We want to be left alone; you want to conquer and destroy. The blood of
soldiers at Bull Run is on your hands, gentlemen, not on mine."
"Do not assume a position of high morality, madam," Judge Pierrepont
shot back. "The South wants to break the compact that binds this nation for
the most reprehensible of reasonsto preserve and extend human slavery,
which is the most degrading cause any group of selfish zealots ever fought
for."
"There you are," Rose said triumphantly, "the basis of the attack on the
Southnot to 'preserve the Union,' as you keep pretending, but to abolish
our way of life. What do you know, sir, about the treatment of Africans in the
South? You believe those horror stories that Mrs. Stowe writes to sell her
books. Our colored servants are well cared forwe have good reason to care
for them, they are valuable property. What do you offer them?"
"Freedom," said the judge.
Dix wished Pierrepont had not allowed himself to be drawn into this. Their
job was not to get Rose angry or get her to incriminate herself; their purpose
was to work out an arrangement that would give the government some satis-
faction with her penitence, and to grant the clemency that would send her
into exile.
"With white Southern men at the front," Rose flashed, the familiar throaty
power returning to her voice, "you offer black slaves the temptation to rise up
and attack women and children. Do you have any idea of the horror and
carnage your talk of 'freedom' is sure to bring on?"
Dix held up his hand, but he knew there was no stopping her short of
physical restraint.
"And if you should conquer us, which God forbid, what will you do with
your four million Africans? Will you take them into your Northern cities,
welcome them, let them have the jobs that white workers want and need? No
your kindly abolitionists will be the first to try to ship them off somewhere,
back to Africa, down to the hell of Santo Domingo. Or you'll try to hold
them in the South, uncared for, incapable of fending for themselves, ruining
their lives just as you want to crush out the honor of every Southerner."
"Don't talk to us about honor" Pierrepont began, but Rose stood up and
stared him down.
"That's your 'freedom,' " she flung at him. "Freedom to starve, or freedom
to be driven away from home and loved ones. Why do you suppose the vast
majority of blacks in the South support our armies, and turn a deaf ear to the
blandishments of abolitionists? Because they know they are better off with us
than with your 'freedom.' "
"How can you, a mother, tolerate a slave auction that tears families apart,
treats children like animals"
"Lies! Have you ever seen the way slave families live, and are bred, in the
South? You're the one who will break up families, driving the women into
poorhouses and brothels, the men from city to city looking for jobs you'll
never let them have. Don't talk to me about familieswith Lincoln's inva-
sion, you've broken up more homes in a few months than happened in a
hundred years of slavery!"
"I don't think we can settle that argument here, Rose," Dix said wearily.
After a long silence marked by Pierrepont's angry stare and Rose's labored
breathing, he approached the central point.
"I would like to be able to recommend clemency, if proper admission is
made and penitence is shown." He could see her hackles rising and hurried
on, setting aside the requirement for a penitence that would never come. "If
we were to offer you the opportunity to go South, would you be willing to
sign a confession and declaration that you will undertake no further disloyal
acts against this government?"
"I have never been disloyal to the Constitution of the United States," Rose
Greenhow said. "I will sign nothing that admits to having been a traitor."
"It's called a 'parole of honor,' " Dix tried, modifying and prettifying the
offer. "Confederate soldiers, to be exchanged, sign a parole of honor not to
fight again"
"I will not swear an oath knowing I will violate it. When I am free of the
cruel and inhuman imprisonment inflicted upon me, I will do all in my power
to help the Confederate states gain their lawful independence."
Dix slumped back in his chair; the stubborn woman was putting her neck
in a noose.
Judge Pierrepont turned to Dix, and signaled the stenographer to stop
taking notes. "General, you know this woman. Why don't you talk to her
privately?"
Dix took Rose to a room upstairs. "For God's sake, Rose, you're killing
yourself. And you're ruining your daughter's life. Be sensible"
She sat down and looked at him, chest beginning to heave, hot tears in her
eyes.
"You think I want to stay in that hellhole? Do you know what it's like? Do
you have any idea what I have to go through just to keep their filthy hands off
my darling girl?"
Dix gave her his handkerchief and walked around the room as she com-
posed herself. After a while, she said, "I'm not a martyr. I want to get out. I
just cannot sign anything that makes a mockery of everything I believe in. I
will not let you defeat me."
"Rose, this is me, John Dix, remember? I'm not trying to defeat you."
"I don't mean you, John, you're a good and kind man. I mean Stanton and
Pinkerton."
"Stanton is trying to help you."
