CHAPTER I
MUCH LIKE TREASON
George McClellan was in good spirits. A few moments before, at 7:30 A.M.,
he had received word that the President wanted to see him alone, immedi-
ately. No need to keep Lincoln waiting; he swallowed one piece of toast,
gulped his tea, and checked his uniform in the full-length hall mirror. His
aide, Lieutenant Custer, was holding his overcoat at the front door but the
general motioned him to wait. He bounded up the stairs to the nursery.
Nellie was feeding the baby, and the sight of his robust, sleepy-eyed son at
the breast of the woman he loved moved him to silently thank God for his
good fortune. She motioned for him to come in and lifted her face. He kissed
her lips with all the tenderness in his heartnone of this cheek-kissing so
common to husbands and wives in this sink of iniquity of a cityand stopped
as he drew back because the baby had taken hold of one of his tunic buttons.
The general smiled at his son's demanding nature: one of his small hands
grasped at his mother's nipple and the other at his father's button. He pried
the fingers loose, nuzzled the back of his wife's graceful neck, and slipped out.
"You want to get a haircut, Custer," he told his aide, a youth too much
taken with his long blond locks. They walked in a brisk cadence to the
President's house three blocks from the McClellan home. His staff insisted
that the general not walk the streets of the capital alone at any time, and he
had acceded to this wish; Pinkerton had information that McClellan was a
likely target for an assassination attempt. At the door of the President's
house, he shed his overcoat and handed it to Custer, instructing him to be
ready with horses when the interview with Lincoln was over.
He was pleased that Stanton would not be present. The Secretary of War
had managed to prevent frequent personal interviews between the President
and the commander of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan was certain he
could deal with Lincoln far better without the double-dealing Stanton's inhib-
iting presence; perhaps Lincoln was awakening to that as well. The President
was not a bad sort, in the general's judgment, but he was too easily influ-
enced.
Lincoln did not rise from his chair, as he customarily did, nor did he look
his general-in-chief in the eye. That, thought McClellan, augured ill. He did
not like something in the President's manner; it seemed to be that of a man
about to do something of which he was ashamed.
"I wish to talk to you about a very ugly matter."
McClellan took his seat and entrenched for the assault. "What is that?"
Lincoln hesitated, fiddling with the spectacles in his hands.
"On ugly matters," said the general briskly, "the sooner and more directly
such things are approached, the better. Speak frankly."
"I suggested a movement that would make the capital safer," Lincoln
began. McClellan suspected what was coming: an unfair criticism of his move
across the Potomac to open the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. The plan had
been to bring canalboats through the locks at Harpers Ferry and to use them
as a pontoon bridge to enable McClellan's force to cross the river. Everyone
from the President on down had agreed to the brilliance of the planned
maneuver, which would have saved the months it would take to construct a
permanent bridge. Unfortunately, nobody had measured the width of the
canal locks, and it turned out that the canalboats were six inches too wide. He
could not fault the army engineers, who had relied on the assurances of
experienced railroad employees. The operation had to be abandoned, stimu-
lating criticism that no activity was under way against the rebel forces.
"The Harpers Ferry episode?" McClellan said, urging Lincoln on.
"Why in tarnation," Lincoln demanded, "couldn't you have known
whether a boat would go through that lift-lock before spending a million
dollars getting them there?"
"I am not a naval officer, and had to rely"
"Neither am I," Lincoln said with more asperity than McClellan had seen
before, "but it seems to me that if I wished to know whether a boat would go
through a hole or lock, common sense would teach me to go and measure it. I
am almost despairing at these results. Everything seems to fail."
"I explained the matter in detail to the Secretary of War"
The President was not finished. "The impression is daily gaining ground
that you do not intend to do anything." He looked directly at his guest for the
first time that morning. "You know what Chase said about the fiasco at the
lock? He said your heralded expedition died of lockjaw."
"I'm sure you enjoyed that joke, Mr. Lincoln." This President was known
for crude witticisms at the most serious moments.
"Well, we don't get many jokes out of Chase. But really, how could you let
this happen? The country is crying out for action, for movement against an
enemy sitting comfortably a few miles from Washington, and the reports all
say 'All quiet on the Potomac.' " When the general decided not to dignify
that with a response, Lincoln went on. "Well, George, I will say this: for
organizing an army, for preparing an army for the field, for fighting a defen-
sive campaign, I will back you against any general of modern times. I don't
know but of ancient times, either. But I begin to believe that you will never
get ready to go forward."
With the President's tirade tapering off, the general felt the time ripe for a
response. "I have been deceived," he stated.
"What and who has been deceiving you?"
"Two weeks ago, I sent you a memorandum explaining what happened at
Harpers Ferry. Did you receive it?"
"No." Lincoln's puzzlement seemed sincere.
"Stanton assured me he would give it to you personally. He told me, a day
or two afterward, that he had done so, and that you were entirely satisfied
with my conduct. He desired me not to mention the subject to you. I was
foolish enough to believe him."
"Maybe it's here in my papers," the President murmured.
"We are moving on Winchester independently of the bridge, and in such
force that may cause the Confederates to withdraw from the Potomac
heights, where their big guns endanger the boats moving our troops down for
the Peninsula campaign against Richmond." McClellan let that sink in, hop-
ing the President would comprehend the military situation. "The purpose of
the move was to take Winchester, not to build a bridge of canalboats."
"I wish you would tell me these things," Lincoln said irritably. "I would be
better able to sustain you if you would take me into your confidence."
"I tried to, and your Secretary of War intercepted my communication."
"You say the rebels may pull back from the Potomac embattlements? That
would be good news, well received."
Unfortunately, Lincoln was obsessed with the safety of Washington, D.C.;
he could not understand, the general felt, the dictum of Swiss General An-
toine Henri Jornini: that an offensive was the best defense. But McClellan
assumed it would serve no useful purpose to argue with a civilian about fears
that had no military rationale. Lincoln did not grasp the strategy that would
draw the enemy troops southward and out of striking distance of the capital.
The President remained fearful, and could be satisfied only by the presence of
nearby Union troops; no military man could ever talk him out of it. There-
fore, the general would leave a token force behind to allay those fears while
he maneuvered the main Confederate strength away from Washington with
his attack on Richmond from the east, up the peninsula formed by the York
and James rivers.
Why would Lincoln and Stanton never admit to the brilliance of his bold
maneuver? A Peninsula campaign would minimize casualties. Perhaps they
were willing to grind up the army in a step-by-step overland battle only to
make the politicians feel secure in Washington; he was not.
"I hope I have disposed of what you called 'an ugly matter,' " said McClel-
lan in a gesture of conciliation.
"No, that's not the half of it." The President took a deep breath, more of a
sigh, and plunged in. "It has been represented to me that your plan of cam-
paign was conceived with traitorous intent."
McClellan was too thunderstruck to answer. Traitor? Could the President
be serious?
"I've been told that your plan, by removing defenders from Washington, is
intended to give over the capital to the enemy." Lincoln met McClellan's
stare for a moment and added, "It does look to me much like treason."
The general rose out of his chair. "Take that back, Lincoln. Damn your
eyes, take it back! Nobody can mention my name in the same breath with the
word 'treason.' "
That shook the President, who backed away from endorsing the charge.
"It's not my idea," said Lincoln, much agitated, rising to face the general
across his desk, "I'm just repeating to you what has been represented to me."
"And you believe that abominable slander."
"No, no, I don't believe a word of it." A moment before, he had been
saying it sounded much like treason to him. "It is what others are saying, and
you should know about it."
"What others? Stanton? Wade? I demand to know."
"Men like that, I shouldn't say exactly who," he evaded. "But I don't
believe them."
"Then you ought to damn well watch your language. You gave me the
distinct impression that you believe those slanders to be well founded."
"Then I was wrong and I apologize." The President sat down again. "It is
not my purpose to impugn your motives, only to give you an idea of the depth
of feeling that exists about leaving Washington defenseless"
McClellan could not get over it. "Treason!" He paced to the window and
back and laid his hand on Lincoln's desk. "I'll tell you about treason. It is in
the minds of those men who don't want me to succeed. My plan is bold and
brilliant and will win a smashing victory and end the war in a month. But
that's not what your Stanton wants, or what Wade wants, or what Chase
wants. That cabal doesn't want me to win this war this spring, because they
want to launch a crusade against slavery. They don't want the South to sue
for peace terms; they want the South crushed and bloodied and punished for
what they think is some great national sin that only blood can expiate." He
jabbed his finger at the President's chest. "Your radical Republican friends
want a long war, Lincoln, with plenty of casualties on both sides, and they're
poisoning your mind about me to get their way."
"No, you're all wrong," Lincoln said, in a soothing voice. "Please sit down.
I can understand how you feel, but don't start impugning their motives."
"I'm fighting a two-front war," added McClellan with relish, his enemies
on the run; "the rebels on the one side, and the abolitionists and other scoun-
drels on the other."
"You have it all upside down," the President said. "Ben Wade and Zack
Chandler and the committee are not calling for inaction. They, and I, are
urging you to actto get the army, your army, fighting the enemy. We all
want the war over with as soon as you can finish it."
"No. You don't understand. They want hand-to-hand combat between here
and Richmond, at an exorbitant cost in lives," said McClellan, now deter-
mined to make the most of the President's indiscretion in passing along the
gossip of his malicious aides. "We do not have to destroy our army or the
Southern army to win this war. Follow my plan. Trust me, as you promised
you would. Jeff Davis will be in flight from Richmond in a month, and the
secession will be over."
It was Lincoln's turn to walk around his office. "I will follow your Penin-
sula plan," he said finally, "on this condition: that you leave such force at
Manassas as shall make it entirely certain that the enemy shall not repossess
himself of that position. We cannot let him sack Washington."
"Done," agreed McClellan. In his mind, the small force under General
Banks in Virginia was adequate, backed up by the Washington constabulary
behind the solid entrenchments that McClellan had built. He needed every
other man he could musterat least a hundred and fifty thousandto face
the horde that Pinkerton had informed him the Confederates had assembled
to defend Richmond.
"You are sure," said Lincoln, still doubtful, "the roads down there in the
Peninsula near Richmond are passable this time of year?"
"I am," said the general. Pity that Lincoln never made a clean decision, but
accompanied it with hedges and doubts.
"You were sure about the canalboats fitting through the locks," said the
President sorrowfully and, the general felt, unnecessarily. "But let me not
discourage you. Be bold. Bring us victories."
Riding back to his house, McClellan said nothing to his escort of officers.
Custer started to make conversation, but a nod cut him short. The general,
seething, was determined not to show his emotions to anyone. Any display of
irritation after a visit to the Mansion would start rumors buzzing that he was
in disfavor with Lincoln.
"Major Alien seems to want a word with you, sir," Custer said, pointing to
Pinkerton pacing in front of the McClellan home. The scowling detective,
under his derby hat and with the cigar sticking out of his face, cut an almost
comic figure, but McClellan valued him. His reports of enemy strength justi-
fied a caution that many of the firebrands around Lincoln did not feel.
Pinkerton signaled not to dismount; McClellan tensed his legs around the
horse's flanks and leaned down to get his message.
"Couple of men in your parlor, General, waiting to see you," the detective
whispered urgently. "Came unannounced; I'd avoid 'em."
"Why not just send them away, then?"
Pinkerton shook his head. "One is Femando Wood, the Mayor of New
York. Used to be head of Tammany Hall and not a man to be trusted, in my
opinion, sir. The other is Horatio Seymour, used to be governor, may run for
governor again. These two are very big Peace Democrats."
"Ah." McClellan straightened in his saddle, thinking about that. Wood, he
had heard, was a wild man who talked of having New York City secede from
the Union. Seymour was another matter: respectable, a proven vote-getter,
andaccording to Seward, a former Governor of New York, who ought to
knowa man who had become a concern to Lincoln men in New York. If
Seymour and his Peace Democrats took New York's governorship in the fall,
they would put a stop to recruitment in the Union's biggest state.
"I don't think you should talk to them," Pinkerton murmured, his voice at
his peak pitch, slightly above his whisper. "Rather, you should not be seen
talking to them. Feed right into the cabal's hands, giving them evidence about
what they call your 'disloyalty.' "
McClellan nodded, Lincoln's repetition of the slander of his "traitorous
intent" fresh in mind. He guessed that Seymour and the rest of the loyal
political opposition were worried about McClellan's being replaced by a radi-
cal; if that took place, then the abolitionists would be in control of both the
Cabinet and the army, with no hope for a negotiated peace.
It struck McClellan as not beyond the realm of possibility that Seymour
might also be carrying a message from New York Democrats about a presi-
dential nomination of McClellan in 1864. That was two long years away; it
was much too soon to give an indication about, or even think about, a future
in politics. But perhaps it would be a good idea to find out what support there
was in the North for a negotiated peace on the basis of "the Union as it was"
preserving the Union and limiting slavery to the Southern states.
"I'm going on to camp," he announced. "Tell Seymour, and only Seymour,
that it is always a good idea for a former governor to visit men of his state
serving in the army here. If he comes to camp and drops by my tent, it would
be most natural for me to see him."
Pinkerton smiled and winked. McClellan wished he wouldn't do that; it
made the general feel part of some conspiracy. He had already given the lie to
that, to Lincoln's face. Curiously, the election of Democrats in New York
might even strengthen Lincoln's hand in dealing with the likes of Wade and
Stanton and Chase, who were dragging him toward a fight-to-the-finish aboli-
tion policy. Abolition might well bring the armies of England and France on
to the field against the Union, and New Yorkers had to worry about an
invasion by British forces in Canada. In all his expressed concern for border
states, Lincoln forgot that New York was a border state too.
He twitched the bridle lightly, and Kentuck responded; the saddle was his
own design, much more comfortable for the animal than the formal saddles of
the past; the McClellan saddle was being adopted throughout the U.S. Army.
In the general's mind, cruelty was always unnecessary, and the prolongation
of the war was beyond cruelty, it was savagery. He would see Seymour in
private and listen to what he had to say.
He hoped the New Yorker would not broach the "dictator" idea that
young Custer kept bringing up, because that struck him as unseemly at the
moment; still, the notion of the ancient Roman solution helped soothe the
rankling in his breast at the thought of Lincoln's giving credence to the
charge of "traitorous intent." What kind of commander-in-chief would coun-
tenance such slander against the man who had already saved the Union from
sure defeat, and was on the verge of a great campaign to subdue the enemy?
