Lincoln's Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton

Civil War America

by William Marvel

Edwin M. Stanton (1814-1869), one of the nineteenth century's most impressive legal and political minds, wielded enormous influence and power as Lincoln's secretary of war during most of the Civil War and under Johnson during the early years of Reconstruction. In the first full biography of Stanton in more than fifty years, William Marvel offers a detailed reexamination of Stanton's life, career, and legacy. Marvel argues that while Stanton was a formidable advocate and politician, his character was hardly benign. Climbing from a difficult youth to the pinnacle of power, Stanton used his authority--and the public coffers--to pursue political vendettas, and he exercised sweeping wartime powers with a cavalier disregard for civil liberties. Though Lincoln's ability to harness a cabinet with sharp divisions and strong personalities is widely celebrated, Marvel suggests that Stanton's tenure raises important questions about Lincoln's actual control over the executive branch. This insightful biography also reveals why men like Ulysses S. Grant considered Stanton a coward and a bully, who was unashamed to use political power for partisan enforcement and personal preservation.

Genres: Biography, Civil War, American Civil War, History, American History, Politics, The United States Of America

625 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 10, 2015

About the author

William Marvel grew up on Davis Hill in South Conway, New Hampshire where he still lives. He has been writing about nineteenth-century American history for more than three decades.

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 2 out of 5]

He was pig-faced. He often ingratiated himself to opposing factions by privately voicing support for each, at least until he could determine which side might prevail. He behaved with noticeable deference toward those he viewed as his superiors and often exercised a dismissive impatience with equals, subordinates, and social inferiors. His second wife wrote to him that he was cold to the feelings of anyone who could not contribute to his “selfish gratification” … and occasionally … acted unkindly toward those who could. One colleague characterized him as being selfish, insincere, a dissembler, and treacherous while another called him faithless & treacherous in the highest degree. Another still said he has no sincerity of character, but is hypocritical and malicious. And this from friends!



Edwin McMasters Stanton. First, a lawyer in some of the landmark constitutional law cases of the 19th Century, and then Lincoln’s Secretary of War. I had read about him, of course, in quite a few Civil War histories, but it wasn’t until I read The Judges of the Secret Court that his evil took center stage for me. So when this biography by William Marvel was published, I was quick on the draw. And let me be clear: I was predisposed not to like Edwin M. Stanton.

William Marvel doesn’t like Edwin Stanton either. And he doesn’t have anything good to say about him. Not in 469 pages of text. You don’t have to be an investigative journalist to discover and report that Stanton was a bad man. Again, let me say that William Marvel is singing to the choir when he exposes Stanton for the self-interested, heartless power-grabber that he was. Yet, I think Marvel’s method was wanting. In a nutshell: he went too far when he didn’t really have to. My main complaints: he fuzzied or ignored negative facts about Stanton’s opponents to further his case – and it read like a prosecution – against Stanton; and he qualifies everything.

Let’s take my latter complaint first, since I found it most annoying and it takes less work to tell. It is perfectly fair, in a history, to try and make a circumstantial case. We state known facts and then draw conclusions. But if you do it on every page, with every vignette, large and small, it depreciates the overall effort. Weasel words: perhaps, probably, likely, implies, may have. Marvel uses them like some people use speech aids: um, you know, I mean, and stuff. Stop me when you get annoyed:

That apparent breach of faith only infuriated the civil and military authorities in Charleston and destroyed any trust in Lincoln or his government, driving them to the fatal indiscretion Lincoln likely wanted. (Whoa, whoa, whoa. Lincoln, you say, wanted to provoke an attack on Fort Sumter and all you have to say in support of the theory is he likely wanted that?)

Probably without thinking of the public-debt burden that would ensue, Stanton had mentioned … that the “vast consumption” of war matériel would restore prosperity… (Really. Is it that Stanton didn’t think about the public-debt burden? How does he know that and why does it matter?)

If Ellen objected, Stanton ignored her wishes. (If pigs had wings, they might be able to fly.)

