Others shared Lincoln’s estimate of his role. The New York Herald reported that it was “generally admitted that the President and Secretary Stanton have infused new vigor into both the naval and military operations here.” Among those voicing that opinion were an officer on the Monitor who remarked that it “is extremely fortunate that the President came down as he did—he seems to have infused new life into everything, even the superannuated old fogies,” and Captain Wilson Barstow, who thought that the “attack on Norfolk is entirely due to Abe, who insisted upon its being done at once.” The sailors aboard the president’s flagship, the Baltimore, ascribed the success of the Norfolk campaign to Lincoln’s ability to energize it. They also declared that the president was “a trump,” and they marveled at the way he seemed so comfortable aboard ship. En route back to Washington, Chase wrote his daughter: “So has ended a brilliant week’s campaign of the President; for I think it quite certain that, if he had not come down, Norfolk would still have been in possession of the enemy, and the ‘Merrimac’ as grim and defiant and as much a terror as ever.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