Why couldn't the man back up his military leaders when they came under
political fire?

CHAPTER 2
LADY MINE

"The President is an idiot."
She shook her head, no; it was wrong for George to talk that way.
"I went to the White House directly after tea," her husband continued,
poking a long match into the wadded newspaper under the fire logs, "where I
found the Original Gorilla about as intelligent as ever." His hand holding the
match was shaking, he was so angry. "What a specimen to be at the head of
our affairs now!"
"What did he say that upset you so?"
George McClellan watched the fire start, not answering her right away.
"Oh, I was of course much edified by his anecdotes, ever apropos, and ever
unworthy of one holding his high position. I suppose he's honest and he
means well."
Ellen Marcy McClellan did not press him. Whatever had passed between
Lincoln and her husband must have been so odious that he considered it
would hurt her too much to relate. George confided almost everything to her,
as she to him, holding back only out of kindness.
"I have a lot of scamps to deal with," he said, "unscrupulous and false.
They throw whatever blame there is on my shoulders." He rose and watched
the flames leap up. "I do not intend to be sacrificed by such people. It is
perfectly sickening to see the fate of the nation in such hands."
"God's will," she reminded him.
"I trust that the all-wise Creator, in His own good time, will return us to
His favor. I trust there is a limit to His wrath, and that ere long, we will begin
to experience His mercy."
She knew George McClellan was a God-fearing man, a profound believer
determined to observe the Sabbath even in planning battles, who struggled
against his tendency to let bitterness spill over.
"But it is terrible to stand by and see the cowardice of the President," he
continued, "and the vileness of Seward. Welles is an old woman and Bates an
old fool. The only man of courage in the Cabinet is Blair, and I don't alto-
gether fancy him."
"Remember, you were wrong about Stanton."
"I was at first, and I should have listened to you. You saw through that
viper from the start." He put his hands on her shoulders and looked directly
at her with that sudden burst of boyish respect that never failed to move her.
"Who am I wrong about now?"
"The President. He's been through the fires with the loss of his boy," she
told him, "you should allow for that. Stanton is poisoning his mind against
you all the time. Lincoln makes mistakes, and he reads one book and thinks
that makes him a general, but he's not an idiot, and you must stop calling him
a gorilla. Somebody will hear."
"That was Stanton's description, remember, when that conniver was ingra-
tiating himself with us. With me." He brightened a bit, as usual after the
bouts of bitterness at the forces arrayed against him on his own side. George
liked to denounce his foes with fierce words, she knew, and to exaggerate the
cabals and conspiracies of politicians that were constantly being formed to
frustrate him and to sacrifice his beloved troops. But he was not one who
hated those who stood in his way, and was always ready to repair relations
with people angry with him. Powell Hill, for example. "All right. I am sure I
will win in the end in spite of all the rascality. History will present a sad
record of these traitors who are willing to sacrifice the country and its army
for personal spite and personal aims. The people will soon understand the
whole matter, and thenwoe betide the guilty ones."
He announced that he was going upstairs to play with the baby, a good sign
that the pain of his interview with the President was wearing off. She re-
mained at the fireplace, thinking about, of all people, "L'il Powell"Am-
brose Powell Hill, the dashing Virginian who had, in the most tempestuous
period of her unmarried life, taken her away from Captain George McClel-
lan.
"Miss Nellie," as the youthful set in Washington had called her six years
ago, had been seeing "Little Mac" with some regularity. Her army father
approved, especially since the widely respected captain intended to resign
from the army and pursue a lucrative career as an executive with the Illinois
Central. George duly proposed, but she rebufied him because she had fallen
under the spell of his close friend, the moody, vulnerable, attractive Lieuten-
ant Hill, then with the Coast Survey Office in Washington.
Powell and Nellie became engaged. Her father, at his post in Laredo,
Texas, was not merely disappointed, but furious. She would not forget his
letter: "Abandon all communication with Mr. Hill. If you do not comply
with my wishes in this respect, I fear my ardent affection would turn to hate.
Choose between me and him."
She fought for Hill, who was able to show her father a worth of ten thou-
sand dollars, but then her mother came to her with a rumor that the young
man was afflicted with a social disease. When Nellie told this to her young
man, he wanted to fight a duel with whoever started the canard, and even her
father sided with the wronged young man on this issue, but by this time her
parents' concernand the steady, forgiving, loving presence of Captain Mc-
Clellanhad bred second thoughts. Powell was afflicted with sick headaches
and sometimes disappeared for days at a time, when she most needed him.
She broke the engagement, to her father's relief, and resumed seeing the
faithful George, with Powell angry at what he must have felt was betrayal by
both of them.
George wrote a beautiful letter to Powell when Nellie accepted his pro-
posal, and the rejected suitor could not resist McClellan's frankness and ea-
gerness to repair a shattered friendship. "My ticket is Douglas for President
and McClellan for Secretary of War," Powell replied in 1860, reporting that
he, too, had marriedthe lovely sister of their mutual friend, John Hunt
Morgan, in Lexington, Kentucky, and over the objections of her parents.
The two men in her life were now warm friends again, but George was
taking the Army of the Potomac into action against the Army of Virginia,
which included a division under General A. P. Hill. Powell's commander was
Joseph E. Johnstonnot Sidney Johnston, who had just been killed at Shiloh,
but George's lifelong friend who addressed his letters "Beloved McC." She
felt heartsick about the fate that pitted her husband against two of his closest
friends in army life. Like Roman gladiators, they were pledged to kill each
other but were not required to hate each other.
The orderly entered to say that Francis Preston Blair was at the front door.
She sent the soldier to fetch George and greeted the old man warmly; he
would not stay, just wanted to deliver a message to the general before he
began his expedition.
"I was just telling Nellie," George said as he welcomed Blair, "that your
son's was the only courageous voice in the Cabinet."
"Welles isn't bad," Father Blair replied. "Sounds like an old woman, but
stands up to Stanton, that damned two-face. Look, I'm here for a reason."
The wizened face squinted its eyes at the general. "There is a prodigious cry
of 'On to Richmond' among the carpet knights of our city, who will not be
shedding their own blood to get there."
"I am aware of their zeal," said her husband.
"I am one of those who wish to see you lead a triumph in the capital of the
Old Dominion," said the old man, "but am not so eager as to befoul it by
hurrying on too fast."
"You're the first one to say that," said Nellie. "Everybody else, from the
President on down, is berating my husband for not storming Richmond in the
dead of winter, or when the roads were a mess of mud."
"The veterans of Waterloo filled the trenches of General Jackson with their
bodies and their blood," said the old man, a living link to the military heroes
of earlier generations. "If you can accomplish your objective of reaching
Richmond by a slower process than storming redoubts and batteries in earth-
works, the country will applaud the achievement. It will give success to its
arms with the greatest parsimony of the blood of its children."
"I'll be satisfied with bloodless victories, my venerable friend."
"The envious Charles Lee denounced his superior, General Washington, as
gifted too much with that 'rascally virtue prudence. ' Exert it and deserve his
fame."
Blair hunched his cape around him and left without a farewell. Nellie could
see how welcome the rare words of caution had been to her husband. She
took his arm at the doorway and watched the carriage draw away. On the
morrow, her husband and her fatherGeneral Marcy was now George Mc-
Clellan's chief of staffwould leave on a daring campaign on boats down the
Potomac to the James River, and on to the battle of Richmond. An army wife
and daughter, who had done her duty to her father and been rewarded by a
wonderful marriage to a good and loving man, she knew better than to tell
her husband to be careful or to avoid enemy fire. She was glad that his goal
was the victory that would lead to a negotiated peace, and was not destruc-
tion of an enemy and subjugation of people who were friends.
"I will not fight for the abolitionists," he said, moved by Biair's visit, "but
when I think of some of the features of slavery I cannot help shuddering. Try
to realize, Nellie, that at the will of some brutal master, you and I might be
separated forever." She tightened her grasp on his arm; in the separation that
was the lot of soldiers and their wives in war, there was at least hope of
return. "Slavery is horrible, Nellie. I do think that some of the rights of
humanity ought to be secured to the negroes. There should be no power to
separate families, and the right of marriage ought to be secured to them."
She led him upstairs to see the child and to spend the last night together
before a long string of lonely nights. He would write every flight without fail,
as he had in the field before, and she would save his letters for her memories
and for history, but she was as worried as any wife of any soldier in the
departing Army of the Potomac.
"Some generals, in the field," he said, "like to sleep in houses." He might
be thinking of Grant, sleeping in comfort as his men were attacked. "I prefer
a tent. Next time I sleep in a real bed in a house, lady mine, it will be right
here."

CHAPTER 3
SOME LAWFUL PURPOSE
Thurlow Weed liked the idea that he could add to his longtime sobriquet
"Wizard of the Lobby'" the self-mocking phrase "international wirepuller."
He was no longer a mere Albany publisher and lobby agent; fresh from six
months in England and France as Lincoln's personal emissary, Weed was
satisfied that he had put a lifetime's experience in political maneuvering to
work in a noble cause of averting what some feared would become "a war of
the world."
He took the roomiest overstuffed chair in the Secretary of State's office and
sank his large bulk into it. "William Henry," he said to Seward, his longtime
political partner from New York, "I am proud to say that I have served my
country well."
"Our ambassador to London agrees. Henry Adams says you are the only
unofficial envoy who did a job of work for us."
"That Trent affair made it touch and go." Weed shook his white mane at
the recollection. "England was ready to go to war. Troops ready to sail for
Canada, ships ready to break the blockade of Southern ports, such as it is.
Perfect opportunity for Lord Russell, the old bastard, to whip up public
sentiment to do what he really wants to docome into the war on the side of
the South and reestablish the cotton trade."
"As soon as I received your lettersyou must have written every day, old
fellow1 shifted my position. As the President said, 'one war at a time.' "
"Lincoln getting any better at it?"
"We underestimated him, Thurlow."
Weed nodded ruefully; at Weed's urging, Seward had started out a year ago
with a memorandum suggesting that he be made de facto prime minister,
with Lincoln more or less of a figurehead, but the President slapped him
down skillfully. Lincoln, with all his homespun posturing, was no bumpkin
when it came to accumulating and defending his power.
"Lincoln is growing in the job, I'm glad to say," Seward said. "Leaves
diplomatic affairs completely to me. Puts up with the most terrible abuse
from Stanton and McClellanI'd never stand for such impertinencebut he
says he'd hold McClellan's horse for him if he brought back victories. I
suppose that takes a certain inner strength."
Weed frowned; his partner apparently did not understand the political sub-
tleties in the prosecution of the war. Perhaps Seward was too close to the
center to see the whole.
"McClellan is launching his campaign with an eye to ultimate reunion," he
explained to the Secretary of State. "That is what infuriates the radicals, who
want only destruction of the Southsubjugation, abolition, conquest."
"We are, after all, engaged in a war, Thurlow. A general must smite the
foe."
His friend really did not understand. "Wars come to an end. How they are
ended is central to who governs the nation in the peace that follows." Enough
of abstraction: to the patronage, the stuff of politics that both of them thor-
oughly understood. "Lincoln has unwisely given the job of Collector of the
Port of New York to a Greeley man. That means twelve hundred jobs, all of
which contribute a part of their salaries to the radical faction. That money,
and those votes, will go to further the cause of abolition and conquest. I need
hardly tell you whom that strengthens for the next national campaign."
"Chase."
Weed nodded. "At the same time, Lincoln is putting all other patronage in
New York through me and mine."
"That's his way," Seward said, "Balance, counterbalancedoes it all the
time."
"That is not always wise. The radicals will never settle for balance with
conservatives like thee and me. They want it all."
"Fear not, Lincoln will never succumb to that. I am here."
Weed, who had made the arrangements that put Seward where he was,
nodded thankfully but made his point: "The next canvass will be won not by
the radical Republicans, nor by the peace wing of the Democrats, but by a
convergence of the center, a Union party. That is where we must make sure
Lincoln is. That is where we must be. If the abolitionists take over our party,
and demand a fight to the finish, we must abandon them for a standard-bearer
who can reunite the nation."
"You think the next few presidents will be generals."
Weed nodded; it was a kind way of indicating that the Seward quest was
over for good. The slogan "vote as you shot" was already being bruited about;
military service would be a must, and generals who took good care of their
troops and did not treat the opposition cruelly would be sought after by all
political parties. "That is why so many DemocratsSeymour, Wood, Sam
Barloware looking at McClellan, who seems to understand that the task is
to end the rebellion and restore the Union, not to conquer and occupy a
hostile region."
"He had better not try to make peace on his own," Seward warned. "Lin-
coln is very jealous of his prerogatives and refuses to show weakness in any
way. And I think he understands the political necessities, Thurlow, which is
why you have been summoned."
"Yes. What do you make of this?" Weed leaned forward and tossed a
telegram onto the Secretary's desk. All it said was: "Thurlow Weed, Albany.
Can you be here tomorrow morning? Answer. Nicolay."
"I know what it is about," Seward said curtly, and said no more. Curious.
Seward had few secrets from Weed.
"Of course, I hurried down here on the train last night, arrived at six this
morning, came straight here. I suppose," Weed said, fishing, "Lincoln wants a
report on my conversations with the Due de Morny at the French court. I
told him we would soon seize some of the cotton areas of the South ourselves,
and would be able to supply some cotton."
"That, too." Seward did not look comfortable. "It's primarily a money
matter."
Weed felt a twinge of conscience; was his perfectly legal speculation in the
markets over there, based on his inside Trent information, known here? Weed
had made a small fortune in England on this trip, and at no expense to the
American war effort; how and when those well-deserved earnings were accu-
mulated was nobody's business but his own.
"Tell me what I should know, William. There are no secrets between us."
"Connecticut politics, I think," said Seward. "There's a problem in Hart-
ford that requires money, quietly raised, quickly produced, no questions
asked. I told Lincoln to see you about it."
That made Weed cautious. "I would rather do it through you, as always,
Governor."
"Better this way. Let Lincoln be beholden to you directly; it might help in
that balance of patronage in New York you were talking about."
Weed nodded and heaved himself out of the chair. Good for Seward, to let
him deal directly with the President on a delicate matter. Patronage in New
York State ought really to be weaned away from the venal Hiram Barney,
Collector of the Port so close to Chase and Stanton, and this would be help-
ful. Weed was less bashful at pressing for returns for favors rendered than
Seward. Credit Lincoln with being shrewd about patronage; probably old
man Blair, who all but invented the game in Andrew Jackson's day, had been
tutoring him.
