
about Lincoln's meetings on your army, sir. He wants you to know that
General McDowell"
"That idiot almost lost the war at Bull Run." After that disaster, into
which McDowell had permitted himself to be pushed by the political judg-
ment of Lincoln and the unpardonable concurrence of General Scott, lrvin
McDowell had been demoted. Now, McClellan assumed, this lickspittle gen-
eral was trying to snatch back his command. He was probably telling Lincoln
exactly what he wanted to hear.
"McDowell," continued Stanton, "is being consulted by Lincoln, Chase,
and Seward. He's still under your command, but he's being asked what he
would do if he were in your place."
"Lincoln has no excuse for undermining my authority that way." Then
McClellan had a second thought: "Actually, he has a justificationhe came
by here the other night and I wouldn't see him. The guard told him I was
sleeping." That was unfortunate; once before McClellan had sent the Presi-
dent and his young secretary, Hay, away without an audience, but that was to
show them he was not at the President's beck and call. Other times he had
taken refuge in Stanton's house to avoid the prowling President. This time he
had been ill, not yet recovered from the critical period of the typhoid, which
gave Lincoln the excuse to talk to other generals in his command about the
Army of the Potomac. McClellan wished now that he had not insulted Lin-
coln by not seeing him the first time, but that was past.
"Yesterday Lincoln said to McDowell and Franklin"Stanton lowered his
voice and McClellan had to lean forward, which made his head hurt"that if
you weren't doing anything with your army in Virginia, he'd like to borrow it
for a while."
"He used those words?"
"That's what Lincoln said. He's fairly distraught, I hear, what with the
money problem, and the general depression over this Trent backdown, and
the noise from the abolitionists in his own party."
"He's weak," said McClellan, swaying for a moment, regaining his balance
by force of will. "Lincoln means well, but your assessment of him, I fear, is
correcthe is putty in their hands. Hand me my sash."
Key buttoned his commander's jacket, draping the red sash over his shoul-
der and down across the decorations,
"Lincoln promised two months ago he would not hurry me," McClellan
recalled. "He said he would help me move the Army at my own pace. Now
he's showing panic in the face of political pressure, as you said he would."
"McDowell's a purely political general," Stanton agreed, "and a Republi-
can. Wade wants him back. When slaves in Virginia come into the lines,
McDowell frees them."
McClellan was relieved to have the astute lawyer's services available to him
amidst the gaggle of geese that made up Lincoln's Cabinet. "Fugitive slaves,
not working for hostile forces, should be returned to their owners," McClel-
lan said firmly. "That was my order."
Which reminded the general of the singers. He turned to Key. "Did Gen-
eral McDowell let those damned singers come back?"
A bunch of young radicals calling themselves "the Hutchinson Family
Singers," who entertained the Union troops, had been singing an abolitionist
song composed by the poet Whittier, and McClellan had ordered them off all
military bases. That had started a row with Wade and Chandler in the Con-
gress: those abolitionists claimed that his expulsion of the radical singers was
further proof McClellan was a "slave-catching general," out to prolong the
war by not fighting it, until the North tired of the struggle.
"No sir, Fitz-John Porter has seen to it the singers will not be allowed near
our men again."
McClellan regarded himself in the mirror, squaring his shoulders further.
He hardly resembled his old self; he had lost twenty pounds and his face was
unnaturally sallow, which was why Nellie had to fight back tears when she
looked at him. He wished he had a shirt with a narrower collar to hide the
weight loss. "What other mischief is McDowell up to?"
"He has recommended a general movement of the Army of the Potomac
south and west toward Manassas," Stanton replied. "In your absence, he
proposes to engage the rebels there, drive down to Richmond. Good railroad
lines to supply a siege."
"Bull Run all over again!" McClellan exploded, then made a successful
effort at controlling himself. McDowell, who was probably glorying in this
"examination" he had to submit to, was not all that bad a soldier in the field,
but had no grasp of strategy. To undertake an offensive against an enemy with
superior numbersover 200,000 to McClellan's  115,000, according to
Pinkerton's estimatesin heavily wooded Virginia, as the worst cold of win-
ter set in, was to invite another disaster. And to lose such a battle near the
Union capital would tempt the victorious Confederates to seize Washington,
as Beauregard should have done, the first time the Union was routed at
Manassas.
Thinking ahead to the examination of his generals, especially Franklin, by
the Lincoln Cabinet, McClellan was suddenly chilled by the possibility of the
leakage of the most important military secret of all.
"Has anyone mentioned a plan about a different approach to Richmond?"
"Wellsort of, General." Stanton looked troubled. "General Franklin first
said nothing should be done until you were consulted. Then, to head off the
adoption of McDowell's offensive from Manassas, he told Lincoln there was
another way."
"Did he say anything about the York River?"
"He mentioned it in passing, but that's what they are planning to ask him
about today."
"Damn." McClellan had a brilliant strategy in mind, one that would avoid
the high casualties of a grinding, yard-by-yard attack through Virginia. He
envisioned putting the Army of the Potomac on the Potomacon the river,
in gunboats and other vessels, sailing silently down the Potomac to the Ches-
apeake, then up the York River to a landing point within short striking
distance of Richmond. By such a daring maneuver, he could cut off the
Confederate force at Yorktown and capture their entire garrison on the Pen-
insula. This plan would enable the Union forces to outflank Richmond's
imposing fortifications and take the city from the rear. The plan was stun-
ning, bold and imaginative, a raid on a vast scale worthy of a Napoleon.
There was risk: the presence of a Confederate army at Manassas would
scare the politicians in Washington, since the capital would be relatively un-
defended, but he was certain that the Confederates at Manassas would be
forced to withdraw when they heard that the decisive battle of the war was to
be fought at Richmond. The Peninsula plan had the element of surprise, sure
to be vitiated if the entire Cabinet and the political generals were let in on the
secret. Lincoln would have to be informed; the others had no need to know.
"I have not been asked to be at the examination," Stanton was saying.
"Do I have a single defender in this cabal?"
"Blair, perhaps, but he's slippery," said Stanton. "It's most important that
I be confirmed immediately, without any hearings, so I can work with you in
averting another disaster."
McClellan would have to pass the word to the more sensible senators, who
were in the majority in the Senate, to confirm Stanton immediately.
Blair was the only West Pointer in the lot, McClellan noted. It sickened
him to think that the others were willing to see his great army, which he had
almost brought up to fighting condition, cut to pieces, driven to rout and
permanent defeat just to satisfy the impatience of a few abolitionist rabble-
rousers. They had all kowtowed to McClellan only three months ago, when
that army was in a shambles and no one else could rally them; now that the
army was nearly in condition, almost up to strength, the same crowd was
trying to grab the army and ruin it again. Feverish or not, McClellan would
not permit that.
"You may have trouble with Chase," said Stanton. "He's been spending a
lot of time with Wade and Chandler on that Joint Committee. They're after
your hide."
"Not ChaseI've neutralized him." In early December, before the fever
struck him down, the general had heard that Chase needed an infusion of
confidence. McClellan undertook the necessary bolstering that helped that
profoundly truthful man persuade New York and Philadelphia bankers to
support the government with loans. Chase had been properly honored by the
general's confidence when McClellan gave him the outline of his plan for a
Peninsula campaign, seizing Richmond from the rear. He had sworn Chase to
secrecy; as far as McClellan knew, that oath had been honored, but the
Treasury Secretary was still a member of the radical crowd. McDowell would
be "his" general, beholden to Chase for his return; McClellan assumed that
one reason Stanton was alerting him to this White House meeting was to
avert such a diminution of the power of the new Secretary of War.
McClellan could not afford to let his command authority be further under-
cut, or his plan spilled before the politicians. "Colonel, tell my groom to
saddle Kentuck."
"I have a carriage right outside, General"
"I can ride." If George Brinton McClellan could walk, he could ride. His
problem was getting down the stairs, not climbing on his horse. Leaning on
Key's arm, he maneuvered his way downstairs, stopping every few steps to
slow the spinning, Stanton following behind. His army would fight for him; it
would not fight for McDowell or the other politicians. He had whipped it into
shape; the officers and men of the Army of the Potomac trusted him; he
would not see them led to slaughter.
A cheer went up from his bodyguardtwenty mounted menas their
leader emerged from the house for the first time in too long. He smiled, then
frowned them to attention.
Kentuck was brought forward; it made McClellan feel better to stroke the
steed's neck, then to heave himself into the comfortable saddle he had de-
signed. Astride his horse, he was relieved to find that his dizziness and weak-
ness had passed. The general was prepared to defend his army from the
insidious flanking movement of the politicians.
Montgomery Blair, picking his way across the frozen mud of Pennsylvania
Avenue from his own house to the President's on that Sunday morning, was
hailed by Thomas Scott, the Assistant Secretary of War.
"I'll be representing the War Department at this meeting," Scott told him.
"Cameron is out and Stanton is not yet in."
"And McClellan is out, it seems, and McDowell is not yet back in," Blair
replied. He trusted Scottprofessional, straightforward, no political ambi-
tionand would have advised Lincoln to put him at the head of the depart-
ment instead of the treacherous Stanton. He found it troubling that Lincoln
would not consult the Biairs on such a momentous decision. His father was
certain the Stanton appointment was Seward's doing, and boded ill for the
country.
"Stanton's going to be my new boss," Scott said cheerlessly, leaning into
the January wind. "I hear you had some harsh things to say about him."
Only that he was a liar and a traitor, Blair thought, saying instead, "I hope
I'm wrong. But he bears watching." It occurred to the Postmaster General
that Lincoln, in selecting men as different as McClellan and Stanton to con-
duct the war, was prepared to make a great many personality allowances in
order to get an effective army in the field. But perhaps the selection of Stanton
meant the end of McClellan.
"Stanton's a hard worker, though, and decisive. God knows we need that."
Scott pointed to a large van, drawn up to the side of the War Department
across the street. "His appointment became public today, he doesn't take
office till next week after the Senate approves, and he's already got his hands
on the telegraph service."
The head of the postal service did not know that. "He just grabbed it?"
"Right out of McClellan's headquarters, before anybody could say boo.
He's going to concentrate all the nation's telegraph service into one room
adjacent to his office. Nobody in the Union will be able to send a wire without
Stanton seeing it. He'll know what generals in the field are telling each other,
as well as what they are reporting to us."
"Cabinet members" he left the rest unsaid.
Scott shot him a wry smile. "If your brother in Missouri sends you a
telegram, even in code, Stanton gets it first. Those are the orders."
Dangerous; control of communications was power. Blair would have to be
careful Stanton did not poach on his preserve of the U.S. mail. "I imagine
that telegraph office will be where Lincoln will be spending a lot of time," he
noted. Stanton was doubly smart: proximity to power was also power.
In the Cabinet Room, Blair took his regular seat as Lincoln motioned Scott
to the place left empty by the hapless Cameron. Seward and Chase were
there, but not Welles or Smith or Bates; for some reason, Lincoln wanted this
meeting small and unofficial. Three generals awaited interrogation, McDow-
ell alone looking confident.
Montgomery Blair was ambivalent about lrvin McDowell. Six months be-
fore, the Biairs had joined in the urging of McDowell into action across the
Potomac, and under that pressure the general did not hesitate. In retrospect,
he should have hesitated; military commanders have an obligation to resist
unsound civilian orders. Blair was angry at himself for being impatient, an-
grier at McDowell for not saving them all from that impatience. They were
all guilty for Bull Run, but McDowell was guiltier than any.
Blair wondered why he had been invited to this stealthy replacement of
McClellan. Presumably, Lincoln wanted a Blair present in these meetings as a
counter to Chase and Seward, both of whom had already lost faith in McClel-
lan: Chase had been persuaded that McClellan was a "slave-catcher" who did
not want to pursue the war vigorously, and Seward was convinced that the
commander was on the verge of death and would not soon be ready for
action. But Blair felt uncomfortable at being therehe did not savor being
part of a cabal operating behind a commanding general's back. McDowell,
standing at a map on the wall, was pointing out how the rebels in Virginia
could be attacked without jeopardizing Washington.
"What do you think, Judge?" Lincoln wanted an opinion from Blair about
McDowell's plan to move in the next week, as Lincoln and the othersand
the countrywanted the army to do.
"Before Judge Blair gives us the benefit of his military experience," Secre-
tary Seward interrupted, "let me tell you something about enemy strength.
An Englishman whom I consider reliable has just come to me from Rich-
mond, Manassas, and Centreville. A military man. He said the rebel forces
were in excellent conditionwell shod, clothed, and fedand that he esti-
mated their number at one hundred thousand."
