George McClellan, who disagreed with many of Lincoln’s policies, and indeed may have attempted to sabotage them.Īs war president, Lincoln saved the Union. This was particularly true in the case of Maj. Perhaps the most important challenge Lincoln faced in the area of civil-military relations was that early in the war, his generals pursued the war they wanted to fight rather than the one their commander in chief wanted them to fight. He realized that what appears to be the case at the outset of the war may change as the war continues, modifying the relationship between political goals and military means. He intuitively understood that civilian leaders cannot simply leave the military to its own devices, because war is an iterative process involving the interplay of active wills. Lincoln was an activist commander in chief who frequently “interfered” with his generals. Lincoln needed both groups if he was to prosecute the war successfully, but in balancing their needs he was denounced by the conservatives as moving too fast and by the radicals as moving too slowly. But Lincoln had to tread carefully for domestic political reasons, because while emancipation was welcomed by abolitionists and their radical Republican allies in Congress, it was denounced by conservative Democrats in the North and loyal slaveholders in the slave states that remained in the Union.

Emancipation struck not only at the war-making potential of the Confederacy but also at the heart of the Southern social system. Lincoln’s strategy also possessed a strong political element, which at the end of 1862 seized emancipation as its weapon. The capture of the latter permitted Union forces eventually to penetrate the Appalachian barrier and seize Atlanta. Grant’s subsequent victory at Shiloh permitted Union forces to seize major parts of the Confederacy’s one remaining east-west railroad line and opened the way to both Vicksburg on the Mississippi River and Chattanooga. In early 1862, Union armies had employed the Tennessee River as the “main line of operations” to penetrate deep into western Tennessee and northern Mississippi. He also understood that a successful strategy required Union armies to defeat Confederate armies, because they, not territory or the Confederate capital, constituted the Confederacy’s true “center of gravity.”įinally, he understood the importance of the West in Union strategy. Although it was not successfully implemented until 1864, Lincoln articulated the principle early in 1862. Lincoln understood that the key to victory for the Union was the simultaneous application of military force at multiple points, making it difficult for the Confederacy to defend its territory. But like any good strategist, Lincoln proved willing to adapt his strategy to the circumstances in order to achieve this goal. He intuitively adhered to the old adage that in war, “the main thing is to make sure that the main thing remains the main thing.” The “main thing” for Lincoln was to preserve the Union. Lincoln justified these steps as necessary to save the Union and preserve the Constitution.Īlthough Lincoln had no formal military education, he learned quickly and proved to be a competent strategist. Later he authorized conscription and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln found the power he needed to deal with the rebellion in the commander-in-chief clause of the Constitution, in the clause of Section II requiring him to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” and in his presidential oath “to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the U.S.”īased on these powers, he called out the militia, authorized increases in the size of the regular army and navy, expended funds for military purchases, deployed military forces, blockaded Southern ports, suspended the writ of habeas corpus in certain areas, authorized arbitrary arrests, and empanelled military tribunals to try civilians in occupied or contested areas. Although he asserted powers as commander in chief that presidents had not before used, he did not create his war power out of whole cloth. When it was over, some 600,000 Americans had died and the South had suffered staggering economic losses.Įntering uncharted waters as he confronted the rebellion, Lincoln claimed broad emergency powers that he argued the Constitution had vested in the executive branch. The ensuing war, the most costly in American history, would last for four years. Denouncing the president’s policy of “coercion,” four more states left the Union. In response, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve ninety days. A little over five weeks later, rebel gunners opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. By the time Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated in March 1861, seven states had separated from the Union and set up the Confederate States of America.

Commander in chief clause