Major General John C. Fremont, commanding the Federal Department of the West from St. Louis, had been in trouble with the Lincoln administration ever since he issued his controversial decree declaring martial law in Missouri and authorizing the liberation of slaves belonging to disloyal Missourians. Now, many of his former supporters were turning against him because of what they saw as poor leadership and corrupt management.
Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs, and Major General David Hunter were sent to St. Louis to assess Fremont’s fitness for command. Blair’s brother Frank had lobbied for Fremont to take command, but now he was one of the general’s most vocal critics. Hunter had agreed to serve as Fremont’s chief of staff, or even replace him as commander if need be, but when he arrived, Fremont put him in command of an understrength division. This caused immediate friction between the two men.
On September 14, both Montgomery Blair and Meigs recommended Fremont’s removal. Meigs reported that “great distress and alarm prevail,” and Fremont “does not encourage the men to form regiments for defense.” Blair stated that Fremont “seems Stupefied & almost unconscious, & is doing absolutely nothing.” Both men left St. Louis that day, but the Fremont controversy would continue.
Fremont had learned through his wife that Frank Blair, currently serving on his staff, had urged the Lincoln administration to remove the general from command. After the two Montgomeries left, Fremont placed Frank under arrest for “insubordination in communicating… with the authorities at Washington; making complaints against and using disrespectful language towards Gen. Fremont, with a view of effecting his removal.” Fremont informed his superiors that he had ordered Frank’s arrest due to his “insidious and dishonorable efforts to bring my authority into contempt with the Government.”
This perceived insult of the influential Blair family increased the uproar within the Lincoln administration against Fremont. Upon returning to Washington and learning of his brother’s arrest, Montgomery wrote to Fremont offering to show him the letter that Frank had written urging Fremont’s removal. Montgomery wrote, “I will send (Frank Blair’s) letter. It is not unfriendly. Release him. There is no time for strife except with the enemies of the (Federal government).”
But Frank remained in a St. Louis jail for the time being. He accused Fremont of manipulating the press based on the fact that every Unionist newspaper in St. Louis except one supported Fremont, and the provost marshal (on Fremont’s orders) soon closed the lone newspaper supporting Blair. Frank wrote from jail, “All the talk about this quarrel being detrimental to the public service is bosh. If Fremont is not removed, the public service will go to the devil.”
During this time, President Abraham Lincoln continued discussing Fremont’s fate with his cabinet and enduring attacks from the Radical Republicans in Congress who supported Fremont’s emancipation proclamation. Among the Radicals giving Lincoln their opinion on the matter were George Julian of Indiana, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, as well as Chicago Tribune editor Joseph Medill and Massachusetts Governor John Andrew. But Lincoln was particularly struck by criticism from Senator Orville Browning, a longtime friend from Illinois.
Browning wrote Lincoln on the 17th, “It is in no spirit of fault-finding that I say I greatly regret the order modifying Genl Fremont’s proclamation,” because it had “the unqualified approval of every true friend of the Government within my knowledge.” Browning especially objected to allowing “traitors who are warring upon the constitution and laws” to keep their slaves. Under Fremont’s modified decree, guerrillas could be executed but their slaves could not be freed, prompting Browning to ask, “Is a traitors negro more sacred than his life?”
Lincoln sent a response marked “Private & confidential” five days later. He expressed astonishment that Browning would object to the president “adhering to a law (the Confiscation Act), which you had assisted in making, and presenting to me, less than a month before.” Lincoln explained that Fremont’s “proclamation, as to confiscation of property, and the liberation of slaves, is purely political, and not within the range of military law, or necessity.” He asserted that if a general needed slaves out of “military necessity,” “he can seize them, and use them; but when the need is past, it is not for him to fix their permanent future condition. That must be settled according to laws made by law-makers, and not by military proclamations.”
To Lincoln, conforming to military proclamations would lead to dictatorship, and it would be “itself the surrender of the government. Can it be pretended that it is any longer the government of the U.S… wherein a General, or a President, may make permanent rules of property by proclamation?” Lincoln acknowledged that he would support Fremont’s policy if it was endorsed by Congress, but a general or even a president could not “seize and exercise the permanent legislative functions of the government.”
The president then explained the turmoil that Fremont’s decree had caused in the loyal slave states, particularly Kentucky. Lincoln wrote, “I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to separation at once, including the surrender of this capitol.” Browning responded a week later, arguing that Lincoln’s legal points were moot because secessionists, being traitors, were “public enemies” and therefore no longer had any rights under U.S. law.
Back at St. Louis, Fremont ordered the arrest of the St. Louis Evening News editor and the closure of his newspaper; the editor had blamed Fremont for the fall of Lexington. News of Lexington’s fall, combined with the disaster at Wilson’s Creek last month, placed more pressure on Fremont to produce a victory in Missouri. Fremont strongly defended himself, while Lincoln continued discussing his performance with his cabinet and General-in-Chief Winfield Scott.
To take some heat off himself, Fremont quietly released Frank Blair from jail. However, Frank remained indignant and threatened to have Fremont court-martialed for imprisoning him under false pretenses. The controversy within Fremont’s department continued into October.
Bibliography
- Catton, Bruce and Long, E.B. (ed.), Terrible Swift Sword: Centennial History of the Civil War Book 2. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. (Kindle Edition), 1963.
- Cutrer, Thomas W., Theater of a Separate War: The Civil War West of the Mississippi River. The University of North Carolina Press, (Kindle Edition), 2017.
- Guelzo, Allen C., Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004.
- Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.
- Nevin, David, The Road to Shiloh: Early Battles in the West. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983.
- Rhodes, James Ford, History of the Civil War, 1861-1865. New York: The MacMillan Company (Kindle Edition, Reservoir House, 2016), 1917.