"Your London sojourn achieved great results, Thurlow," Seward said in
parting, "with the English press. For the first time since this war began, they
printed your letters, and others, explaining the Northern point of view.
How'd you do it?"
"Bribery!" boomed Weed cheerfully. "The money you gave me to suborn
the journalists was well invested."
"Don't tell Lincoln about that," cautioned Seward. "Let him credit your
powers of persuasion."
Weed laughed and pounded his frail friend on the back. Weed never told
him about his previous experience with Lincoln on the subject of expenses.
He took himself off to the President's house.
A short, mustachioed young fellow rose to greet him, and seemed surprised
when the senior secretary, Nicolay, who had sent the telegram summoning
Weed, abruptly took him into Lincoln's office and shut the door. The place
was cluttered, the furniture old and the upholstery faded; evidently it had
escaped Mrs. Lincoln's extensive redecoration. Weed noted that the dark
green wallpaper did not show the dirt, however, and the green rug showed no
sign of wear. Maps covered the walls; bundles of papers, mail, and newspa-
pers littered the tables, and two large wicker wastebaskets held the refuse. A
working office, suitably unpretentious. Nicolay left the room, closing the
door, and Weed was alone with Lincoln.
"Weed, what effect would abolishment have on the English Government?"
That startled him; was that really in the forefront of Lincoln's mind these
days? Or did the President want to begin with a respectable subject? The New
Yorker was prepared with an answer.
"The English Government wants the South to win the war. Then it would
have a supplier of cotton for its mills, and a weakened North as an industrial
competitor."
"I know that. You didn't answer the question."
"I am just getting started, Lincoln," Weed told him. "Only one thing keeps
the English Government from extending diplomatic recognition to the South.
That is the sentiment of the English workingman, who sees human slavery to
be a moral abomination and, probably, a threat to his job. Nothing else keeps
England neutral."
"There's that to be said for the prospect of abolition, then." Lincoln, after
six months, seemed to Weed more careworn, yet more direct; no funny stories
to begin.
"Weed, we're in a tight place," the President said briskly. "Some money for
a legitimate war purpose is needed immediately. There is no appropriation
from which it can be lawfully taken." Lincoln cleared his throat and moved
some items around on his desk. "In this perplexity the Secretary of War
suggested that you should be sent for. Can you help us to fifteen thousand
dollars?"
"Yes, sir." Weed was not shocked; in May of 1860, when he visited Lincoln
in Springfield after the man from Illinois had won the nomination, he had
made a contribution to Lincoln's campaign that the victor probably deposited
in his personal bank account. Men in public life needed money, as Weed well
knew, all the more when they were honest. Few friends could be trusted to
raise and give funds discreetly, and he was pleased that Lincoln thought of
him that way. "But as you say you need the money immediately, the matter
could be hastened by giving me two lines to that effect."
He made a scribbling motion with his fingers. None of his big-money
friends in New York would give that sort of money to Weed without some
kind of indication that it would be passed on directly to Lincoln. But with
any sort of note from Lincoln, even an obscure one, Weed's solicitation would
be buttressed; most of the top money men in New York would be honored to
be the President's benefactor in a secret donation. The fact that Weed had
been chosen as the trusted intermediary would be especially useful in foiling
some of Greeley's plots with Hiram Barney at the Port office.
Lincoln turned to his desk, hesitated, then took out a sheet of stationery
with "Executive Mansion" printed on the top. His pen scratched across the
paper.
What did the President need fifteen thousand dollars for? That was a lot of
money, five times the yearly salary of a Congressman, well over half a year's
presidential salary. And why had Lincoln tried to tie it to a war purpose, one
suggested by Secretary Stanton, when Seward had told him it was for a
political purpose, and suggested by him? Had Mrs. Lincoln gone overboard
on expenses? Was the President in debt? On the other hand, was it legitimate
politicspayoffs required in Connecticut that would help the Republicans
turn back the Peace Democrats? That would be quasi-legitimate war purpose,
growing out of a purely political purpose. Or was the money needed to help
the War Democrats like Stanton repel the onslaught of the copperheads like
Clem Vallandigham?
Weed, the discreet soldier, asked no questions; if Lincoln had wanted him
to know, he would have told him. The Albany editor showed absolutely no
hesitancy, which would have troubled the asker, as if Weed might have had
some ethical compunctions. He blandly watched the President fold the sheet
of notepaper and search for an envelopeobviously Lincoln did not want this
matter examined by his secretaries. After some awkward clerical groping
about, the President stuffed the note into an envelope and handed it to Weed.
They shook hands cordiallythe publisher always marveled how his own
large hand seemed lost in Lincoln'sand Weed hurried for the train to New
York.
Aboard the train, he took out the President's cryptic note, read it and
shook his head in political admiration; Lincoln had used the perfect degree of
circumspection, and was just specific enough without being embarrassingly
specific. Under the letterhead of "Executive Mansion, Washington," the note
read: "Mr. T. Weed: Dear Sir: The matters I spoke to you about are impor-
tant, & I hope you will not neglect them. A. Lincoln."
His carriage driver had rarely been so busy, skipping lunch, taking him
through the rainy streets to different offices near the financial center all after-
noon. By 3 P.M. Weed had visited sixteen prominent New York businessmen.
Each had been suitably impressed by Weed's solicitation when backed up by
the President's urgent note. Each man who gave one thousand dollars
Aspinwall, Vanderbilt, A. T. Stewart, and the resthad signed his name at
the bottom of Lincoln's note. The last man, Russell Sturgis, could only get up
five hundred dollars, and so he added Henry Hubbell for another five hun-
dred; Weed thought it would have been tidier for fifteen men to have given a
thousand apiece, but time was of the essence, so he lumped the final two
together as joint donors of a thousand.
By that evening, fifteen thousand dollars in banknotes, including some of
the new greenbacksthe bills with Mr. Lincoln's face on them, not the low-
denomination bills with Chase's picture, which Weed thought might not have
set well, and which would have made too bulky a packagewas on its way to
John Nicolay at the Executive Mansion, ready for deposit or transfer first
thing the next morning. Weed did not write a covering note; Weed always
believed that prompt action spoke louder than well-drafted letters, and the
less put on paper about these matters, the better.
He held on to the discreet note written in the President's hand, counter-
signed with the names of each of the contributors. Perhaps he would mention
their names to the President, as he had faithfully promised each, perhaps not;
he would think about that. The document was valuable in itself; it occurred to
Weed that he would hold on to the page of autographs of eminent men for
some years and then, long after it could stimulate any controversy, offer it for
sale for the benefit of some meritorious charity.

CHAPTER 4

JOHN HAY'S DIARY
APRIL 9, 1862
Stanton came in this morning in the highest dudgeon, fuming about McClel-
lan, who has finally taken his army out of Washington and landed it on the
Virginia peninsula near Richmond. Mars was brandishing one of Mr. Brady's
photographs.
"Will you look at this? These are the fearsome 'guns' that have been intimi-
dating our intrepid commander," he sputtered. "This is what has been point-
ing at us across the Potomac."
The Prsdt looked, first with great dismay, then with a sad smile. He let me
look. Brady had captured the scene of the "Quaker guns"logs rolled into
position by the canny rebels and made to look like cannon.
"Wooden guns," fulminated the Secy of War, pacing, "and who knows how
much of the vaunted rebel army of two hundred thousand, supposedly men-
acing us all winter, was a figment of Pinkerton's imagination."
"Their strength was exaggerated," the Prsdt allowed, "but still, a rebel
army was there." He never liked to let Stanton heap abuse on McClellan
without some reproof.
"If that blathering incompetent had attacked when I ordered him to,"
snapped Stanton, referring to the Prsdt's War Order, "we would have been in
Richmond a month ago. Right through Manassas. None of this brilliant
maneuvering around Chesapeake Bay, boats, all that complicated tactical
folderol."
Lincoln, of course, agreed wholeheartedly, but put forward McClellan's
excuse: "It's supposed to reduce casualties."
"Mark my word, Lincoln, now that he's down on the Peninsula in force
with one hundred thousand men, facing half that numberMcClellan will do
the same as he did all winter here in Washington. He'll find excuses to dig in.
He'll call for more men. He'll blame the weather. He'll never fight."
"Well, he's in the field at last."
"But he's not in earnest," Stanton insisted. "He cannot emancipate himself
from the influence of Jeff Davis. I fear he is not willing to do anything
calculated greatly to damage the cause of secession."
Lincoln does not go that far. "When I took leave of him at the wharf in
Alexandria, he shed tears when speaking of the cruel imputations upon his
loyalty."
Stanton then produced his evidence of intended delay, in the form of a
telegraph message from the front. "Listen: 'The enemy are in our front in
large force and being reinforced daily. I beg that you will reconsider the order
detaching the first corps from my command.' It's the same old story."
Lincoln sighed in what I suspect was reluctant agreement. "Let's send him
a message." He wrote it out: "I think you better break the enemy's line from
Yorktown to Warwick River, at once. They will probably use time as advanta-
geously as you can." Stanton looked at it, nodded, and went to send it himself
before I had a chance to fix the grammar.
Later that day, Postmaster General Blair came in. The Prsdt was glad to
see him; all three Biairs, father and two sons, were at work on a speech, to be
given by Frank on the floor of Congress, promoting gradual, compensated
abolition, followed by colonization. At a time when the radicals were claim-
ing the Prsdt had "no policy," Lincoln wanted some powerful voices in the
Congress (and Frank is chairman of the House Military Committee) to ring
out with his policy.
Lincoln does not want to spell out his buy-them-and-colonize-them policy
all by himself, without support. His object is to prevent loyal slaveholders
from becoming rebels. Monty Blair goes even further: he thinks that plenty of
white Southerners who own no slaves are secretly loyal, and are ready for a
peace within the Union if no attack is made on the South's peculiar institu-
tion.
"I'm concerned about your treatment of General McClellan," the Postmas-
ter General said. The Biairs are good eggs, but they do tend to take up the
cause of the Little Napoleon, "He read about being relieved of his overall
command in the newspapers. Perhaps you should have discussed it with him
before he went into the Peninsula campaign."
Easy to say. I would hate to be the one to tell the rank-sensitive McClellan
to his face that he was being demoted; he may not fight the enemy in the field,
but he fights him gloriously in the office.
"Did you see this?" The Tycoon picked up the Brady photograph of the
Quaker guns and handed it to him. "That's the sort of thing that was worry-
ing McClellan for months, delaying any action. Wooden guns!"
"There were plenty of real guns, too, as we discovered at Bull Run," Blair
came back. "I hope you won't get caught up in this anti-McClellan hysteria,
Mr. President. The radicals are after him in full cry because the general
returns fugitive slaves, which happens to be the law of the land. And he says
openly that this is a war to save the Union and not to abolish slaverywhich
is your position too. The abolitionists can't get at you directly, at least not
easily, so they direct their fire at you through McClellan."
To be fair, which I in no way intend to be, that is true enough; Ben Wade
had demanded a meeting with the Prsdt before his Joint Committee on the
Conduct of the War, and the Tycoon defused that constitutional challenge by
inviting them over to the Mansion the other night. All we heard were com-
plaints about McClellan and the Democratic generals, and demands that
Washington be defended by Republican, anti-slavery generals. The Prsdt qui-
eted Wade & Co. a bit by giving General Fr6mont, the old blowhard, a
command in Tennessee, which infuriated the Biairs.
It was at this moment that a messenger came in from the telegraph office in
Stanton's domain with Little Mac's reply to Lincoln's suggestion to move.
The Tycoon told me to read it aloud to both of them.
"He says, 'My entire force for duty amounts to about eighty-five thousand
men. Since my arrangements were made for this campaign, at least fifty thou-
sand men have been taken from my command.' "
"Is that true?" Blair interrupted.
"By Stanton's count, McClellan has one hundred and eight thousand men.
There's a discrepancy of twenty-three thousand men. Like shoveling fleas,"
Lincoln added, which must have struck Blair as mysterious.
"And did you take fifty thousand from his command?" Blair asked. "My
God, that's more than a third of his force."
"Finish reading," Lincoln told me.
" 'Here is to be fought the great battle that is to decide the existing contest,'
the general says. 1 shall do all in my power to carry the enemy's works, but
to do this I require the whole of McDowell's First Corps.' "
The Prsdt laid his hand across his forehead. "That's George McClellan for
you. His dispatches complaining that he is not properly sustained, while they
do not offend me, do pain me very much."
"If he started the campaign with those troops assured to him" Blair, the
former West Pointer, began, but the Tycoon cut him short.
"After he embarked on his expedition," said the exasperated Lincoln, "I
ascertained that less than twenty thousand unorganized men, without a single
field battery, was all that was left here to defend Washington."
The Prsdt was speaking slowly, and I could tell he was more than a little
angry. The defense of McClellan that he had shown to Stanton was absent in
his discourse with Blair. "This presentedor would present, if I let McDow-
ell go with McClellana great temptation to the enemy to turn back from
the Rappahannock and sack Washington." He did not have to tell Blair what
the capture of the federal capital might mean: recognition of the Confederacy
by France and Britain, a sinking of the national spirit of the North, pressure
for peace with secession.
"As soon as McClellan moved toward the Peninsula," Blair pointed out,
"the Virginians were forced to leave the vicinity of Washington, to fall back to
be available for a defense of Richmond. His plan is masterly, and it has been
working. I would hate for you to deny him the capacity to bring it off."
"My explicit order," said the Prsdt, in his most executive tone, "was that
Washington should be left secure. That order was disobeyed."
"Neglected, perhaps. Or interpreted in a way that seems disobedient to you
but not to him."
"Neglected, then." Lincoln is not one to turn aside a gentler word. "That
was what drove me to detain McDowell's corps. Do you really think, Judge,
that I should permit this city to be entirely open, except what resistance can
be offered by twenty thousand disorganized troops, the dregs of the army?"
"But we have another thirty-five thousand with Banks in the Shenandoah
Valley," Blair reminded him. "McClellan must have considered them part of
the defense of Washington, which they are."
"That's not here." The Prsdt must have been thinking of the time, only a
year ago, when the city was helpless and he used to say that it seemed there
was no North.
