Thread by @HistoryVille

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY: DESTROY YOUR ENEMIES

No sitting American President had more enemies than Abraham Lincoln. He had a great strategy for destroying them; he befriended them. In fact, one of them would eventually take his life.

Edwin McMasters Stanton (1814-1869) and Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) were enemies, both legal and political. Stanton did not like Lincoln, at first, at all. He had told everyone that Lincoln was an original gorilla, an imbecile, and a disgrace.

Lincoln was as calm and unruffled as the summer sea in moments of gravest peril; Stanton would lash himself into a fury over the same condition of things. Stanton would take hardships with a groan; Lincoln would find a funny story to fit them.

Stanton was all dignity and sternness, Lincoln all simplicity and good nature.

In 1860, that same “original gorilla” Abraham Lincoln was the President of the United States. But Lincoln’s political savvy did nothing to assuage Stanton of his low opinion of Lincoln.

In personal letters to friends and even Union General George McClellan (1826-1885), Stanton said of the President, he had “no token of intelligent understanding.”

There was no love lost between the two men. But lost love didn’t concern the President; he was focused on not...

...losing a war! The Civil War was going badly for the Union, and the War Department, based just up the street from the White House, was in absolute disarray. Logistics were sloppy, supplies were always short and late, and updates from battlefields were often sketchy.

Advisors to the president recommended he appoint the man best suited for the job of Secretary of the War Department: Edwin M. Stanton. So Lincoln swallowed all his pride and did just that.

What could have been Lincoln’s biggest blunder of the Civil War – appointing a known enemy to such an important post – turned out to be one of Lincoln’s best decisions.

When Stanton joined the cabinet, Lincoln trusted him implicitly. Lincoln spent more time with his Secretary of the War Department than he did any other cabinet member. Almost every day, Lincoln walked down the street to get updates from Stanton on particular fronts.

Sometimes, during critical battles, Lincoln made the trek three or four times a day. In fact, it wasn’t unheard of for the president to spend the night in the telegraph office of the War Department waiting on updates from the field.

The trust Lincoln had for Stanton was well-deserved. Oftentimes, Lincoln would not even read over military commissions that required his signature if he spotted Stanton’s name on the ledger. Stanton’s approval was good enough for Lincoln.

Lincoln’s trust in Stanton began to change the two men’s relationship. Stanton responded with unfailing loyalty. Disparaging words of Lincoln not only disappeared from Stanton’s lips but neither he nor any of his family would tolerate a scornful remark of their beloved President.

Where enmity once was, a friendship blossomed.

On the evening of April 9, 1865, upon Lincoln’s return to Washington aboard the River Queen, it was Stanton who greeted him – with a bear hug – and informed Lincoln of General Robert Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

Six days later, on the morning of April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln died from the gunshot wound inflicted on him the night before while taking in a show at Ford’s Theater. The famous words spoken upon Lincoln’s death, “Now he belongs to the ages,” are attributed to Stanton.

Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926), the assassinated President’s son, wrote that Stanton, “for more than 10 days after my father’s death in Washington, called every morning on me in my room, and spent the first few minutes of his visits weeping without saying a word.”

Because Abraham Lincoln was willing to forgive and trust, he gained a friend; a very dear friend.

Wouldn't you rather destroy your enemies by making them your friends? Have a historic week ahead. #HistoryVille #MondayMotivation