"One hundred thousand?" That was a surprise to Lincoln, who had been
assured by McClellan, Pinkerton, and all the generals in the Army of the
Potomac that the Confederate Army in Virginia numbered over two hundred
thousand. "If that's true, we outnumber the enemy by three to two."
"If it's true," said Blair. "I think we are safer, and wiser, going by the
Pinkerton estimate than by the unverified judgment of a single Englishman."
"Going by McClellan's estimate, then, what do you think?" Lincolna
trifle more nervous and impatient than usual, Blair thoughtwanted a firm
opinion.
"I fear it may be Bull Run all over again," Blair said, to the open dismay of
the men around the table, only General Franklin excluded. Blair began to
explain why, and stopped abruptly.
General McDowell, face reddening, was staring toward the doorway. All
eyes followed his to the form of a gaunt but resolute George McClellan.
"Little Mac," the uninvited man, was present and would have to be ac-
counted for.
Lincoln rose, went to the doorway, and clasped McClellan's hand. "Are
you sure your health permits?" he asked in what seemed to Blair genuine
solicitude. "We could not wait."
McClellan said nothing, just took his place at the Cabinet table and looked
sourly at McDowell standing at the map of Virginia.
"I am presenting this plan at the President's direct order," explained Mc-
Dowell to the general-in-chief, a note of apology or chagrin in his voice.
McClellan remained impassive. McDowell, clearing his throat and looking
for a glass of water, hesitated before going on. But at Lincoln's urging, he laid
out hisand Lincoln'splan for striking directly at the enemy strength
across the Potomac, twenty miles from Washington, and then driving down
toward Richmond. With his superior military officer now present, McDowell
went into order-of-battle detail, stressing the logistical support of two railroad
lines that could supply a train to enable the Army to lay siege to Richmond.
When the man at the map finished reviewing the plan, the President looked
to McClellan for a response. The general did not respond. Blair thought that
wise; his silence made everybody in the room nervous. McClellan was not
without his high cards in this poker game. If the Young Napoleon blew up
and stalked out, he could take a large part of his army with himsuch was
the control he had over his men.
"In my opinion," the unhappy McDowell concluded, "we will succeed, by
repeated blows, in crushing out the force in our front, even if it is our equal in
numbers and strength."
Blair believed that judgment to be militarily unsound; with equal forces,
the dug-in defense in home territory had the great advantage. Although the
new breech-loading rifles made it possible for attackers to reload rapidly, that
increased firepower had been more than offset by the rifling of the musket
barrelsthe defense could now shoot a ball three times as far and with more
accuracy. When defenders were shooting at men coming across an open field,
the difference between a two-hundred-yard range and a five-hundred-yard
range was the difference between defeat and victory.
"And in my opinion," McDowell concluded, "the time is ripe for such an
attack." He was no longer looking toward Lincoln, but seeking some assur-
ance from his commanding general.
After a long pause, McClellan said only, "You're entitled to have any
opinion you please." He added nothing to that. If he wanted to show scorn
for his subordinate's attempt to curry favor with civilians to dislodge him
from command, Blair thought he had succeeded.
The silence became painful. "I made this presentation," McDowell said
lamely, "because of the critical nature of your illness."
"I have regained my health. This examination may now cease."
Chase leaned over toward Lincoln, whispered something, and then spoke
up. "The purpose of this meeting is to determine the military plans in detail,
for our approval or disapproval. General McClellan, proceed."
McClellan slowly shook his head. "The purpose you express is entirely new
to me. I do not recognize the Secretary of the Treasury in any way as my
official superior, and I deny your right to question me on the military affairs
in my charge."
Chase leaned his head forward and his big voice filled the room. "I want to
ask you a direct question, General. I speak as one with the responsibility to
raise the money to finance this armywhich, by the way, is not your army,
but the United States's army. My question is this: What do you intend doing
with the Army of the Potomac, and when do you intend doing it?"
"The President and the Secretary of War alone have the right to interrogate
me."
Chase set his face hard, turned and whispered to the President again.
After a moment Lincoln said, "General Franklin here says there might be
another approach to Richmond, by water down the Potomac. Perhaps he will
make that more specific for us."
General Franklin was most uncomfortable. "I raised that possibility only
because I knew it was in General McClellan's mind. If the general-in-chief
wishes to discuss it, he's here."
Again McClellan said nothing. Blair, on McClellan's side in this unex-
pected confrontation, wished he would lay out his plan for a bold water-and-
land assault on Richmond by way of the James River. The idea struck him as
infinitely more effective, and far less costly in casualties, than a grinding
overland campaign beginning at Manassas. But the young general remained
mute.
Lincoln filled the silence with some nervous talk about details of the Mc-
Dowell plan, but Blair felt for the first time that the President was not in
charge of the meeting. Lincoln's voice ran on and dribbled to a stop.
"The case is so clear," said McClellan finally, "that a blind man could see
it. First, I need to know how many additional forces are to be placed under
my command in a general advance."
Blair knew what he was getting at. Lincoln had held back some forces from
McClellan's Army of the Potomac, putting them under Generals Burnside
and Butler, who operated best alone, and whose presence in the vicinity gave
the capital's residents more confidence. McClellan, under attack by his politi-
cal foes, was defending his position by taking the offense, using the occasion
to gather more forces under his direct command.
Lincoln temporized, and Blair assumed the President did not want to make
a decision or a promise to McClellan without knowing whether the general
was going to adopt the plan to strike through Manassas and on to Richmond.
Seward fidgeted in his chair. Tom Scott was hunched forward, arms on the
table, apparently amazed that the management of the war had come to this
impasse.
Blair managed to catch McClellan's eye and shook his head imperceptibly
to warn him about insubordination. The general could not stand mute, not if
the President wanted him to speak.
"I would like," said the general-in-chief, "to see some diversionary action
in the West. Kentucky. Or Missouri." That, Blair knew, was something, but
not good enough. McClellan closed his eyes for a moment, as if to steady
himself, and then said what was on his mind: "I am very unwilling to reveal
my plans to this gathering. In military matters, the fewer people who know
about them, the better."
"I am the Secretary of the Treasury, responsible for financing the war,"
said Chase. "This is the Secretary of State, and the Postmaster General is
here because of his military background. Here, at the head of the table, is the
President of the United States. Which one of us do you think should not be
trusted with knowledge of your plans?"
"I will reveal my plans," said McClellan coolly, "and thereby endanger the
security of my army, only if I receive a direct order to do so. A written
order."
"If that is your decision," warned Chase, "you are a ruined man." He
resumed his private talking to the President.
Blair thought McClellan had overstepped; Chase thus abused would be his
implacable enemy, and the demand for a direct order, especially in writing,
was an insult to the President. The Quartermaster General, Meigs, drew his
chair around to McClellan's and spoke to him quietly and urgently. Blair
could not hear their conversation clearly, but Meigs was saying something
about being "not respectful" and McClellan was murmuring, "Can't keep a
secret . . . I don't want my plans in the Tribune tomorrow morning."
Eyes swung to the only man in the room capable of giving the order to
force McClellan's hand. Blair knew that Lincoln needed a way out: he had
been embarrassed by McClellan's unexpected presence in a series of meetings
that had been intended to goad him to action or take over his command. Now
Chase and McClellan had put it up to the President: Who was in charge of
the army? Blair considered interrupting to deflect the challenge, but then
decided to see how Lincoln would handle it.
"Well, General," said Lincoln after the caucusing, "I think you had better
tell us what your plans are."
"Sir, if you have any confidence in me, you will not find it necessary to
entrust my designs to the judgment of others. If your confidence is so slight as
to require that my opinions be fortified by those of other persons, it would be
wiser to replace me with someone"he looked toward lrvin McDowell
"fully possessing your confidence."
Tom Scott broke that tension with a practical note, spoken in a friendly
way to a fellow former railroad executive. "George, everybody in this room
knows in general terms about your Peninsula idea. It's no big secret here."
"My point exactly," said McClellan. "The President knows the direction of
my thinking, and so does the Secretary of the Treasury. Why should it be
necessary to set forth details that would soon be spread all over Washington
and become known to the enemy?"
Seward stood up, buttoned his coat, and said almost merrily, "Well, Mr.
President, I think the meeting had better break up. We're not likely to make
much out of General McClellan." Blair looked at the man with a mixture of
amazement and disgust: it was all a game to him.
"Wait a moment," Lincoln said to Seward, who promptly sat down. "Gen-
eral, answer me this. Do you have, in your own mind, some particular time
fixed when a movement will be commenced?"
When the general just stared at him, the President amended his question.
"I am not asking you to reveal what that time is, but I want to know if you
have a fixed time in your mind."
"I have."
"Then," rejoined the President, trying to look as if he had asserted his
authority, "I shall adjourn the meeting."
Score one for the Young Napoleon, thought Blair. As all rose, Blair noticed
that McClellan, who was next to him at the table, staggered. Casually, Blair
put an arm around the general's shoulders, as if in a collegial way, but sup-
porting him under his arm. The general's body was trembling. Blair engaged
him in idle conversation, doing most of the talking, and helped him through
the front door of the President's house and onto his horse, urging him to
hurry home. Rivulets of sweat were pouring down his face, and the cold air
would not do him any good.
Blair and Scott stopped at the corner of Seventeenth and Pennsylvania,
puffing vapors into the air. "Judge, there's something we can do to help the
President," Scott said. "He and McClellan are going to be arguing for weeks
over which route to take to Richmond. That's what Little Mac wants, to
delay till spring, when he thinks his men will be in shape."
"That's too late."
"Right," said Scott. "If we don't win, we lose. Now at today's meeting, you
remember Little Mac said he wanted a Western diversion. I have a plan in
hand that may turn out to be much more than that. The idea is to ignore the
fortified Mississippi River; instead, to send a force to Ohio to take Forts
Henry and Donelson, and then invade the South down the Tennessee River."
Blair knew all about the Tennessee planAnna Carroll had gone over it
with the Biairs, and probably others, asking them to press for its adoption
with Lincoln. He had not; Miss Carroll was a persuasive pamphleteer with
wide-ranging political connections, but it struck him as absurd to consider
any woman to be a military strategist. "You think it makes sense?"
"It makes a lot more sense to me," said Scott, "than McClellan's notion of
leaving Washington undefended while he sails down the river and up the
Peninsula to Richmond."
Blair did not agreehe preferred taking Richmond by maneuver, before
defenses could be constructedbut Scott had a point: a Western diversion
was a worthy idea. "Then urge it on Halleck out thereor on his generals,
Grant and Sherman," Blair said. "We need some success soon."
"It needs more serious backing than mine," Scott hinted, Blair caught his
meaning.
"If it's your judgment that the Tennessee plan has merit, I'll talk to the
President. Meanwhile, you plant it in Stanton's head and make it his idea. I
don't think Halleck out West will like it, but McClellan won't objectit takes
the pressure off him."
Scott agreed. "You'll never believe who came up with the Tennessee plan
first. Of course, the idea is obviousthe only thing is, nobody else put it
before the President."
"Don't underestimate the daughters of Maryland, Colonel."
Scott grinned. "Don't send any telegrams you don't want Stanton to read."
They parted, Scott to the War Department, Blair across the street to his
house. Anna Carroll had helped get Frank Blair out of jail when Fremont lost
his temper; the Biairs would help her press her plan, now that a sensible
fellow like Scott had judged it to be sound. The focus of attention out West
would give McClellan a month or two, which he needed, and would prevent
another McDowell blunder at Bull Run.
Little Mac was much abused by the radical faction these days, and Blair
feared his challenge to Chase today would worsen the enmity. McClellan
surely had the confidence of his men, who would follow him to hell, but the
problem was that he was reluctant to lead them there. A cautious man
necessarily so, considering that another major military blunder could lose the
war for the Unionbut with one noticeable drawback: vanity, which com-
bined with political ambition, could lead to trouble. As his conduct at today's
meeting showed, McClellan combined personal courage with congenital stub-
bornness. He showed he could storm a citadel and take the high ground, but
Elair wished he had shown the maturity to win over the men he had forced to
back away. The general had every right to be furious at the way Lincoln had
gone around him to his field commanders, but had no right to treat the
President and Chase as his equals. Blair charitably attributed that lack of
judgment to the fact that the man was fighting for his position while conceal-
ing a raging fever.
