Lincoln and the First Shot (review)

212CI VIL WAR HIS TOR Y tains many of his family, his friends, his forebears, and his descendants. The reproduction of faked Lincoln pictures is unusually good and includes some which have been palmed off on popular magazines, including one that made quite a stir when published in 1941 by the Saturday Evening Post. No other book has such a wealth of Lincoln photographs reinforced with so much information concerning them. Jay Monaghan Santa Barbara, California Lincoln and the First Shot. By Richard N. Current. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1963. Pp. 223. $3.95. ) Readebs of this journal are well aware of Richard Current's abiding interest in how the Civil War commenced. He now sums up his considerable work on that subject for the "Critical Periods in History" series. This volume describes the first six weeks of Lincoln's administration and concludes by analyzing the Charles W. Ramsdell-James G. Randall controversy over whether or not Lincoln, as Ramsdell argued, "induced" the South to fire the first shot. Professor Current rejects both the Ramsdell thesis and the Randall (and David M. Potter) contention that Lincoln failed, since he intended and expected to provision the fort peacefully. Current's position is similar to Kenneth Stampp's "calculated risk" thesis. Preservation of the Union was Lincoln 's primary purpose. He would neither surrender Federal property nor initiate hostilities. He neither hoped for war nor confidently expected peace. He ran the risk of war, but made certain that if war came the Confederates would start it in the worst possible way by firing on "bread." Writing about the Sumter crisis is a difficult task. Records are numerous, but they frequently differ. Much of our information is based on reminiscences written anywhere from a month to twenty years after the event described . These memoirs often distort what actually happened in order to lend their respective authors consistent, influential, and intelligent roles. After carefully comparing these reminiscences with the contemporary record, the historian must discard most of them but imaginatively use some of them to fill in the voids. Consequently, differences develop not only over major interpretations , but over nuances within interpretations. Current ably demonstrates that Lincoln ultimately took a calculated risk, but I think he somewhat overstresses Lincoln's consistent commitment to that policy. Although he does mention Lincoln's hesitation, the dominant impression of Lincoln's course that he leaves is boldness and determination rather than indecision and vacillation. Nevertheless, Lincoln did seriously consider evacuating Sumter, and it was not until April 4 that he definitely committed himself to provision that fort. On the basis of evidence presented, Current is rather hard on William H. Seward for his do-nothing policy. Seward believed that if left alone the South would soon tire of disunion and desire reconstruction. This conten- BOOK REVIEWS213 tion seems absurd until Current shifts South. Then we discover that numerous fissures within the Confederacy threatened it with disintegration. Virtually inverting RamsdeU's thesis, Current demonstrates that if the Confederacy were to survive and grow, war was necessary. If, indeed, war was imperative for the Confederacy, Seward's do-nothing approach appears statesmanlike rather than absurd. Like most books, this one is not perfect. It has no index and contains some minor errors. When President-elect Lincoln arrived in Washington, we leam on page 20, "No one in the railroad station recognized him until an Illinois acquaintance, Congressman E. B. Washburne, waiting as a oneman reception committee, stepped forth from the early-morning gloom." But on pages 77 and 78 we read that it was Senator Lyman TrumbuU who "greeted the arriving President-elect at the Washington depot on February 23." Obviously, whoever met Lincoln did not caU the first shot, but such a blooper does indicate that this book, so well grounded on solid research, could have been edited with a little more care. Nevertheless, Professor Current has produced both an interesting and profitable study. He writes about the Lincoln administration with an intimacy no one can match. He graphically portrays the settings in which momentous decisions were made. His insights into the Lincolnian character are many. "The patronage," he writes (to quote just one example), was no...