Lincoln, the unknown

148 • LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNWelles especially detested Grant, Seward, and Stanton.And as for the violent, insolent Stanton, he was the mostprodigious hater of all. He despised Chase, Welles, Blair, Mrs.Lincoln, and apparently almost every one else in creation."He cared nothing for the feeling of others," wrote Grant,"and it gave him more pleasure to refuse a request than togrant it."Sherman's hatred for the man was so fierce that he humiliatedStanton on a reviewing-stand before a vast audience, and rejoicedabout it ten years later as he wrote his Memoirs."As I approached Mr. Stanton," says Sherman, "he offeredme his hand, but I declined it publicly, and the fact was universallynoticed."Few men who ever lived have been more savagely detestedthan Stanton.Almost every man in the Cabinet considered himself superiorto Lincoln.After all, who was this crude, awkward, story-telling Westernerthey were supposed to serve under?A political accident, a "dark horse" that had got in by chanceand crowded them out.Bates, the Attorney-General, had entertained high hopes ofbeing nominated for President, himself, in 1860; and he wrotein his diary that the Republicans made a "fatal blunder" in nominatingLincoln, a man who "lacks will and purpose," and "hasnot the power to command."Chase, too, had hoped to be nominated instead of Lincoln;and, to the end of his life, he regarded Lincoln with "a sort ofbenevolent contempt."Seward also was bitter and resentful. "Disappointment? Youspeak to me of disappointment," he once exclaimed to a friendas he paced the floor, "to me who was justly entitled to the Republicannomination for the Presidency and who had to standaside and see it given to a little Illinois lawyer!"You speak to me of disappointment!"Seward knew that if it hadn't been for Horace Greeley, hehimself would have been President. He knew how to run things,he had had twenty years of experience in handling the vastaffairs of state.But what had Lincoln ever run? Nothing except a log-cabin