At least McClellan was accepted throughout the nation for what he was: a
first-class military man, top of his class at the Point, author of a brilliant
report on the Crimean War and its lessons for the U.S. Army, and a leader
capable of inspiring the kind of devotion that common soldiers reposited only
in a Napoleon. He was "the man of the hour" because no other military man
came a close second. Blair hoped the generals out West, now under "Old
Brains" Halleck, were as soldierly. One of them, Sam Grant, was a West
Pointer, but it was widely reported he drank, and had been pushed out of the
army for cause; on top of that, he was a failure in civilian life. The other,
William Sherman, had been a successful enough banker in California, ran a
military academy in Louisiana, and was sustained politically by his brother in
the U.S. Senate; but Sherman had not shown much leadership under Mc-
Dowell at Bull Run; he had an obsession about the press, and the reporters
were fond of hinting in print that he was slightly deranged. Not much of a
group to rest the fate of a nation on, especially with Halleck known to be a
jealous, small-minded man with a minimum of battlefield experience.
The Union generals were up against Sidney Johnston, the former Secretary
of War of the Republic of Texas, and thought by most West Pointers, Blair
included, to be the best all-round soldier in America. Like Robert Lee, whom
Blair thought overrated, Sidney Johnston had been offered high command of
the Union armies by Lincoln, but he had turned down the offer as Winfield
Scott's second-in-command and chosen instead the Confederate Western
command. As expected, Sidney Johnston had easily trounced Fremont, and
was now fighting Halleck's superior forces to a standstill. If the war did not
end soon, Blair feared that Albert Sidney Johnston would be named supreme
commander of the Southern forces, and his theories of the "offensive defen-
sive" in modern warfare would be devastating to the kind of invasion Lincoln
had in mind.
Blair knocked the dirty snow off his boots on the stand outside his door
and pulled out his key. At that moment a man with a sack on his back came
up to the door and asked, "Is this number 1601?" Blair said it was. "You
ought to put the number on the door, mister, it'll make it easier for us. We've
begun regular delivery of the mail."
"You mean," Blair smiled, "we don't have to pick it up at the post office
anymore?"
"That's right," said the postman, handing over a couple of letters. "You
may want to put a box out here for it; they have them in the stores now."
Postmaster General Blair nodded, took the letters and went inside. The
war was stalemated, the Northern spirit was sagging, the Union general was
sick and refused to admit it, the Cabinet was divided and would soon be
afflicted with a manipulative War Secretary, and the President was not sure of
himself. But amidst it all the nation had instituted mail service right to the
addressee's door, and on a daily basis. Not a major event in a country in such
straits, but some little progress that made Blair feel his long days were not for
naught.

CHAPTER 9
A NOSE SLIGHTLY PUG
The brick Chase mansion on Sixth and E looked imposing to John Hay. He
flipped the brass knocker and waited in the cold, turning his fur hat over in
his hands, his thoughts of the tense session with McClellan fading in anticipa-
tion of a private meeting with the most adored and envied young woman in
Washington. He reminded himself not to let his ill feelings about Mrs. Lin-
coln show to her younger social rivalno "Her Satanic Majesty" cracks in
Miss Chase's presence. Not even "La Reine," as Nicolay called her; only
"Mrs. Lincoln," or at most, with the slightest shade of irony, "Madame."
This long-sought rendezvous had been arranged, of all places, at the Smith-
sonian Institution after that terrible blowhard speech by Horace Greeley. The
President was in attendance, sitting on the platform showing the greatest
respect to the editor of the New York Tribune. That hot-and-cold patriot who,
Hay remembered, had been willing to surrender the cause of the Union after
Bull Run, was at his abolitionist peak as Stanton came to power. "By condon-
ing slavery," the editor had publicly wagged a finger at Lincoln, "we cherish
the viper which has its fangs now fastened in the national breast."
After the lecture, Hay had gone up to the platform to have the President
introduce him to the famed editor, who might be an inconsistent political
supporter but who could one day help a fledgling poet. Lincoln was explain-
ing to Greeley that he hoped his plan of compensated, gradual emancipation
could be presented to the border states persuasively, not menacingly, and the
editor was shaking his head, no.
"What a wonderful man," Hay had heard spoken behind him, and turned
to look at the most level set of challenging gray-green eyes that had ever set
his loins contracting.
"I have felt that about the President," Hay responded, "ever since I went
to work for him."
"Him, too," was all she said. He had seized his chance to invite her to
Willard's for a glass of champagne, and she countered with an invitation to
tea at the Chase house. The date had been postponed twiceboth times by
herbut the time had come.
He lifted and released the cold brass knocker again.
She opened the door herself, which surprised him; two servants were in the
background. His poet's heart leaped at her guarded smile and the incredible,
fresh beauty that she wore so casually, then as suddenly sank when he real-
ized she was too tall. Maybe she was wearing higher heels especially for this
occasionor perhaps, the crazy thought struck him, he was getting shorter.
"I'm overdressed for our meeting," she said easily, reaching for his arm
and drawing him in. She was in a stiff white silk gown with a sprig ofjasmine
on the shoulder. "We have guests coming at eight, and I didn't want to take
time from our tea to dress."
He liked that. Why didn't she invite him for dinner?
"You're invited to stay, of course," she said, "if you like a dreary group of
bankers from Philadelphia." Good; such a gathering would not show him in
his best light, and it would be gauche to appear too eager. He declined, saying
the President expected him back for some early evening work.
"Tea, or sherry, or whiskey?"
He would have preferred a hot cup of teahe had walked from the White
House, ten blocks across the frozen mudbut that would not have been
manly. He told the butler he would have whiskey.
"Bourbon and branch water for two," she ordered, saying confidentially to
him, "It gets my color upbetter than using rouge." Hay liked her quick
intimacy. "That was some confrontation with the Young Napoleon," she said,
cutting quickly to the core of his life. "Father said McClellan acted abomina-
bly. How could he do that? Does Little Mac think he's going to be dictator?"
She was going a little fast for him. Hay had been outside the Cabinet Room
all weekend, overhearing what he could of the secret examination, and then
he and Nicolay had talked it over afterward with Lincoln. Lincoln said he
had thought McClellanwhose surprising arrival, Hay knew, had embar-
rassed the President terriblyhad acted like a man.
With Kate looking right at him, expecting an intelligent answer, Hay
stalled. "Do you think we need a dictator?"
"Might not be such a bad idea," she said offhandedly. "That's what the
Romans did when the nation was in danger. But not McClellan. He dithers
too much to be a dictator."
"His men swear by him. Wasn't for him, we wouldn't have an army at all."
That was the defense Lincoln put forward to others, even when privately
upset with the general's refusal to grasp the political damage of military
delay, or when the general-in-chief failed to take the commander in chief fully
into his confidence. Lincoln liked to hear the fine details of military plans,
down to regimental placements and types of bridges; it gave him the sense
that the planner was serious.
"Do you always say the safe thing, Mr. Hay?"
That shaft went home; he had been saying the safe thing ever since he
finished his studies at Brown, certainly since he had come to the District of
Columbia. Working in the President's mansion put a young man in the safe-
thing habit.
"I do not know you well enough," he replied, "to say the unsafe. I am,
after all, the keeper of the President's conscience."
She affected a deep sigh; in her tight dress her breasts, not large, became
noticeable for a moment. Hay had come to Washington at twenty-two, a
virginmaybe. The maybe was the girl in Springfield who claimed he had
penetrated her during their passionate farewell, but he could not be certain
that she was not just being kind. In a year in the nation's capital, with ready
access to the maidens at counselor Earnes's parties, and with the power
drawn from his proximity to the President to appear mysterious and secre-
tive, John Hay had cut a swath. He liked the phrase. He wished desperately
he could engage in swath-cutting with Kate Chase and knew the first step
required him to say something daring but not indiscreet.
She leaned forward and put both hands on his knees, a movement that he
had never experienced before. "How old are you, John Hay?"
"Twenty-three," he said. He almost added "and a half," but that might not
be taken as humorous.
"Almost my age. We are, both of us, very young to be doing what we're
doing. I am the hostess and political confidante of the Secretary of the Trea-
sury, the man who represents the most enlightened and progressive elements
of the Republican Party. You are the private secretary of the most powerful
man in the nation, if he only knew how to use his power."
"He knows," Hay interrupted, to say something daring, "but he has to
maneuver the country ahead of him." How could he tell her what he really
knew of Lincoln? Not the Honest Abe of the cartoons, or the timorous pro-
crastinator of today's meeting in the Cabinet roombut the detached, remote
man, hiding in his melancholia, supremely confident of his own destiny and
privately a bit amused by the "great men" with whom he had surrounded
himself, Kate Chase's father emphatically included. Lincoln cultivated his
modest nature and mocked all pretension, but Hay thought it absurd to call
him a modest man. No great man was ever modest. Lincoln's easygoing
intellectual arrogance and unconscious assumption of superiority confounded
men like Chase and Sumner, but the patent-leather, kid-glove set knew no
more of Lincoln than an owl knew of a comet blazing into its blinking eyes.
Kate Chase, who inspired him to such stunning images, was obviously
trying to knife through his defenses. "Look, John Hay, you and I are in the
same boat. I want to be your friend and your ally. We could help each other.
Am I being too direct? Do you prefer women who wait for you to take the
lead?"
"No," he said truthfully, "I like straight dealing. I admire that." The
"admire" was betterwhy couldn't he be as quick with the right words in his
conversation as in his diary?
"You're not accustomed to it," she teased. "You like the fluttering eye-
lashes of those girls at the Earneses', the pouting and the wide eyes and the
giggling. I don't giggle."
"Never?"
That stopped her. "I suppose I giggle when I'm tickled," she said seriously,
"but I don't waste a lot of time flirting or making small talk. If that sort of
thing is what you're looking for"
"Everything I tell you," he assured her, beginning to enjoy himself, "will
be pregnant with meaning. Unfortunately, you already know all the state
secrets I know."
"You're being silly. Here's your drink." She was a touch on the serious
side, but perhaps her earnestness would be leavened with time. "Why do you
call Mrs. Lincoln 'the Hellcat?' "
She had waited until he was in the middle of his first swallow of bourbon
and he almost coughed it up. "Who said I said that?"
"Let's never ask each other a question like that, Johnwe both hear a
great deal. I don't expect you to admit what you said about Mrs. Lincoln, but
it shows you have good judgment."
Must have been Stoddard, the third secretary, who tattled; the damned
little clerk was always buttering up the Hellcat. Hay made a mental note to
watch what he said around Stoddard, and to warn Nico to do the same. "In
my youthful exuberance" he began, and Kate cut him off.
"She's a disgrace and we both know it. My heart goes out to the President,
encumbered with a Southern sympathizer in the midst of a rebellion." That
was putting in plain words what people only hinted at: Mrs. Lincoln's South-
ern relatives, enlisted in the Confederate Army, were a source of embarrass-
ment more profound than her inclination to go into debt on wardrobe and
furnishings and "flub-dubs," as all the carpets were now called. "I trust you,
John Hay. I wouldn't say something like that to anybody else."
He began to feel a bit manipulated; there was such a thing as being too
direct about being direct. Yet she could be a valuable ally, and perhaps he and
she could bridge some gaps between Chase and Lincolnon compensation
for slave owners, for exampleand being allies could lead to becoming
friends, which in turn could lead to becoming who-knew-what. Could he
hope to compete with a man of the world like Lord Lyons? More to the point,
could he trust a woman of the radical world like Kate Chase? He decided to
set a small trap to see if she would tell him the truth on a more substantive
matter.
"You were wrong about McClellan in the meeting today," he confided. "It
was important that he take charge. That's what generals are for. His alterna-
tive plan is worth thinking about." Hay was fishing; did she know about the
Peninsula plan, the inland sea route that would avoid the casualties of a direct
strike through Manassas?
"My father had to drag it out of him," Kate said. "Was Lincoln told before
this of a Peninsula plan?"
"Of course," said Hay, and slipped the test question in naturally. "Did
your father know?"
"No, today was the first he knew of it. And it was important he know,
because he would have to finance the purchase of the extra barges."
Kate Chase was lying. He was surprised; she lied as easily as sipping bour-
bon. Chase had known of McClellan's plans as early as a month ago, back
when Wade and Chandler and the other radicals were still high on McClellan.
That was certain: Montgomery Blair had come back to the Mansion that
afternoon to tell the President how he had helped the feverish and trembling
McClellan onto his horse, and to pass on the information that McClellan was
furious at Chase for pretending he had not been informed a month before of
McClellan's Peninsula plan. Chase was following the abolitionist signals to
dump Little Mac, who was insufficiently anti-slavery, even if it required con-
cealing his foreknowledge of McClellan's plans. And Kate lied about it with
the greatest of ease. Some ally.
