80 e lusive v ictories
On balance, Lincoln exercised his responsibility as a war leader with
distinction, setting a very high standard for all later wartime com-
manders in chief. He understood how the war evolved, moving from a
limited struggle to reestablish the old Union to a more radical and total
confl ict that would eliminate slavery. Lacking a military background,
he assembled an army, chose commanders to lead it, established a
strategy and pushed those commanders to pursue it or replaced them
with others who would, and adjusted strategy when his expanded war
goals dictated that it change. His hands-on engagement extended
beyond military aff airs to other pivotal realms of wartime presidential
leadership. Boosting popular morale and securing the resources needed
to defeat the enemy are vital for a nation at war, and Lincoln played a
key role in both. He took control of a range of political matters vital to
a successful war effort. Of special note, a president must resist the
temptation to retreat into a defensive shell in the White House when
public discontent rises over the lack of military progress and the heavy
human price. Lincoln had deep reserves of willpower that allowed him
to weather reverses and withstand attacks.
No president leads alone in wartime, and Lincoln’s effectiveness
depended a great deal on others. Some of his cabinet members, such as
Secretary of War Stanton, assumed critical duties, and Lincoln received
prudent advice from his cabinet as well as from important Republican
Party politicians and editors. Within the general scheme of American
government, war empowers the presidency, and I observed how Lincoln
expanded presidential authority at the expense of other institutions.
Nevertheless, these remained active and provided important help to the
president. Congress bestowed legitimacy on some of Lincoln’s ques-
tionable moves.
A kind word should be spared, too, for the Joint Committee on the
Conduct of the War, often maligned by both contemporaries and his-
torians. Unfortunately, through its members’ lack of understanding
about the nature of warfare in the age of the rifl ed musket, the Joint
Committee gave congressional oversight a poor reputation that persisted
long after the Civil War. On the other hand, as Lincoln showed, a
hands-on president who tries to direct a war can make mistakes. So
there is much to be said for an institutional mechanism to ask hard
questions about the assumptions behind strategy, whether war goals are