It is one hour and 10 minutes. This,m with weather like it almost seems a shame we are spending time indoors. What a beautiful afternoon. But thanks for coming back. We have an Excellent Program for you for the rest of the afternoon. I mentioned this morning that our first or second speaker are so prolific that that seems to be a theme of our faculty this year. With our next speaker being an incredibly prolific writer, many of you know his work. He has written on a variety of topics. His for volume history of the civil war is something you need to do so. An outstanding series of books. He has written about appomattox. Andersonville. The alabama. And he is in the process and is almost finished with his next book, already. One book comes out when year and the other is in the pipeline. I think it will be a very interesting book. Is the subjectay of his most recent published book about the secretary of war. , edwin stanton. William is a native of stanton. They live near conway, new hampshire. Bill went to Keene State University where he received an honorary phd even though they dont issue phd degrees. He got an honorary one. [laughter] [applause] so that is very impressive. I have to say that some of you know i been working on this petersburg book. I have written my acknowledgments. The person to whom i am the most grateful for his help is my friend, william marvel. He is an outstanding researcher. He got sources for me in places i couldnt visit. He is an outstanding editor. I sent him the manuscript and he improved it tremendously. He is just a great writer and a great friend. So please welcome my pal bill marvel. [applause] william thank you all. If there is one thing we learned this weekend, it is that will green gives good introduction. [laughter] william i enjoy coming down here primarily because of those introductions. I dont hear such glowing praise elsewhere. Especially in my hometown. It is a tribute to his loyalty. If not his judgment. And to his trust that he would allow me to speak to you people so far away from the kicking distance. I am sorry to have to talk to you about politics. Especially on this particular stage. Im sorry to have to talk to you about politics at this particular stage. This stage of our history. Politics sometimes intrudes as it will in a couple of weeks. Never beenay, i have so happy to finish a book as i was the biography of stanton. Closefour years of association with him, i was happy to turn my back on somebody i found so unredeemed a , someone so twofaced and treacherous. I thought it would start with something positive. During those years when i was neighbors stanton and would ask me what i was working on and i would mention the name, they wouldnt know who those talking about. Well, he wasay essentially the dick cheney of the Abraham Lincoln administration. And that is not an inept description. And both were surly intolerant of anyone who disagreed with them. And they both grew unbearable arrogant in positions of power. Each also appears to have served critically persuasive role in an administration that oversaw an alarming degradation of constitutional right in the name of what we, in our generation, Call National security. Defenders of such infringements usually justify modern violations of that nature by citing precedents that go back to the Lincoln Administration. Andlincolns initial limited exercise of extraconstitutional powers before stanton came into office were exasperated after stanton arrived. And stanton seems to have been responsible for some of the more constitutionally objectionable of federals authorities therefore after and of the constitutional and congressional legislation that was authorized for those violations. Stantons last biographer, harold harmon, came out with this book 54 years ago. A defendant stanton against the aspersions of his more critical associates by saying they didnt like him so they recorded as much damaging information in their diaries and letters as they could. For the historians to find. That they may have disliked him for perfectly justifiable reason seems not to have occurred to him. He was, i think, excessively generous to stanton in numerous instances of questionable conduct. He also was rather supportive of in his assessment of executive excess in general having just come out of world war ii, so perhaps that is understandable. A number ofhave champions among the radical republicans with whom he last cast his fortunes. But his closer colleagues left a course of eerily similar negative observations about him and i would like to give you a good taste of them. Starting with gideon welles. Who served as secretary of the navy during his retired tenure in the lincoln cabinet. And he confided in his diary that stanton was fond of power and of its exercise. It was more precious to him then to terminate over his fellow man. He later observed that stanton is an intrigue or and is not faithful in friendships, and is given to secret underhand combinations. Havethere was or will meant browning, a senator from illinois. The fellow who replaced Stephen Douglas when he died, he was a friend of lincoln from the old days. He met stanton soon after stanton became secretary of war and served with him in Andrew Johnsons cabinet. And he recorded that he had no faith in stanton. Character, butof is hypocritical and malicious. James buchanan was not the only person to notice his site offended behavior whenever he occupied a subordinate position. On my side and flattered me ad nauseam. Andrew johnson expressed the same impression in 1867. Johnsons personal secretary noted that president johnson, in speaking of stanton referred to his duplicity. He didnt know any man who could be more who suggests as stanton when he chose. Bates was the attorney general under lincoln and spent three years in the cabinet with stanton. And he wrote that he believes in the air force so long as he wields it but cowers before it when wielded by any other hand. He really be getting an idea of the sort of person, maybe