Stanton may have been working toward that end from the day he assumed his duties as secretary …… Stanton may have felt more than his proportionate share of that alarm …. It may have irked Stanton that Russell was friendly with General McClellan …. Stanton may have mistaken …. He may have suffered …. On cue, apparently … In the president’s name but perhaps without his knowledge …

How about these two successive sentences:

The secretary’s ambiguous replies to McClernand’s complaints and his failure to overrule Halleck imply some guile on Stanton’s part. Perhaps politics prejudiced him … but Stanton and Halleck may also have begun to hear ... how little Grant valued McClernand. (Wait. I’m confused. Who’s being ambiguous?)

It became reflexive, pathological. Noting that Stanton interceded on behalf of Napoleon Bonaforte Buford, Marvel offered: perhaps the martial name itself had drawn his attention.

It distracted this reader. I started counting; that’s how silly it became. Mid-book, I took a 50-page sample:

Probably – 7; perhaps – 9; may (might)(must) have – 17; seemed – 6. Assorted ‘evidently’ ‘apparently’ ‘not likely’ and ‘implies’.

Now onto more serious matters.

Not satisfied with painting Stanton as a horrible human being (again, he was), Marvel spends considerable effort trying to establish that Stanton was undermining General George McClellan. Most historians that I’ve read suggest McClellan should have been undermined. But reasonable historians can differ about this. And that’s not my point. What I found wrong was Marvel’s selective use of the historical record. No snarky comment by Stanton was too trite for Marvel to post. Yet, McClellan's diary and letters are disrespectful, at times treasonous, to Lincoln. Marvel ignores them.

When he gets to discussing the battle of Antietam Creek, I hardly recognized the story. He credits McClellan with heroics - Washington had been saved - and wonders at the dissatisfaction of Lincoln, Halleck and Stanton. Fine. But historians who criticize McClellan at Antietam note that he was the beneficiary of misplaced battle plans of Lee. And dawdled when he could have crushed the rebels. So intent on propping up McClellan and blasting Stanton, Marvel never mentions this lapse of McClellan.

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Now we get to John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg.

Everyone knows the story. Booth enters the Lincoln box at Ford’s Theater, shoots the president in the head, and then climbs over the front of the box. He jumps from there onto the stage but his spur catches in the bunting. He drops awkwardly, breaking his leg. He shouts “Sic Semper Tyrannis” and limps across the stage.

Marvel writes that Booth fled through Eastern Maryland, breaking his leg when his horse fell on that night’s wild ride…

This is the kind of thing that will bother me. So I checked my available sources in my library. David Herbert Donald (Lincoln at 597), Stephen B. Oates, ( With Malice Toward None at 431), Doris Kearns Goodwin ( Team of Rivals at 739), and even Carl Sandburg in Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, Vol. IV at 281, all agree that Booth broke his leg in the fall from the stage. (There’s a combined six Pulitzers there, by the way.) Their source is Booth’s diary, found on him after he was killed.

Marvel doesn’t mention any controversy. So I wondered what I missed. I did a little research. The first time anyone - anyone - suggests Booth didn’t break his leg in his fall onto the stage was when Michael Kaufmann posits that in American Brutus. Kaufmann thinks Booth was probably exaggerating. He says no one saw Booth limp. Yet, Donald quotes a witness describing the limping as “a motion…like the hopping of a bull frog.” I hope Kaufmann sold a lot of books.

I looked back at Marvel’s version. No footnote. Hmmm. So I checked the bibliography. Goodwin is there, of course, but not the Donald biography of Lincoln, no Oates, no Sandburg (which I can understand). Kaufmann is there, so I’m guessing that’s where Marvel got it, or swallowed it. But if you discount 140 years of history, shouldn’t you explain yourself? And then I saw it. In the Bibliography. Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard: Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination. I’m not talking politics here; I’m talking history, scholarship, writing your own book.

----- ----- ----- -----

And, while I’m annoyed: It’s dissension, not dissention.