"Watch out for him, John, he's not like you, he's an evil man. I know him,
better than you do, better than most people. There is something wrong in his
headno, not like Henry Wilson, but wrong in another wayhe has always
frightened me. A man like him should never be in power."
"For whatever reason, I assure you he's trying to get you out. Others want
to hang you, Rose. I mean that. Hang you."
Her figure sagged in her chair. He was sorry he had to put the fear of
execution in her, but it was better that she know the danger she faced.
"I don't want to die," she said. "And I can't take much more of that jail,
John. The prisoner who protected me at nights was killed by a sentry last
week. For no reasonhe was standing by the window, singing, and they shot
him dead. Then they took the lock off my door."
"Sign a parole, Rose."
"No!" She flared and then relented. "How can I get out without signing
anything?"
He picked that up. "Will you go South immediately? Will you"he
reached for a way to put it delicately"continue to be discreet about those
who tried to help you?"
She nodded. "Just don't make me sign anything or promise anything."
"You're not making it easy, Rose." He sought some opening. "If not a
confession, some expression of regret at the loss of life"
She seemed not to hear him. "Remember this house, John? The parties, the
people. Only a year or so ago."
"That whole world is gone."
"Christmas last year, before the war, I walked around this very room,
candle in hand, caroling. I walk around the prison room now, with a candle,
burning the bugs off the walls." She stood up. "General Dix, I must return to
my daughter. I will admit to no treason but I am willing to leave my home,
this center of tyranny, at the earliest moment. If they cannot get me out right
away, tell Stanton and Wilson and my pretty niece Addie Douglas to come
and visit me in the prison. It intimidates the superintendent."
"You're not helping me to help you, Mrs. Greenhow." Dix had to add, "I
cannot find it in myself to threaten you, but believe me, you're in danger. I
don't want to see a woman like you on the gallows."
"Used to be quite a belle," she smiled, touching his cheek and leading the
way downstairs.
At the foot of the stairs, before reentering the drawing room being used as
a courtroom, she shook his hand formally and used that moment to say: "I
will never swear to stop fighting for the Confederacy. If you can send me
South without your damned parole, I will go. Whatever you do, I suggest you
move quickly."
Dix started to say he could imagine how terrible prison life was for a
woman and daughter, but Rose waved that aside. "A new prisoner came in
this morning," she whispered, "captured in a skirmish on the Peninsula. He
was in Richmond a few days ago. Pinkerton's man Webster, who was trying
to find out the Confederate troop strength, was hanged as a spy."

CHAPTER 10

JOHN HAY'S DIARY
JUNE 19, 1862
An auspicious if unnoticed day: the Prsdt signed the bill abolishing slavery in
the U.S. territories. I took the document in to him when the messenger from
the Congress arrived, and the Tycoon looked at it and shook his head and
said nothing.
He must have thought back to all the debates with Stephen Douglas over
"popular sovereignty," or the so-called right of new states to adopt slavery,
versus "no extension," the position that lost Lincoln the '58 senatorial elec-
tion in Illinois. Everyone agrees now that it won him a national position in
the Republican party, but we did not do any celebrating at the time.
He used a good figure of speech in those days, equating slavery with a
snake. If a snake were in the bed with children, he could not strike at it; but it
made no sense to put a snake in a bed with children. That is, he could not
abolish slavery in the South, where it already existed, but we should prevent
its spread to new states in the West.
So today he signed it quietly, and now the argument is over: "pop sov" is
deadno snakes in the territories. Thanks to the war, the argument has now
become whether to strike the snake in the bed with the children of the South.
Senator Sumner came in, not to say thanks for taking this step, but to make
a case for reconsecrating the Fourth of July with a presidential declaration of
general emancipation.
"Too big a lick now," said the Tycoon.
"It is a time for big licks," Sumner insisted. "People in the North are losing
heart about an endless war for no higher moral aim than to stick together. Do
it, Lincoln!"
Lincoln told him: "I would do it if I were not afraid that half the officers
would fling down their arms."
Exit Sumner with his usual dramatic tossing of the locks. He doesn't real-
ize that we have just had a communication from one of McClellan's politi-
cian-officers, a Colonel Key, in which he proudly recounts his unauthorized
attempt to make peace on the basis of the Democrats' "Union as it was."
This fellow Key, who they say is McClellan's "evil genius," has the audac-
ity, or gallagain, the insolence of epauletsto write of the sources of power
in this republic as "the President, the Army, and the people." That's
McNapoleon and his coterie for you. The Prsdt told Stanton to answer coldly
that such peace discussions were not the business of the army.
