Taylor’s Observations of Some Republican Leaders
Thomas Allen
In Destruction And Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War (1879), Richard Taylor (1826 – 1879), the son of Zachary Taylor and a Lieutenant General of the Confederate Army, gives his impression of several Republican officials whom he met during his trips to Washington during Reconstruction. Following are his observations of President Johnson, Secretary of State Seward, Secretary of War Stanton, Representative Stevens, Representative Davis, President Grant, Senator Morton, and Secretary of State Fish.
About President Andrew Johnson (1808–1875), he writes:
. . . the President [was] a saturnine man, who made no return to my bow, but, after looking at me, asked me to take a seat. Upon succeeding to power Mr. Johnson breathed fire and hemp against the South, proclaimed that he would make treason odious by hanging traitors, and ordered the arrest of General Lee and others, when he was estopped by the action of General Grant. He had now somewhat abated his wolfish desire for vengeance. . . . (p. 240)
. . . he [President Johnson] always postponed action, and was of an obstinate, suspicious temper. Like a badger, one had to dig him out of his hole; and he was ever in one except when on the hustings, addressing the crowd. Of humble birth, a tailor by trade, nature gave him a strong intellect, and he had learned to read after his marriage. He had acquired much knowledge of the principles of government, and made himself a fluent speaker, but could not rise above the level of the class in which he was born and to which he always appealed. He well understood the few subjects laboriously studied, and affected to despise other knowledge, while suspicious that those possessing such would take advantage of him. Self-educated men, as they are called, deprived of the side light thrown on a particular subject by instruction in cognate matters, are narrow and dogmatic, and, with an uneasy consciousness of ignorance, soothe their own vanity by underrating the studies of others. To the vanity of this class he added that of the demagogue (I use the term in its better sense), and called the wise policy left him by his predecessor “my policy.” Compelled to fight his way up from obscurity, he had contracted a dislike of those more favored of fortune, whom he was in the habit of calling “the slave-aristocracy,” and became incapable of giving his confidence to anyone, even to those on whose assistance he relied in a contest, just now beginning, with the Congress.
President Johnson never made a dollar by public office, abstained from quartering a horde of connections on the Treasury, refused to uphold rogues in high places, and had too just a conception of the dignity of a chief magistrate to accept presents. It may be said that these are humble qualities for a citizen to boast the possession of by a President of the United States. (pp. 242-243)
About William Seward (1801–1872), Secretary of State (1861–1869), he writes:
A loin of veal was the piece de resistance of his dinner, and he called attention to it as evidence that he had killed the fatted calf to welcome the returned prodigal. Though not entirely recovered from the injuries received in a fall from his carriage and the wounds inflicted by the knife of Payne, he was cheerful, and appeared to sympathize with the objects of my mission [to visit Jefferson Davis, who was in prison] — at least, so far as I could gather his meaning under the cloud of words with which he was accustomed to cover the slightest thought. (pp. 240-241)
About Edwin Stanton (1814 – 1869), Secretary of War (1862 – 1868), whom Tayor did not meet, he writes:
A spy under Buchanan, a tyrant under Lincoln, and a traitor to Johnson, this man was as cruel and crafty as Domitian. . . . In the end conscience, long dormant, came as Alecto, and he was not; and the temple of Justice, on whose threshold he stood, escaped profanation. (p. 241)
About Thaddeus Stevens (1792 – 1868), Chairman of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee (1865 – 1868), he writes:
Thaddeus Stevens received me with as much civility as he was capable of. Deformed in body and temper like Caliban, this was the Lord Hategood of the fair; but he was frankness itself. He wanted no restoration of the Union under the Constitution, which he called a worthless bit of old parchment. The white people of the South ought never again to be trusted with power, for they would inevitably unite with the Northern “Copperheads” and control the Government. The only sound policy was to confiscate the lands and divide them among the negroes [sic], to whom, sooner or later, suffrage must be given. Touching the matter in hand, Johnson was a fool to have captured Davis, whom it would have been wiser to assist in escaping. Nothing would be done with him, as the executive had only pluck enough to hang two poor devils such as Wirtz and Mrs. Surratt. Had the leading traitors been promptly strung up, well; but the time for that had passed. (Here, I thought, he looked lovingly at my neck, as Petit Andre was wont to do at those of his merry-go-rounds.) (pp. 243-244)
About Henry Davis (1817–1865), a Republican member of the House of Representatives (1855–1865), he writes:
Like the fallen angel, Davis preferred to rule in hell rather than serve in heaven or on earth. With the head of Medusa and the eye of the Basilisk, he might have represented Siva in a Hindoo temple, and was even more inaccessible to sentiment than Thaddeus Stevens. (p. 244)
About General Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) before he became president, Taylor writes:
The officers of the army on duty at Washington were very civil to me, especially General Grant, whom I had known prior to and during the Mexican war, as a modest, amiable, but by no means promising lieutenant in a marching regiment. He came frequently to see me, was full of kindness, and anxious to promote my wishes [to visit Jefferson Davis]. His action in preventing violation of the terms of surrender, and a subsequent report that he made of the condition of the South — a report not at all pleasing to the radicals — endeared him to all Southern men. Indeed, he was in a position to play a role second only to that of Washington, who founded the republic; for he had the power to restore it. His bearing and conduct at this time were admirable, modest and generous; and I talked much with him of the noble and beneficent work before him. While his heart seemed to respond, he declared his ignorance of and distaste for politics and politicians, with which and whom he intended to have nothing to do, but confine himself to his duties of commander-in-chief of the army. Yet he expressed a desire for the speedy restoration of good feeling between the sections, and an intention to advance it in all proper ways. (p. 244)
About Grant after he became president, Taylor writes:
Before the conventions to nominate candidates for the Presidency met in 1868, I had much intercourse with General Grant, and found him ever modest and determined to steer clear of politics, or at least not permit himself to be used by partisans; and I have no doubt that he was sincere. But the Radical Satan took him up to the high places and promised him dominion over all in view. Perhaps none but a divine being can resist such temptation. He accepted the nomination from the Radicals, and was elected. . . . As ignorant of civil government as of the characters on the Moabitish stone. President Grant begun badly, and went from, bad to worse. The appointments to office that he made, the associates whom he gathered around him, were astounding. All his own relatives, all his wife’s relatives, all the relatives of these relatives, to the remotest cousinhood, were quartered on the public treasury. Never, since King Jamie crossed the Tweed with the hungry Scotch nation at his heels, has the like been seen; and the soul of old Newcastle, greatest of English nepotists, must have turned green with envy. The influence of this on the public was most disastrous. Already shortened by the war, the standard of morality, honesty, and right was buried out of sight. (p. 256) . . . In Boston, July, 1872, . . . President Grant and I met for the first time since he had accepted the nomination from the Radical party. He was a candidate for reelection, and much worshiped; and, though cordial with me, his general manner had something of “I am the State.” (p. 259) . . . Of a nature kindly and modest, President Grant was assured by all about him that he was the delight of the Radicals, greatest captain of the age, and saviour of the nation’s life. It was inevitable that he should begin by believing some of this, and end by believing it all. Though he had wasted but little time on books since leaving West Point, where in his day the curriculum was limited, he had found out to the last shilling the various sums voted by Parliament to the Duke of Wellington, and spoke of them in a manner indicating his opinion that he was another example of the ingratitude of republics. The gentle temper and sense of justice of Othello resisted the insidious wiles of Iago; but ignorance and inexperience yielded in the end to malignity and craft. President Grant was brought not only to smother the Desdemona of his early preferences and intentions, but to feel no remorse for the deed, and take to his bosom the harridan of radicalism. As Phalaris did those of Agrigentum opposed to his rule, he finished by hating Southerners and Democrats. (p. 265)
About Senator Oliver Morton (1823–1877) from Indiana (1867–1877), he writes:
. . . my first step in Washington was to call on the leader of the Radicals in the Senate, Morton of Indiana, when a long conversation ensued, from which I derived no encouragement. Senator Morton was the Couthon of his party, and this single interview prepared me for one of his dying utterances to warn the country against the insidious efforts of slave-driving rebels to regain influence in the Government. The author of the natural history of Ireland would doubtless have welcomed one specimen, by describing which he could have filled out a chapter on snakes; and there is temptation to dwell on the character of Senator Morton as one of the few Radical leaders who kept his hands clean of plunder. But it may be observed that one absorbing passion excludes all others from the human heart; and the small portion of his being in which disease had left vitality was set on vengeance. Death has recently clutched him, and would not be denied; and lie is bewailed throughout the land as though he had possessed the knightly tenderness of Sir Philip Sidney and the lofty patriotism of Chatham. (pp. 260-261)
About Hamilton Fish (1808–1893), Secretary of State (1869–1877), he writes:
Of a distinguished Revolutionary race, possessor of a good estate, and with charming, cultivated surroundings, this gentleman seemed the Noah of the political world. Perhaps his retention in the Cabinet was due to a belief that, under the new and milder dispensation, the presence of one righteous man might avert the doom of Gomorrah. (p. 261)
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