Blair hesitated. "To commit the full force would be a risk. There is another
risk, howeverof not giving your main commander the troops he needs for
victory. If he fails, we're in great trouble. If McClellan's army is destroyed,
nothing can stop the rebels from moving North again and taking Washington.
They would outnumber McDowell and the dregs, as you call them."
"There is that danger," Lincoln conceded, "but I cannot believe that a
soldier of McClellan's caliber would lose an entire army. I reckon he would
retreat in better order than any man alive." Lincoln picked at the mole on his
cheek. "No. I will not gamble with the capital. Fifty-five thousand men must .
stay here, as Stanton says all the army corps commanders agree with me is
needed. And McClellan, down there, must move."
"You have given him an excuse for delay."
"No. I always insisted," the Prsdt reminded the Blair family representative,
"that going down by Chesapeake Bay in search of a field, instead of fighting
at or near Manassas, was only shifting, and not surmounting, a difficulty. We
would find the same enemy and the same entrenchments at either place. The
country will note that the delay is the same."
I stepped forward to ask if he had a reply to McClellan's complaint, to be
sent to the general near Yorktown, where his troops had landed and were
standing around. It is disgraceful to think how the little squad of rebels at
Yorktown keeps him at bay.
The Prsdt dictated to me: "It is time for you to strike a blow. It is indis-
pensable to you that you strike a blow. / am powerless to help this." He
stopped to remark to Blair: "George must understand the pressures here.
Fortunately, he thinks in personal terms." He continued dictating: "I have
never written you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller
purpose to sustain you, so far in my most anxious judgment I consistently
can. But you must act." He laid great emphasis on the last four words.
After reading it back to him, I could not help vouchsafing, "Little Napo-
leon ought to get the point."
"Too much so, you think?" the Prsdt, suddenly more solicitous, asked
Blair. "Perhaps you should write him a letter. Make my case to him as you
made his case to me, Judge. You'll do it far better than I can. Tell him that
what disturbs me is his lack of confidence."
Blair smiled. "I'll do it, and hope you can find some extra troops some-
where to reinforce him. Perhaps strip Fremont's command, which won't be
doing anything."
"Or I'll send McDowell's corps, all forty thousand men, if I think Wash-
ington is safe. But tell George to do what he can with what he has."
"I wish he had taken Frank with him," said Blair. "My brother volun-
teered for a field command on the Peninsula, but McClellan turned him
down."
"Try Grant, if Frank wants to fight," said Lincoln. "We'll miss him in
Congress, but I can understand."
I took the but-you-must-act missive over to the telegrapher across the
street, a nice chap named Bates who is terrified of Stanton and insisted on
showing it to Mars before putting it in cipher.
The Secretary of War glared at my writing on the piece of paper and
sniffed, "Kid gloves." The message seemed fairly bareknuckled to me, and I
said so, but the Secretary of War is a stern fellow.
"I have discovered who McClellan's evil genius is," he said with the certi-
tude of a man who reads all the messages. "Colonel Thomas Key, the former
judge and Democratic legislator in Ohio, now his judge-advocate and confi-
dant, and" this added darkly, "Democratic political adviser. Key has a
brother here in the War Department, too." He quickly added that not all
Democrats were suspect, that he was a Democrat himself, and that he had
great faith in General John Dix, who had served with him in the Buchanan
Cabinet. "I'm trusting Dix with the Rose Greenhow problem," he added,
presumably to try, hang, or exchange her. "But not all Democratic generals
can be trusted."
I know this is a strange and possibly disloyal thought, but I cannot get it
out of my head that Stanton would be displeased by a McC victory. Perhaps
because of his sick, probably dying baby, covered horribly with skin erup-
tions, and the terrible toll the impending tragedy is taking on his young wife,
Stanton is undergoing some kind of spiritual transformation. He has com-
menced church attendance, implores divine aid at the drop of a hat, and
identifies the Union with morality and the secesh as the embodiment of evil.
He fears that McC is maneuvering more with an eye to reunion and reconcili-
ation than fighting for victory, and would exploit his popularity to drain the
final peace of its moral content.
That is the only reason I can find for Stanton's Order No. 33 this week to
stop all recruiting, to reassign all recruiting officers, and to sell the recruiting
office property to the highest bidder. Overconfidence? I think not; Stanton is
sending McClellan and his political backers the message that no more troops
will be available to him, which must feed McC's delusions that the Adminis-
tration is planning to abandon his army by refusing to reinforce it.
That is where Stanton and Lincoln are so different; the Prsdt may be
exasperated by the insolence of epaulets, but would be the first to wave his tall
hat at McNapoleon if he came back at the head of a victory parade. Mars,
contrariwise, would sulk if the wrong man turned out to be the hero.
CHAPTER 5
FOR SERVICES RENDERED
"The President paid you a very handsome compliment in the Cabinet meet-
ing," Attorney General Bates told Anna Carroll over lunch at Willard's.
They had a window table looking out at the purple-and-white magnolia blos-
soms. "Said how useful you were to the country."
She beamed at him; Edward Bates was not much of a lawyer, but he was a
dear man who never missed an opportunity to report anything good said
about her in high places. She had buttressed him in her War Powers of the
President pamphlet and took care never to upstage him; she knew the Mis-
souri politician appreciated that.
"Please go on," she said. "What brought my name into the highest council
of state?" She had already been alerted to the subject of the discussion: at
Father Biair's suggestion, Lincoln had asked her to write an analysis of the
prospects for colonization of freed negroes. After consultation with the
Biairs, she had dismissed Liberia and Haiti as likely homes for former slaves,
pressing instead the virtues and opportunities of Panama.
It was not the climate that caused her to reject Africa and choose instead
the strip of land that connefcted North and South America. The reason was
purely imperial: Anna was aware of the elder Biair's secret design for an
American empire in Central America, ruled by friendly blacks. To disguise
that purpose, she directed her argument to the economic opportunity pre-
sented by the likely presence of coal. Since the narrow strip of land separated
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, ports on each coast of Panama, with a rail
link, might save transportation costs and transform the backward area into a
valuable land.
"The memorial you wrote to him on colonization, of course," said Bates.
"Lincoln handed the paper with your views on colonization, and on the
proper place to initiate the colony, to Secretary Smith. The President said you
had given him a better insight into the whole problem than anyone."
Caleb Smith, the Secretary of the Interior, was a man Anna considered a
political zero, but he did have something to say about railroads in the West,
and Anna thought he would be a useful politician to know. What better way
to approach a Cabinet officer than to have the President himself make the
appointment?
"He told Smith that you thought the Interior Department the proper
agency to look after the matter," Bates added, consulting the large Willard
menu, "and advised the Secretary to get into communication with you." He
paused. "The fish is always good here. Caleb Smith was happy about your
recommendation; nobody pays much attention to him."
"Any reaction from Treasury?"
"Chase agreed, but said deportation had to be voluntary."
Listening to him, she flicked her eyes around the dining room, hoping the
right people would see her with a Cabinet officer, even if only the Attorney
General. Thurlow Weed was in his accustomed corner table, with a couple of
New York Tribune men, Adams Hill and the new correspondent, a dapper
young man named George Smalley. Adele Douglas, accompanied by some
young man, caught her eye; Anna nodded, as if to confirm that both were
doing well that day, and wondered if she had summoned up the courage to
visit her cousin Rose Greenhow in jail.
"My dear lady," Bates was saying, "what else are you doing for your
country?"
She told him of her latest work for the War Department. It had been six
weeks since the Army of the Potomac had embarked on its Peninsula cam-
paign, two weeks since the fall of the rebel stronghold of Yorktown, where Joe
Johnston had withdrawn without a fight after McClellan finally managed to
place his siege guns into position. Despite all the press attention being paid to
McClellan's drive on Richmondand the panic that had gripped Washington
the week before when Stonewall Jackson roared up the Shenandoah and
successfully diverted McDowell's corps from the attack on RichmondAnna
was determined to get across the need for a vigorous follow-up to Shiloh in
the West.
"Nobody is thinking of what we should be doing now that Halleck has
taken Corinth," she said, warming to her favorite subject. "Beauregard will
probably send a large rebel column into Texas, where wheat and beef abound,
to hold that country for subsistence of the South. We should stop him with
gunboats on the Yazoo River, and by moving quickly on Vicksburg. We can
cut off rebel commerce at Vicksburg, and their army will wither on the vine."
.Bates biinked at this outburst of military strategy; it was evidently not his
subject. "Are you as optimistic as the Cabinet is? Even Lincoln, who is not as
enthusiastic as Stanton, thinks the war can be ended this summer. That's why
he is concentrating on compensated emancipationif peace negotiations de-
velop, the sale of slaves might be the answer for a great many Southerners.
Pay the states to buy and free many of the slaves and send them home, or to
wherever." He peered at the menu. "Of all the fish, the rockfish is best."
"I'm a Marylander, Generalwe have rockfish and crabs all the time. I
think I'll have the roast beef." She Was hungry; this was her first Willard's
meal in longer than she cared to remember.
Here she was, discussing high military policy, listening to compliments
from the President in Cabinet relayed by the President's own legal adviser,
but without the money to buy an elegant dinner. The few dollars from the
elder Blair went for rent; her bill to the War Department for the Tennessee
plan, as well as her bill approved by Tom Scott for her War Powers pamphlet,
was languishing in some bureaucratic limbo. She had laid out the last of her
money for printer's bills, distributing her pro-Lincoln pamphlets to Congress-
men and editors. Anna was broke and tired of it. She ordered enough lunch
for a famished soldier.
"I take it, Miss Carroll," Bates said, "you approved of the President's
message countermanding the emancipation order of General Hunter."
"No," she said, "it should have been much stronger. Lincoln was almost
apologetic about it. When any general takes it into his head to free the slaves
Fr6mont, Hunter, whoeverhe ought to be fired forthwith."
The waiter brought an appetizer of fried oysters, a Willard's specialty, and
she dug in as she spoke. "Mistake number one was signing the D.C. emanci-
pation bill; I wrote the President about that last month. Yes, I know he
proposed it twenty years ago and couldn't go back on that, but it only whet-
ted abolitionist appetites. Mistake number two will come when he signs the
bill abolishing slavery in the territories"
"But that's Republican dogma, the issue of the debates with Douglas"
"The message to the South will be clear," she reminded him. "The aboli-
tionists are on the march in the Congress. The Congress is taking power away
from the President. The next step is total confiscation."
The Attorney General tucked his napkin under his beard and shook his
head, no. He was not what she considered politically alert.
"Don't you see? If we let the abolitionists make slavery the issue, my dear
General, the war will go on and on. Only the ultras, North and South, want
to talk slavery, because they want a fight to the finish."
"I don't know . . . 'unconditional surrender' did a lot for Grant, at least
until that unfortunate episode at Shiloh."
"That phrase was a mistake." The man really did need educating. "Do we
really want the South to fight to the last man? The worst traitors in Rich-
mond are delighted with the radicals up herethe abolitionists in the North
are putting the fear of slave uprisings in the South. That's what holds the
Confederacy together."
"You have strong feelings, then, about the Confiscation bill." Now he was
getting to the point. The nice news about the President's compliment, the
indirect probing, the good foodhe was leaving half his oysters, but she
could not very well switch plates with himall were leading to a new assign-
ment. Provided her responses were in line with Lincoln's thinking.
"The Confiscation bill is a constitutional abomination," she stated.
It was his turn to beam. "The President thinks so too, and has asked me to
begin thinking about a veto message."
She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. Lincoln had not yet vetoed
any act of Congress; this veto of confiscation would create a furor, set back
abolition, encourage the Blair conservatives, enhance Unionist sentiment in
the South.
"I was thinking," Bates suggested, "just as in the war powers controversy,
it would be good if you were to do a pamphlet first, for wide distribution, that
would lay the groundwork for others to support the Lincoln position."
She assumed he meant he needed her to do the legal research for him, put it
in the form of a persuasive brief, and anticipate the opposing arguments.
Then he could tell the President, who was a far better lawyer than his Attor-
ney General, what the most vulnerable legal points of the proposed Act
would be. Anna decided immediately to do it, but felt she could get away
with adding a condition. "It would be useful to get some preliminary thinking
from the President on this," she said, as if thinking it over. "I don't mind
taking on Senator Sumner, but before getting into an argument with Ben and
Caroline Wade . . ." She let her reservation dangle.
"Come to the Executive Mansion this afternoon at five," he said. "We have
an appointment with Mr. Lincoln. Here is a copy of the Confiscation bill, as
proposed by Senator Trumbull."
Anna knew she would have only three hours to run up to the Library of
Congress to see what Judge Story had written about penalties for treason and
bills of attainder. She finished her brandied peach pie and left him in the
restaurant. The lobby of Willard's was hectic with the confluence of contrac-
tors and government officials, officers and ladies, Washington society and
visitors from the big cities. Willard's was where Lincoln had stayed before his
Inauguration, meeting his new Cabinet members in Parlor 6. The hotel was
authentically American in the way it permitted a noisy milling-around in its
large public rooms; British visitors, accustomed to quiet dignity in their ho-
tels, hated it. She spotted Orville Browning, a Senator from Illinois, an inti-
mate of Lincoln's, for whom she had helped make arrangements for the
burial of Willie in the Carroll family mortuary. He was a good old friend, a
practical man, and she needed some fast, practical advice.
"Orville, I have an appointment with the President and the Attorney Gen-
eral at five. You have to help me."
"You want your friend Tom Scott to be appointed Collector of the Port of
New Orleans." The Senator smiled. "Wade told me. I'll do everything I can."
"No1 mean yes, that too, but this is personal. Come over in the corner."
She showed him a thick dossier: the memorandum of the Tennessee plan, the
War Powers pamphlet, the Reply to Breckinridge pamphlet, assorted assign-
ments done for the War and Justice departments. She showed him bills, ex-
pense accounts for her trip West, invoices from typesetters and printers, and
time sheets detailing her own long hours researching and writing for the past
year. "I have a commitment to be paid five thousand dollars for the War
Powers alone from the Assistant Secretary of War, who is cleaning out his
desk as we speak. Orville, how much should I ask for?"
Senator Browning flipped through the documents and offered some coun-
sel: "You're right to go to the top on this, because it was all done for Lincoln
or at his request. But don't ask for pay for yourselfthat embarrasses every-
body. Ask for an appropriation for the distribution of millions of these pam-
phlets. They are obviously war expenses, and nobody doubts that printing
costs money. Ask for, say, fifty thousand dollars for everythingdistribution
and printing and preparation of these, and maybe your next one too."