A sinking sensation is being felt all around. The euphoria of this spring,
with Grant on the march in the West and McClellan finally on the way to
Richmond, has given way to a vast disillusionment. Shiloh was a bloody
standoff, followed by Halleck's mile-a-day creep into Corinth and the escape
of Beauregard's army. Now Little Mac is encamped in front of Richmond,
demanding reinforcements before he will budge, trying to make peace instead
of war. Meanwhile, a rebel army under Stonewall Jackson has been scaring
Washington half to death, and the Tycoon cannot release McDowell's army
to play McClellan's game,
So the feeling has set in that the war may not be over this summer after all.
Pessimism pervades. The only action taken so far against General Lee has
been to seize his house across the river here in Arlington, which he inherited
from General Washington's son. We have turned it into a Union hospital.
Stanton came in around noontime, with Senators Wade and Chandler in
tow, to belabor the Tycoon about the man who is failing to take the rebel
capital.
"McClellan, the damn traitor," said Ben Wade, "refuses to assault Rich-
mond. Instead, he's trying to strip Washington of defenses so Jackson can
grab and sack this city."
"Damn right," said Chandler. "And the chairman of the Democratic com-
mittee up in New York has been sending McClellan telegrams."
"McClellan is being urged to disregard interference by the Administration
in army matters," said Stanton, who gets to read private telegrams, "and to
act on his own judgment. Said he would be sustained by the people of the
North, tired of having military affairs directed by civilians in Washington."
"A man isn't responsible for messages that are sent to him," Lincoln said
mildly, having received quite a few about Wade himself.
"We need a general who will fight rebels," said Wade, "and who will fight
slavery."
"Who do you have in mind?"
Instead of saying "anybody," to which Lincoln always replies, "I must
have somebody," Wade said, "John Pope. Hero of the capture of Island Num-
ber Ten." That victory was mainly the navy's. "With Halleck at Corinth in
the West. A proven fighter, and a hater of slavery."
"I like his dispatches," said Chandler. "Datelines say, 'Headquarters in the
saddle.' Man on the move, action, all that."
The Prsdt chewed that over. "If Pope's headquarters arein the saddle,"
said Lincoln, "then he's got his hindquarters where his headquarters ought to
be."
Nobody laughed but me; the joke wasn't original, but I thought it was
pretty funny.
"There has to be an end to this kid-glove warfare," said Wade. "We're
going to give you a new Confiscation Act that will strike some fear in traitor
hearts. And a Militia Act to enroll negroes for any war service in which they
may be competent, and that means as soldiers."
The Tycoon countered with his litany: abolition had to be gradual, even if
it took until 1900, though better much sooner; accompanied by due compen-
sation; and finally, joined to a scheme of colonization.
"That's what you say," replied Wade, "and that's what your man Brown-
ing keeps haranguing us with in the Senate. But the notion that you and you
alone will decide the issue is illegitimate and unconstitutional. The Congress
will decide how and when the slaves will be freed."
When the senators marched out, Zack Chandler weaving a little, Stanton
suggested that arming negroes might not be a bad idea. "General Hunter was
doing itwithout my knowledge, of course."
Somehow that little disclaimer made me suspect that Stanton knew before-
hand of Hunter's intent to free the Africans in his area. Does the Tycoon
suspect this also? He seems like such a trusting soul, but that is what he wants
to seem like.
"How is your sick baby?" Lincoln asked Stanton.
"Not getting better."
The Tycoon never ceases to amaze me. Here is the Secretary of War as
much as advertising that he was lying about not knowing about Hunter's
embarrassing proclamation freeing the slaves; and there is Lincoln, who had
to write an order countermanding that military proclamation so as to keep
the issue tightly in his own hands, inquiring about a matter weighing on
Stanton's mind, the illness of his baby.
Which reminds me: Tad is not sleeping on the couch in the office during
the evenings anymore, to be carried off to bed when the Tycoon finishes,
because the family is now spending the summer in the Soldiers' Home. Cooler
there than here in the District, where the miasma from Foggy Bottom reaches
into everybody's brain during the summer.
That move to Silver Spring led to another problem: everyone grumpily
accepted the Hellcat's prohibition against the Marine Band performing at the
White House during her mourning for Willie, but now that she is away, she
still insists the band not play. The locals objected, as well they might, and I
suggested a compromise: having the band give evening concerts in Lafayette
Park across the avenue. The first Lady grumbled, but her husband did not
want to have her even less popular than she is with the people. So the band
will play.
