To Capt. G. V. Fox
Washington, D. C.
May 1, 1861
My dear Sir,
[The failure of the military expedition to reinforce Fort Sumter failed, but I do not hold you responsible.]
You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort-Sumpter, even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.
Very truly your friend
A. LINCOLN
Roy Basler,
Collected Works of Lincoln, vol. 4, p 350-351.
The result was the war, and the explosion of uncritical "rallying around the flag" sentiment, which gave Lincoln the war he wanted, made it look like it was the South's fault and gave him the excuse to stifle dissent in the northern states.
Lincoln was a brilliant propagandist, a crafty politician, able to learn on the job about his role as Commander-in-Chief.
That said, he was the best friend the South had in April 1865. I do not believe he ever harbored any real animus against the people of the southern states, (he was just opposed to them exercising their right of self-government, if that right harmed northern Republican business interests). By 1865, he had the clout necessary to protect the southern people from the ravages of evil, hate-filled Radical Republicans. His death, coming when it did, was perhaps the worst disaster that could have befallen the South other than the defeat of the Confederate Army.
As an aside, there were co-conspirators assigned to kill Vice President Johnson (the assassin chickened out), Secretary of State Seward (the assassin stabbed Seward repeatedly in the face, but did not kill him), but
not the evil Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The Army moved with unseemly haste to get all of the conspirators executed, so they had little chance to talk. Not saying that Stanton was part of a conspiracy to get rid of Lincoln once he was no longer needed and his lenient policies would run against the grain of Radical Republican hate-filled policies, but it is suspicious.
Later, when President Johnson demanded Stanton's resignation, Stanton refused to vacate the office of Secretary of War (literally, refused to vacate the office, barricading himself in the office building), telling the President that only Congress could demand his resignation, since the Senate had approved his nomination. Stanton ordered the Army's officers
not to follow the orders of the President, but only those that came from or through the office of the Secretary of War. You can see that Stanton had some odd ideas about his bosses and was not above hysterical evasions to avoid subordinating himself to the President.