Fifty thousand seemed like a lot. "Will you back me up on that?"
"You hand these to the President in person. Afterward I'll avail myself of
the opportunity to converse with him about it." He looked around the room.
"Compared to the sums being discussed all over this room at this moment,
it's not such a significant amount. And it has been money well spent."
"I'll do it. By the way, where do you stand on the Confiscation bill?"
"I'm with the Presidentagainst such a punitive measure. But if the war
takes a turn for the worse, and McClellan fails to take Richmond, Trumbull
and Wade and Sumner will get it passed."
After two hours of burrowing through books on treason at the library near
the Capitol, Anna Ella Carroll presented herself at the Pennsylvania Avenue
entrance of the President's house.
John Hay met her at the top of the stairs. "Bates won't be with you," he
said with a grin. "The President wants his legal counsel undiluted."
The central hall, which used to be jammed with office seekers and visitors,
was empty; she was glad Lincoln had finally stopped seeing people all day
long.
Lincoln was cordial; he took her hand, led her to a chair, and then
stretched his lanky frame out on the couch. From her petite perspective, he
seemed a grotesquely long man. "Good news from the West," he said. "Mem-
phis is ours. I'm thinking of bringing Halleck back here."
That meant Grant would be in command in the West. "Send Grant after
Vicksburg next," she said. "That controls the Mississippi now."
He frowned, got up, went to a map on the table, peered down, nodded,
came back and sat down behind his desk. "The Confiscation bill. I'm told you
don't like it."
"It would give the South a new incentive to fight," she said. "By unconsti-
tutional means, it takes everything away from every rebel, even Southerners
who may not want to be rebels. It is an invitation to more war."
"When you extinguish hope, you create desperation," Lincoln agreed. "We
would be wise to leave misguided men some motive for returning to the
Union. But why do you say it's unconstitutional?"
"This is nothing more than a bill of attainder," she said, non-lawyer to
lawyer, "an act of punishment by the Legislature, usurping the powers of the
courts. Do you know what Sumner and Tad Stevens want to do? They're not
content with the abolition of slavery; they want to take the land from all the
rebels and break it up and give it to what Sumner calls the poor and the
homeless."
"Well, why not?" Lincoln, she knew, was bailing her, as in a courtroom.
"The Constitution is why not. Sumner knows that if he tries rebels the
lawful way, in courts, local juries will never convict neighbors as traitors. So
he ignores due process and treats the South as a conquered foreign province."
"Where is it in the Constitution"
"Right here." She reached for the copy of Jefferson's Manual on his desk,
flipped quickly to a familiar passage, and read: " 'The Congress shall have
power to declare punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall
work corruption of blood or forfeiture, except during the life of the person
attainted.' "
"Wonderful old English language," said Lincoln.
"Despots have a habit of accusing a man of treason in order to get his
property," she said with satisfying certitude, having just researched the sub-
ject. "To make certain that no accusation of treason could be made to gain
plunder from the victim, the authors of the Constitution absolutely prohibited
the confiscation of the estate of the traitor to the government, leaving it free
to pass to his heirs."
"And the bill is ex post facto law to boot," said the President, who was
evidently familiar with the forfeiture prohibition. "I could never sign such a
bill."
"You have refused to permit secession. That means you do not recognize
the Confederacy as a foreign country. That means all the Southerners are still
citizens of the United States."
"Exactly," said Lincoln.
"When a nation cannot protect any portion of its territory, the inhabitants
must yield obedience to the de facto government, the rebel government," she
explained. "The nation cannot hold the local people responsible, as individu-
als, for any act they may commit while under the pressure of a usurping
power. Neither the Congress nor the President can punish Southerners as a
class, by legislative or executive fiat."
He nodded agreement.
"Only individual acts can be punished," she said, "after due process in
courts, because the people of the South have all the protection of United
States citizenship. And no property can be taken away from a traitor's fam-
ily."
"You've been talking about real estate, land," said Lincoln. "That's the
meaning of the English law in this country, as I see it. But what about slaves?
Since they're considered property, it was Ben Butler's idea to seize them as
contraband of war. Would you say they can be taken away by the Congress?
Or by the President?"
"No," she said with finality. "Not unless you amend the Constitution to do
it. The Constitution specifically acknowledges slavery as it stands, you know
that."
"Well, I don't know about that. Under the war power, and last year's sort
of mild Confiscation Act, we can seize a rebel's munitions, and any slaves he
uses for war purposes. I reckon a field hand harvesting food that ultimately
feeds soldiers is serving a war purpose." He was arguing in favor of the bill,
searching out her arguments against.
"But this bill is much more sweeping," she countered. "You can justify
confiscating property that is being used against you in warwe've been doing
that for a year. But this bill means total abolition of slavery as an institution.
Listen." She read a portion of the bill she had underlined. " 'All slaves of
persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the United States,
or who shall in any way give aid thereto . . . shall be forever free.' That's
emancipation, plain and simple."
"You skipped a line," he said.
True, but she had deliberately left out insignificant words. Anna felt less
certain in the presence of a real lawyer. She went back and read the words she
had left out: " 'or who shall in any way give aid thereto being within anyplace
occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United
States shall be forever free.' What's your point?"
"That Confiscation bill would free the slaves only in those areas controlled
by the rebels, which we take, and not the slaves in the loyal border states,"
Lincoln pointed out. "It frees only their slaves, not ours; it does not abolish
the institution."
"Trumbull framed it that way to pick up some border-state votes for confis-
cation," she said, "but he won't. The border-state Congressmenand I know,
I'm from Marylandall recognize this for what it is. Abolition."
"Read the fine print, Miss Carroll," the President replied, instructing her
in the legal argument. "You're a good lawyer, though you don't claim to be.
The section on confiscation is imperfectly drawn. No procedure is specified as
to how emancipation is to be effected. It is not enforceable legislation."
She gave him a hard look, turning from legalisms to politics. "It tells the
South that if they lose the war, slavery is finished. It would be proof that the
hotheads and firebrands have been right all along, that this is not a war 'for
the Union' at all, but a war to abolish slavery." The thought struck her that
Bates might be wrong, and Lincoln was not merely seeking arguments to help
him veto the bill. "Are you seriously thinking of signing this?"
"It might not pass," said Lincoln, avoiding a decision until the last mo-
ment, a habit of every President she ever met, "and if it does, I want to have a
veto ready. Here." He made a smaller decision. "Do a pamphlet, Miss Car-
roll, along the lines of your Reply to Breckinridge. Only this time aim it at
some of our more radical friendsor, rather, their overly enthusiastic ideas."
"Not Wade," she said. "Perhaps A Reply to Sumner. I could do it in a
week, show you the draft, and have it printed and in every Congressman's
hands by the first of July. All the newspapers, too."
"Leave out the slavery part," he directed. "Concentrate on the unconstitu-
tionality of a bill of attainder, and ex post facto." He rose slowly.
"There's something else," she said, "while I'm here." He sat again, not
hurrying her. "I hate to bring this up to you, but nobody else seems to
understand. You were a practicing lawyer; you'll know what I mean. It's
about money."
He looked surprised and not amused. She began by explaining how she had
been the one to create the Tennessee River plan, which caused him to frown.
That was a mistake, she realized, making it look as if she were putting a price
on the plan itself.
"Isn't this something you want to discuss with Stanton?"
She had not made her deal with Stanton, only a part of it with Assistant
Secretary Scott, who would soon be gone. The crispness of her presentation,
which she had written out beforehand, wilted in her embarrassment, but she
was bound to see it through. She read aloud from her memorandum. She
listed the items she had been working on, her time expended, the expenses of
travel; the more she read, the more irritated he looked and the more nervous
she became.
"And how much is it you want?" he interrupted.
She forgot the approach Orville Browning had recommended about putting
her work together with a printing and distribution project and remembered
only the fee: "Fifty thousand dollars."
He looked at her as if she had gone out of her mind. "Did you sayfifty
thousand dollars?"
She swallowed and nodded.
"Your proposition," he said, rising to his feet, "is the most outrageous one
ever made to any government on earth."
"We differ, sir, on the value of intellectual labor."
"Fifty thousand dollars!" Lincoln took his tall hat off the corner of the
desk and threw it on the floor. "Fifty!"
She looked at the black hat rolling on the green carpet. She took a deep
breath, forced back her tears, and said, "If that is too high, the error is not
mine, but that of friends of yours and the country. I will not bother you about
this further. I do not think you comprehend me."
"I reckon I comprehend only too well."
She could say no more about it. She brushed past young Hay on the way
out and went back to her flat to be alone.
CHAPTER 6
NOT BY STRATEGY ALONE
Lincoln retrieved his hat from the floor and threw it on the couch. Steaming,
he sat on his desk, facing the Pennsylvania Avenue window. Fifty thousand
dollars. That was two years' salary for the President of the United States. For
a pitiful fifteen thousand dollars, he had been forced to all but sell his soul to
Thurlow Weed, and that for no personal profit. He still had to pay for Moth-
er's flub-dubs out of his own pocket. The disproportion of it all galled him.
Miss Carroll was usefulshe shored up Bates on the law, and had helped
keep the wavering Governor of Maryland in linebut such a display of greed
was intolerable.
He stiffened his arms, hands flat on the desktop, and slid forward to rest his
feet on the floor. The pain in his toes caused him to sit on the desk again. He
reached down to undo the laces, pulled off the shoes and kneaded the ball of
his right foot below the aching corns. Seward, who had the same problem,
said that a man grew to bear the steady throbbing. Maybe so, but Seward was
a much smaller man, and not so much weight rested on his feet. One of the
worst things about the nagging pain was that the ailment was considered so
common as to be ludicrous, and corn sufferers found that their wincing drew
smiles. The only respite came when all the weight or pressure was removed,
and he resolved to do less walking and to wear slippers instead of shoes, no
matter what his wife said.
In his stocking feet, he went over to the map on the table. McClellan, like
Lincoln a Westerner, thought he was going to win by strategy, and the army
officers took on the same notion. They had no idea that the war had to be
carried on, and put through, by tough, hard fighting; that it would hurt
somebody; that no headway could be made while the delusion of bloodless
strategic advance lasted.
Lincoln hoped that all that kept McClellan from smashing the enemy
head-on was a natural excess of caution, or a regard for the lives of his men,
or a belief that one man's military genius could determine what happened in
the fiery trial of war. If that were all, the President as commander in chief
could put up with it, urging him on, passing along the pressure from the
radicals in ameliorated form.
But what, he asked himself, if the delays were caused by more than innate
caution, more than a reluctance to face the need for butchery, more than the
dictates of all the books on strategy? What if George McClellan held a differ-
ent view of the purpose of the war?
No, that was not the central question. Of course George saw the war
differentlyhe was a Stephen Douglas Democrat, and according to Mars was
under the political influence of his closest staff aide, Colonel Thomas Key, a
leading Ohio Democratic politician. They were not quite Peace Democrats,
but these politicians in uniform, who saw eye to eye with so many of the
professional officer corps out of West Point, were prepared to offer their
friends and classmates of the South "pop sov"extension of slavery into the
West, as if the election of 1860 had not settled all that once and for all. The
people had spoken; never mind that he was a minority President, he had been
elected on the square, and he would be damned before he would reward the
secession leaders with the sort of victory they could not gain at the polls.
McClellan and all the believers in compromise could hold their beliefsit
was a free country; that did not bother him. The issue boiled down to this:
could the Democratic generals and the officer corps impose their view of a
negotiated peace on the elected leadership of the nation? Put more bluntly,
was George taking orders about the way the war was to be fought, or had he
set up shop for himself?
Lincoln would not let himself be rushed into a conclusion about this. One
reason for restraint was that he had nobody of stature to replace McClellan at
the head of an army that loved "Little Mac"; another was that he knew
George to be a patriot and a good soldier, who had proved his loyalty and
ability after the Bull Run debacle. Others, like Chase and Stanton, were quick
to forget; Lincoln prided himself on remembering those who had stuck by
him in the Union's darkest hour.
And yetrumors had reached him that some of the officers dreamed of
dictatorship. He had heard, too, of approaches made to McClellan by Demo-
crats in New York about heading their party in the election after the war.
That sort of talk would be very tempting to an ambitious young man, and
George was no less ambitious than Lincoln had been at age thirty-five.
It occurred to him that most of his time was taken up with keeping his
friends and potential rivals from nibbling away the little actual power he had.
Inside the Cabinet, that nibbling had begun right at the start with Seward's
attempt to establish himself as Premier, and now Chase was beginning to
complain that the Cabinet did not have enough authority. Lincoln had struck
a balance of power between Chase and Stanton on one hand, Blair and
Seward on the other; he wondered how long that would last.
In the Congress, the conservative Republicans still outnumbered the radi-
cals, but Ben Wade and Thaddeus Stevens were gaining strength, and would
probably press the slavery issue to seize control of the war from the Executive
branch. He saw that as a serious threat to the central idea of representative
government: nobody believed more strongly than Lincoln that the secession
had to be crushed and the South defeated decisively enough to stamp out any
idea of secession to the latest generation, but he also was persuaded that the
Southern states had to be drawn back into the Union and not treated as a
conquered province by the abolitionists after surrender. That was why his
reelection, in the Andy Jackson style, was so necessarywhy he would gladly
use the furlough power to help put the soldier vote in the Republican column,
why he would employ Thurlow Weed to squeeze funds from financiers.
The Cabinet, the Congress, the military: he had struck a precarious balance
of forces within the first two, leaving himself the master; now he had to apply
the same technique to the military, and needed to find a general to counter-
balance a successful McClellan.
The President stretched out on the couch and thought about that. After
Shiloh, Grant would not do, at least for a long while. Halleck had been
named General-in-Chief, but he was more a buffer than a balancer; there was
a lack of magnetism to the man that would likely cause him to be dominated
in the commanding presence of McClellan. John Pope, the hero of Island No.
Ten out West, was a possibility; Chase and Stanton were high on him. Most
likely, Lincoln judged, the best man was McDowell, a good Republican who
was not really to blame for Bull Run.
The trouble with McDowell was that he sided with McClellan on the most
troublesome area of disagreement between the President and his foremost
field commander. As Lincoln saw it, the trick was not so much taking Rich-
mond, it was taking the capital of the Confederacy without losing the capital
of the Union.
