l incoln’s s hadow 41
blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the
sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the
judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’” Divine
judgment leaves no room for compromise.
Lincoln as a Military Leader
Lincoln really had no choice but to assert active direction over the war.
The Union had no professional military organization capable of
planning campaigns, training troops, coordinating the acquisition of
military means, and more. Such organizations scarcely existed in the
mid-nineteenth century—Prussia under Bismarck might be the sole
exception —and certainly the United States Army at the time of Fort
Sumter would not qualify. Although the venerable Winfi eld Scott pro-
vided useful strategic guidance, he was too infirm to assume active
command, and the rest of the army was devoid of high-level experience.
As an organization, the army had no capacity to wage war on a conti-
nental scale against a well-armed adversary with signifi cant geo-strategic
advantages for conducting a defensive war. Th e national state as a whole
was ill-equipped to mobilize the resources needed to defeat the Confed-
eracy, which forced Lincoln to turn to the state governors to raise the
needed troops. Especially in the early months of the war, then, the pres-
ident would have to assume much responsibility or face the likelihood
that things simply would not get done.
As a military leader, Lincoln faced several critical tasks. To begin
with, he had to create an army capable of waging war across a continent,
from the eastern seaboard to the trans-Mississippi West, and from the
Border States to the Gulf of Mexico. He also needed to identify the men
who would lead these forces. All this would have to be done with an eye
toward sustaining popular support for the war; that is, the military
eff ort could not be conducted without regard to politics. To use this
new military instrument eff ectively, Lincoln would have to defi ne a
strategy for subduing the South. He would then have to make sure that
his military subordinates pursued the strategy eff ectively and did so in a
manner consistent with the aims he identifi ed and adjusted.
Th e Union Army was assembled, equipped, and trained with great
rapidity, but sustaining the necessary manpower became a persistent