Lincoln and the War Within, a new film dealing with the tense two-month period before the outbreak of the American Civil War, is now ready for broadcast. The seventy-five minute drama traces Lincoln’s response to the secession crisis, particularly his handling of the volatile question of resupplying Fort Sumter. The film examines the choices Lincoln faced during the crisis and encourages viewers to make their own judgements about the crucial decisions that led to war.
While many such docudramas are designed by film companies that give little attention to the concerns of the historical profession, this project grew out of work in the academy and then was guided to maturity not only by scholars but also by television professionals with a strong interest in the study of history. As the originator of the project, I was the project director and associate producer; Calvin Skaggs, formerly an English professor and now an accomplished filmmaker, worked as the producer-director; two writers, Frederic Hunter and Thomas Babe, with a long record of constructing scripts about historical subjects for the theater and television, wrote the screenplay. Additionally, historians Richard N. Current, James M. McPherson, and Kenneth M. Stampp served on the advisory board. They provided valuable assistance from the time of conceptualization through the final months of editing. As advisors they contributed ideas during the initial planning for the film, suggested sources for research, discussed the design of the story with writer Frederic Hunter in a lengthy face-to-face meeting in New York, assessed drafts of the script. And reviewed the rough cut of the film. Their questions and recommendations greatly helped to give direction to the planning. Cullom Davis, Robert W. Johannsen, and James Oakes also provided valuable assistance as consultants in the period of script revision.
When I began developing plans for the film back in the mid-1980s, I was inspired by the memory of a 1975 ABC television show called The Missiles of October. Thar program was one of the first historical films on television popularly identified as a docudrama. Missiles focused on the Kennedy Administration’s 1962 handling of the Soviet weapons emplacements in Cuba. It took viewers inside the president’s meetings at the White House and revealed the way members of the cabinet. Congress, diplomatic corps, and the military offered quite different recommendations about appropriate action. Missiles also examined efforts to resolve the crisis outside the Executive Office, showing discussions at the United Nations, at the Kremlin, and in private settings. The Missiles of October made compelling drama because it encouraged viewers to consider the variety of choices available to the leaders, and it made audiences think about the implications of each decision.
While I did not consider Missiles a perfect example of outstanding historical drama (it glamorized Kennedy, for example), I did think its framework for examining a political crisis could be applied to the story of Lincoln and the coming of the Civil War. In both Lincoln’s and Kennedy’s cases the choices were tough; serious recommendations came to the president from influential people representing conflicting points of view; little time remained before a critical decision had to be made; and the stakes involved were very high. As in the case of John F. Kennedy’s handling of the Soviet challenge, the story of Lincoln’s treatment of the Fort Sumter affair appeared to offer a unique opportunity for investigating history through the medium of drama. By examining the pressure cooker environment at the White House in March and April 1861, when Lincoln had to establish a clear policy, viewers could get an exciting inside picture of the process by which the President made decisions. Such a tightly focused look at Lincoln during a severe test could, I thought, illuminate the nature of his leadership and the causes of the Civil War.
The story also offered an opportunity to show audiences how the study of history involves interpretation. The film could encourage audiences to consider whether they would have taken the same course of action if they had been in Lincoln’s shoes. In watching such a drama, viewers could ask: Was war avoidable? Was it “inevitable?” Did the political leaders who proposed compromises to Lincoln offer viable options? If some other national figure had been in charge at the White House, could events have taken a significantly different direction? Which were the “best” choices under the circumstances? Indeed, in a broader sense, such a program could raise questions similar to the ones Americans recently contemplated during the Persian Gulf crisis: Under what conditions is war necessary? To what extent should leaders accept difficult compromises in order to avoid great bloodshed?