"What does your father think of the Peninsula plan?"
"I don't know," she lied again. "He hasn't had a chance to think about it."
Or to talk it over again with Ben Wade and perhaps Horace Greeley. "I can
tell you a plan he won't like, however. Anna Carrolldo you know her, the
little woman who writes for money?has been in to see Father several times
about some notion she has to send an army down the Tennessee River."
Hay feigned ignorance; Assistant Secretary Scott had been espousing Miss
Carroll's idea, complete with memorials and maps, for more than a month.
Considering McClellan's new interest in a Western diversion, Lincoln was
coming around to the idea, if General Halleck in the West, along with his two
unreliable commanders, Grant and Sherman, could be sold on it.
"It's all a plot by the Biairs," Kate said, "to take the pressure off McClel-
lan. If they can focus attention on the WestMissouri, where the Blair family
is powerfulthat will let McNapoleon sit here all winter. They pay Anna
Carroll's room bill at the Ebbitt Houseshe's not to be trusted."
He had not yet heard the "McNapoleon" derogation; it was cutting. "And
yet I have heard your father praising Miss Carroll to the President," Hay
said. Secretary Chase liked Miss Carroll, he knewwas this not-to-be-trusted
view really the Treasury Secretary's, or was it the result of some jealousy or
possessiveness on the part of his daughter? On the other hand, could some-
thing be going on between the ultra-dignified and ostentatiously pious Salmon
P. Chase and the passionate little pamphleteer? If so, did Kate consider it a
threat of some kind?
Hay put in another barb, just for fun: "Miss Carroll just came back from
an assignment in St. Louis, probably about the plan you're talking about. I
don't know what it is about hermost of the men in the Cabinet really like
her. The President, too. And they say Buchanan, and Fillmore"
"She must have been attractive when young," Kate said coolly. "Until very
recently, she was a slave owner. She and Rose O'Neal Greenhow used to go
to the same parties."
"Now there's a rebel," said Hay, pleased to be able to change the subject,
"with the courage of her convictions. The Wild Rose drove poor Pinkerton
crazy and she's still stirring up trouble at the Old Capitol Prison. Smuggled a
letter out to the Richmond newspapers complaining to Seward about her
treatment and there's been hell to pay."
"They ought to hang hershe's a spy." Hay assumed that Kate felt
roughly the same about Anna Carroll. All these powerful women were some-
what on the severe and unforgiving side.
"Brady, the photographer, wants to take a picture of Mrs. Greenhow and
her daughter in prison," he offered. "Kind of before-and-after. The President
will send him over to Stanton." It was good for Kate to understand that he
knew what the President would do.
"Edwin Stanton will let him," she said with certainty. "I suspect Rose may
have something on Stanton. What do you think of our new Secretary of
War?"
Both Chase and Seward thought they were the sole sponsor of Stanton;
that was one of Lincoln's tricks. Instead of responding, Hay looked at his
watch, which had stoppedhe had misplaced the key.
"I'm glad we made this alliance," he said, extending his hand. To his
surprise, she put her hands on his shoulders, looked him straight in the eyes
about the same level as hers, unfortunatelythen placed her cheek next to
his for a moment in a kind of kiss. Her nose, he had heard, was slightly
inclined to pug; up close, it was deliciously tilted and fit her face as few noses
he had ever observed.
"I don't know whether I'll invite you to a soMe conversable or a matin6e
dansante," she seemed to be ruminating aloud. Hay liked the afternoon danc-
ing parties that were in vogue, with drapes drawn and candles lit, but ever
since Daniel Webster had declared a perfect dinner to be the highest consum-
mation of civilization, most serious men said they preferred the smaller eve-
ning dinners.
"Invite me to both."
She laughed easily. "I'll see you at the Hellcat's big musicale," she said.
He frowned; that party, the Hellcat's surprise bid for social dominance,
had not only not been announced, it was not even bruited about; that ranked
with the Peninsula plan and the Tennessee plan in the level of secrecy around
the President's house. In the past, the White House entertaining had been
dinner parties known for their intimacy, Daniel Webster style; it was Mrs.
Lincoln's notion that tickets should be issued to seven hundred guests for a
musical grande levee, adding a note of culture to the proceedings.
"It will be an innovation," he heard himself saying, "complete with a
President's March, and a polka composed by Francis Scala himself."
"Mrs. Lincoln's polka," Kate breathed. "Everyone will be so pleased. And
a guest list of a thousand."
"Seven hundred." He began to think that was why he had been invited for
a glass of bourbon, and lest she pry more out of him, he mock-saluted and
bade her farewell. The thought raced through his mind that he would like to
tear the clothes off this scheming belle, and then leave herdisheveled red
hair cascading down naked shouldersto await her dinner guests. With that
heartening thought firmly in mind, he stepped out onto the frozen mud and
skipped and whistled his way back to the President's house.

CHAPTER 10
THE TEXAS RANGER

"Your son is not in the Tennessee Volunteers," Simon Buckner told him. "At
least not under his own name."
General Breckinridge nodded his thanks. Buckner and he carried the same
rank of brigadier, but he readily acknowledged the short, sturdy man facing
him in the Bowling Green headquarters building to be the more professional
soldier. Not yet forty, Simon Bolivar Buckner had taught philosophy at West
Point, distinguished himself in the Mexican War, quit the army to make a
fortune in Chicago real estate, and returned to Kentucky to take charge of its
militia and to work with Breckinridge to keep their home state neutral. When
the Confederates under General "Bishop" Polk moved across Kentucky's
borderBreckinridge winced at the thought of how that well-meaning cleric
gave the Federals under Sam Grant the opportunity to grab strategic Paducah
Kentucky's neutrality ended, and Buckner had to choose which side's com-
mission to accept. The young namesake of "El Libertador" chose to report to
General Albert Sidney Johnston, commanding the Confederate forces in the
West.
"We know of a Margaret Elizabeth Breckinridge," Buckner continued,
eager to be helpful to the worried father, "with the Sanitary Commission
traveling with the Union Army near St. Louis."
"My Uncle Bob's granddaughter. I didn't know she was a nurse." Breck
ached at the memory of the comely, intense face of cousin Maggie at family
weddings and funerals. Cabell, when he was eight or ten, headstrong and
rebellious to his parents, would follow after Margaret Elizabeth doing what-
ever she asked. She was the sort to involve herself passionately in the war, as
were her three unclestwo of whom went South and one Northand her
father, who went North. Breck knew that the preacher Breckinridge, with his
offspring on opposite sides and the potential of fratricide in battle more than
an abstraction, must be undergoing the tortures he often told his parishioners
were reserved for the damned. "How did we get that information, Simon?"
Buckner had made a face at the mention of Robert Breckinridge, who had
done as much as any Kentuckian to keep that slave state in the Union. "We're
all in each other's pockets in Missouri," Buckner replied; "no secrets up
there. The general's cousin runs the mercantile library in St. Louis."
That was one reason Sidney Johnston had been able to intimidate the new
Union commander, Henry Halleck. Johnston anticipated Federal troop
movements and feinted at the Union strongholds. He placed stories in the
Louisville Courier about the way his ranks were being swelled by recruitment,
and how General Beauregard was coming to join his command at the head of
20,000 fresh troops. That was a palpable lie, but Beauregard was passing
through and his presence was useful for the rumor factory. Johnston's bluff
and bravado kept two stronger Union forces off balance.
"I'll keep an eye out for your boy," Buckner said. "Hell, at sixteen, he's
bound to brag to somebody that his father got a million votes for President."
"Which cut into Douglas's vote and helped elect Lincoln," Breckinridge
said ruefully. "I never thought old Abe would be so hell-bent for war." He
recalled in some bitterness how inflexible Lincoln had been, in their White
House talks, about peaceful secession.
"Button up," said Buckner, rising and reaching for his tunic. "We're to see
the general at ten sharp."
"Is Sidney all that Jeff Davis cracks him up to be?" The new General
Breckinridge, who did not know Sidney Johnston well, had learned to be
skeptical about men with big reputations. Born in Kentucky and trained at
West Point, Johnston had become a legend in the American officer corps: he
had enlisted as a private in the army of the Republic of Texas and rose to be
its Secretary of War. After annexation, the states'-rights Southerner in John-
ston led to an angry falling-out with General Sam Houston, an ardent Union
Democrat. But at the outbreak of the Mexican War, General Zack Taylor had
chosen Johnston to head the Texas Volunteers, an outfit that gained a reputa-
tion for valor and mobility.
Before secession, Johnston was colonel, and Robert Lee lieutenant colonel,
of what Breck had heard was the best cavalry regiment in the U.S. Army. In
April of 1861, General Winfield Scott had offered Albert Sidney Johnston the
post of second-in-command of all Union land forces; like the Virginian Lee,
the Texan Johnston sadly turned Scott down, choosing to go with his state
rather than his country. Jefferson Davis, a close friend of both men, kept Lee
in the east and sent Johnston west. In Richmond, Breck had heard it said that
choice was made because the defense of the Southwest without an adequate
army was infinitely more difficult, and Davis considered Johnston to be the
most skillful general on the American continent.
"He's the best we have," Buckner snapped, "the best anyone has, and you
should not call him Sidney. He's not a general like you and me, he's 'the
General.' You know how the Yankee newspapers try to compare McClellan to
Napoleon? Well, Albert Sidney Johnston has the sort of mind and character
that put him in rank with Napoleon. Daring but calculating at the same time.
More of a Texan than a Kentuckian."
They walked down the hall of the large Bowling Green headquarters build-
ing to the commanding general's suite. In the anteroom, Breckinridge saw a
familiar face: Walter Haldeman, editor of the on-the-run Louisville Courier,
which was being printed in Confederate-held Bowling Green.
Haldeman pretended to be impressed by the star on his fellow escapee's
collar, fingering it reverently. Buttoning the top button on Breckinridge's
tunic, lest the new general be dressed imperfectly at his first meeting with the
real General, the publisher told his two Kentucky compatriots, "Sidney's
thinking about pulling out of Kentucky. Don't you let him. Your whole
Kentucky Brigade will desert, and I'll have to close down the only voice for
our cause on the border."
Breck thanked Haldeman for the warning. He remembered to express his
appreciation for the favorable stories in the Courier about his appointment
not everyone in Confederate headquarters thought latecomers deserved high
rankand followed Buckner into his first encounter with the hope of the
Confederate Army.
Not as tall as I am, thought Breck, extending a hand rather than saluting,
but tall enough and ramrod-straight. Silver-haired at fifty-eight, booted for
his morning ride on Fire-eater (it occurred to Breck that generals named their
horses for qualities they wanted to exhibit or wished they had), Sidney John-
ston exuded what Breck had to admit was a command presence, without the
pomp or mysticism of a Fr6mont, even though his Utah explorations rivaled
those of the Pathmaker. A commanding figure, surely, but not a political
commander: Americans seemed to prefer the pretensions of humility of a
Lincoln or the dazzle of a Douglas to the crisp authority of military men like
the Texan before him.
"I admired your eloquent statement," the general said to him, "about ex-
changing the term in the Senate for the musket of a soldier." After Breck's
pleased nod, Johnston added a barb: "Took you long enough in Richmond to
find that musket."
"You know how it is to deal with Judah Benjamin," Breck replied. As
Johnston would know, that was an allusion to the Confederate Secretary of
War's reluctance to part with any weapons for the Western theater. Judah
Benjamin in Richmond had rebuked General Johnston for accepting the en-
listments of "one-year men," rather than those who would agree to sign up
for the duration, and had refused to provide the short-termers with any weap-
ons. Since he had arrived in Bowling Green, Breck had quickly sided with
Johnston in the dispute with Benjamin, who seemed incapable of badgering
the Southern manufacturers or blockade-runners into providing enough small
arms. In such a fix, any general would accept a man who walked into camp
with a gun on his shoulder for any length of time he would sign up. Theoreti-
cally the Secretary of War was correct, but in the field, the general needed
recruits.
"We're going to send you on some skirmishes with a small force to get you
blooded, Breckinridge," said the commander, getting right to the point, "and
if you hold up the way Simon here promises, the Army of the West can use
you." Breck took a breath to make a proper response, but Sidney Johnston
went on: "In our particular fix, the qualities of a politician can be of great use.
We need generals who can make us appear much more than we are." He
waved them to seats and strode to the wall map.
