Lincoln and His Admirals: An Interview with Craig L. Symonds

Over fifty years ago, T. Harry Williams made the case in his classic Lincoln and His Generals that Abraham Lincoln's strategic instincts often surpassed those of his commanders. In his award-winning Lincoln and His Admirals (Oxford University Press, 2008), Craig L. Symonds assesses Lincoln's handling of the naval aspects of the Civil War, and once again Lincoln emerges as a superb war leader both strategically and politically. Symonds, who has written ten previous books, is professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval Academy. Historically Speaking senior editor Donald Yerxa interviewed him in June 2009.

Donald A. Yerxa: You note that Lincoln began the Civil War knowing "but little about ships," and yet circumstances forced him with some reluctance to get involved in the naval war. What were some of the circumstances that pushed Lincoln in that direction?

Craig L. Symonds: Lincoln had to deal with the navy, unexpectedly, from virtually the first day of his presidency. It was the Fort Sumter crisis that pushed that to the front of his desk. There was no getting around the fact that he had to do something about Fort Sumter, and he had to do something quickly. And Fort Sumter was on an island. That compelled him to begin the investigation of what the navy could and could not do.

Yerxa: How would you assess Lincoln as a naval commander and strategist?

Symonds: Lincoln would no doubt have produced a wry smile if he ever heard himself described as a naval commander and strategist. But I think in the end he proved himself to be quite effective. The key to Lincoln's great success as commander-in-chief, as well as president, was his temperament. He never pretended to know something when he didn't. He gathered information from any source that would be useful to him, regardless of its position in the hierarchy of command and responsibility, and then made decisions on a pragmatic basis:What would help resolve the situation without trampling over the sensitivities of his naval commanders?

Yerxa: Your book, as you know, calls to mind T. Harry Williams's classic treatment of Lincoln's search for the right general to lead the ground war. Why has it taken so long to cover the naval side of the ledger?

Symonds: The Civil War was predominantly a land war. There were literally millions of soldiers in uniform, but only thousands who participated in the naval war. Moreover the war was eventually decided on land. Its armies kept the Confederacy going. As long as those armies survived, the Confederacy survived. And Lincoln understood this. He regularly told his generals that Lee's army and not Richmond must be their true objective. The navy was very much a sideshow in that respect. To be sure, the blockade contributed to the economic collapse of the Confederacy; the Confederate raiders at sea needed to be suppressed; and, of course, the war on the Mississippi and other western rivers was crucial to the western war on land. But if you want to get to the center of how the war was both won and lost, the answer turns out to be the armies. And that is why the navies have gotten relatively short shrift. Now there have been naval histories, some of them really good. But by and large those have been operational histories—focusing on what the navy did and how the navy did it—without really tying naval operations into the grand policy-and strategy-making process from the White House. I've always been a big admirer of T. Harry Williams's work and used his Lincoln and His Generals many years ago in the classroom. And as a professor at the Naval Academy, I thought it strange not to ask the same questions of Lincoln's relationship with the navy that Williams asked about his relationship with the army.

Yerxa: And how do you compare Lincoln's relationship to the army and its generals to his relationship with the navy and its admirals?

Symonds: One difference is that there really was no...