Too often, television docudramas package answers to such questions. They suggest that the evidence leans overwhelmingly in one direction, and the decisions rendered by national leaders were virtually the only ones an intelligent person would consider. Consequently, their perspective, especially regarding U.S. presidents, often takes the form of hagiography. The dramas suggest heroic character by implying that the leaders almost always took the correct action. In contrast to this approach, Lincoln and the War Within could show the complexity of decision making and reveal that a different figure in the White House in 1861 might have approached some of the decisions differently. The purpose of this exercise would not be to lambaste Lincoln for making the wrong decisions but to encourage viewers to examine the historical setting close-up and with an open mind. Viewers would sense Lincoln’s concerns about preventing slavery’s expansion, protecting the democratic experiment and saving the Union, but they would also understand the pressures Lincoln faced as he tried to avoid internecine war. The program could invite critical thinking by drawing audiences into the web of difficulties Lincoln experienced and challenging them to consider their own values as they developed personal impressions about the appropriate course of action. If the film succeeded in this goal, it could demonstrate that studying history through the medium of film can be adynamic experience, not a static exercise (i.e., demanding an active, not a passive role, from the viewer). Fortunately, the panelists and officers at the National Endowment for the Humanities shared this objective, and the NEH provided the major funds necessary to move the project through scripting and production. Valuable assistance towards a rewriting of the script came through a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council. The actual budget for the docudrama turned in at a little over $1 million.
As plans for scripting got underway, the writers and I recognized that it would be difficult to deal with the gaps in our knowledge regarding the details of Lincoln’s thoughts and actions in early 1861. Lincoln remains somewhat a mystery to historians despite the abundance of books about him. One NEH panelist who was evaluating our project put it this way: “He is tough to do, and taciturn. He held cards close to his vest.” In terms of the scriptwriter’s task, it would be impossible to determine exactly what the president thought and when he thought it as he maneuvered his way through the secession crisis in the spring of 1861.
In dealing with the fragmentary evidence about Lincoln’s inner thoughts and unrecorded conversations behind closed doors, we read an abundance of materials by Lincoln and about him (including numerous primary works) and then let the understanding we gained from that research inform the scriptwriting. Whenever possible, we tried to use the exact language that Lincoln and his contemporaries used, and much of the dialogue comes directly from the original sources. In some cases the evidence remained cloudy and the contemporary sources were contradictory. For example, historians disagree in deter mining the degree to which Lincoln was willing to consider making compromises (such as abandoning Fort Sumter) and in identifying the point when Lincoln made up his mind about resupplying Sumter. They also disagree in assessing Lincoln’s overall handling of the secession crisis.
Of course, many historians praise Lincoln for the manner in which he openly announced an expedition to bring provisions to Fort Sumter with “an unarmed boat, and unarmed men” and let the Southerners make the decision about war. The president brilliantly devised a situation in which he could say, essentially, “heads I win; tails you lose.” Some have argued, however, that Lincoln maneuvered the Confederates into firing the first shot, and, thus, he must share much of the blame for starting the war. Charles W. Ramsdell articulated this thesis provocatively in a 1935 essay, and over the years historians such as James G. Randall, David M. Potter, Kenneth M. Stampp, and Richard N. Current have criticized Ramsdell’s thesis but disagreed on the fine points of answering a very important question: did Lincoln expect that peaceful provisioning of Fort Sumter was possible? Our film communicates points of view about this debate, but it also supplies plenty of evidence of interest to those who would challenge its thesis. In short, we resisted the temptation to load the evidence completely in favor of one or another verdict. Just as a researcher working in the archives encounters fragmentary evidence, the viewer also discovers in complete details when watching the film, details that may serve conflicting perspectives. In this manner, hopefully, the film reflects the incomplete nature of the research data more honestly than many other docudramas do, and it demonstrates some of the challenges of interpreting history. It shows that the historian often must explain and assess human behavior without access to a smoking pistol.
A second challenge for the producers concerned the American viewing public’s general familiarity with the subject matter. Lincoln is an American icon. He holds a prominent place in American history and legend and is the source of many schoolhouse stories about honesty, integrity, and courage. It seemed that most American viewers would approach the film with strong impressions already formed about the man. How were we going to present him to audiences as a human being (with faults as well as strengths) and propose to say something new about him? A related problem concerned the American public’s familiarity with the outcome of the crisis. Since virtually everyone in the audience would know that Lincoln was unsuccessful in his efforts to resolve the sectional problems without war, how could we establish a feeling of suspense? Would viewers care to watch a film about decision making when they knew from the start how the decisions came out? We dealt with these challenges in a number of ways, but the one that stands out above all others related to our decision to focus on William Henry Seward’s role in the historical events. In spotlighting Seward, we aimed to give the reporting on Lincoln’s leadership a fresh perspective and sharpen the public’s awareness of the choices Lincoln faced as he steered the government through dangerous waters. We sensed that some viewers would vaguely remember Seward’s as sociation with the purchase of Alaska, but few would recall his important role in the secession crisis. Seward actually was a key player in the federal government’s deliberations. The New York senator had been the leading Republican candidate for president before Lincoln won the party’s nomination, and he was the most influential member of the cabinet when the Lincoln administration began its duties in March 1861. Seward disagreed strongly with Lincoln on the details of dealing with the seceded states. He considered civil war a terrible calamity and unnecessary. The hotheads were in control in the Deep South for the moment, he argued, but eventually moderate, pro-Union opinion could prevail. He urged Lincoln to show patience and to abandon Fort Sumter so that the secessionists would not see an immediate provocation for war. Furthermore, he thought abandonment of Sumter could help keep states in the Upper South from joining the secessionists’ ranks. Lincoln was firm yet conciliatory in his inaugural address and in the following weeks worked closely with Seward and studied his recommendations. By late March, however, it became clear that he was moving in a different direction. Lincoln’s difficulties with Seward came to a head when Seward gave him an extraordinary memorandum entitled “Some Thoughts for the President’s Consideration” (Seward offered himself for service as a sort of premier and recommended that Lincoln threaten foreign powers with war in order to unite the Southern states behind the American flag).