After Stanton left, Bates came bumbling along with what he described to
me as a draft of a pamphlet by Miss Carroll denouncing the Confiscation bill
that Wade, Chandler & Co. seemed determined to place on our desks.
I was glad to hear that: she was in here last week, saw the Tycoon, and
went past me in departing like the proverbial bat out of hell. He was more
than a little upset himself; probably spoke to her the way he did to Jessie
FrCmont, another woman not easily beaten down. One thing about the Ty-
coon, he is not courtly when it domes to women; to put a good face on it, as
one day I will be called on to do, he treats them like the equals of men.
At any rate, Miss Carroll's draft means that Bates will not have to cook up
a veto message by himself, which the Prsdt was worried about. He needs a
persuasive argument, not a dusty legal tome. I mean, if the army's officer
corps is going to make the decisions about enlisting slaves (McClellan against,
Hunter for), and our most illustrious warrior turns out to be a political peace-
maker, and the Congress is going to arrogate emancipation policy to itself,
then what's a President for?
The Attorney General came out with a note from Lincoln addressed to
Miss Carroll; Bates wrote a covering note and asked me to dispatch the letter
immediately.
I read it. "Dear Miss Carroll," the Prsdt wrote, "Like everything else that
comes from you, I have read the address to Maryland with a great deal of
pleasure and interest. It is just what is needed now, and you were the one to
do it."
That should cool her ire. She can wave the Prsdt's praise around and pick
up some railroad pamphleteering business, I hope. The nation needs her, and
more to the point, on a matter that I am too pressed to go into now, I need
her, too.
CHAPTER II
COUNTERATTACK

Breckinridge hefted his traveling bag and stepped off the train at Richmond, a
city without a unified train depot. Instead of a union station, five individual
lines each had a small siding to discharge riders. Breck had heard one passen-
ger say ruefully that the only agreement between the lines was that one train
left before the competition's arrived, which made connections impossible.
He looked in vain for a carriage to take him to the Fenlon Hotel near the
Executive Mansion. It was shift-for-yourself in the besieged capital. General
Breckinridge supposed that every military wagon had been pressed into ser-
vice supplying the city's defenders four miles east, and he set out on foot. The
city was familiar to him, but war had changed Richmond drastically: pedes-
trians were hurrying, dust permeated clothes and lungs, and the charming
prewar town had acquired an ugly look of transience as war more than dou-
bled its population.
Jefferson Davis had sent for him but had not given any reason. Breck knew
the President of the Confederate States from their years of service together in
the U.S. Senate, and thought more highly of his character than of his political
skill. Not only did Davis lack the common touch, but he could not spellbind a
crowd from a stump; in private, his cadaverous face made him seem more
severe than he was. But the Kentuckian considered Davis a loyal ally who
would not desert friends when political fortunes changed or when the press
turned vicious. Breckinridge remembered the Davis reaction to complaints
that the retreating Sidney Johnston was no general: "If Sidney Johnston is
not a general, then we have no generals."
Shifting his bag to his other arm, stepping around a dead horse in the street
both capitals had those rotting landmarks in common, he notedBreck
recalled Davis's kindnesses to Anna Carroll when that woman was starting to
develop her connections in the railroad industry. Breckinridge hoped she was
gaining the recognition she sought; he knew the Tennessee River plan had
been all too successful.
In the ten weeks since Shiloh, Breckinridge had developed a curious leth-
argy, rooted in his unhappy conviction that the South was going to lose the
war. The loss of his own life in it did not seem so earthshaking to him;
because of this, and because he became angrily resentful of the death of men
who served under his command, the Kentuckian took more chances under
fire than a wise general should. That had gained him a reputation for personal
bravery at Shiloh and on the slow retreat to Corinth, and had earned him the
promotion that he supposed brought him to Richmond.
He was careful not to let his numbness toward personal survival infect his
son; Breck was ready at any time to make a deal with the God of war to meet
a Minie ball anywhere if he could be assured that Cabell would live through
the war. After the boy's escape from Donelson, Breck assigned him to be his
aide-de-camp, determined to let him see the action that would satisfy him
without gettting himself killed.
Now the Orphan Brigade of Kentuckians, the only brigade of volunteers
from a state that had not seceded from the Union, was to join in the fight to
deny the use of the Mississippi River to the Federal forces. Memphis had
fallen; Island No. 10 had fallen; New Orleans had surrendered without a
fight. Only the guns of Vicksburg remained as an obstacle to the Federal
seizure of the great western waterway. He belonged with them in Vicksburg
now, but President Davis wanted him in Richmond for a few days, ostensibly
to personally award him the stars of a major general. No other politician had
received such a promotion.