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Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

[Steve Donoghue · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're in the mood for a long, densely detailed, terrifically readable biography of Edwin Stanton (and when aren't you, really?), you couldn't do better than this gloriously, um, opinionated book by William Marvel! My awestruck review is here:

https://www.openlettersmonthly.com/bo...

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fine--but brutal--biography of Lincoln's Secretary of War--Edwin Stanton. He has often been portrayed in a somewhat ambiguous manner. Capable but self-serving and maneuvering for advantage. This book emphasizes the negatives more than most works discussing Stanton. Indeed, sometimes I have a sense that the book goes too far.

Nonetheless, this volume provides a rich portrayal of Stanton, from his youth onwards. We get a sense of how his earlier life may have shaped his persona later on. We see him advancing in the legal profession. His one experience with Abraham Lincoln is discussed briefly--but gives us a sense of his behavior toward others (not such a good example of his nature)-although an appendix provides useful context. He is viewed as something of a political chameleon, telling people what they would like to hear from him. This came back to haunt him in later years as some came no longer to trust his protestations.

He was successful as an attorney. Late in President Buchanan's term, he received a cabinet position. After the failed Cameron's tour as Secretary of War under Lincoln, Stanton ascended to that position. The book does a nice job of describing his autocratic tendencies, his deviousness, his ruthlessness. . . . We also get a sense of the difficult relationship between him and President Johnson after Lincoln's assassination.

Not a pleasant telling of Edwin Stanton's life, but filled with a lot of information, allowing the reader to decide if the author went too far in his negative perspective on Stanton.

[Joseph Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Marvel’s remarkable biography, Lincoln’s Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton, reads like an exposé. Up ‘til now, Secretary of War Stanton has had a reputation for being extremely effective and devoted to his job, although notorious for being a curmudgeon and roughly treating army officers. But this long and riveting book offers a highly detailed and scathing indictment of an unprincipled and repellent individual. Even if the author’s many suggestions of the merely possible instances of wrong-doing are disregarded, Mr. Marvel has amply documented Edwin Stanton’s lifetime of unsavory, arbitrary, and unethical conduct, both personal and official.

Lincoln’s Autocrat lays bare Stanton’s duplicitous behavior as the Attorney General in President James Buchanan’s cabinet. Less than a year later, after the American Civil War had begun, Stanton took office as the Secretary of War under Abraham Lincoln. The book describes the political warfare waged against Generals Charles Stone and George McClellan, as well as against President Lincoln, which was carried on by Radical Republicans, especially those on the congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. Stanton, whose principles were often difficult to pin down, joined them in their extreme partisanship. Often acting as more of a politician than as a government official, Stanton engaged in radical machinations that could have prolonged the war and might have helped turn President Andrew Johnson against a harsh (but just) reconstruction. Although usually deemed more than competent but not the equal of his irascible colleague, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles comes out looking better and better, in comparison with Secretary of War Stanton.

Page after page of Marvel’s text underscores the seamier side of Civil War history. Stanton operated with near-dictatorial authority, in opposition to the standards of the relatively new American democracy. He does receive due commendation for much of his work. Stanton’s convincing Lincoln to authorize Joseph Hooker’s expedited move to Chattanooga with elements of the Army of the Potomac to reinforce William Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland, after the defeat at Chickamauga, was perhaps his “greatest single contribution to ultimate victory.” Stanton is also exonerated of a charge of insulting Abraham Lincoln in a pre-war legal case.