you have met them in your lifetime, if you have ever been in military service or academia or some form of organized crime. These people are fairly prevalent. Exactly. , i should have left him out. He was just a confederate, after all but he served in the cabinet with stanton and after the war he confided in another of his i know no man who has reached minutes in america or anywhere else who has made for himself so exempt verbal a character and who of true men. Will finally, there is u. S. Grant. If any of you need to know what he looks like, im sure will has a pocket full of them that he would be able to hand out. Grant tended to be softening his vocabulary when criticizing others, perhaps he realized it is more effective, i dont know but of stanton he said that he cared nothing of the feelings for others. In fact, it was pleasanter to him to disappoint than to gratify. He felt no hesitations in acting without advising. He also added that the secretary was very timid. It was impossible for him to avoid interfering with the armies. He could see our weakness but he could not see that the enemy was in danger. The enemy would not be in danger if stanton had been in the field. That was no conspiracy among those people to leave disparaging comments in the primary sources for historians to find later. They were all writing independently of each other. They had no access to each others writings until the memoirs came out, by which time all the others were finished and often dead. With the exception of numerous radical republicans with whom never had the opportunity or motivation to his associates appears to have recorded mainly scathing indictments of his habits of personal and political treachery. And his seemingly pathological capacity for doubledealing. Even general joseph holt, with whom stanton remained in Close Partnership with throughout the rest of the Lincoln Administration and into the johnson cabinet, he implicitly accused skin of infidelity to him. Although at that juncture, he was trying to rescue his own levitation from allegations of underhanded behavior that i find perfectly credible. Confirmed as secretary of war, stanton pretended to be the good friend of George Mcclellan on the left. We are living in 2016. Stanton assisted mcclellan in composing the document that he used to convince president lincoln to retire general scott and put mcclellan and command of all the armies. And that document was composed in the privacy of stantons home so mcclellan would not be found out. Devotion only lasted as long as he needed enthusiastic endorsement from the general in order to cover all the bases in getting lincoln to nominate him. On his first day, in the War Department, stanton arranged a meeting with the most powerful and combative of the radical republicans who were rapidly gaining political momentum in the capital and they hated mcclellan and they were turning almost as antagonistic towards the president as some of the democrats were. Those radicals included then weighed from ohio and he is hiding somewhere there. Somewhere, chancellor from michigan. Careerrst evening of his as secretary of war, stanton called the joint committee on the condit of the war into his office. No minutes of that meeting were taken but messages passed between stanton and weighed the next day which indicated the very first discussion that night consisting of how to remove mcclellan as commander of the nations armies. As i said, the radicals hated him because he was a democrat who was soft on slavery. Figured, who is more important . Now . Mcclellan or the radicals . And he knew and he immediately undertook a clandestine Like Campaign to reduce mcclellans role and ultimately to remove him altogether. Dont have to harbor a lot for George Mcclellan to find that contemptible. It is a politically motivated reversal of personal loyalty. Of theclose student history of the word nose, George Mcclellan had plenty of feelings of his own. Perhaps the worst of which was a tendencyo hesitation when a call to action was needed. But considering how early mcclellan detected his hostility towards him, and how much it surprised him, it seems logical that to some degree, the generals timid behavior on the battlefield may have been driven by his belief that his immediate superior in the War Department would use any disaster the bethels army as a means of eliminating him. Im in fact, stanton did take preliminary steps to have mcclellan courtmartialed, just as he late did have his friend, Fitzjohn Porter courtmartialed. For crimes that could have carried the death penalty. A result waser as unfairly destroyed and stanton would have gladly done the same to mcclellan if he could have avoided the responsibility for it by finding someone else to press the charges as was the case with porters courtmartial. The first indication of how far stanton would go to gratify his new radical friends came with charles stone. A conscientious officer who had a disloyal sentiment in the district of columbia militia before the war, during the secession crisis. Like mcclellan, stone was a democrat. And like mcclellan, he obeyed the law, the federal laws, regarded slavery. He returned runaway slaves to their lower to their loyal owners. That was enough to make him among the radicals and Charles Sumner from massachusetts insulted him for it on the floor of the senate. Stone responded with a private note in which he called him a wellknown coward for presumably the beating he took on the floor of the senate from a much smaller man in 1856 without defending himself. And there were other ingredients that butdent stanton had been colluding with sumner from the moment he entered buchanans cabinet. And he ratified sumner and and the radicals in general by having stone arrested and locked in fort lafayette in the harbor for six months with no charges. It literally took an act of congress to get stanton to release stone. And he waited until the last possible day under that congressional act. Him, he he did release to give