George could not get it through his head that the city of Washington had to
be defended from a raid and a sacking at all costs. The capture of the federal
city, even for a short while, would dishearten the North and bring the foreign
powers in on the side of the South. That was why a sizable Union armythe
forty thousand under McDowellhad to remain between the rebels and
Washington. If such an interposition meant that the strategy of McClellan to
take Richmond by water would come to naught because of a division of
Union forces, so be it.
Incredibly, however, McDowell agreed with McClellan, a man he despised,
on this central decision. To the President's dismay, McDowell had argued
that it was foolish to allow the enemy to paralyze his large force with a small
one under Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. Both Union generals
agreed that the threat to Washington was minimal, that the North should not
be deterred by a feint, that the only way to take Richmond was to combine
the Union forces for an assault. Washington, they assured him, would be safe
because the rebels would need every available man to save Richmond. Sure.
You and I know the dog won't bite, but does the dog know he won't bite?
Nicolay knocked and put his head in to say that a group of Congressmen,
Wade included, was expected soon to be present for the signing of the Home-
stead Act. Lincoln sat up, nodded, and began to fit his tender toes into his
shoes.
If McClellan was so cautious, the thought struck him, why was he being so
bold about stripping the capital to throw everything against Richmond?
Could there be something to that charge of treasonous intent that Stanton
had made? Lincoln put that distasteful thought out of his mind, remembering
the convincing reaction of the general when the charge was put to him in a
friendly way.
No; George wanted to win, but to win the least costly way, covering him-
self with glory but not with blood. He probably thought that if the enemy in
Richmond saw themselves impossibly outnumbered, they would withdraw
without a fight, much as they had done recently at Yorktown. Lincoln
thought the opposite, that Jefferson Davis would fight for every street in
Richmond, just as he would in Davis's shoes.
He decided, tentatively, to send McDowell's army to connect with McClel-
lan's forces to close on the rebel capital. To withhold the power that might
make the difference would be a terrible display of timidity. But he would send
them overland, keeping one Union army between Stonewall Jackson and
Washington. If that took longerwhich it would, in this spring's unprece-
dented downpours of rainGeorge would not really mind. He was in no
hurry to attack.
Lincoln rose to meet the congressional delegation that had enacted legisia
tion to give 160 acres of land out West to anyone who would settle it for fiv(
years. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, silently cursing all corns
McClellan was his chosen general, and Lincoln was stuck with a plan ol
action his man favored. But he could not help thinking that the rebels would
never be whipped by strategic moves, only by the crudest kind of bloodlet-
ting. He would support his general so long as he acted as a general, but woulc
withdraw that support, no matter what the cost, if ever the military leadel
presumed to act like a President.

CHAPTER 7
THE GATES OF RICHMOND
Mathew Brady's "Whatizzit Wagon" was stuck in the Virginia mud.
He had loaded it with the ingredients for collodionguncotton, sulphuric
ether, alcoholand the necessary chemical excitants, along with a covered
vat of silver nitrate solution in which to bathe each plate before loading it into
the camera. With Alexander Gardner's help, and ignoring his assistant's com-
plaints about being left behind to tend to the studio, Brady had packed the
camera securely under the wagon seat. He had then overseen the wagon's
loading onto a gunboat at the Navy Yard in Washington, and followed the
water path of McClellan's army down the Potomac to the peninsula leading
to Richmond.
The photographer, his wagon, and his horse had disembarked at Yorktown,
recently surrendered by the slowly retreating rebels. He soon caught up to the
Union Army, only to get his wagon bogged down axle-deep near the tents of
McClellan's headquarters, next to a sign reading "Richmond, six miles." He
cocked his head forward past Foons, the black man driving, and peered
around; from the looks of the caissons and the curses of nearby artillerymen,
it seemed to Brady that the same mud that stopped his Whatizzit Wagon had
stopped the heavy cannons of the Army of the Potomac.
"We thought you'd never get here," said Pinkerton. The detective's boots
made sucking sounds as he rocked back and forth in the mud. "The general's
been asking about you. Too busy making money in the nation's capital?"
Brady wiped his hands on his well-smudged white linen smock, put his
eyeglasses onhis eyesight, sadly, was getting steadily worseand regarded
the detective. Pinkerton, under a derby hat and flicking ashes from a cigar,
looked especially smug on this warm, rainy morning in late May.
"Don't talk to me about money," the photographer snapped back. "This
war is ruining the Brady Gallery. As soon as I pay Gardner his back wages,
the man will quit. That's why I won't pay him."
"I see you managed to get your man Gardner in to see Rose Greenhow in
the Old Capitol Prison," Pinkerton said, in an offhand way that Brady
thought was too casual by half. "How'd you manage that?"
That touched a sore nerve. Brady decided to cross up Pinkerton by telling
the truth: "Gardner did that on his own, last month when I was in the field."
"But weren't the Wild Rose and her sniveling litle brat supposed to be your
subjects? You'd been after me to get to them since last September."
"I was a little irritated with Gardner about that," Brady admitted. More
than a little; he had taken a historic picture, one of great human interest.
"But he said that all of a sudden, Stanton gave him a pass."
Pinkerton smashed his fist in his palm. "I figured it was Stanton. He's
trying to pull a fast one." Brady waited for the detective to tell the rest. "The
Douglas widow got to him, I think, or Senator Wilson. Stanton wants to ship
her back to Jeff Davis, get her out of our hair. But I won't let him. McClellan
will personally object."
"What's it to McClellan if they let her go?"
"It matters to me. My best spy, Timothy Webster, was caught in Rich-
mond. They're going to hang him. But maybe we can swap him for Rose." He
pointed his cigar in the general direction of Richmond. "I want the damned
secesh to know that if they hang our spy, we'll hang that spying bitch of
theirs."
Brady shuddered; although Pinkerton sometimes gave the impression of
being a caricature of a secret agent, it could not be denied that the man dealt
in a grisly business. The photographer had learned, however, that he gained
an advantage over the detective by refusing to take him seriously. If Pinker-
ton did not intimidate you, you intimidated him.
"Well, Gardner got his photograph," Brady gloomed, "and he'll probably
sell a lot of them when he sets up for himself. He'll probably steal Timmy
O'Sullivan as wellthirty-five dollars a week isn't good enough for him. That
leaves me with the likes of Foons." He waved toward A. B. Foons, a freed
negro who drove the wagon. Foons took fairly good pictures, too, but Brady
was loath to admit to anyone that a good number of his photographs were the
product of a camera operated by a black man. Magazines wanted the war
pictures as the factual basis for their engravings, although everyone else with
money to spend on images wanted little portraits on cartes de visite. Brady
had popularized them but thought they were cheapening the art of photogra-
phy.
"We're making history here," Pinkerton said expansively. "By sheer bril-
liant generalship, this army has been brought within shouting distance of
Richmond with hardly any casualties."
"That's good," said Brady. He was not looking forward to taking more
images of rows of dead bodies.
"That's strategy," said Pinkerton. "We bring up the artillerytakes a
whiledig in to protect the guns, lay siege, and the rebs fall back toward
Richmond. If we had gone Lincoln's way, overland from Manassas, frontal
assaults all the way, there's no telling how many men we would have lost.
Strategy, not butchery, that's McClellan's way."
Pinkerton ordered a few soldiers to assist Foons in freeing the Whatizzit
Wagon and led the photographer to the telegraph tent. "We're in constant
touch with Washington," he announced, then added in a worried voice,
"what's the mood up there? We cannot trust what they tell us."
"I'll tell you, Pinkerton" Brady began, but the detective winced and cut
him off.
"Alien," he whispered.
"I try not to be familiar," Brady said, "by using first names, Allan, but if
you"
"Major E. J. Alien. That's what I go by, you know that."
"How is changing your name going to help your business after the war?"
"Never mind that, dammit, don't you realize this is a war zone? Secesh
everywhere."
"Seems pretty quiet, actually."
"If you start with that 'all quiet on the Potomac' stuff, Brady," the detec-
tive gritted through his cigar, "I'll see to it that your contraption over there
never gets out of the mud."
"The feeling in Washington is that we're winning the war," said Brady
quickly. "Admiral Farragut and General Butler took New Orleans. Halleck
finally used Grant's army to take Corinth. General Hunter captured Fort
Pulaski down the coast, near the mouth of the Savannah. But as for McClel-
lanpeople are saying McClellan has the slows."
"I am aware of that figure of speech, Mr. Brady," said a deep voice at the
entrance to the tent. George Brinton McClellan, silhouetted by the light be-
hind him, a hand resting on the sword at his side, looked to the squinting
Brady to be positively Napoleonic. " 'The slows' seems to be Mr. Lincoln's
favorite expression. And yet here, with the spires of the enemy capital in
sight, the decisive battle of the war is about to be fought."
"My report of the Washington mood is accurate, General," Brady told
him, "I mean no disrespect, but you're expected to take Richmond any day
now, reinforcements or not." Another thought, triggered by the general's
words about the spires of the enemy capital, stirred his imagination. "Can
you see Richmond from some high point around here?"
"Yes, from Mechanicsville. But soon as General McDowell's army arrives
forty thousand men, promised by the President to be here tomorrowyou,
Mr. Brady, will be able to capture scenes inside Richmond."
"Will the city be put to the torch?" He wondered if a huge conflagration
would provide enough light for a picture. Brady had not had much luck with
nighttime photography.
McClellan glared. "Of course notwe're not barbarians. The object of this
war, sir, is not to destroy the people and the homes of the South, but to
reunite the Union. I think the President would agree, though much depends
on who talks to him last." He turned to Pinkerton. "Any word from prison-
ers on enemy strength, Captain Alien?"
"Major Alien, sir. General Lee has one hundred and eighty thousand men
to defend Richmond," said Pinkerton without hesitation. "During our assault
on the city, General Jackson can be expected to move down from the Shenan-
doah with thirty-five thousand more."
"I have a hundred thousand men present for duty," McClellan told Brady.
"You can see how important it is for McDowell's army to join me."
Brady discounted Pinkerton's estimates, which everybody knew had
proved high in the past, and figured it would be a pretty even fight if both
McDowell and Jackson arrived on schedule. Across the tent, a telegraph key
started to chatter.
"If you were a military man," said McClellan, "you would be asking me
why I have my army straddling both sides of this confounded Chickahominy
River."
Brady went along: "Why is that, sir?"
"The position is terrible. We are extraordinarily vulnerable. But I have no
other choice." He pulled at his mustache in irritation. "The great military
minds up in Washington have ordered me to extend my right wing to the
north of Richmond, so as to hook up with McDowell's left wing when he
marches down from Manassas. On a map, it looks logical; but here on the
ground, as anyone can see, it incurs a senseless risk. Nobody thought this
stream would swell into a river."
"It hasn't rained this way down here for twenty years," Pinkerton added.
Brady heard the telegraph chatter. After a moment, the operator took a
message to the cipher man; while it was being decoded, McClellan waited
silently.
"Maybe this will be news of McDowell's arrival," Brady said hopefully. He
could pose "the two Mc's" right here; it was common knowledge that they
were rivals, and the picture of the two on the eve of a great victory would be
historic.
The message was handed to McClellan. He read it once, blanched, and
crumpled the paper in his hand. "It's from Lincoln. He has stopped McDow-
ell and turned him around to help Banks go chasing after Jackson near Wash-
ington."
"Lincoln lost his nerve," said Pinkerton.
McClellan's face, at first unnaturally pale, began to redden. "Heaven save a
country governed by such counsels!"
"The President is said to be concerned," Brady said cautiously, "that
Stonewall Jackson might run up the Valley and sack Washington while we're
all down here."
"That imbecile cannot get it through his head that the entire purpose of
Jackson's movement is to make Lincoln panic and do exactly what he is
doing." The photographer biinked at that insubordination. "He is falling into
Jackson's trap!" the general choked. "Lincoln is denying me the means to
take Richmond and end the war."
The general fumed, paced about for a couple of minutes, then checked his
anger long enough to dictate a message to the President: "The object of
Jackson's movement is to prevent reinforcements being sent to me. All the
information from balloons, deserters, prisoners, and contrabands agrees"
Pinkerton nodded vigorously"that the mass of the rebel troops are still in
the immediate vicinity of Richmond, ready to defend it."
Brady presumed that Lincoln and Stanton were at the telegraph office in
the War Department. Although McClellan had often been accused of not
keeping Lincoln informed of his plans, Brady observed that the telegraph link
between the President and the field was remarkably close on this campaign.
In a few moments, the President wired back a description of the havoc
Jackson and his "foot cavalry" were wreaking on the Union forces in the
Shenan~oah. The message from Lincoln added: "If McDowell's force was
now beyond our reach we should be entirely helpless. Apprehensions of some-
thing like this, and no unwillingness to sustain you, has always been my
reason for withholding McDowell's forces from you. Please understand this,
and do the best you can with the forces you have."
"Idiots! Imbeciles!" McClellan shouted. He checked his outrage, stared at
the ground for a moment, then asked, "Where's Lieutenant Custer?" His
aide-de-camp with the flowing blond mustache appeared immediately. "Arm-
strong, you're always spoiling for action: take a detachment of cavalry across
the Chickahominy at New Bridge. Draw fire, see if you can find out where
they plan to come at us."
"The stream is still rising, sir"
"I know that, but I know Joe Johnstonhe will attack my force on the
Richmond side as soon as he learns that Jackson's feint has succeeded and my
reinforcements are not coming."
The telegraph operator showed him a communication from McDowell for-
warded through the War Department. "Even McDowell!" the distraught gen-
eral cried. "Look"he showed Brady"the good Republican, the radicals'
pet, even lrvin McDowell thinks Lincoln is sending him on a wild-goose
chase after Jackson. He calls Lincoln's order 'a crushing blow to us all.' Give
him credit for being a military manMcDowell is enough of a general to
know a feint when he sees one. But there's such panic in Washington that
they won't even listen to him!"
Brady was astounded at the persistence and ferocity of McClellan in argu-
ing with his commander in chief. The next message sent by McClellan to
Lincoln contained more than a hint of future recrimination: "A desperate
battle is before us; if any regiments of good troops remain unemployed it will
be an irreparable fault committed."
Lincoln fired back: "I think the time is near when you must either attack
Richmond or give up the job and come to the defense of Washington."
That sharp riposte stung the general; with ridicule in his voice, he read
aloud the President's parting request: "Can you get near enough to throw
shells into the city?"
