Edwin M. Stanton

American politician

• Born: December 19, 1814
• Birthplace: Steubenville, Ohio
• Died: December 24, 1869
• Place of death: Washington, D.C.

Combining excellent administrative skills with attention to detail, Stanton as U.S. secretary of war made a major contribution to Union victory during the Civil War.

Early Life

Edwin McMasters Stanton was the eldest child of a physician descended from a Quaker family. When he was thirteen, his father died, and he had to leave school to help support his family. He worked in a local bookstore and continued his education during his spare time. Impressed by the young man’s ambition, his guardian and mother’s attorney, Daniel L. Collier, lent him money in 1831 so that he could attend Kenyon College at Gambier, Ohio.

A year after entering Kenyon College, worsening family finances forced Stanton to withdraw from school. His former employer contracted with Stanton to manage a bookstore in Columbus, Ohio. After a disagreement with his employer, Stanton asked Collier for loans to study law in Columbus. Collier, however, suggested that Stanton return to Steubenville to study with him. Stanton passed the bar in 1836 and practiced in Cadiz, Ohio, as a partner of an established attorney and also formed an association with Judge Benjamin Tappan. In 1838, Stanton returned to Steubenville to oversee the practice of senator-elect Tappan.

Stanton proved to be an extremely hardworking attorney. He spent hours preparing cases and consequently was often better prepared than his colleagues. By 1840, Stanton had established himself as a lawyer, had managed to repay all of his debts to Collier, and for the first time was providing a financially secure environment for his family. He married Mary Lamson of Columbus on December 31, 1836. Stanton and his wife shared a love for contemporary literature and often spent evenings reading aloud and discussing current events. The Stantons had two children, Lucy Lamson and Edwin Lamson. The death of Lucy was a terrible blow to the Stantons, and in March, 1844, the death of his wife nearly drove Stanton insane. In 1846, his brother Darwin, whom Stanton had put through medical school, committed suicide.

These personal tragedies completely changed Stanton’s personality. He had been sickly as a child and, because of his health and his need to work, was isolated from others. Even so, he had a pleasant demeanor and enjoyed socializing, but now he became withdrawn and suffered from a deep depression. He disliked social events and was often rude and quarrelsome. He exhibited these traits for the remainder of his life.

Lonely and unhappy, Stanton decided to seek new opportunities in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1847. He maintained residency in Ohio, however, and kept in touch with state affairs. His law practice bloomed in Pittsburgh, and he achieved national recognition. He represented the state of Pennsylvania against the Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company, a company in Wheeling, Virginia, which had obtained permission from the state of Ohio to build a suspension bridge across the Ohio River. The proposed bridge, too low to permit existing steamboats to cross under the structure, would cut off Pittsburgh from river commerce. Pennsylvania sued either to stop construction of the bridge or to force the company to build a higher bridge. Stanton proved his point when he hired a steamboat to run at full speed under the bridge. When the steamboat’s smokestack and superstructure were destroyed, Stanton won a favorable judgment.

The bridge case brought Stanton numerous clients, and he also worked as a junior counsel in the patent infringement case of McCormick v. Manny. Stanton’s client, John H. Manny, lost, but Stanton performed ably in the case. During the trial, he met Abraham Lincoln briefly for the first time.

On June 25, 1856, Stanton married Ellen Hutchinson of Pittsburgh, and moved to Washington, D.C., to devote his time to practicing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Stanton found happiness with his new wife, and they had four children, but he never recovered the more congenial demeanor so manifest during earlier days. The ambitious attorney did well in the new environment. In 1858, Stanton was selected as a special United States attorney to represent the government in numerous fraudulent land claims in California arising from land deeded to individuals before the Mexican war. He spent most of the year in California laboring to reconstruct the necessary records. Stanton’s attention to detail allowed him to win a number of victories and saved the government millions of dollars.

Although Stanton devoted his energies to civil law, he also proved himself to be an able criminal lawyer. Daniel E. Sickles, a New York congressman, scandalized the country in February, 1859, when he murdered Philip B. Key. United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and son of Francis Scott Key, best known as the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Key had been carrying on an affair with Sickles’s wife, and the congressman acted while in a rage. Stanton and his associates used the plea of temporary insanity for the first time in the United States. The jury acquitted Sickles, and Stanton’s fame grew.