In addition to highlighting the historical is sues involved, elevating Seward’s place in the script presented opportunities for improving the dramatic structure of the story. It brought attention to the clash of personalities and the struggle for influence between two strong-minded men. By focusing on points of disagreement between Lincoln and Seward, we could pack surprises into the drama and show viewers that a film about the corning of the Civil War could offer some important but unfamiliar perspectives. In making this effort, though, we had to guard against the temptation to treat Seward simply as a one-dimensional foil to Lincoln. It would have been easy to cast Seward as an egotist, a fool, and an enemy of the president. We could show Seward taking the low road of political intrigue and Lincoln taking the high road of democratic leader ship. Much more difficult was the task of trying to understand the crisis from Seward’s perspective as well as Lincoln’s and encouraging viewers to think seriously about the ideas of both men.
In designing a television drama, it is always exciting to decide how the film will approach these broad questions about the interpretation, but the work also involves much attention to the small details of historical representation. A docudrama does not rely only on words to in struct; much is communicated subtly through the behavior of the actors, through props and wardrobes and other small details. This background information is important; in a variety of ways it delivers a feeling for the social history of the period. I, along with several researchers and members of the production crew, gathered a great deal of such evidence. We searched for details about the personalities in the story, the physical environment and architecture in Washington, D.C. in 1861, fashions of the times, and a variety of other matters. We also gathered photographs of the major characters, designed personality profiles on each, and prepared mini-biographies of many of the secondary figures in the story. In assigning actors to key roles we tried to keep in mind the evidence that emerged from our research. In case of Seward, for example, we chose Tom Aldredge, an individual who came reasonably close to matching Seward’s age, height, weight, and general appearance. Aldredge read biographies of Seward and care fully studied the research notes. Through much of his activity on the set, he acted like the real William Henry Seward, dressing colorfully in nineteenth-century garb, puffing on a cigar, and behaving generally like a gregarious politician who thought he ought to be president.
This was the fourth docudrama I developed for public television, and, as with the previous projects, Lincoln and the War Within changed shape along the way. Plans laid out first on paper had to be altered frequently in order to enhance the dramatic structure. For example, my original design for the story incorporated several more characters than appeared in the final versions of the script. The first treatments (elaborate scene-by-scene descriptions with background information) I wrote included scenes in Montgomery, Alabama, where Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders were planning a strategy for dealing with Lincoln’s policies. I hoped to swing back and forth between Washington and Montgomery, showing actions and reactions much as The Missiles of October showed action between Kennedy in Washington, D.C. and Khrushchev in Moscow. As we sharpened our focus on Lincoln, Seward, and events in Washington, D.C., however, it became difficult to tell the Southern side of the story effectively. One film professional described the danger of offering only limited coverage of a subject this way: “Half a kiss is worse than no kiss at all.” To introduce the Confederate leaders without giving adequate attention to their ideas and motivation would likely frustrate rather than interest the viewers. Everything considered, we decided it would be better to reflect the concerns of Davis and his associates in the conversations of political figures in the nation’s capitol. Another case of role diminution involved Mary Todd Lincoln. Her position changed from a minor speaking role to a non-speaking part. Recent scholarship such as Jean Baker’s excellent biography of Mary revealed the First Lady in such depth that it seemed the film could only offer a cardboard portrayal if it gave Mazy no more than a cameo role. There simply was not enough space available in the script to examine Lincoln, Seward, the cabinet, and the war issues and to give dimension to the characterization of Mary Todd Lincoln.