No pleading by McClellan could induce Lincoln to grant him the reinforc-
ing army he was certain was needed to take Richmond. Brady, knowing
Lincoln to be a photographic subject who resisted directions to pose from the
camera operator (only Gardner could wheedle him into assuming a less for-
mal expression), tried to envision the furor on the other end of the telegraph
line. The radicals were all insisting, certainly, that McClellan was a traitor
willing to expose Washington to captureor a coward unwilling to take the
offensive against Richmond with the army on hand. Brady was no military
man, but he had learned enough in the past year about military tactics to
know that no general now tried to attack entrenched positions without at
least equal numbers, and most insisted on a three-to-two edge.
Moreover, Brady had quickly learned that nobody here on the scene imag-
ined that McDowell had the remotest chance of catching Stonewall Jackson
that harsh, lemon-sucking "bay'nets and grape" religious fanatic who
whipped his rebel troops into a frenzy of quickstep marching. If Lincoln was
wrong and McClellan right, the President's military misjudgment could cost
the Union tens of thousands of livesperhaps years of war.
"He is doing his best to sacrifice this army," McClellan said bitterly. Brady
wished he were not there to hear such near-traitorous remarks, in case of a
court-martial. "It is perfectly sickening to deal with such people. If Lincoln
wants to storm Richmond with half an army, let him come and do it him-
self."
The general then took command of his disappointment. "Pinkerton, round
up the staff for a picture in front of the headquarters tent. Mr. Brady, remem-
ber this as a moment of calm at the front during another panic back at the
Executive Mansion." McClellan buttoned his tunic, ruminating aloud, "I
witnessed that same cowardice in Washington not long ago when the Mem-
mack attacked us. Stanton and Lincoln lost their minds. But last week I
outflanked the rebels at Norfolk and forced them to scuttle the Merrimack
so much for hysteria in high places."
In a controlled voice, he gave orders for his army to defend itself as best it
could in its exposed position straddling the swollen stream. Brady noticed
that McClellan, at work in his profession, appeared to know the exact dispo-
sition of his troops and their capabilities. When he was not embittered and
insubordinate, the general seemed to Brady to be a confident commander.
"You really think," Pinkerton said, in a less than military way, "that Joe
Johnston will stop falling back, and attack us?"
"He will because, for the first time, he's been given the chance." McClellan
explained concisely how the Confederate commander had been forced to re-
treat steadily, unable to attack the inexorably advancing guns because the
Union forces were constantly entrenched, and unable to hold his line because
the superior artillery pounded him back. As in a chess match, Joe Johnston
had no choice but to give up ground or he would lose his army. But now, with
the Union force separated by the swollen stream in anticipation of linkage
with an army that Lincoln had suddenly decided not to send, the rebel com-
mander would surely see the Union vulnerability and launch an attack.
"Unless, of course," Brady said, overstepping himself but unable to stop,
"you attack first." By risking all, McClellan might win; of course, if he lost,
taking huge casualties in a vain assault at a superior force, the rebel army
could then walk up to Washington relatively unopposed and end the war.
Brady was glad the decision was not his.
McClellan shook his head slowly. "I dare not risk this army; I intend to
make a sure thing of the capture of Richmond. And I will do it in my own
time."
He turned to another aide, whose short gray hair contrasted with the slim,
tall Ouster's blond ringlets, and said crisply, "The mission you suggested is
approved." To Brady, the general said, "I want you to copy a detailed map of
an area north of the James River, in case I have to make a change of base."
That would have to be some maneuver, swinging a hundred-thousand-man
army through the mud and across a river, around to a position that still
menaced Richmond but was defensible and well supplied from the North.
The civilian Brady could sense the danger of having an army destroyed in the
middle of such a move.
The photographer had an assignment. He went outside the headquarters
tent to see if he should set up his camera; the rain had stopped, but it was still
too dark for clear pictures. He handed the map back to Pinkerton for safe-
keeping, arranging to take the picture of it midmorning of the next day. A
photographer's ability to copy a map exactly made him welcome to generals
in the field; certainly vanity played a part in most officers' willingness to pu<
up with a civilian at headquarters, but the map-duplicating ability provided
the military reason.
"You might want to look at the captured guns," Pinkerton called after him:
"they're real guns." Evidently the detective recalled the Brady photographs
of the "Quaker guns," logs made up to look like cannon, after the rebels
abandoned the Potomac defenses. The photographer noted that people in
government never forgot an embarrassment.
The older aide, who introduced himself as Colonel Key, approached him
with a Brady carte de visite. "Do you recognize this man? This was taken in
your studio."
Brady examined the picture and nodded. "Howell Cobb, of Georgia. I took
that in my Broadway gallery about ten years ago, when he was Speaker of the
House. There's a later picture, too, I think Gardner took in my Washington
studio, when Cobb was Buchanan's Secretary of the Treasury."
Colonel Key nodded his thanks. "I want to be sure I'm dealing with the
right man."
That struck Brady as curious. Howell Cobb had quit Buchanan to go South
and organize the first congress of the Confederacy. He was very nearly se-
lected to hold the post given to Jeff Davis, and was now a general in the rebel
army. Brady handed back the old carte de visite and asked no questions.

CHAPTER 8
SUBMISSION AND AMNESTY
"Jeb Stuart's cavalry rode all the way around us, clear around the whole
damn Army of the Potomac."
Colonel Thomas Key, moving at a slow trot toward his rendezvous with
the Confederate representative near Mechanicsville, nodded silently to Lieu-
tenant George Armstrong Custer, chief of the cavalry unit accompanying
him.
"Colonel, do you have any idea what that cavalry ride does for the rebel
army, even their infantry?"
"Gives their spirit a boost," Key allowed. "And I suppose it told them
something about our weakness to the north. But now we know they know."
"Sir, it means that their new general, Lee, made us look like a pack of fools.
We can't deny it was an act of courage." The young man was evidently
heartsick. "Where was our cavalry?"
"It wasn't commanded by Lieutenant Custer," the colonel grinned at the
rider at his side. Never let the blond ringlets fool you, Key told himself, the
impetuous boy was also a brave man. On his first combat assignment, leading
a small force of cavalry on a reconnaissance mission across the Chickahominy
north of McClellan's headquarters, Custer had been first across the stream,
first to open fire at enemy skirmishers, and last to leave the field. His probing
helped alert the Federal forces to the attack by rebels at Seven Pines, south of
the swollen stream. That short engagement was hailed by McClellan as a
victory for the North because the attack was repelled; it was notable for the
wounding of rebel General Joe Johnston, and his replacement by Robert Lee
commanding the Army of Northern Virginia.
Key was ready to forgive Custer his record of having been graduated last in
his West Point class the year before. Needed now was courage in cavalrymen,
such as that shown by the rebel Jeb Stuart in his swing clear around the
Union Army. Custer, in his baptism of fire, had proved he possessed that
requisite combination of recklessness, cunning, and luck; he would become a
good cavalry leader, if he didn't get himself killed before he turned twenty-
three.
The colonel could understand why George McClellan wanted the young
man at his side as one of the aides-de-camp: he was from an Ohio family,
suitably worshipful of the commander, and would carry out any order in the
heat of battle. McClellan's other aidesthe Prince de Joinville and the
Cornte de Parisadded panache and international depth to the headquarters
staff, although the presence of titled Frenchmen around the general was much
derided by the radicals in Congress. McClellan also was fortunate to have
Nellie Marcy McClellan's father, a regular army veteran, as chief of staff, and
Key was realisticto have Thomas Key, an experienced Ohio Democratic
political leader and judge, as his adviser on matters political. Such counsel
was indispensable to a future President. Key saw McClellan as following in
the footsteps of Washington, Jackson, and "Tippecanoe" Harrison: "vote as
you shot" was a slogan with wide appeal to veterans, and veterans would cast
the largest bloc of votes in the election of 1864.
"Pinkerton says that General Lee sent his son and his nephew to ride with
Stuart," said Custer gloomily. "That was a show of contempt for us, and a
display of faith by Lee. They're not calling him the 'King of Spades' or
'Evacuating Lee' anymore."
Key knew that General Lee, though a personal favorite of Jeff Davis, was
unpopular with troops, perhaps because he forced them to do "nigger work"
entrenching and building barricades. His record in the first year of this war
had been undistinguished. Would he be maneuvered out of Richmond, as Joe
Johnston would, when McClellan's big siege guns drew close enough to shell
the city to smithereens? Or would he throw his troops against the well-
entrenched Federals first, taking fearsome casualties and risking the war on a
single battle?
"I'm afraid Mac was too kindhearted about the rest of Lee's family," said
the colonel. Lee's wife and daughter had been cut off from the rebel forces
when Union troops overran the Lee family home, White House, and had
requested permission to return to Richmond. Against Key's better judgment,
McClellan ordered the women passed through, with a display of cordiality to
the rebel officer escorting them, an old army friend. That sort of chumminess
with the enemy did not set well with the radicals in Washington; the courtesy
was a political mistake, giving ammunition to those who suspected McClellan
of being a secret rebel sympathizer. But Mac would not think twice about
reuniting the Lee family, perhaps because he was naturally gallant, more
likely because he missed his own wife and child a bit too extravagantly.
"No, we're not at war with women and children," said Custer. "The gen-
eral was right about that. It's just that" he fiddled with his reins, appar-
ently uncomfortable at what he was about to say. "We did spend a hell of a lot
of time in front of Yorktown. I sometimes wish we'd get on with the war."
The colonel shot him a sharp glance and laid down the policy: "The Mc-
Clellan plan was to turn Yorktown immediately by the movement of
McDowell's corps on the north bank of the York river. Lincoln's vacillation
destroyed that plan, forced us to spend a month on the Peninsula uselessly,
and kept us from taking Richmond in May."
"Yes, Colonel."
"Before General McClellan was absent from the intrigues of Washington
for forty-eight hours," Key continued slowly, so that the young man would
never forget if the Peninsula campaign was not successful, "his largest corps,
commanded by his second-in-command McDowell, containing more than one
forth of his army, assigned to a service which was vital to the success of his
campaign, was detached from his command without consultation with him
and without his knowledge. That was the first great crime of this war, and we
can only hope that the nation will not be punished brutally for it."
He spurred to a gallop and his escort followed. Ouster's doubts nettled him;
Key had heard from his younger brother John, a major who worked in the
War Department, that Stanton wanted this expedition to fail, and would do
all in his power to see that the war was won another way by another, more
radical general. The President's loss of patience, shown in his telegraph mes-
sages, was not so much the product of the slow advance as of the constant
badgering from the radicals around him.
Key did not fool himself about McClellan, who erred, when he did, always
on the side of caution. Such a general might not always win, but he rarely lost
a battle, and such avoidance of mistakes won wars. Stanton's hatred was not
irrational: McClellan's conduct of the war matched his political aim in the
war, which was quite different from Lincoln's. McClellan wanted peaceful
reunion, and it was hard for Key to tell now exactly what Lincoln wanted
perhaps total victory, with slavery abolished and the South occupied, break-
ing every promise he had made. Accordingly, McClellan sought to maneuver
the rebels to surrender, by superior strategy while Lincoln wanted to blud-
geon the rebels until they collapsed with some great lesson learned. Yet the
two men, Lincoln and McClellan, were both sides of the same preserve-the-
Union coin, and Key thought the combination promised a compromise in the
war's goals.
The mud had hardened under the mid-June sun; it was not yet dry enough
for the horsemen to raise dust, but the improving condition of the roads
augured well for the movement of heavy artillery. At Gaines's gristmill, the
riders passed men of the 16th New York picking and shucking ears of corn on
that sunny Sunday morning. The work was for their own dinner; in an army
led by George McClellan, the Sabbath was observed.
"There's Richmond!" Custer shouted, pointing to the spires visible through
the trees. Down a long slope, the road led for five miles into the city. The land
alongside the road was studded with thick mounds of earth protecting can-
non; Lee, the King of Spades, had been at work. They rode into Mechanics-
ville, a country crossroads of a town turned into an army camp, garrisoned by
the 4th New Jersey Volunteers, overlooking the swamped bed of the Chicka-
hominy.
Key drew to a halt, brought out a white cloth that would serve as a flag,
and knotted it to a broom handle. Feeling an exhilarating tightness in his
chestthis could be a turning point in the nation's history, and much might
depend on Thomas Key's political sensethe colonel told Custer and the
escort to wait where they stood. He guided his horse down to the broken
bridge agreed upon as the meeting site, dismounted, and planted his white
flag in front of a shanty a few feet from the Union side. He ordered the two
Union pickets inside to leave.
As he watched, a figure approached, carrying a white flag. His face soon
was recognizable as the man in Mathew Brady's carte de visite, with a heavy
brown beard added. General Howell Cobb paused for his escort to lay a plank
across the hole in the bridge, then walked to the shanty alone.
Cobb and Key shook hands and went inside. Before their talk could begin,
it was interrupted by a knock and the opening of the shack door.
"Colonel Simpson, Fourth New Jersey, charge of pickets," the oflicer an-
nounced. Key had not made advance arrangements with the local com-
mander, hoping to lessen the possibility of an advance report to Washington
that might trigger an order canceling his plans; he counted on his headquar-
ters cavalry escort to be evidence of his credentials.
"Colonel Key, of General McClellan's staff," he said to the New Jersey
man. "I am here holding a conversation with General Howell Cobb. Permit
me to introduce you."
The colonel in charge of pickets peered at the face of the Confederate
general and surprised him by asking, "The former Secretary of the Trea-
sury?"
"Yes." Cobb smiled. "I once held that position in the United States Gov-
ernment."
"I used to see you in Washington, where I had business with your office.
You've become so metamorphosed by that beard, I'd hardly know you."
"We all seem to be fighting under masked faces," said Cobb, which Key
thought a singular thing to say, as if the Southern leader doubted the sincerity
of the men espousing the issues behind the war.
"We are discussing an exchange of prisoners," Key told the inquiring of-
ficer, who plainly did not like being surprised by a truce parley on his watch,
"under the authority of General Dix." The name of the Union general in
charge of prisoner exchanges satisfied him, and the picket colonel withdrew.
"Dix succeeded me at Treasury," Cobb observed affably. "Fine man, good
Democrat. Better than most in that woebegone Buchanan Cabinet."