Life’s Work

Stanton had not been actively engaged in politics before the Civil War. He was a Jacksonian Democrat who opposed slavery. He accepted the Dred Scott decision, however, and believed that constitutional provisions regarding slavery had to be enforced. He disliked southern Democrats and fervently supported the Union as the crisis atmosphere grew in 1859 and 1860. After Lincoln’s election in November, 1860, the nation faced a crisis of immense magnitude. Stanton believed in the Union and on December 20 agreed to serve in President James Buchanan’s cabinet as attorney general for the short time before Lincoln assumed office. Stanton worked hard to preserve the Union and to stiffen Buchanan’s resolve to keep the country together. Stanton joined others in the cabinet in opposing the abandonment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and kept an eye on individuals he believed were plotting against the government.

Stanton distrusted Lincoln’s administration during the early months of the Civil War. Highly critical of Lincoln, Stanton became a friend and adviser of Major General George B. McClellan after he took command of the Army of the Potomac and then became general in chief.

Lincoln needed a new manager for the War Department capable of handling the massive mobilization of men and resources needed to fight to preserve the fractured Union. Secretary of War Simon Cameron, however, had turned out to be both inept and corrupt. It is not clear why Lincoln decided to appoint Stanton, but the Republican president needed support from War Democrats. For whatever reason, on January 15, 1862, Stanton was confirmed as secretary of war; the War Department and the United States Army had found a master.

Stanton acted immediately by reorganizing the War Department, hiring new and better qualified personnel, and carefully investigating existing contracts. Contractors were pressured to deliver needed supplies, but supplies had to arrive on time and be of proper quality. He often worked far into the night, and he expected the same of his subordinates. Stanton efficiently managed a large-scale enterprise, and the Union armies never lost a battle for lack of supplies or equipment.

The war secretary also understood the importance of communications and transportation. Acting through Congress, he took over telegraph and railroad lines essential to carrying on the war. Stanton created a military telegraph system operated by the civilian-controlled War Department, not the army. Consequently, all information flowed through Stanton’s office, enabling him to manage the flow of news and to censor anything of value to the South. The press criticized Stanton for censorship, but his actions were a sound and necessary wartime measure.

The railroad was equally important to the war effort. On one occasion, Stanton moved two army corps from the eastern theater to Chattanooga, Tennessee, complete with arms, equipment, and supplies, in less than a week. Government control of the railroads in military areas proved to be a key factor in the war. Stanton established a railroad building program to repair and build new rail lines at an unprecedented rate. The war secretary clearly understood the technology of modern war.

In his early months as secretary, Stanton maintained a close relationship with McClellan. The general and Lincoln, however, had never agreed on strategy. Stanton soon realized that McClellan was a brilliant organizer but no fighter. The secretary’s views may also have been colored by his improving relationship with Lincoln. The president wanted a fighting general who understood the political and military realities of the war. In August, 1862, Stanton worked to remove McClellan from command, although the general was briefly returned to duty during the fall.

Both Stanton and Lincoln sought a general who acted rather than one who simply asked for more men and supplies. Consequently, both often interfered with military operations early in the war when they thought generals were not doing enough. They maintained civilian control of the war effort in the face of a real danger that armies and generals might become too powerful and gain the upper hand in government.

In 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant, with his victories at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, emerged as the general both Lincoln and Stanton had sought. In March, 1864, Lincoln appointed Grant to the newly created rank of lieutenant general and gave him command of the entire one-million-man Union army. Grant found no cause to complain about Stanton. Stanton did all in his power to procure what Grant needed, but Grant never asked for more than could be realistically delivered. The combination of Stanton, Lincoln, and Grant brought Union victory when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.

Stanton was shattered by Lincoln’s assassination on April 14. The two men had developed a close working relationship, making it possible to wage an immense war. Stanton’s anger never really abated, and he sought and prosecuted the assassins with a vengeance.

Grant’s terms to Lee had been generous, but within political limits set by Lincoln. Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, however, fearing a bloodbath in the wake of Lincoln’s death, negotiated a much broader surrender agreement with Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina two weeks after Appomattox. Sherman’s terms enraged Stanton, who leaked them in garbled terms to the press and who privately accused Sherman of disloyalty. Sherman had certainly exceeded his authority, and after a cabinet meeting, Grant went to North Carolina and quietly supervised new terms. Sherman never forgave Stanton for his behavior. Ironically, both men probably acted out of grief over Lincoln’s death.

