NOTE TO THE READER

If you want to look over the author's shoulder, consult "Sources and
Commentary" in the back of the book. That underbook separates fact from
fiction and makes judgments on the historical controversies raised.
In general, the credibility quotient is this: if the scene deals with war
or politics, it is fact; if it has to do with romance, it is fiction; if it is outra-
geously and obviously fictional, it is fact.
PROLOGUE

"When will they come?" The man who had taken the presidential oath six
weeks before heard himself repeating aloud: "When will they come?"
The capital was besieged and its connection with all the states cut off. The
continued existence of the Union depended on the appearance, and quickly,
of troops to hold off the expected Confederate assault. Lincoln peered out the
second-story window of the Mansion. He scanned the Potomac River for
signs of a ship supposed to be bearing the Eighth Massachusetts regiment
under Ben Butler, bolstered by the Seventh New York and perhaps the Rhode
Islanders that Governor Sprague had promised. Only with those reinforce-
ments could any sort of serious fight be waged to save the nation's capital.
"Sir, General Scott is downstairs," said an officer at the door. It was Colo-
nel Stone, in charge of the city's ragtag militia. Lincoln knew his force was
made up of thirty-three companies of part-time soldiers and a Home Guard
of elderly veterans of the War of 1812. The only company considered a fight-
ing force was a National Rifles company of Marylanders, but that was a
hotbed of disloyalty. In Georgetown, the Potomac Light Infantry had just
disbanded, prompting the derisive toast "invincible in peace, invisible in
war." But Colonel Stone was doing the best he could until troops from the
north arrived. "Shall I ask him to come up?"
Lincoln shook his head and followed the colonel downstairs to the front
portico. General Scott weighed three hundred pounds and was almost dis-
abled; climbing stairs would be painful for him.
"They are closing their coils around us, Mr. President," said the command-
ing general of the army that did not exist. Scott reviewed the three military
disasters that had befallen the government of the United States in the past
three days since the secession of Virginia: the burning of the Harpers Ferry
arsenal, the abandonment of the Norfolk Navy Yard with all its ships, and
worst, the destruction of the railroad bridges leading from the capital to the
north. The general then turned to Colonel Stone to ask how he planned to
defend the city of Washington if the rebels came across the Potomac.
"We will resist at three points," said Stone, "the Capitol, the Post Office,
and here at Executive Square."
"No," said Scott immediately. "You don't have the troops for three cen-
ters. Concentrate what forces you have on holding this area right here."
Lincoln nodded vigorously; it was essential to hold the Mansion until rein-
forcements came, if they ever did. He assumed that General Scott, hero of the
War of 1812, remembered the national ignominy when President Madison
had to flee this house and allow it to be burned by the British; if that were to
happen now, the war would be over before it began.
"Barricade every entrance to the Treasury," Scott ordered, pointing to the
building across the street. "That will be the citadel."
"We can build breastworks there with sandbags," the colonel agreed. "It
has a good supply of water and two thousand barrels of flour in the base-
ment."
Apparently flour was important in a siege; Lincoln had been told that flour
had doubled in price to fifteen dollars a barrel. At least they would have
bread to sustain them, if there was a bakery in the Treasury Building. He
would be sorry to see the presidential mansion surrendered, but the govern-
ment would not be so humiliated if it chose to make its stand in the more
fortlike Treasury.
Lincoln thought he heard the boom of cannon. Rebel artillery? Had the
assault commenced? Scott and Stone said they heard nothing. Lincoln left
them and hurried back upstairs, not knowing whether he had taken to hear-
ing things or his commanders were deaf. Outside his office was a delegation of
wounded soldiers, men of the Sixth Massachusetts who had been injured in
rioting in Baltimore.
"I don't believe there is any North," he told the handful of men who had
proved their loyalty. "The Seventh Regiment is a myth. Rhode Island is not
known in our geography any longer. You men here are the only Northern
realities."
Lincoln saw that his bitter words caused concern on the faces of the New
Englanders standing awkwardly in the presence of their commander in chief.
He realized it was unseemly for him to reveal his own doubts to loyal boys
who had come to the capital through a barrage of rocks. The President com-
posed himself and asked their leader how he and his men had been injured.
"We left Boston a week ago, right after you called for the militia," the
sergeant said. "Train came down through New York and Philadelphia fine,
but in Baltimore there was a terrible brawl. We had to shift cars, and the
crowd of plug-uglies hit us when our railroad cars were being drawn by
horses from one depot to the other on the far side of town."