At one point in the book, Mr. Marvel notes how General Ulysses S. Grant arrested a quartermaster, Reuben Hatch, suspecting him of extensive graft early in the war, and that Hatch was saved by his personal connections to Abraham Lincoln. The close relationship between Stanton and Charles Dana evidently started with Stanton’s need for editorial support earlier in the war. But Marvel overlooks how Dana was on the President’s hand-picked committee which ended up exculpating Hatch. Grant’s political protection of Hatch (and Grant’s little-known personal involvement in the corruption at Cairo) likewise goes unremarked. A footnote does indicate Reuben Hatch’s connection with the sinking of the transport Sultana—and the tragic deaths of some eighteen hundred passengers, many of whom were newly released prisoners of war heading for their homes in the North. But Marvel doesn’t shy away from remarking on how Charles Dana grasped Grant’s coattails and covered up the general’s drinking. Army politics hampered the Union’s war effort throughout.
A few of the book’s characterizations hew a little too closely to the standard, but inaccurate, version of Civil War history, when a closer analysis might suggest a different inference. For example, Marvel correctly notes how John McClernand lost command of the 1862 expedition down the Mississippi to take Vicksburg, and remarks on how the Secretary’s actions “imply some guile on Stanton’s part.” But then the book has McClernand—who received authorization to lead it from Lincoln himself—“commandeer” his own expedition. And it repeated this implication by describing how “the self-important McClernand snatched his troops away from Sherman” and subsequently captured the Confederate stronghold of Arkansas Post. Actually, it was Henry Halleck, Ulysses Grant, and William Sherman who did the commandeering and snatching. Secretary Stanton was at least partially right, furthermore, in his attempt to blame the navy for David D. Porter’s failures during the first joint expedition against Wilmington, North Carolina,. Marvel and most other historians reserve the blame for Benjamin Butler, leader of the army component.

Although Stanton may have responded too harshly to William Sherman’s surrender terms with Confederate Joseph Johnston, Marvel is too easy regarding Sherman’s blundering and almost justifies his infamous, petulant, and insubordinate refusal to shake hands with Secretary of War Stanton during the Grand Review in Washington.

In such a comprehensive work, these complaints are just trivial objections. Research into any of the major characters or issues of the American Civil War can never be considered exhaustive, but William Marvel seems to have investigated Edwin Stanton to within an inch of his remarkable, yet rather distasteful, life.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the author is considered to be a revisionist historian, I still found his treatment of Stanton to be fair and balanced. The author posits that Stanton wasn't above a bit of political scheming to get his way. He also portrays Stanton as being a bit duplicitous, which I think is fair, based on the evidence presented in the text. Overall, a very good biography of Lincoln's war secretary.

[Sean Chick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Normally I do not rate hatchet pieces this highly, but Marvel is peerless and Stanton has long been overdue for a more honest appraisal. I have long held Stanton in low regard, but I thought of him as at least being a committed Radical. I was wrong. The man of these pages is a liar on par with Lucifer and Littlefinger. Stanton is portrayed as cruel, vindictive, dictatorial, arrogant, and untrustworthy. Perhaps Marvel goes too far in these savage attacks. The only good qualities that are apparent is a tireless work effort and a brilliant, if malevolent intellect. If you follow Marvel's line of thought Stanton is a sociopath, a kind of Stalin who thankfully did not live in revolutionary Russia.

Marvel has a mountain of evidence to support these ideas. Indeed, the book could have been longer; there is little mention of Stanton's intrigues against Rosecrans or his attempt to undermine Thomas at Nashville.

Yet, in going after Stanton Marvel tips his hand. He is angriest in describing the extralegal means of Stanton and the Radicals, who are the dupes of the book. This goes contrary to contemporary scholarship which is pro-Radical, since we are a moment where questions of slavery and racism trump those of the law, Constitution, and reconciliation. The book has a libertarian tilt, but a well reasoned one, and clearly among the Radicals Stanton was the most odious.

