Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails by Tom Wheeler

Author:Tom Wheeler [Wheeler, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061749834
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Mrs. Lincoln: At 4:30 p.m. to-day General Grant telegraphs that he has Petersburg completely enveloped from river below to river above, and has captured, since he started last Wednesday, about 12,000 prisoners and 50 guns. He suggests that I should go and see him in the morning, which I think I will do. Tad and I are both well, and will be glad to see you and your party here at the time you name.

A. Lincoln

CHAPTER SEVEN

COMMANDING THROUGH THE INBOX

ABRAHAM LINCOLN CONTINUED TO EXPLORE the optimal application of the telegraph during the war’s third year, 1863. It was a year that would prove momentous for the president’s armies. Small sleepy crossroads such as Chancellorsville and Gettysburg became immortal by summer, while seeming defeats at Vicksburg and Chattanooga became victories. From the crow’s nest of the telegraph office, the president observed and participated in it all.

The prior year had witnessed Lincoln’s embrace of the telegraph. As he sought to discover his electronic voice that year, the nature of the president’s telegrams had pivoted from the direct command of troops during Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign to frustrated exchanges with General McClellan about troop numbers on the peninsula and sore-tongued horses after Antietam. In 1862 Lincoln had discovered the telegraph’s ability to project his voice; in 1863 he expanded on the telegraph’s ability to also be his eyes and ears.

It was a rudimentary step toward the modern command structure where strategic policy is centrally decided, decentralized for tactical implementation, yet closely monitored by the central authority. Only 15 years earlier, in the conflict that trained many of the Civil War’s leaders, General Winfield Scott had embarked for Mexico with only broad instructions. His orders explicitly stated, “It is not proposed to control your operations by definite and positive instructions, but you are left to prosecute them as your judgment, under a full review of the circumstances, shall dictate.” Both Scott and his superiors knew there would be no timely exchanges with the civilian authorities to whom he reported, thus making his decisions in the field supreme. That all changed in the Civil War as the telegraph made the miles that separated the national authority from troops in the field almost irrelevant.

Amidst this communications change a strategic change was occurring as well. From the outset of the war, Lincoln had a strategic plan to surround the Confederacy, cut it off from the rest of the world by naval blockade, and engage its armies. For two years, however, the strategy had failed to deliver the desired results. In 1863, implementation of this plan began to change. Whereas George McClellan had emphasized maneuvers with the goal of occupying real estate with minimal combat, the new policy recognized that the rebellion would not be put down until the armies that maintained it were put down. McClellan’s 1862 Peninsula Campaign had been designed to take Richmond by the tactical movement of troops in preference to pitched battles. Similarly, at Antietam, McClellan’s effort had been to block Lee’s advance into the north, not annihilate his army.

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