Baltimore, the only rail link north, was steeped in secession sentiment. The
month before, on his own trip from Springfield to Washington to take the
Inaugural oath, Lincoln had been forced to sneak through the city of Balti-
more in disguise. That had angered him; no President of the United States
should be forced to undergo such indignity. He asked about casualties to the
Union soldiers.
"We heard a pistol shot and fired back at the mob. Killed about ten or so, I
thinkfour of our men were killed in the wild rush. Maybe thirty hurt, like
us here."
Lincoln could imagine the scene: an infuriated crowd, rocks thrown at the
frightened recruits, perhaps a shot fired in the air or at someone, and the
undisciplined soldiers responding in panic by blazing away into the mob.
Blood, fury, hatred, everyone at fault and nobody to blame. After that riot,
the Mayor of Baltimore and the Governor of Maryland had sealed off the
state from the further passage of troops. Theirs was a selfish and craven act.
Coming so soon after the secession of Virginia, the closing of the bridges
meant that the capital of the Union was isolated from the North.
Then the telegraph wires to the North had been cut. Washington was out of
all touch with its supporters, if indeed the national government had any
supporters. The last batch of New York newspapers to come through last
week had been filled with glorious expressions of war spirit and news of
enlistment parades. But where were those parading soldiers? Panic's conta-
gion did not find him immune; the sudden desertion of the city left Lincoln
shaken.
He had not expected it to be this way at all. The bold steps he had taken
to provision Fort Surnter, to call out the militia, to resist secession, to spend
great sums of unappropriated moneyseemed to lose all force or meaning as
the local citizens packed their belongings, nailed shut the doors to their
homes and commercial establishments, and ran. The black freedmen disap-
peared as well, presumably fearful of being newly enslaved. Those citizens
who stayed included the Southern sympathizers, of which Washington had so
many, waiting to welcome the conquering Confederates.
Lincoln sent the wounded men out with a few reassuring words and re-
sumed his vigil at the window, troubled to have to admit to himself that the
cannon sound he could have sworn he had heard had been only in his imagi-
nation. Reinforcements were not forty miles away. Why did they have to wait
to rebuild the rail track, or wait for a shipwhy couldn't they start walking?
Ward Hill Lamon, his trusted friend from Illinoisa Virginian of powerful
build and blind loyalty who had appointed himself presidential bodyguard
remained at the door, pistols at the ready, posing as a last line of defense in a
helpless city.
When would they come? If General Beauregard's Virginia troops moved
before the Union ship or train arrived, the secession would be successful.
England and France would promptly recognize the political force that had
captured the Union capital, overrun the Treasury redoubt, and seized the
President and his Cabinet. He was certain no Northerner would then come
forward to rally his countrymen to the cause of Union; on the contrary, the
pressure from nervous Republicans, not to mention fretful Democrats, to let
the Southern states depart the Union peacefully would be irresistible.
"One good thing about being surrounded and cut off," said young John
Hay, the second secretary, "is that you can throw a rock down the hall and
not hit an office seeker. First time it's been quiet in this place." Lincoln did
not feel up to responding to the attempt at cheer. "I was at Willard's last
night," Milton Hay's nephew continued, "and the hotel was deserted. No-
body at all in the dining room. Eerie feeling."
Lincoln hated to have to depend on General Ben Butler, of all politicians,
for the nation's deliverance. In the past election, the Massachusetts Democrat
had been a Breckinridge man, and the abolitionists in Boston were angry at
Butler for supporting the candidate the slavocrats preferred. Butler was a
maverick, said to be tempestuous, arrogant, with a reputation for acting be-
fore thinking. In this extremity, however, just that sort of action by a bluster-
ing politician in a general's uniform was what Lincoln needed.
He craned his neck forward; what was that activity on the river? "Hill, go
down to the Navy Yard and see what's happening." Butler might have landed
his men in Annapolis, against local orders and state laws, and marched his
men to Washington. Or he might have steamed around. Or this might be a
boatload of secessionists.
Hill Lamon passed the order to Hay: "John, you run down there. I'll stay
with the President." Lincoln did not object; Hay would probably be quicker
anyway.
The wait was agonizing. Lincoln assumed that if the vessel contained a
rebel regiment, General Scott would make a brief but symbolic stand at Trea-
sury, then begin negotiations for surrender. Perhaps the general would try to
slip the President and Cabinet out of the city on horseback to Annapolis or by
fast boat that night. If faced by that prospect, what should he do? Run for it,
of course. Perhaps he could rally the country from Philadelphia or New
York; each of the two cities had been the capital at one time.