"Halleck's up over here," he said, pointing to Illinois, "thinking about
coming down the Mississippi River and cutting us off from Texas and the
world. He's got, say, twenty-five thousand troops under Grant and Sherman
and Smith." He tapped the center of the map, near Kentucky. "Don Carlos
Buell is in the middle, with 20,000 men, with orders to come down the
Cumberland Gap and take Nashville and join up with Halleck's army." He
waved at the East. "And McClellan's over there in the sector of least conse-
quence at the moment."
"Why is the war in Virginia inconsequential, General?" (Breck agreed that
"Sidney" would be out of place.)
"McClellan won't try an overland winter offensivethe Union Army isn't
ready. And the Confederate advantage is in defense, so we won't move. But
since they're near the capitals, Washington and Richmond, the War Depart-
ment of each country gives it the most attention and the most weapons."
He returned to the West. "The basic problem with our army," he took a
breath, "is that we don't have an army. We have to position our small force
I have fewer than 22,000 at present, Simon, as you knowbetween the Union
force under Halleck and Grant in Illinois and their force under Buell in
Kentucky. We are required to fight defensively, along a four hundred and
thirty-mile front, never committing all our forces to one area or the other.
That is how to defend an area; however, it is not how to win a war."
Breck could see the logic in that; if Johnston attacked either Union force,
the other would be free to knife southward. Jeff Davis's strategy was to delay
the war in the West and concentrate on the East: if the South could invade
Pennsylvania and Maryland, perhaps the Yankees would become war-weary
and Lincoln would lose his source of men and money. As a politician, Breck
could count the numbersnearly twenty million in the North against eight
million whites in the Southbut it was felt that one well-trained Confederate
soldier, experienced with a rifle and defending his way of life, was worth a
dozen city boys drafted into the army in the North to fight in an alien land, or
to fight for somebody else's freedom. The commanding general seemed to
want to be questioned about his last remark, so Breck obliged: "How do we
win the war?"
"With a surprise attack on a large concentration of their troops. Territory
is unimportant. We have to defeat the Union Army."
"Where?"
Johnston hesitated, then decided not to answer. "For the moment I have to
keep moving between Halleck and Buell until Richmond realizes that the
West is where the war will be won or lost, and sends us an army."
"Are you confident, General," Breck asked, "that our forts along the Mis-
sissippi are secure?" Simon Buckner shot him a warning glance; Breck was
not being properly reverential.
Johnston, smiling, put his fancily booted feet on the desk. "I pray for the
day that 'Old Brains' puts his troops on a flotilla and floats down within
range of our shore batteries. Don't tell me about the success of Allied iron-
clads against the Russians in the Crimea1 read McClellan's report from
there, but I assure you our placed guns could destroy a flotilla with ease. We
could defeat the Union on the Mississippi."
Breck pointed to the map. "There are a couple of other rivers into the
South." Buckner started to interrupt, but Johnston motioned him silent and
looked to Breck to continue. "The Cumberland, and the Tennessee."
"Obvious, isn't it?" Johnston seemed pleased at the question. "If I were the
Union commander, I would strike down the Tennesseeit flows northward,
as you know, which would turn their gunboats into a real threatdown
toward Alabama." His hand dropped from Kentucky to Tennessee. "We
would have to fall back to avoid being captured, abandoning Nashville with-
out a fight."
Nashville, Tennessee, was the Confederacy's central supply depot in the
West, and a strongpoint indispensable to a defense against invasion, and here
was the South's commander suggesting that the Union could take it by ma-
neuver.
Breck asked the inescapable question: "If it's so obvious a strategy, why
haven't they adopted it?"
"Ah. One reason could be that they have not thought of it yet, because
Halleck is so mesmerized with the Mississippi."
"That can't last," Buckner put in.
"Agreed. I know you Kentuckians were furious at Bishop Polk for violat-
ing your precious neutrality by grabbing Columbus, but the one hundred and
twenty big guns in that city effectively close off the Mississippi. That forces
Halleck to look elsewhere. My cousin in St. Louis, the librarian, reports that
a woman carrying a pass from Secretary Stanton himself has spent a week in
his library, studying maps and currents of the Tennessee River."
Breck's heart sank. "They know what to do," he said dully. "Lincoln
knows exactly what to do." If Halleck, the general who wrote the book on
military strategy, had not already comprehended the South's vulnerability,
surely Anna Carroll would be calling it to Lincoln's attention.
"To discourage them, we've built a couple of forts," said Johnston, "at the
place the two rivers separate from the Mississippi. HereHenry and Donel-
son."
"Fort Henry is a joke," said Buckner instantly. "It is in a swamp and the
batteries will never fire effectively. At Fort Donelson, we have a chanceand
if we turn them back there at the Cumberland, the likelihood is that they
won't have the strength to come down the Tennessee."
Johnston did not agree. "Donelson was built to discourage an attack. It
was not built to resist an attack by any capable general."
"Don't count it out," pressed Buckner, eager to defend Kentucky. "If you
commit troops to its defense, we can hurt the Yankees and scare them off.
They don't know our vulnerability. If we can beat them at Fort Donelson,
they'll forget the Tennessee River and go back to trying the Mississippi, and
we can punish them forever."
"It would take a pretty bad general to fail to take Donelson," said John-
ston, who apparently knew exactly how to take it.
"We can rely on bad Union generals," said Buckner. "Halleck won't take
the fieldhe's never left his armchair. That leaves three possibilities. One is
Sherman, who taught school in Louisiana and has his job only because his
brother is a senator. The New York papers say he's unstable, even crazy, gets
terrible moods. No reason to think he can carry off a sustained campaign."
"But there's Baldy Smith," said Johnston, ticking off a second brigadier
under Halleck, "West Point. I had him under me in Utah, and he moved and
maneuvered his men so fast we never had to shoot a Mormon. Hell of a
soldier."
"Agreed," said Buckner, "but Halleck has him under Sam Grant. The
likeliest choice to lead the attack on Donelson is Grant, and if he's the one,
we can beat him."
"You know him? They say he drinks, but that may be jealous talk."
"I more than know him, I've been saddled with him as a friend all my life,"
Buckner told him eagerly. "We were in the same class at West Point. The man
has failure written all over him. He does drinkthat is why he was cashiered.
He tried to go into business in Cairo and that failed. He was selling firewood
on the streets of St. Louis only a couple of years ago, wearing his army
overcoat to try to keep warmpitiful. He came to me and borrowed two
hundred dollars to keep his family alive. If it hadn't been for this war, and
some political pull that got him back in the army, Sam Grant would be
destitute."
"Did he ever pay you back?" Johnston wanted to know.
"No, but if he'd had the money he would have. He's honestas I say, he's
my friendbut it's just that he's a born failure. I'll never see that money; I
consider the loan pure charity."
Breck recalled that Sam Grant had led a small force down the Mississippi
on a raid a month before. "How did he conduct himself at Belmont, Simon?"
"He stumbled into a fight, let his men run wild, took a lot of unnecessary
casualties, and just made it back to his boat in time. Grant was the last to
board, and he showed his bravery with that, but he botched the operation and
Halleck was furious with him."
"Sounds like he fights, though," Johnston offered. "Not all of them are
ready to spill blood."
"He'll take terrible casualties because he's afraid to be a failure again,"
Buckner said. "Believe me: Sam Grant is not a general, he's a butcher. He's
afraid to retreat, and he doesn't have the courage to admit failure by surren-
deringhe could sacrifice a whole army."
That settled it for Johnston. "The men we have in charge of Forts Henry
and Donelson are not military men," he said. "Floyd and Pillow, a couple of
politicians. I'll send you there, Simon, with a detachment of four thousand
men and Nat Forrest's cavalry. That'll be fourteen thousand total, all I can
afford, against at least forty thousand, plus their navy. I hope you're right
about Grant, and you're not facing Baldy Smith."
That was encouraging to Breck. At least the South would put up a fight for
Kentucky, justifying the faith of those Kentuckians who were branded trai-
tors for their decision to stand with the South. Buckner had put his case on
the quality of generalship, which carried weight with West Pointers, but it
seemed to John Breckinridge, the newest general, that the man with the best
military credentials in America was reluctantly agreeing to defend an area he
believed to be ultimately indefensible. Breck reminded himself that most of
his own choices in the past year had been between the lesser of evils.
Johnston's assessment of the Confederate generals now at Donelson had
been guarded but was on the right track: General Floyd was known to every-
one in the Buck-and-Breck administration to be a rascal as Secretary of War
in the Buchanan Cabinet, and General Gideon Pillow was an equally bad
appointment: in the Mexican War, Breck had been Pillow's lawyer in a dis-
pute with Winfield Scott, and had come to have a high regard for Scott and a
low opinion of his client. Simon Buckner would be the only real soldier on the
scene at Donelson, and he would not be in command.
"Hold the fort, Simon," were his instructions from Johnston, "but if that is
not possible, hold your force intact and a route out open. Go now, and
entrench. Do not lose a moment. Work all night. If you must withdraw, we'll
meet in Nashville."
General Johnston sent Buckner out to give the editor, Haldeman, a story
about reinforcements on the way to him through Georgia, to mislead the
Union commands in St. Louis and Ohio. The newspaper would probably be
read avidly by Lincoln and Stanton in Washington. Breck found it curious
about Stanton's being named Secretary of War; his reports on that man were
contradictory. In the Buchanan Cabinet, Stanton had talked for the Union
but had secretly consorted with some secessionists; in the election of 1860
Stanton had voted for Breckinridge, telling friends it was the only hope of
preserving the Union. What had inspired Lincoln to pick Stanton for the
most important post in the Cabinet? Ruthlessness and the capacity for guile,
Breck supposed, along with sheer, fierce impatience with anyone who stood in
his way. Those were exactly the qualitiesand qualities they became in war-
timelacking in his counterpart, Judah Benjamin, who could not find the
guns for Sidney Johnston's troops.
The general crossed his arms and looked hard at Breck, who assumed that
Johnston's arrangement for the two of them to be alone meant talk of politics.
"I didn't vote for you, Breckinridge," he announced.
"You voted for Bell," Breck guessed.
"You say that because you saw what you assume to be my slave outside. I
manumitted Randolph years ago. No, I never voted for anybody other than
Zack Taylor, and that because he was my friend."
Now Johnston was in his bailiwick and Breck no longer felt in the least
intimidated. "You say that to show how nonpolitical you are, General, but I
happen to know you were approached in 1858 to run for President by the
same Democrats who later came to me."
"I said no." The question implicit in that was: Why didn't you say no, too?
"I'm a political man, not a military man," said Breck, "so I said yes. I
thought I could prevent this war. I was mistaken."
"I should have voted for you, then, but I didn't know if you could make up
your mind," said the Texan. "This is going to be the worst kind of war. A
seven-year war, unless we can swallow up their army."
Johnston made statements designed to trigger questions, as if testing his
visitor's attention. Breck made up his mind not to play that game, and re-
mained silent.
"Let me tell you about generalship, young man." Johnston sat on the edge
of his desk, arms still half locked, at ease. "You've been senator and Vice
President, you're well aware what leadership isthe ability to speak on the
stump, to appear trustworthy, to play one faction against another. All that
will be useful to you now, but it's not generalship."
Breck was vaguely aware of that; he also knew that Johnston's lack of
political finesse in Richmond had cost him command of the main forces in the
East and might be the cause of his exaggeration of the strategic importance of
the West. He awaited the generalship lesson.
"The nature of war is changing. The seizure of territory is insignificant
that is settled afterward. What counts now is the destruction of the enemy's
army, the removal of the enemy population's will to fight, and ultimately its
ability to fight. By your expression, Breckinridge, I take it you think that is
barbaric."
When his listener did not react, Sidney Johnston went on. "Lincoln and
Stanton want General McClellan to go and 'take' Richmond, but they're
fearful that with the Union Army off on that expedition, Lee or Jackson will
'take' Washington, so they won't give the Little Mac all the troops he needs.
The same fencing-match philosophy afflicts President Davis and General Lee.
Each side is fighting battles for territory, hoping the other side will get tired.
That's the way it was in the old days, and the side that was less exhausted
won."
He rose from his chair to pace, which reminded Breck of Lincoln, who
hated to talk while seated. "But a revolutionary war, which is what this is, is
a war of a whole nation against a whole nation, and that takes a different kind
of fighting. The enemy army must be gathered, enticed to fight to a decision,
and destroyed or captured. Remember, when you hear criticism of us for
losing vast territoriesno battle is 'won' if the enemy is not destroyed or
captured."
"I'm told, Generaland you should be aware of the criticism in Richmond
that you are the one avoiding battle."