him any further assignments. He did finally get a staff under banks in louisiana. But when general grant wanted to use stone, knowing his capacity, stanton had him soon merrily mustered out of service as brigadier general. That severely reduced his role. And ultimately, he resigned altogether, realizing he was going nowhere because of the personal spite of one man. Was not the worst example of stantons unjust and spiteful nature but it was the one that everyone remembered. And it reflects badly on president lincoln, to whom stone appealed in vain for some word of indication. Lincolns half finished reply to stone, which he never sent, indicates there was considerable injustice involved. But either because of the politics of the day or because he didnt want to criticize his secretary of war, he let that injustice stand uncorrected. He may also have been leery about seeming to criticize the arbitrary arrests that he had allowed stanton to undertake for so long. Over theeks of taking War Department, stanton quietly started consolidating as much of the cut as the executive Branch Authority under his own personal authority. As much as he dared. First, he persuaded the president to relieve secretary of state William Seward of the authority to make extraordinary arrests. Arrests without due process. Without evidence in most cases. Had that authority transferred to himself. Ton, as the army was about take the field, he removes the telegraph equipment from Army Headquarters and took it across the state into the War Department right next to his office. That prevented mcclellan from communicating with anyone else in the government and particularly with president lincoln without going through stanton first. It also allowed stanton to control the communications of everyone below mcclellan. Took military possession of the private telegraph lines in the country. And that enabled him to observe theiderable control over news. He telegraphed major newspapers what first appeared to be a suggestion that they should not report on the movements and makeup of the army but soon enough, he started calling that suggestion and order. His motive lay more in propaganda and insecurity. Because he enforced that with a bipartisan bias which left supportive newspapers altogether immune. Himld holts are per trade as an equal opportunity sensor who would shut down a lincoln friendly newspaper as rapidly as he would one of democratic sentiment. And his evidence for that seems to be stantons first such action with which he established a quick precedent for sensory Authority Without risking a court challenge. On march 17, 1862, he directed washingtons of defenses to arrest the editors and publishers of the washington sunday chronicle. For having published the composition and movements of the army on the potomac. The chronicle was owned by the man who owned the Philadelphia Press. Trust thepresumably Philadelphia Press story about this, in which the editor of the chronicle was ostensibly taken into custody but was released as soon as he apologized and swore this would never happen again. Holtz are believed that this incident was anything more than a charade seems based on his misunderstanding that the daynicle was subjected to a of rare silence, when no paper was published. Im sorry, but as the name implies, the sunday chronicle was a weekly newspaper published on sunday. The arrest took place on monday and it was back in full operation by tuesday so there was no day of rare silence. The chronicle didnt become a weekly until november 1862. Did, while itnt did no harm to the chronicle, it made stanton look nonpartisan. Was as close a crony of the administration as he was of the press. He once pledged his loyal to the administration. And he was not too principal to have engaged in a little drama orchestrated to intimidate his rival. Thereafter, stanton confined his exercise of his presumed power to shut down newspapers almost exclusively to the Opposition Press while friendlier publications were allowed to publish militarily damning information without consequence. Heert e lee said that arranged his plans for the Gettysburg Campaign based on information he got from the philadelphia inquirer, another newspaper that was supportive of lincoln and who supported no consequences for regular transgressions of that nature. Neither did the new york times, which revealed general shermans the details of general shermans plan for his march to the sea on the eve of his departure. Reporters who wanted ready access to the armys learned that they were better off to avoid topics that embarrassed the administration, particularly the War Department and secretary stanton. Apply to their editors. As the press finds today, media credibility can be compromised by being shut off from official sources of information. Students of the repression of the press under lincoln will often discount the severity by pointing out some of the venomous editorial criticism that the Lincoln Administration was subjected to. But the administration was not criticismed about the as they were about the effectiveness of it. Pundits like dennis mahoney, the editor of the herald, who seems to have been as persuasive as he was vitriolic posed more of a newspapern a editorial in small towns, theating in the world of vacuum. And so it was the effective ones who were assailed. Softenedone of dissent with periodic crackdowns of that nature. And those crackdowns usually happened at critical political junctures. For example, on august 8, just before the biannual elections in the western states, which were expected to go very badly and did go rather badly, just before that, stanton issued an order that all but criminalized any expression of disagreement with the administration policy. , the next year who was the independent of ohio, he could be very nasty but he was not molested during the Gubernatorial Election in 1863 where doing in victories and vigorous propaganda gave the Republican Party the biggest landslide of the war. But with the pre