What had he done wrong? Against the advice of his Cabinetall but the
strong-willed Montgomery Blair, a West PointerLincoln had decided to
wage war rather than permit the Southern malcontents to break up the gov-
ernment. Even now, he was absolutely certain that had been the right deci-
sion. The secession had presented one stark question: whether a democracy
could maintain its territorial integrity against its internal foes. The answer, in
his mind, could not be clearer: a government could not be so tender about the
rights of its citizens that it lost the power to maintain its existence.
No; the mistake he had made was military. He had counted, foolishly it
now seemed, on the existence of a Northof armed forces in beingpre-
pared to march and sail down to defend the capital. He had thought Mary-
land, a slave state, would be neutralized by the sight of thousands of Federal
troops passing through. To those rebellious souls who threatened him with
"peaceful dissolution or blood," he hoped to have the troops on hand to give
his answer: blood, or no dissolution.
He heard rapid footsteps. Hay appeared at the door with a breathless "It's
General Butler and the Eighth Massachusetts, sir, and the Seventh New
York, and Sprague and his men. They're forming up to march down Pennsyl-
vania Avenue."
Lincoln picked up his hat and went down to the front porch to see for
himself that there really was a North. General Scott wheezed his way from
the War Department across the street to join him. He could hear a drumbeat
in the distance.
"Mr. President, the Maryland legislature is meeting tomorrow to vote on
secession. General Butler asks permission to bag the whole nest of traitorous
Maryland legislators, and to bring them in triumph here," the old hero of the
Mexican War announced. "I told him that was a political decision for you to
make."
For the first time Lincoln realized he had the military power to prevent a
state from seceding. But did he have the legal authority? The arrest of whole
legislatures had never been contemplated by the men who had formed a union
of states. Lincoln was not bothered by punctilio: he had already summoned a
militia and imposed a blockade without permission of Congress, which was
being called despotism. Of course, Lincoln rejected such charges, but he had
decided weeks ago that he would do better without the Congress breathing
down his neck until the crisis was over. He had set the date for convening
Congress at July 4, more than two months from now. It would hardly help
the cause of Union to have the politicians from all over the country in town,
in session and in his hair. To get the war properly begun, he needed a breath-
ing spell, the freedom of action to put down the rebellion without the inter-
vention of the institution that reserved for itself so much of the power he
needed.
"I think it would not be justifiable," he replied to Scott about the arrest of
the Marylanders. "We cannot know in advance that their action will not be
lawful or peaceful."
"We could simply disperse them," offered the general. "No arrests."
"They'd immediately assemble someplace else." Residents were beginning
to appear along the streetsome cheering, others sullen, most just waiting for
the parade. "No, let's watch and wait. If they take up arms against us, you
can bombard their cities." At least for now, Lincoln would resist the tempta-
tion to arrest a state government.
"General Butler is a lawyer, sir, which I am not. He says he must have the
power to suspend habeas corpus."
He winced. There it was: the demand for military rule. The success of the
plug-uglies of Baltimore in choking off the capital's line of communication
and supply made necessary, at least according to Butler, the application of
unprecedented power. He hesitated. "I'll have to mull that over."
Down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol, raising the dust from the
hard dirt of the wide boulevard, came the most welcome sight of his life: well-
formed ranks of soldiers of the Union, flags fluttering, the chirruping, boom-
ing sound of a splendid regimental band heralding their arrival.
"That's the Seventh New York," said Scott, squinting at the flags. Across
the street, the whole Blair family turned out on the porch of their house,
waving a large flag. The citizens of Washington came out of hiding and lined
the avenue in front of the President's house to cheer. Lincoln breathed easier,
feeling the spirit and power of liberty embodied by men in blue uniforms
surging into the capital of the nation.
The next day, as the Federal troops were bivouacked in the House of
Representatives, the President read and reread a draft of an order that would
take him into waters that the Constitution had only sketchily charted.
The pigeonholes of his rolltop desk contained the accumulation of his brief
time in the presidency. Some were already stuffed full, like the one marked
"Greeley," containing editorials from the New York Tribune, with covering
letters from the editor exhorting him to smash the rebels who had dared to
fire on Surnter; others held only a single item, like the slot for Thurlow Weed,
the Albany editor and notorious wirepuller, who had written asking for the
juiciest patronage plum in New York.
