men, and very few opted to go back with their ‘owner’ to the Confederacy.
By 1863 both sides were feeling the pinch of being separate—and rival—economies. The Confederacy was falling far behind in manufacturing, while the Union constantly had food shortages. Johnson felt the Union’s problem could be solved simply by expanding to fertile new lands west of the Mississippi, but his advisors counseled against it. The South was clearly hurting; who knew when they might resurrect the war, solely for economic reasons? And with Sherman and McClellan gone and the talented Ulysses S. Grant cashiered out for continued drunkenness, the army was still being commanded by General McDowell, and he was not the man one wanted the fate of the country to depend upon.
So Johnson stopped looking West, and since he felt he couldn’t very well replace McDowell for errors committed two years earlier, his alternative was to build the army to such an extent that should the Confederacy attack, it didn’t matter who the Union’s commanding general was, they would muster such an overwhelming force that no one could stand against them.
The Confederacy noted the military build-up, and President Jefferson Davis felt he had no choice but to increase the size and strength of his own army. He couldn’t match the Union’s manpower, but there was no question that in Robert E. Lee he had the most brilliant general, and Lee’s subordinates, from Beauregard and Stonewall Jackson on down, were clearly superior to what was left of their Union counterparts.
Still, despite the single-minded attention on both sides to the military, not a shot was fired. As the election of 1864 drew near, no one was more surprised than Andrew Johnson that the peace had held.
T HERE WASN’T MUCH question that Johnson was going to be re-elected. The Democrats were decimated, and the Republicans had kept the peace. He searched around for a Vice President. It would be a wholly symbolic choice; in that era the Vice President didn’t even attend cabinet meetings.
He was worried that the Confederacy might see his pursuit of peace as a sign of weakness, so he felt he needed a tough, no-nonsense Vice President, one who had argued for war back in 1859 and 1860. Even in this nation of northern states, he wanted a man recognized as a true Northerner, and finally he hit upon what he thought was the perfect choice, a Democrat turned Republican, a man Lincoln himself had considered for the office four years earlier: Senator Hannibal Hamlin of
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