Because the structure of the story changed a number of times over the years of planning, we were not able to settle on a title until the final stages of work. For a long time, the project carried the uninspiring working title of “Lincoln and Fort Sumter.” We are indebted to historian/advisor James M. McPherson for offering an attractive recommendation. He suggested “The War Within,” language that conveys three important meanings. Our film deals with the threat of war within the country, the war of ideas within the president’s cabinet, and the war within Lincoln’s mind as he attempted to establish a policy. Television profession liked the concept very much but wondered if prospective television viewers would ask, “Which war?” Hence the title, “Lincoln and the War Within.”
In designing a large-scale dramatic film such as this one, a historian is likely to feel trepidation when reaching the advanced stages of production. No matter how much he/she has nurtured the project from its humble beginnings to its mil lion dollar budget, once the activity moves to the set, it comes under the influence of many different people. Scores of film professionals—from casting specialists to set designers and cinematographers—make critical decisions about the film’s appearance. The historian can establish guidelines and share in this planning, but it is impossible to intervene in every element of the multifaceted activity. Scholars familiar with the inflated sense of control that comes from the “lone wolf” experience of writing a book are likely to feel as if they are watching a pack of writers running off with their manuscript.
Above all, the busy activity around the set is choreographed by a “director.” In describing the director’s role as commander-in-chief I am reminded of the comments of David Newman and Robert Benton, two writers who struggled for years to get a historical subject made into a Hollywood movie. They saw their dreams come true in the release of the film Bonnie and Clyde, but all of their efforts were riding on the talents of another person. Newman and Benton wrote, “If there is one thing we learned beyond any question in the movie business, it is this: once there is a director, he is the boss … . Ultimately his vision becomes the primary one. Always the worth of the final picture stands or falls on his ability.” Fortunately, this project benefited greatly from the skills of a producer/director who loved history and cared deeply about presenting it with sophistication. Calvin Skaggs came to the project after Lincoln and the War Within received a production grant from the NEH. He worked closely with me through several stages of planning, and brought his own vision to the film, particularly through his careful reworking of the script. We enjoyed an exciting partnership. When the project went into preproduction and on to the set and the editing room, though, clearly he was the auteur.
I hope that historians interested in getting in volved in filmmaking will not be turned away as they discover the complications of maintaining personal control over a large-scale project. Film production is a collaborative enterprise, particularly in the case of docudramas. A dramatic film such as Lincoln and the War Within involves well over a hundred people, including carpenters, electricians, set dressers, cinematographers, costume designers, makeup artists, caterers, drivers, secondary actors, and scores of background actors (extras). Coordinating the diverse activities of these people requires expertise in filmmaking and the cooperation of many film professionals. If the historian has worked hard in guiding much of the planning before activity on the set begins, however, the production is likely to reflect many of his/her concerns as well as those of the academic advisors. I should point out, too, that documentary films can be developed with much smaller budgets, a much smaller team of filmmakers, and more individual control in the final stages of production than dramatic films. Thankfully, the NEH facilitates the efforts of scholars to get in on the ground floor of both documentary and docudrama projects.
Despite the fact that filmmaking involves many frustrations, difficulties in obtaining funding, and a long period of time between origination and completion, I recommend the exercise enthusiastically to my colleagues. It is time that representatives from the academy work not only as users of historical films but also as producers of them. We should not leave the media’s role as an interpreter of history solely to executives in the business offices of film companies. The stakes are too great. Films are interpreting his tory for larger and larger audiences these days, and they are making a significant impact on the public’s thinking about the past. It is critically important that some major film projects emerge first in the university, so that the concerns of scholarship will receive significant attention in the overall planning.
Lincoln and the War Within was produced by Lumiere Productions in association with WGBY-TV (a division of the WGBH Education Foundation). Actors Chris Sarandon and Tom Aldredge portray Abraham Lincoln and William Henry Seward respectively. Cinematography took place in the spring of 1991 in Wilmington, New Castle, and other locations in northern Delaware. The film will be released on video for rental or purchase after its national broadcast.
Robert Brent Toplin is a professor in the history department of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington and the contributing editor for movies for the Journal of American History.