On the writing surface of the desk was a sheet of paper, the words on it
awaiting only a date and signature to take on the force of law. Lincoln picked
up the order to his commanding general, considered it, put it down again
unsigned. Succinct enough, limited to the area of greatest danger, surely
necessary.
He rose, placed the knuckles of his large hands on either side of the paper,
and read:
"To General Scott: You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against
the laws of the United States. If at any point between the city of Philadelphia
and the city of Washington, you find resistance which renders it necessary to
suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety, you personally, or the
officer in command at the point at which resistance occurs, are authorized to
suspend that writ."
If this were signed, any lieutenant serving under Ben Butler could arrest
any person he thought suspicious, clap him injail, and all but throw away the
key. The lawyer in Lincoln came in conflict with the commander in chief. Of
all the freedoms wrested over the centuries from kings and tyrants, the privi-
lege of the writ of habeas corpus was fundamental. "Produce the body" was
the Latin command, the demand of an independent judiciary that anyone
arrested by the government be brought before a court of law to see whether
his arrest was legal and proper. Under habeas corpus, both the rulers and the
ruled agreed to subject themselves to the rule of law; without habeas corpus,
the courts were powerless to determine whether a citizen was arrested for
cause. Where that writ did not run, no society could call itself freeany
soldier or policeman could break into any house, grab the occupant, throw
him into prison, and the person would have no recourse. The word for gov-
ernment without habeas corpus was tyrannymartial law, the age-old route
to absolute power by dictators. In this case temporary, of course, rooted in
necessity for survival, but that was the way most permanent tyrannies began.
William Seward entered the President's office as airily as if it were his own,
which he and many people thought it should have been. Lincoln always
admired the way the Secretary of State carried himself: all grace and nobility,
a commanding presence made piquant by trace of world-weariness. "Billy
Bowlegs" was the tallest short man Lincoln had ever met.
Seward glanced at the document on the table and said, "Yes, that's itsign
it.  What are you  squeamish about?  There's  a war on."  When  Lincoln ex-
plained that the suspension of habeas corpus was not a precedent to be lightly
set, Seward brushed aside his reservations about the abridgment of liberty.
"It's right there in the Constitution. Didn't your eminent Attorney General
explain it to you?"
Lincoln was quite familiar with Article I, section nine, paragraph two, and
recited it aloud: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be
suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may
require it."
"Well, there you have it. That means the writ may indeed be suspended
when, in case of rebellion, the public safety does require it. Which is now, so
sign." Seward tapped the top of the paper. "Put today's date up in the space
providedit's the twenty-seventh."
Lincoln reminded him that some lawyers were saying that the founders had
put the suspension in the section of the Constitution dealing with the powers
of Congress, and that the legislative branch alone, not the Executive, was
vested with that power.
"That reminds me of a story," said Seward, mimicking Lincoln's technique
of argument. "Your campaign manager in Chicago made a horrendous politi-
cal deal at the convention, promising that old thief Simon Cameron a Cabinet
post if Pennsylvania would desert me and support you. However, you sent a
telegram to your manager, saying with some sanctimony, 'Make no deals in
my name.' And your manager said loud and clear, 'We're here and he's not'
and the dirty deed was done. The point is, we are here and Congress is not."
Lincoln appreciated the story. "More rogues than honest men find shelter
under habeas corpus."
"If you want company on this, let the responsibility for the arrests be mine.
We cannot suppress an insurrection while observing all the constitutional
niceties."
Lincoln took up his pen. "Old Roger Taney isn't going to like this one bit."
"To blazes with the Chief Justice. It was his own damned decision in the
Dred Scott case that brought on the war."
If Seward had no compunctions, Lincoln asked himself, why should he be
afflicted with them? Chief Magistrates of great nations were supposed to be
the way William Henry Seward was at this moment: decisive, firm, single-
minded, purposeful.
Lincoln thought of the rowdies in Baltimore, how their criminal agitation
had caused the deaths of innocent civilians as well as sturdy young soldiers.
Would it not be wiser to arrest such men before their troublemaking led to
death, and before their terrorizing could cause the state to isolate the nation's
capital?
He wrote in "27" after "April," which already appeared across the top,
and signed his name. Seward snatched up the document and handed it to a
secretary to rush to the War Department. Lincoln was aware that he had just
clothed himself with more power than had ever been possessed by George
Washington or Andrew Jackson. Environed by treason, he did not feel un-
comfortable about it.