The Poet and the President -- Dedicated to the Late Rev. Jesse Jackson

Jamie Stiehm
Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:51:04 -0800
Opinion

In early 1862, Union generals, soldiers and even the commander in chief of the Civil War were literally at a loss. Morale ran low.

Engaged as we are now in a great civil war, a leader tearing the nation in two, it's well to look back to this time.

Taking the oath of office in March 1861, President Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was a newcomer to the nation's capital.
Updated: Wed Feb 18, 2026

In early 1862, Union generals, soldiers and even the commander in chief of the Civil War were literally at a loss. Morale ran low.

Engaged as we are now in a great civil war, a leader tearing the nation in two, it's well to look back to this time.

Taking the oath of office in March 1861, President Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was a newcomer to the nation's capital.

Compared to the flash-and-dash style of winning Confederate general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was not a military man.

Lee, educated at West Point, was a career Union Army officer who chose to side with his state, Virginia, in battle rather than his riven country.

For that he's a traitor, not a noble Southern gentleman, as he's often portrayed by history's lore.

But the contrast between Lincoln and Lee went much deeper than most know. Their conflict went beyond the political to the personal, to Lee's homefront.

Lee owned and lived on one of the largest slave plantations in his state, right across the Potomac River. Arlington House and its thousand rolling acres, tilled by enslaved labor, was where he and his wife had their wedding in the parlor.

In a sweeping move in spring 1861, Lincoln had the strategy foresight to seize the entire Lee plantation, as well as the family mansion at the top of the hill overlooking Washington.

This foretold a time when the shrewd commander in chief of the Union Army would catch up and surpass Lee. The Confederacy won some of the first battles of the war and confidently predicted it would not last long.

It's a myth that Lee opposed slavery in his heart of hearts. He lived high on antebellum America's power pyramid, based on slavery, which he fought to preserve.

Lincoln's oratory was starting to spread around the North, but he was not yet seen as a political genius. A railroad lawyer and a self-made man, he hated the institution of slavery to his core.

Note that Lincoln was not yet an abolitionist when he first stepped off the train in Washington. He just wanted to keep the Southern states in the Union. They were seceding one by one, with South Carolina first in line.

Simply put, Lincoln's mettle and character was widely underestimated at first, while Lee's was overestimated — until the fateful Battle of Gettysburg.

Lee endured a three-day whipping after a rash decision to plunge north into Pennsylvania. That clash turned the tide on July 4, 1863. How apt.

Meanwhile, the scene at Arlington across the river changed dramatically. Lincoln and his top aides quickly turned it into a Union Army camp for training and drilling soldiers. William Tecumseh Sherman was given his general's command in the former family parlor.

A significant change came about with political messaging. Lincoln let it be known that Union soldiers were buried in Mrs. Lee's garden, as if to say their blood was on her husband's hands.

Montgomery Meigs, the Union quartermaster general, suggested the entire estate be dedicated as a "field of honor."

Lincoln approved the idea, aware of the high toll the war was taking on an entire generation of young men. That is the genesis of Arlington National Cemetery, a bittersweet line right back to Lincoln.

Arlington's part in the Civil War also inspired its greatest marching melody. The Boston poet Julia Ward Howe rode over to the Union Army camp as an observer.

That night, she awoke in predawn darkness, inspired to pen the majestic lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

(Howe chose the abolitionist tune of "John Brown's Body" to go with her verses.)

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord / He is trampling on the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. ..."

Howe gave Lincoln's army a great galvanizing gift, a sense of righteousness that bordered on the biblical. The uplifting song ends with "Glory hallelujah / His truth is marching on."

Boosting morale on her side of the Mason-Dixon line, Howe's masterpiece was published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine in February 1862.

Another arc connects the president and the poet: The Howes were guests at the Willard Hotel, where the Lincoln had stayed before his inauguration.