"Of course. Because if I massed my ill-armed little force against two larger
Union armies, where each soldier has a rifled musket, I would lose. My
'Army of the West' as we grandly call it, would be destroyed, and the war
would be over. I must husband my resources, wait for a moment and a place
to surprise the enemy when we are on a nearly equal footing, and then strike
with everything. No quarter."
"Where will that be?"
"I know precisely where the great battle of this war will take place," said
Johnston slowly, "and when you cross over from politician to general, you
will know too. Frankly, it should not be hard to figure out."
Breck refused to take the test and asked about the war in the East. John-
ston relaxed, uncrossed his arms and walked to the window, his boots sound-
ing sharply on the uncarpeted floor. "McClellan hates to take casualties, so
he'll probably slip down the Potomac by boat and try to strike at Richmond
up the Peninsula, up the James and York rivers. Frankly, that's what I would
donot to take Richmond, which means nothing, but to cut off the Army of
Virginia and destroy it."
"How do we counter that move, if he makes it?" Breck had not thought of
that approach, but suspected that McClellan, a trained strategist, had.
"If Bobby Lee remembers what I taught him, he'll advise Jeff Davis to
resist the screaming from his nervous Cabinet to come scurrying down to
defend Richmond, and to strike immediately at Washington instead."
"I thought you said that territory, capitals, mean nothing."
"You're learning, but Lincoln won't. At the slightest threat to his capital,
he will hold back the troops McClellan needs to smash our army in front of
Richmond. All that chess-playing will mean nothing, because the object is not
to take the king, but to wipe out the other side of the board. The war will go
on until a general takes charge who understands the need to destroy armies."
He turned to face his student. "If I shock you, it is because I want to change
you from a leader of people to a leader of troops. We deal in death."
"This is your business, General," Breck sighed; "I'll try to learn it." He
asked himself whether a willingness to accept huge casualties, to order death
and mutilation to your enemy and your own troops as well, was really at the
core of generalship. If so, the South, outnumbered nearly three to one, was
doomed. He sensed a contradiction in what Johnston had said about U. S.
Grant, and asked the general directly: "If Grant is the butcher that Simon
Buckner says he is, why do you hope for Grant at Fort Donelson?"
"Time is not on our side. With a Grant, we could win decisively. The worst
that can happen is that we lose, and run away. I suppose we have to try to
defend the rivers from those forts; we cannot fall back without any show of
resistance, and you can never tell in battlegenerals do stupid things. But
that battle is not likely to be decisive. Buckner does not have the instinct for
destruction."
"Nor do 1. Who does?"
"On our side? I do. Bobby Lee, Braxton Bragg. Here in my command. Pat
Cleburne, the Irishman. Not Joe Johnston, not Beauregard, certainlythat
little Creole already lost his opportunity to destroy the Union Army after
Bull Run. On their side, it's hard to say. McClellan is the best they have, but
he fights battles, not wars. Grant, maybe, from what Buckner says of him.
Certainly not Halleck."
General Breckinridge, staring at the map, thought he had figured it out.
Restraining his excitement, drawling to display calm, he said, "I hope to have
the honor of being one of your commanders, sir, at the Battle of Corinth."
"Close." General Sidney Johnston smiled at him warmly for the first time,
and Breck could feel why this man inspired such confidence in his com-
manders and respect from political superiors. "You grasp the strategy of an
offensive defense, but not the tactical detail.
"Here. This is not a matter I want you to discuss with Simon Buckner,
because I do not want his morale to suffer in any way. Let us assume Fort
Henry falls, as it must, and he cannot hold Donelson, which is probable. He
is then to march his men to Nashville, joining our retrograde movement."
"You mean a retreat South."
"Thank you for that, Breckinridge; I should not flinch from the hard word
'retreat.' With the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers in their hands, we can-
not hold Nashville or Bowling Green, or we would soon be cut off from
behind. We will have to fall back, back, back."
"My God, General, you are talking about giving up the rest of Kentucky
and all of Tennessee." The enormity of the unfolding trauma of defeat, only
hinted at by the publisher Haldeman, struck him with force. What about his
brigade of Kentuckians? How would they react to retreat from their native
soil, without so much as a fight? What had they enlisted for, if not to defend
their statecould he keep them from deserting?
What about all the Tennessee troops, the backbone of the western army,
such as it was? The newspapers would be calling for Johnston's scalp, his
replacement with a fighting general, as would all the sponsors of General
Beauregard in Richmond. Jeff Davis was Johnston's friend, and liked to say
to critics, "If Albert Sidney Johnston is no general, then we have no gener-
als," but not even the President's support was bottomless, given the resistance
from the governors of Georgia and South Carolina building against his cen-
tralization of authority.
"I have pondered this step well," said the general. "It is a step that no man
would take if he did not know he was right." When Breck shook his head he
added, "I anticipate a popular clamor. But the clamor of today is converted
into the praises of tomorrow by a single great success."
Breck kept shaking his head, not so much in disagreement as wonderment.
Lincoln liked to say that if the end brought him out right, all would be well,
but that if it brought him out wrong, ten angels swearing he was right would
make no difference. Johnston here was saying the same thing, that the end
would justify all, but both men were betting that public support would stay
with them through terrible trials, until they could show how right they were.
But that was not the way of democracies. No political or military leadernot
Lincoln, not Johnstoncould long afford to defy public sentiment.
"Assume that their plan is to use the Tennessee River from up here at the
Kentucky line," the general was explaining, "come down through all of Ten-
nessee and aim for Corinth, in Mississippi just over the Tennessee line. That's
where they want to cut the Memphis to Charleston railway. Then they can
strike west to Memphis and down the Mississippi to Vicksburg and Port
Hudson."
That prospect seemed dreary to Breck, but Johnston saw it differently.
"The deeper they penetrate, the more triumphant they feel, and the more
vulnerable they become. Our object is to destroy Grant's army before it can
bejoined by Buell's army, and then to destroy Buell's army. Destroy. Obliter-
ate. Kill 'em all, except those who surrender. The shock to the North of the
loss of a hundred thousand men, just when victory seemed assured, will end
the war."
Breck got up to examine the point on the map that was the place where
passengers on boats debarked to go to Corinth, Mississippi, before the Ten-
nessee River veered east.
"We hit them just after they debark, with the river to their back, from the
heights overlooking Pittsburg Landing," said Johnston. "They give up or
drown. Then Buell comes to the rescue with his army, and we do the same to
them."
The general was coldly certain of the intelligence of his adversary, of the
inexorability of the campaign, and of the victory of the defense over a force
twice its size. He was the only man Breck had met in the past year who knew
how to win a war. How much depended on circumstance, how much on the
wisdom of his strategy, how much on the human element? Did one man, on
either side, count that much in a clash of huge armies?
Breck put his finger on the spot of the river landing.
"That's it, exactly," said Sidney Johnston, "where the great battle of the
southwest will be fought, and the war won."
The engineer who drew up the map had written the name of a local
landmark above the location of the landing. Breck squinted and read aloud,
"Shiloh Church."
"I want you with me there, Breck."
"God willing, I'll be there, General."
Walter Haldeman, the Courier's publisher, read with distaste a copy of his
competition, the Louisville Journal, while he waited for General Breckin-
ridge. That pro-Union sheet was especially abusive of certain members of one
famous Kentucky family: it was noted that Robert Breckinridge, son of the
loyal reverend, had been appointed captain in one of the six regiments making
up the brigade commanded by his cousin, John C., "the only senator to be
expelled as a traitor." The story noted that the Reverend Robert had dis-
owned his son, denounced him for his treason, and the writerHaldeman
knew him, a liar and a cheatgratuitously added that John C. had been
observed drunk on the streets of Richmond after receiving his general's com-
mission from Jeff Davis. That was below the belt; Haldeman knew Breck to
enjoy a glass of bourbon as much as any man, but not to be a drunkard by
any means. Now the Kentuckian would have to be especially careful about
every drink he took in public, lest his reputation grow as the Southern coun-
terpart to Sam Grant's.
Breck came out of Sidney Johnston's office with the look of most men who
spent time with the man reputed to be the best soldier in America: inspired,
uplifted, determined. He was dressed in his "Kentucky jeans," a blue-jacketed
departure from the Confederate butternut gray, but each brigade could
choose its uniform. The publisher noted that Breck, who had been clean-
shaven as senator and as Vice President, was now growing a mustache.
Haldeman threw the paper aside. "Are we going to defend Kentucky?
Simon Buckner wants me to write that Beauregard brought reinforcements. I
will, of course, but"
"Sidney took what you said to heart. Grant will have a fight on his hands
at Fort Donelson."
The publisher felt the surge of pride that came with influencing great
events; he was certain that one day soon his exiled Courier would be pub-
lished in Louisville again, and he looked forward to front-paging a story
about the demise of the Journal.
"You ought to know something that's bothering the men in B company,
second regiment," the publisher told the general.
"Cousin Bob's company?"
Haldeman nodded. "He ordered a private to sweep out the captain's tent,
and the privateyou know how these Kentucky kids arehe told the cap-
tain to go to hell. So the captain put him in the regimental guardhouse.
Troops are sore about that."
"Damn!" The general pulled off his slouch hat and slapped it against his
knee. Haldeman followed him out of the headquarters building into the frigid
February air. Breck took his horse from the orderly, mounted, and whipped
the horse with his hat, the publisher riding hard on his own mount to keep
up.
At Company B, the general dismounted and stormed into his cousin's tent.
The facts of the incident were as Haldeman had described.
"But he told me to go to hell, John," the captain said, "what was I going to
do? There's such a thing as discipline."
"When you can't get a private to volunteer to sweep out your tent," the
general told him, "you do it yourself. There are no menials in the Kentucky
Brigade."
"Do you sweep out your own tent?"
"Damn right I do! Kentuckians are gentlemen, and neither you nor I have
the right to command any one of them to do a menial service. Now you come
with me to the guardhouse and apologize to the soldier you have insulted, or
so help me, Captain Breck, you'll take his place in that cell."
The three men marched about a hundred yards to the large tent that served
as a guardhouse. Haldeman and the general waited outside while the captain
went in to fetch the rebellious rebel.
The prisoner, a boy having difficulty getting his jacket buttoned, appeared
soon and saluted, holding the salute.
"I told the private my command was out of order," the captain said, "and
released him."
"You mustn't go around telling your officers to go to hell," said General
Breckinridge to the boy. "If you think an order is wrong, argue about it with
respect." He returned the salute and the soldier scampered off. Haldeman was
sure the boy's story would spread quickly through the brigade, endearing the
general to his men as never before. The fact that the general had not hesitated
to embarrass his own kinsman in protecting the dignity of Kentuckians would
add piquancy to the telling.
"Cousin Bob, I'm sorry I had to do that, but these men are especially
touchy these days, and recruiting"
The captain cut him off. "Forget that. There's a kid in that tent, the bunk
next to the private from my company, came in two days ago from Tennessee.
Got throwed in the guardhouse for stealing a farmer's fence rail to use as
firewood. Stay right here."
Breck's cousin ducked back into the tent and appeared a moment later with
a tall, good-looking boy who bore a striking resemblance to the general.
"Thank you, Cousin Bob. Hello, Father."
After what seemed to Haldeman to be a heartbreaking pause, the general
said, "You call him Captain, and me General. This is the Confederate Army."
"Yes, sir."
"You're familiar with the regulations about stealing the property of the
people of this area, your fellow Kentuckians, whose lives and property you
are in the service of protecting?"
"Now I am. It was cold, sir."
"You ever want to get out of that guardhouse?" The boy nodded vigor-
ously. "Then what I would do," said his father, "is to volunteer, of your own
free will, to sweep out the tent of the captain here every day for a month. And
to do any latrine digging or any other menial task that no man in this brigade,
including you, is required to do."
"I volunteer, General."
When the general found it difficult to say anything more, Captain Breckin-
ridge said, "You can go back to your quarters now, Cabell. The regulation is
against taking whole fence rails. Pieces of fence rail, however, can be used for
firewood. Soldiers around here know that two halves of a fence rail are con-
sidered pieces."
The boy turned, turned back, saluted clumsily, and grunted when his fa-
ther grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him close. Haldeman walked
off with Captain Breckinridge, who apparently was profoundly moved by the
reunion. It occurred to the publisher that the men Breck called "Uncle Bob"
and "Cousin Bob"Robert Breckinridge, father and sonwere on different
sides of the war and were not likely to embrace again.