[Matthew Bartlett · Rating 5 out of 5]

When it comes to Civil War biography, there is no one more delved into than President Lincoln. The same, however, cannot be said for the members of his cabinet. Even one hundred and fifty years later, the members who surrounded Lincoln have not gotten the scholarly treatment which they deserved and instead have been subjugated to be analyzed within the fabric of a Lincoln biography. In William Marvel’s book Lincoln’s Autocrat, a full analysis of the life of Edwin Stanton is finally given for the modern Civil War historian. Throughout the pages, the career of the lawyer turned Secretary of War shines and gives some insight into the decisions which he made in his tenure in the cabinet.
William Marvel is no stranger to readers of Civil War academia. Many of his other works include A Place Called Appomattox, Andersonville: The Last Depot, Lincoln’s Darkest Year, and Tarnished Victory. Marvel has also written what many consider to be the best one volume biography on Ambrose Burnside simply called Burnside. This biography on Edwin Stanton is also part of the Civil War America series which is printed by The University of North Carolina Press. It is a series which publishes works about the social, political and militaristic aspects of the Civil War.
Within the opening lines of the introduction, Marvel states that this work is only the fifth biography in one hundred and fifty years to focus on Stanton in full. For such an interesting character as Stanton was in his lifetime, it was surprising to me to hear that so little had been written about this man. As I read through the work, I was astounded at what I had never known before about Stanton and his career before the Civil War. As stated before, you can see some of the events in his life before the war which helped to aid his decisions as a cabinet member. The book itself is a wealth of information which cannot even be rivaled by the most intricate of Lincoln biographies. What Marvel has done in this work can easily be considered one of the best biographies to come out in the recent years. There have been other works which focus on Stanton as a scoundrel and allow history to paint him in a poor light. Here, Marvel showed us Stanton the human giving us sound proof for the reasoning which he had due to his past and his times.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the American Civil War. To have a book like this about Stanton gives readers a different look into the way in which the war was fought and handled. The descriptions and research of Stanton after the war gives readers of this period something new to see in the man whom history has largely ignored. This should be considered the definitive biography on Stanton and should stand as a classic of academia not only in the Civil War genre, but the biographical style as well. Incredibly researched, amazingly written and packed to the seams with information, Lincoln’s Autocrat should be on the shelf of every Civil War historian.

Matthew Bartlett - Gettysburg Chronicle

[Bill Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellently researched; presents a most revealing portrait of Lincoln's very influential Secretary of War. Also, this biography provides insight into the political machinations swirling in Washington before, during, and after Lincoln. Especially enlightening are Mr Marvel's final chapters on the Stanton's role in the initial years of Reconstruction and the intrigue of the Radical Republicans against Johnson.

[Lloyd Berkey]

Marvel writes a biography of Stanton as a sycophant, manipulating opportunist that played both sides of most situations. He appears to have had Lincoln's trust. At least he did some of his dirty work. He was an efficient administrator and workaholic. This was a very interesting biography.

[Mark Mears · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lincoln’s Autocrat
The Life of Edwin Stanton

By William Marvel

I am always on the lookout for more extensive biographies of Lincoln’s cabinet members because I find them fascinating in their own right. This book definitely fit the bill regarding Edwin Stanton. Mr. Marvel has obviously done a great deal of research to cover even minute details of Stanton’s life.

Stanton was notorious for being unlikeable, gruff and manipulative. However the author takes this view to an art form. He does not accuse Stanton of stealing lollipops from babies or child molestation, but that is about the only thing he gives a pass on. The bad behavior of other notable characters of the Civil War, particularly Gen. McClellan, are somehow blamed on Stanton. More perplexing, virtually none of Stanton’s acts are attributed to patriotism; everything he did was attributed to self-interest in this book.

From the detail it is obvious Mr. Marvel knows much more about the subject that I, however the bias against Stanton is apparent. An ex-spouse would not have painted a more negative picture.

That said, I enjoyed learning more about Stanton’s life. I just had to take the attacks on his character with a grain of salt.

[Bill Baar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reviews above cover Marvel's book well. I knew little of Stanton other than from the Lincoln movie from 2012. I can only add regardless your take on today's politics, Stanton's deep flaws show little's changed in politics but one can be reassured America endures the power hungry somehow.

[Andy V123 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A superbly dense look into the life of Edwin Stanton, the controversial Secretary of War during the peak of the Civil War. Great book, strictly for history buffs because it gets very dense and tedious at times.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvel's narrative is extraordinarily detailed, though is somewhat bogged down with the legal minutiae that troubled Stanton himself.