President Andrew Johnson asked Stanton to stay in his cabinet. During the war he had left the Democratic Party, and by 1865 he fully sympathized with the Radical Republicans. Johnson’s view of Reconstruction turned out to be far different from that of the Radical Republicans and of Stanton. The war secretary from the summer of 1865 onward differed with the president, wanting harsher terms imposed on the South. He approved of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, although both were enacted over Johnson’s veto. He supported the Military Reconstruction Act, which passed over Johnson’s veto on March 2, 1867, and assisted Radicals in formulating additional Reconstruction legislation that summer.

Johnson decided to remove Stanton from office early in August and demanded Stanton’s resignation. The war secretary refused, however, on the grounds that the Tenure of Office Act gave Congress control over his removal. He used this pretext even though he himself believed that the act was unconstitutional. Johnson then suspended Stanton, making Grant secretary of war ad interim, until Congress could act. When the Senate refused Johnson’s request, Stanton returned to office, and Johnson decided to remove him anyway. Impeachment proceedings against the president followed, failing by one vote on May 26, 1868. At that point, Stanton stepped down.

The tension-filled years had damaged his health, and he never fully recovered. Stanton had abandoned his law practice to serve his country and, without the energy to reestablish it, faced serious financial difficulties. When Grant assumed the presidency, he gave Stanton an appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was quickly confirmed by the Senate. Stanton, however, died before taking office, on December 24, 1869.

Significance

Stanton faced many adversities early in life. He struggled to get an education because of his family responsibilities. Even so, he appears to have been a cheerful and congenial youth with a taste for literature and political discussion.

Stanton’s great ability as an attorney gave him national prominence. By 1859, Stanton was on the road to great wealth with an annual income in excess of forty thousand dollars. Personal tragedies, however, altered Stanton’s personality. The death of his first child followed by the death of his first wife and the suicide of his younger brother had a profound effect on the man. He had always been demanding, but with personal tragedy he became rude and quarrelsome, and his relations with others remained cold and distant.

Stanton gave up wealth and security for public office, apparently with patriotic motives. A Democrat who opposed slavery, he fervently supported the Union. He joined Buchanan’s cabinet in its waning months to help keep the nation together. With the onset of the Civil War, while critical of the Republican Party, he supported the Union. Stanton proved to be an able secretary of war and thus a key to Union victory. The ability to act quickly while at the same time paying attention to the smallest detail made him a good administrator. He expected the best from subordinates and replaced those who did not measure up. Along with Lincoln, he ensured the maintenance of civilian control over an enormous army during a revolutionary time.

After the war, Stanton opposed readmission of the South to the Union without guarantee of full freedom to the former slaves. Stanton disagreed with Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction policy. He fought hard to retain his position in the government for the simple reason that he believed himself to be right and Johnson to be wrong. Too much blood had been shed for him to do otherwise. A truly remarkable man, Stanton certainly deserves to be remembered as one of the great war secretaries, perhaps even the greatest.

Bibliography

Flower, Frank Abial. Edwin McMasters Stanton: The Autocrat of Rebellion, Emancipation, and Reconstruction. New York: Saalfield, 1905. A laudatory biography that has some value because of the author’s access to papers no longer available.

Gorham, George C. Life and Public Service of Edwin M. Stanton. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1899. Gorham was commissioned by Stanton’s family to prepare this biography. The author also had access to family papers that have since been scattered.

Hearn, Chester G. Ellet’s Brigade: The Strangest Outfit of All. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. Recounts how engineer Charles Ellet, Jr., commanded the Ram Fleet, a unique Civil War unit that was ignored by the army and navy yet won a major battle for Union forces in 1862. Explains Stanton’s role in authorizing and organizing the fleet.

Hyman, Harold M. “Johnson, Stanton, and Grant: A Reconsideration of the Army’s Role in the Events Leading to Impeachment.” American Historical Review 66 (October, 1960): 85-100. This is an excellent discussion of the clash between Stanton and Johnson.

Perret, Geoffrey. Lincoln’s War: The Untold Story of America’s Greatest President as Commander in Chief. New York: Random House, 2004. This book about Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War includes information about Stanton, including the two men’s relationship, Stanton’s working style, and Stanton’s abolitionist sentiments.

Pratt, Fletcher. Stanton: Lincoln’s Secretary of War. New York: W. W. Norton, 1953. A readable treatment of Stanton, but unequal to Thomas and Hyman.

Thomas, Benjamin P., and Harold M. Hyman. Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln’s Secretary of War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962. A beautifully written biography based on massive research. It is unlikely that a more balanced treatment will appear.

United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. 128 vols. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901. These volumes contain the essential documents covering Stanton’s work in wartime.