"President Buchanan wanted you to run for the Democratic nomination to
succeed him, didn't he?" Key had studied Cobb's background: fighter against
the Calhoun secessionists in 1849, compromise Speaker of the House, pro-
Union Governor of Georgia, a Southerner who left the Union with a heavy
heart to organize the Confederacy. Admired and trusted by many old friends
in Washington, and now stationed with the rebel leaders in Richmond,
Howell Cobb was the perfect man with whom to explore peace negotiations.
"Buck was for any Democrat who could beat Stephen Douglas. Breckin-
ridge had the better chance, so we both backed him." He shook his beard.
"Seems like so long ago. What's on your mind? Not just prisoners, I take it."
"Permanent peace."
"You could have that within half an hour," Cobb replied instantly. "Take
your army and go home."
Key carefully disclaimed any representation of an official character, pre-
tending to be holding a private conversation after a discussion of prisoner
exchange; for the record, Cobb did the same, noting that it would then be
possible for each of them to report the entire conversation to the commanding
generals. His heart beating fast, Key then went to the heart of the matter:
with a Union army within six miles of the rebel capital, under what circum-
stances would the South agree to a cessation of hostilities?
"A treaty of peace could be agreed on at once," said Cobb more formally,
"but reunion? Only by subjugation or extermination of the South. Your inva-
sion has created in the Southern mind such feelings of animosity, such a spirit
of resistance, that reunion could only be effected by permanent military occu-
pation."
"Your statement surprises and grieves me, sir." Key had not expected a
more forthcoming response; they had to feel their way, neither showing weak-
ness. "I had hoped that you, at least, would be impressed by a sense of the
hopelessness of the struggle. The contest is unequal: the North has the greater
numbers, wealth, credit and resources of all kinds. The border states, on
which you based such hope, have established their loyalty. Union sentiment
still exists throughout the South"
"Stop there," Cobb said. "Outside the foreign element in New Orleans, no
Union sentiment is left anywhere in the planting region of the South. The
slaves have never been so tractable as now. The military strength of the
Confederacy is unbroken, and you have not the power to force entrance into
Richmond."
"You will fight to hold Richmond? The city will be destroyed."
"Personally, I am opposed to defending the town," said Cobb with frank-
ness that surprised Key, "but my superiors are determined to do so. But what
does it mean if you take Richmond, and every other major city in the South?
You would gain nothingorganized military resistance will never be sup-
pressed. You would be compelled to hold the country by occupation, and
every military position would be surrounded and harassed by a hostile popu-
lation."
Key refused to accept that. "I do not believe the free white citizens of the
South are opposed to the United States Government. I believe secession is the
scheme of a class of men who arrogated to themselves superior social position
in order to grasp and hold political power." It had not been his intention to
get this hard this quickly, but Key plunged ahead. "If your view of the future
holds, we will have to disorganize the condition of society that gives rise to
that class of men, and to raise up an order of laboring men and middle-class
white men who would be loyal to the Union."
"You will never, damn your eyes, find men in any of the seceding states
who will be made into a loyal class."
"Then we will find some to move there on our invitation."
"You've made my point, Colonel Key. You can only reunify by military
occupation, which, believe me, will be a bloody business for a generation."
Stymied, Key drew a deep breath and tried again. "Sir. Your intelligent
people know that they are fighting their friends. Neither the President, the
Army nor the people of the loyal states have any wish to subjugate the
Southern states or diminish their constitutional rights."
"Really? Talk to John Breckinridge."
"Our soldiers exhibit little animosity toward yours," Key pressed on. "On
both sides, the men fight only because it is their duty. On what grounds can
you justify continuance of this bloodletting between brothers?"
"The election of a sectional President, whose views on slavery were known
to be objectionable to the whole South," snapped Cobb. "How about those for
grounds?"
"But the slavery question has been settled! It is abolished in the District
and excluded from the territories. As an element of dissension, slavery cannot
again enter into our national politics." Key could sense interest in his inter-
locutor and developed the position. "The President has never gone beyond
this in any expression of his views. He has always recognized the obligation of
the constitutional provision as to fugitive slaves, and that slavery within and
between the slave states is beyond congressional intervention."
"Our papers say Lincoln is preparing a declaration of radical views on
slavery," the Georgian observed, apparently looking for some common
ground.
"Toleration of slavery where it exists is the political creed of the great body
of the Republican Party. No political organization in the North of respectable
numbers would propose violation of the Constitution on slavery."
Cobb thought about that. "Judgethat is, Colonel Key," he said, appear-
ing to slip, "I have every respect for the three centers of political power you
have referred to: the President, the Army, and the people of the North.
Speaking just as a reasonable man, and with the clear understanding that no
official representation is being made or considered, do you have a specific
suggestion in mind?"
"Submission and amnesty," Key said, having discussed the proposal with
General McClellan. "Proclamations to that effect by Mr. Davis and Mr.
Lincoln would be sustained by the great mass of the whole nation."
Cobb sighed. "No Confederate leader could openly advocate such a posi-
tion and continue to live. The moment he uttered it, he would be slain." He
rose to go. "The South cannot now return to the Union without degradation.
The blood that has been shed has washed out all feelings of brotherhood. We
must now become independent or conquered."
At the broken bridge, Cobb remarked to Key on the world of difference
between Union generals: how Butler in New Orleans offended every notion of
Southern womanhood with his abusive orders, and how McClellan had gra-
ciously offered his protection to the wife and daughter of General Lee. Key
replied he was glad to be serving under McClellan.
Although Lieutenant Custer was dying to know what had gone on in the
shanty, Key told him nothing on the ride back to headquarters. Alone with
the general, he summarized the meeting that had shaken his confidence in
their ability to shape the peace: "First, the rebels are in great force at Rich-
mond, and mean to fight a general battle in defense of it."
"I shall make the first battle mainly an artillery combat, push them in upon
Richmond, then bring up my heavy guns, shell the city, and carry it by
assault."
Key nodded, hoping the rebels would wait until the Army of the Potomac
was ready. "Second, the Confederate leaders do not have the power to control
the secession movement they launched," he reported, thinking of Cobb's pre-
diction of death to any leader who proposed submission and amnesty. "Fi-
nally, there is little hope of peace and reconstruction so long as the rebels
have a large army in the field anywhere."
McClellan nodded grimly. "You assured him of my views on abolition?
That they should have no fears of loss of property?"
Key surprised himself with his next conclusion: "In particular states, I now
think it may be necessary to destroy the class that created this rebellionand
the only way to do that will be to destroy the institution of slavery."
The general looked puzzledKey had never spoken with such pessimism
beforethen shook his head. "That kind of talk, or any such declaration by
Lincoln, would make peace negotiations impossible. Never forget, Judge, our
goal is to force a settlement of this conflict in a way that reunites the nation.
Let's see what they say after we take Richmond. Write a report of your
meeting and I'll send it to Stanton to give the President."
"I don't think that would be such a good idea," said Key. Did McClellan
fully realize what they had done, in approaching the Confederacy about peace
terms without prior approval from the President? Lincoln had not hesitated
to humiliate Generals Hunter and Fr6mont for overreaching his authority in
declaring captured slaves "forever free" and prolonging the war; what would
he do to a general and his aide-de-camp for overreaching in the other direc-
tion?
"I am not in the least ashamed of trying to end this war without further
bloodshed," said the general. "Nor can the President legitimately object. I
must save the country, and cannot respect anything that stands in the way.
Write your report, Judge. I'll make sure Stanton shows it to Lincoln."

CHAPTER 9
ROSF. ON TRTAT.

General John Dix considered this assignment the most odious since the arrest
of the Maryland legislators on their way to Frederick to vote for secession. He
was to preside at a "commission hearing"an official but extralegal trial
designed to extract from Rose O'Neal Greenhow, his longtime close friend, a
confession of treason.
Secretary Stanton, with whom Dix had served in the Buchanan Cabinet
Stanton Attorney General, Dix at Treasuryhad made the stakes clear.
"McClellan and that idiot detective Pinkerton, who has created whole ar-
mies of nonexistent rebels," Stanton had told him, waving his spectacles in
agitation, "want to hold her hostage for one of Pinkerton's spies caught in
Richmond. If they do hang the Pinkerton man, I don't want to have to hang
Rose. I would prefer to ship her down to her traitor friends in Richmond."
"She would have a lot to say about a great many important people, stand-
ing there on the gallows," Dix agreed, and was not surprised when Stanton
shuddered at both ends of that grisly thought.
"But she has to cooperate," Stanton had said. "I'm leaving that to you.
You knew her as well as I didor do. Mrs. Stanton and I were no strangers
to her home." Dix suspected that Mrs. Stanton, like Mrs. Dix, had rarely
accompanied her husband to Rose's salon in the old days. "Get her to con-
fess, Dix, and if that fails, at least to promise not to engage in further anti-
Union activity. Get something from her, anything, that will give me an argu-
ment against McClellan. We don't want to keep her, we don't want to hang
her."
Extracting a face-saving confession from the Wild Rose would not be easy.
Dix knew the time urgency as well as Stanton; Pinkerton and Colonel
Thomas Key of McClellan's staff had come up from headquarters in the
Peninsula to urge Dix, as the man in charge of prisoner exchanges, to inter-
cede with Richmond for the life of Timothy Webster, sentenced to hang as a
spy in Richmond. That was a major request, since prisoner exchanges, except
for high officers or political figures, were frowned on by Lincoln: the North
had more men to spare than the South. But Colonel Key was persuasive in
showing how Webster's case was unique, and Dix, concerned about pressure
that would surely come to hang Rose Greenhow in retaliation for any ex-
treme punishment meted out to Pinkerton's man, sought the approval of the
President and his Cabinet.
Stanton had pushed through the plea to avert future agitation from Pinker-
ton and radicals alike to hang Rose; accordingly, Dix had sent a message to
the rebels that leniency toward Pinkerton's man would be matched in dealing
with Confederate spies caught in the North. Now, if the rebels would be
reasonable, and if the undefeated Rose would come down off her high horse,
John Dix could carry out his government's wishes and his own. Two big
"ifs."
Rose's trial, called a hearing, was held in one of the elegant old houses of
Washington, now converted to government use. The irony of the setting was
not lost on Dix: Rose and heand Buck and Breck, and the Stantons and the
Cobbshad attended many parties in this mansion, home of a former Cali-
fornia senator, where secession had been a topic of heated after-dinner debate
among friends. He'd had his share of arguments here with Rose and others,
but always as members of a civilized society distressed by the chasm opening
between them.
Now a soldier stood guard where a black butler had once greeted guests.
Other men in uniform lounged and talked idly in rooms that had once spar-
kled with laughter, good wine, and better conversation. He noticed that the
furnishings were showing signs of wear; a long velvet drape had been re-
moved to let in more light, revealing paint scars on the walls.
Dix sat at a table with Edwards Pierrepont, a civil judge and ardent aboli-
tionist present for appearance's sake, and a court reporter. He sent for Mrs.
Greenhow, who had been held in a room upstairs. When she appeared, Dix's
heart sank: she was dressed in ruffled black, still in mourning, a lace snood
holding graying hair in place, her face haggard but set in defiance. The Wild
Rose had changed almost as much as their world had. He stood and looked at
her in sadness.
"Gentlemen, resume your seats," she said. "I recognize the embarrassment
of your position. This is a mimic court, and I shall answer or not, according
to my own discretion."
Dix wanted the record to show that no special treatment had been granted
the accused, nor any acquiescence given to her rebellious statements.
"Madam, you are charged with treason."
"I deny it, sir, most emphatically." She sat straight in the wooden chair,
looking at him squarely. "You are the minister of a President who has vio-
lated the Constitution, destroyed the personal rights of every citizen, and
inaugurated and provoked revolution."
"You are charged with providing military information to the enemy in
wartime," Dix said, not to be put on the defensive. He held up a letter to a
Confederate officer that had been seized in her home, which detailed the
disposition of troops quartered around Washington. Dix knew it to be accu-
rate, down to the exact location of his headquarters on the Maryland side.
"Do you deny writing this?"
She examined the document and tossed it back on the table. "That is not
my writing. Guests come to my house; they may leave things behind. I cannot
be held responsible."
"The charge," Judge Pierrepont put in, "is not that you wrote this in your
hand, but that you caused it to be transmitted through your agency to a rebel
general."
"I am nobody's agent," she said firmly, evading the question. She looked at
the man taking notes and demanded to know why he was there. "Is this to be
given to the newspapers? Am I to be made a spectacle of?"
Dix knew she was hoping these proceedings would be made public, and a
spectacle was precisely what she wanted to be. He ached to be able to tell her
she did not understand the danger she was in, that her defiance might make
headlines but might also hang her.
"Your testimony is being taken down for the War Department," he said,
"and may be used in convicting you of treason. Do you understand that?"
Dix was no pettifogging lawyer; when arresting rebel sympathizers on Elec-
tion Day six months before, he had felt no qualms in declaring the reason for
his action "to prevent the ballot-boxes from being polluted by treasonable
votes," but today's use of the military power to coerce a prisoner, even a spy,
distressed him.
Rose seemed to sense that. "How pleasant a duty you gentlemen have to
perform."
"The evidence is incontrovertible, madam," Dix told her, "that you have
been holding communication with the enemy. It is here in front of me, stacks
of it." Pinkerton had intercepted most, though not all, of her mail.
"If it were true," she said, admitting nothing, "you could not be surprised
at it. I am a Southern woman. Everyone I have known and respected has been
driven from this city by a ruthless despotism. It would be natural for me to be
in touch with those you call the enemy."
"How is it, madam, in spite of the vigilance exercised over you, that you
have managed to communicate with the enemy?"
"That is my secret, sir. If it be any satisfaction to you to know it, I shall, in
the next forty-eight hours, make a report to my government at Richmond of
this farcical trial for treason."
Judge Pierrepont interrupted his questioning. "Thousands of young men
lost their lives as a result of the information you supplied to those in armed
rebellion. There is no more serious offense in law, Mrs. Greenhow. This trial
today is no farce."
"The South has caused no loss of life, sir. The South seceded from this
Union peaceably. All we want is our independence from the tyranny of aboli-
tionists, who have told us we cannot continue under the Constitution as it
was. We are declaring our independence just as our grandfathers did when
English tyranny became unbearable."
She leaned forward, speaking slowly as if repeating an explanation she had
given her young daughter. "We are not invading the North; the North is
invading the South. We are not pillaging your cities; you are pillaging ours.