CHAPTER II
NERVE CENTER

Anna Carroll was startled at the change of scene in the offices of the Secretary
of War. Two weeks before, with Cameron in charge, the place had been nearly
deserted most of the time, as the politician from Pennsylvania preferred to do
his confidential army business at home, in private. Today a crowd of a hun-
dred people was jammed into Stanton's reception room, spilling out into the
hallway in front of the newly installed telegraph office.
It made no sense, Anna decided, to try to see the Secretary on a matter so
secret as the Tennessee plan in front of that mob. Instead of trying to elbow
her way in, she walked authoritatively into the telegraph office across the hall,
asked for the officer in charge, and used Tom Scott's name to make an ac-
quaintance.
"The chief of the telegraph service is over in the Secretary of War's office,"
said a sallow young man in front of a machine feeding paper out, "along with
everybody else."
"That means you're in charge," she replied, looking impressed. "You're
very young to have such a responsible position."
"I'm Homer Bates," he said, pleased, "and I've seen your name in a couple
of messages, Miss Carroll."
"About what?"
"I'm not at liberty to say, but they were to St. Louis. A lot of this work is
very secret. It's no wonder that Secretary Stanton moved us over here from
the McClellan headquarters first thing."
"You're at the nerve center of the entire war," she told him.
Bates nodded delightedly. "The President himself came in last night. He
calls me Homer. You can, too, if you like."
A chatty young fellow to be at the nerve center, she thought. "What a
complicated machine," she said. "Does it take many years to learn telegra-
phy?"
Homer Bates shook his head, trying to be modest. "You have to have a
knack for it. The fast fist. And then you have to learn the ciphers. The
message about you yesterday," he volunteered suddenly, "was from Scott to
Old Brains in St. Louis. He wanted to know about the progress of the iron-
clad gunboats for your Tennessee plan."
She did not ask directly about the reply. "Can replies come back the same
day on the machine?"
"Oh, within an hour sometimes. When a telegraph tent is near a general's
tent, the message can go back and forth in minutes." Because he did not
volunteer any information about a reply about the gunboats from General
Halleck, she assumed no reply was received. Rather than arouse his suspicion
that he was being cultivated as a source, Anna chatted briefly about her own
war work, letting the young man know of her closeness to Senator Wade,
chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, and exaggerating her
own acquaintance with the President. At the proper moment she turned the
conversation to his career.
Her new friend Homer responded like a grateful puppy. In the return of
confidence that flowed from her interest, she gleaned a couple of curious bits
of information: that if one Cabinet minister communicated with another over
the wire by secret code, Stanton had left standing orders that the message be
deciphered and communicated to him. And that was not the most intimate
intrusion: whenever General McClellan telegraphed his wife from the front,
Stanton was to know the contents of the dispatch immediately, endearments
and all.
"There's a side entrance to the Secretary's reception room," he told her.
"Shall I slip you in?"
She nodded eagerly and gave him her most conspiratorial smile: Homer
was a young man she would make it a point to know better. "Why does he
have so many people in at once?"
"Efficiency. He can go through two hundred people in a day that way. You
should see him make decisions, Miss Carroll, it's amazing. And best of all, it's
in public viewno secret deals with contractors. They say that was the trou-
ble with his predecessor," he confided, "but I don't know that for a fact."
"The place does seem changed."
"Like day and night, the old-timers tell me, Miss Carroll. No more 'impro-
vised war'; somebody's finally organizing a victory. Go ahead, see for your-
self." He pushed open the connecting door and slipped her inside.
Edwin Stanton was standing behind a high desk at the end of the large
room. His scraggly beard, with its white streak down the middle, pointed
toward his chest as he peered angrily over his steel-rimmed spectacles at the
crowd.
"Step forward," he said to one after another; "state your business."
Soldiers were recognized first; enlisted men received more courtesy than of-
ficers from the gruff Secretary, but even they were dealt with summarily. A
well-dressed man stepped forward bearing what he said was a card from
President Lincoln's wife and asked for a commissary's appointment.
Stanton's temper flared; he tore the card in half and threw the pieces up in the
air.
"The fact that you bring me such a card would prevent me from giving you
any appointment," Stanton snapped, loudly enough for all to hear. "Politics
no longer have any place in army appointments. Out!"
Anna watched a parade of favor seekers pass through; almost all were
rudely turned down and went away angry. Occasionally a request would
make sense to Stanton, and he would tug a cord hanging from the ceiling. A
messenger would run in, be given a slip of paper in Stanton's writing, and run
out. Sometimes the messenger ducked across the hall to the telegraph office to
get quick action in the field.
Senator Ben Wade strode in, spotted Anna on the side of the room, and
motioned her over. "Hell of a way to do business, isn't it?" he boomed admir-
ingly.
Stanton's demeanor immediately changed at the sight of the senator. He
hurried out from behind his desk to make an exception by greeting him.
"Give us five minutes in private," Wade said to him, adding for all to hear,
"it's not about a damn contract."
Wade pulled Anna along with him to the window facing the Executive
Mansion and said to the Secretary, "Her business first, Stanton. Remember,
this little woman damn near saved Maryland for us all by herself." Stanton
nodded and looked squarely at her.
She had to be brief. "Two items. The first is to press my Tennessee plan."
She did not mention Colonel Scott's support since Scott was out West, on a
final tour of the battlefronts, and was soon to be replaced by someone person-
ally close to the new Secretary, possibly Stanton's brother-in-law. "My report
shows the best time to move on Donelson and down into Tennessee is now, in
February. Johnston would have to split his forces in half to defend"
"I know all about the Tennessee plan, my dear lady," said Stanton, "but
that's entirely up to General Halleck. Frankly, what's happening out West is
not at the center of our concerns at the moment. The first thing is to get
McClellan moving right here." He turned to Wade. "I went around McClel-
lan to his ten division commanders and asked them about a move right away
against the rebels at Manassas. You know what we have? Ten generals afraid
to fight."
She bit her lip; he did not understand that the war could be won, and at
infinitely less cost, in the West. No time to argue it now; he would turn
against the plan if she nagged him.
Wade picked up the slap at McClellan. "That's what you and I think about
McNapoleon, but what about Lincoln? Is he still defending that slave-catch-
er's delays?"
"You will be pleased to learn," Stanton whispered, "that I had a heart-to-
heart with the President this morning about the general's protracted inactiv-
ity. He agrees! My opinion of Lincoln, I must say, has risen considerably."
"Not such a dumb gorilla, now that he agrees with you," Wade said, not
quietly enough.
Stanton looked horrified for a moment, then took his visitors into his confi-
dence: "I mentioned to Lincoln a way to get our general-in-chief away from
his elegant dinners and out into the field. A special war order directly from
the Presidentnever been done before, I think. I'm letting him work on it by
himself, because it would be wrong for me to confront McClellan directly so
soon. But your committee will be pleased, Senator."
Anna saw an opening and spoke up. "My second point is to urge you to
take control of actions against the seditionists."
Seward had been heavy-handed with the arrests of dissenters, she explained
quickly, and the Peace Democrats were making a big issue of it in New York
and Baltimore. Stanton's seizure of the telegraph office, and the way he was
reading everyone's messages, told Anna that the new War Secretary had
power ambitions; such a switch of Cabinet authority on arbitrary arrests
would fit into Stanton's mode of operation, and she wanted him to be aware
that her influence with the Biairs and Wade might make it easier for him to
extend his power. She assumed he wanted the suggestion to come from some-
one other than himself, and pamphleteer Anna Ella Carroll was known and
well regarded in the President's circle for her war powers study. In return,
she figured, Stanton might press for her Tennessee plan, and ultimately would
help her gain the recognition that should flow to its author.
"It might be a good idea for me to start with a general amnesty," Stanton
said slowly, showing that he had already been thinking about moving into
Seward's domain. "Ask for an oath not to talk treason, and empty out the
jails. Later, if we need to tighten up on the press or the copperheads, this act
of amnesty would demonstrate our fairness. What do you think, Ben?"
"Hold on to the worst ones, like the Wild Rose," Wade replied, "and as for
that traitor of a general who killed my friend Ned Baker, throw the key
away."
Stanton nodded eagerly. "I'd want your advice on that. Miss Carroll, your
thought about seditionists has merit, as of course all your thoughts do."
"Look, here's my business," Wade stated. "I want a commission for your
nephew."
"Impossible. Precisely because he is my nephew."
"But for God's sake, man, he qualifies, and he's a friend of mine. It's a
hardship to place him on any worse ground because he's related to you.
You're being absurd."
"I'm being the Secretary of War, and the answer is no." Bluff Ben began to
redden; Anna knew the senator must have assured the young man he could
deliver the commission. "Before you make life miserable for me before your
committee," Stanton said, "look at this."
He took an envelope out of his inside pocket. On the back, in Lincoln's
handwriting, was this message: "Benjamin Tappan wishes to be a lieutenant
in the regular army; and if the Secretary of War knows no objection to him
except that he is a relative of his, let him be appointed on my responsibility."
The Secretary of War pointed to a notation below, in his own writing: "The
Secretary of War declines to make the appointment desired by his nephew
Benjamin Tappan because it would be a violation of a rule made by the
Secretary against appointments to the regular army except by promotion for
meritorious service from the ranks of the regular service."
Wade shook his head and quoted Scripture: "Stand not next to me, for I am
holier than thou."
"I have to be. I have the hardest job in the world, and I cannot afford to let
any taint of influence touch me. Or touch Lincoln. As a matter of fact, as
soon as I clear this mob out of the reception room, I will go across the street
to let Mrs. Lincoln know that she has overstepped the bounds of propriety
several times this week."
Wade looked at Anna and shrugged. "We better get out of here before he
throws us out."
Stanton took her hand and bid her the most gracious farewell: "I know all
you have done for your country, my dear lady. You are doing great work,
even if it makes others famous." She assumed at first he was referring to her
war powers memorandum for the Attorney General, but then wondered if he
meant that Halleck would be jealous about anyone else getting credit for her
Tennessee River plan.
A man in an officer's uniform appeared at the office door. "I am the arsenal
officer, Mr. Secretary, and I am in receipt of your telegram ordering heavy
guns to Harpers Ferry."
"I sent that telegram yesterday," Stanton growled, motioning for Anna and
Wade to stay and hear.
"It was not convenient, sir," said the officer, "to dispatch those guns yes-
terday. It was Sunday. But if you think it is at all urgent, I will attend to it at
once this morning."
Stanton bit off his words: "I ordered you to send those guns out yesterday,
which I was well aware was Sunday. When you did not do so, I went down to
the arsenal at the hour it opened, helped to drag those infernal guns out
myself. I went with them in the wagons to the railway. I made certain they
were on the midnight train to Harpers Ferry."
The officer listened to this bureaucratic heresy with his mouth open.
"The guns are at this moment in place facing a rebel attack," Stanton
continued with relish, "and you, sir, are no longer in the service of the United
States Government. Out. Out!"
Stanton, obviously pleased with himself, took Anna's hand and squeezed it
firmly in farewell. She led Wade out past the thunderstruck quartermaster,
briefly introduced the senator to the telegraph operator across the hall"my
friend, Homer Bates, who is doing vital and secret work," a description she
knew would mightily satisfy the young manand walked out the Seven-
teenth Street exit of the War Department.
"Stanton enjoys his new power," said Wade.
"He wallows in it." She amended that at once: "Certainly Mr. Lincoln
needed a man like that"she searched for the word"that fierce, to get
some energy in the prosecution of the war."
"Old Abe needs him, all right," boomed Wade. "The question all of us are
asking isdoes Stanton need Lincoln?"
CHAPTER 12
JOHN HAY'S DIARY
JANUARY 27, 1862
"The little black terrier," as Judge Blair calls Stanton with no little contempt,
came barreling in this afternoon demanding to see the Hellcat. I could not
resist the prospect of a confrontation between the indefatigable new Secretary
of War and the quite fatigable Mrs. Lincoln, and took him to the family
quarters myself.
Lizzie Keckley, who must have been fitting Madame for some outrageously
expensive outfit, came to the bedroom door. I said, somewhat merrily, "Liz-
zie, would you tell Mrs. Lincoln that the Secretary of War attends her plea-
sure." When that brought a puzzled frown to her handsome black face, I
amended it to plain English: "Mr. Stanton here would like to see her."
Lizzie looked him in the eye and then nodded, closing the door in our
faces. There is a remarkable composure in that statuesque woman, who seems
freed not just from slavery but from any lingering attitude of servitude;
frankly, I would as soon visit a smallpox hospital as cross the fearsome Stan-
ton, but Lizzie treats him like just another enemy of her friend and customer.
In a moment, Her Satanic Majesty appeared, took us into the yellow oval
sitting room, and motioned for Stanton to sit down. He did not.
"I have in my heart the one single object of overcoming the rebellion,"
went his little speech, "and restoring the authority of the government in time
to save the nation from the horrible gulf of bankruptcy." Did he know about
the money she was spending? That remark took the hard look out of her face
and put a trace of fear there. "I must also restore the integrity of the Depart-
ment of War, which has been in the clutch of the most corrupt politics.
Favoritism and nepotism have been rife." As she caught the drift of his
complaintnot money, but meddlingshe seemed to relax a little.
An interruption: Willie came running through the room in his pajamas,
face flushed, evidently on his way to the kitchen. "Go to bed," his mother
ordered. "You have a fever; you mustn't run around that way or you'll catch
your death."
"But I'm thirsty, and I've been in my room all day, and I'm getting better."
He cast an eye on Stanton, standing in the middle of the room, hand injacket,
midway through his prepared presentation. "Hello, sirdid you just grow
that beard? It's not very bushy yet."
At last, Edwin McMasters Stanton, organizer of victory and scourge of
timorous generals, met someone he could not intimidate. William Lincoln
"Willie" is not longer suitable, in my eyes, for such a brave ladbugged his
mother and beat a path to his room, leaving Stanton touching his wispy beard
with some embarrassment and groping for a way to resume his remonstrance.
"Favoritism is the enemy of public trust," he intoned, sounding a little like
the pious Chase, "and without realizing it, madam, you have allowed yourself
to be used by unscrupulous people. Twice this week, men have come to me
with your card asking for favors, and now one has presented a letter from
you, on Executive Mansion stationery, with a formal request for an army
commission. I have said no. I will continue to say no. This interference with
my office must stop."
"You are entirely right, Mr. Secretary."
"You have a duty to your nation and to your husband" He stopped,
evidently unprepared for her immediate surrender.
"I thank you for reminding me of it," she said humbly, giving the lie to my
sobriquet of Hellcat. I never saw her so much the pussycat; perhaps the
Tycoon had spoken to her about his inability to prevent the new Secretary of
War from exacting terrible vengeance for any interference.
"I will never trouble you again with improper requests," she said in fare-
well. She returned to her room clothed in dignity, which is at least less
expensive than some of her other raiment, leaving Stanton, Lizzie, and me
standing there.
What makes the former Hellcat so devoid of claws, so mild, even penitent?
I suppose it is the result of those accusations of spendthriftiness flying all over
town. The other accusationof harboring secret Southern sympathiesis
beneath contempt, probably based on her having all those relatives in the
Confederate Army. But the charge of foolish and tasteless ostentation in
wartime holds water. Stoddard has got her visiting hospitals to improve her
reputation, but the press remains hopelessly down on her. Kate Chase never
visits hospitals, and also spends money like water, and the press treats her
like an angel. Perhaps it helps to look like an angel.
The Hellcat must feel guilty about the big levee planned for next week. Six
hundred people invited to the first musicale to be held in the Mansion in
years. I deposited the Prsdt's January salary check for $2,000 the other day,
and that's not going to cover the half of it. She didn't invite the press
Stoddard was remissand everybody else not invited is predicting it will be a
great bore. Ben Wade sent back his invitation with a furious note demanding
to know if the President's wife was aware there was a Civil War on. As a
result, it will be a sit-down musicale, the first "ball" ever held without danc-
ing. I fear we are in for a disaster of a party, and the same fear is moderating
the Hellcat's behavior.
The War Secretary, his speech delivered and Madam in full retreat, started
to cough. Little coughs at first, then big wheezes into his handkerchief, shak-
ing his glasses off his face. He had great difficulty catching his breath. Lizzie
eased him into a chair and ran to the pantry around the corner for a glass of
water. I picked up his spectacles and tried to pat him on the back, which he
resisted.
"Asthma," he choked to me. I didn't know what to do except look sympa-
thetic. Lizzie came back with water and a jar of honey and ministered to him
until his coughing fit passed. As he was recovering, I introduced them.
"Lizzie, this is Secretary of War Stanton. Mr. Secretary, this is Lizzie
Keckley, Mrs. Lincoln's modiste."
"I'm grateful to you, Mrs. Keckley." That made me feel small; by ostenta-
tiously giving a negress a proper honorific, he was reducing me in her eyes.
Then he startled us both by asking her an odd question: "Do you think
negroes should be enlisted in the army?"
I had to step into the silence that followed. "Mrs. Keckley's son did not
appear to be black, Mr. Stanton. He enlisted and was killed at Bloody Ridge
last summer."
"A hero," she added, reaching in her dress for a wrinkled envelope. "Miss
Carroll wrote me the details."
Stanton read it through and was visibly moved. By that I mean there were
tears in his eyes. I excused myself to fix some tea in the pantry. I am not an
eavesdropper by nature, but the conversation was clearly audible and is the
sort of thing I should transcribe.
"Do you have other children, Mrs. Keckley?"
"No, the one was killed was all I had."
"Your husband?"
"Gone long ago."
Pause. "I am no stranger to the death of loved ones, my good woman. I lost
one daughter in the cradle. I kept her ashes in my room for a year. Another
died in her teens. My dear wife died a few years ago; I've since taken another.
My elder son is in college in Ohio. He wants to join the army. I cannot
interfere but I dread the day."
"The President's son at Harvard, Robert, wants to join up," she said, "but
Mrs. Lincoln won't let him."
"Not only that," Stanton was saying, caught up in his account of death and
woe in his own family, "but my infant, not two months old, has been afflicted
with the most terrible sores since his vaccination. I fear for its life, and my
dear young wife is always at his bedside, and I cannot get home because of
the demands of this job. I tell no one of this."
"Are you a religious man, Mr. Stanton?"
"I am, profoundly."
"I will pray for you," Lizzie promised. "It is good, in a way, that you and
death are no strangers. There is so much death ahead in your war." She took
a breath and I could hear her exhale. "Mr. Lincoln sometimes reads the
Bible, but he finds no comfort in religion. He lost a young boy, years ago.
Name was Eddie, after Senator Baker, who was killed last year. Nobody
around here can pull him out of it when the hypo gets to him, except maybe
Willie. Mr. Lincoln is no stranger to death either, Mr. Stanton. I suppose we
all have a kinship in that."
Long pause, Stanton having trouble with his breathing. Then: "I am in
favor of abolition, Mrs. Keckley. I look forward to the day when the Presi-
dent agrees."
"He wants to set my people free," she said, "but he thinks it would be best
if we were sent away."
"Colonization," he said, getting official again. "First compensated emanci-
pation, then colonization, perhaps in Haiti or Panama or some other conge-
nial climate. That will be hard to sell to the Congress."
"I don't want to go. Even with all the troubles, I want to stay here. I
bought my freedom, I want to be free to stay."
"Colonization would be voluntary, Mrs. Keckley. Nobody would be forced
to leave."
"I know you mean that, but things happen. No white man in the North is
going to want a free nigger taking his job. I've seen that."
"Mrs. Keckley, rest assured I am on your side. So is Governor Chase. I
wish I could say as much for the rest of them. As for McClellan, he's pro-
slavery clear through." After a pause, he pressed that home. "Be sure Mrs.
Lincoln knows thatshe could be influential. We have to get rid of him."
Since Stanton was back to his old tricks, I reentered with my tea in hand
and reminded him about the Prsdt's big activity of the dayWar Order No.
I, a better reason for Mars to visit the Prsdt's house than to bawl out the
Hellcat or commiserate with her modiste.
Stanton huffed his way down the hall of the Mansion, me following a
respectable three paces behind, working his dander up again before seeing the
Tycoon. The War Order should have been the first order of business, but the
black terrier had a different order on his mind. Lincoln wanted to let certain
prisoners of war, who had taken the loyalty oath and wanted to join the
Union ranks, enlistand to credit that enlistment to the quota for certain
districts that had special political significance. The Prsdt had to think of his
support in key districts that could not be pushed too hard.
Lincoln was lying on the couch. "You got my prisoner-of-war order, Stan-
ton?"
Stanton shook his head. "You must know, Lincoln, your order cannot be
executed."
That brought the Prsdt to his feet, the long, roundabout way, and in a tone
I can only call unusually peremptory for him, replied, "Mr. Secretary, I
reckon you'll have to execute the order."
"Mr. President, I cannot do it. The order is an improper one, and I cannot
execute it."
In a manner that forbade all further dispute, President Lincoln said: "Mr.
Secretary, it will have to be done."
Stanton stood stock still for a moment, then walked to my office outside
and said to Stoddard, who was sitting there, "Go across the street and tell
Provost General Fry to execute the order I have been holding on prisoner-of-
war enlistments. Tell him I gave him a verbal order to do it immediately,
watch him do it, and then come back here and tell me it was done."
Then Jupiter and Mars got down to the business of the day. The Tycoon
opened a drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper. (I'm glad he didn't take it
out of his hat, as he does with so many other papers. There is something un-
presidential about filing your papers in your hat.)
"General War Order Number One," he said. "See what you think. I have
to get the armies moving. McClellan's got the slows."
For the past two weeks, ever since that terrible meeting with the stubborn
McClellan and his craven generals in the Cabinet Room, the Prsdt has been
at his wit's end. The country demands action, the press is critical, the Con-
gress is driven by Wade's committee to grab control of the war, and all we
hear is "all quiet on the Potomac." He remembers what McClellan did in
protecting Washington from capture after Bull Run, and the Prsdt is not one
to forget a favorand I think he genuinely likes the insufferable Young Na-
poleon, despite the slightsbut the South is getting stronger every day and
the war is slipping away. That's why he appointed Stanton, I think: The
President wanted someone he respected to tell him to do what he wanted to
do all alongwhich was to rescind that promise to McClellan to let him fight
the war without political pressure.
Stanton read aloud: " 'Ordered that the 22nd day of February, 1862, be the
day for a general movement of the Land and Naval forces of the United
States against the insurgent forces.' " He looked up. "Why Washington's
birthday?"
"It has a certain significance," Lincoln said. "The President is commander
in chief."
"The order is good as far as it goes," said Stanton. "Our generals out West
might take it seriously, but it doesn't light any fires under McClellan."
The Tycoon was disappointed; I know he had set great store by that order
and deliberately associated himself with General Washington in its timing.
"It's a General War Order, pronouncing military policy. I'll follow it in a few
days with specific orders to McClellan to engage the enemy at Manassas and
seize the railroad there."
"That's more like it," Stanton replied. "Be sure and put in that he should
leave enough troops in Washington for the defense of the capital. A direct,
written order should flush him out." He was fairly rubbing his hands at the
thought of the generals out-generaled, then looked up sharply. "You're not
still thinking of taking field command yourself, are you?"
Lincoln shrugged that off; I knew the thought had crossed his mind weeks
ago, and if matters reach a desperate state, he well might. Still, the Tycoon
was reluctant to place his military judgmentor Stanton'sabove that of
men steeped in military affairs all their lives. He was coming to understand
military strategy, but errors in tactics could cost God knows how many lives.
"You were pretty high on McClellan a month ago, Mars"the Prsdt liked
to call Stanton "Mars," which he did to his face, but he never called Welles
"Father Neptune" except in private"what do you think of him now?"
"I'm afraid he's afraid to fight. We have had no war, we have not even been
playing war."
Lincoln looked pained. Stanton went on, "Besides which, he is a pompous,
overbearing, power-hungry, arrogant conniver. God! I don't know why we
should have to put up with this!"
Stanton ranted on for a while, then picked up his copy of the order from
Stoddard and charged out to work all night or whatever he does. (Actually,
I'm told he goes shopping. Three mornings a week, very early, before going to
the Department, he visits the city market to shop for vegetables, meats, every-
thing. A manservant pays for his purchases and carries the packages home.
Strange form of relaxation for a man.)
I sense a chilling side to Stanton. He will stop at nothing, except a direct
order from the Prsdt, and I suppose we're lucky to have such an energetic
and brilliant man at the helm of the war machine, to mix a metaphor. He is
not someone I want to cross; one of these days I may want a commission
myself, because it may not be good for my career to spend this war as a
civilian, even here in the White House. Young men not in uniform get suspi-
cious looks in Washington1 know how Robert Lincoln must feeland I
suspect that even Kate Chase wonders about my courage. I will have to
puzzle out where Duty lies, here or in the field. More fun here. There may be
no dancing at the musicale next week, but all of glittering Washington will be