A sergeant driving what had once been an elegant carriage but was now a
makeshift ambulance spotted the brigadier's star on his uniform, saluted, and
invited him up. "Where from, sir?"
"Out West." He shielded his eyes from the dust. When the sergeant said
Richmond was his home, Breckinridge put an odd question to him: "Why do
you suppose we make our capital so close to the front? Wouldn't the Confed-
eracy have been better off in Montgomery, or Atlanta?"
The sergeant chewed that over, as if being tested on a matter of strategy.
He answered, "Works both ways. Concentrating our forces here keeps the
Yankees worried about Washington. Besides, if we lost the Iron Works yon-
der, and the iron mills all around here, ifd all be over quick. Lose Richmond,
lose the war."
Breckinridge shook his head. "That's not what I hear. I hear that Robert
Lee said he would be willing to swap queens."
"You mean, run up and grab Washington while McClellan takes Rich-
mond?" The sergeant laughed. "That's what we say to scare Lincoln. Works,
toohe's split the Yankee army, and that's why McClellan has to creep up on
us, slow-like."
"What do you hear from the front?"
"McClellan's been sittin' tight for three weeks, sir, ever since we hit him on
the Chicahominy. Slick bastard, he maneuvered himself out of that when I
thought we had 'em."
His sentence was punctuated by the sound of cannon fire. "Hear that?
That's them on the move again, but tomorrow we're fixin' to go after 'em.
You know General Lee? Took over for Joe Johnston when he got wounded?"
"I haven't met him yet." All Breck knew about Robert Lee was from a
mutual friend who said Lee had voted for him in 1860. That was a start. But
so had "Beast" Ben Butler, the Yankee general now occupying New Orleans;
politicians from Kentucky often attracted a wide range of support.
"Now we can gamble on holding Richmond with a small force, y'see, like
Magruder did at Yorktown, while the rest of the army moves out and takes
McClellan by surprise. We'll do it, now that Stonewall Jackson's back. Here's
your hotel, general."
Some surprise, if every sergeant knew about it; Breck hoped he would find
out from President Davis if Lee intended to put up a fight inside the city or
evacuate before McClellan's artillery came within range. It would be a des-
perate gamble, almost suicidal, for Lee to attack well-entrenched superior
forces covered by artillery and commanded by an experienced officer like
McClellan.
Breckinridge thanked the driver and checked into the hotel. He spent a
long time in the deep bathtub, soaking his bones in the cool water after
months in the field and a morning in the Richmond heat. He brushed his gray
uniform, glad he'd left his Kentucky blue jeans uniform behind; blue showed
the dust, and he did look more like a Confederate general in gray and gold.
Ready to do political or military business, he walked down the street to the
Mansion.
"It's as if the Government of the United States anticipates the failure of
McClellan's expedition," JeffDavis told him right out. The Confederate Pres-
ident, who had lost weight since Breckinridge had seen him the preceding
October, struck Breck as strangely optimistic for a man whose capital was
under siege. "Lincoln has just created a new army under John Pope.
McDowell's Corps, Banks' and Fremont's men, are now under Popeand all
denied to McClellan! You know, we owe a great deal to Thomas Jackson."
Breckinridge knew that the erratic Jackson"Stonewall" of Bull Run
famehad been giving the Yankees fits in the Shenandoah Valley. "His diver-
sion is working? But I heard Jackson was back here in Richmond"
"Just arrived, but the Federals don't know that yet. Lincoln is evidently
panic-stricken," Davis said. "If McDowell's forty-five thousand Federals
were added to McClellan's army, we would be hopelessly outnumbered here,
while still unable to mount a serious attack on Washington. On the likelihood
of the two Union armies joining here, I prepared to evacuate the capital. The
gold and the archives have been loaded on railroad cars."
Breck was surprised at Lincoln's military timidity. The radical press in the
North was calling McClellan overcautious, but in fact his Peninsula strategy
was daringonly Lincoln's fears, his strategic hesitancy, and his interference
with his general kept the Union forces from forcing the Confederacy out of its
capital.
"Our spies in Washington say McClellan thinks we have two hundred
thousand men here," Davis added. "In truth, we will have less than eighty-
five thousand, including Jackson's men."
"We have a new general."
"I want you to meet Robert Lee, Breck. He reminds me, in a way, of
Sidney Johnston. What a tragedy his loss has been."
Breckinridge nodded and did not ask why he had been summoned. Having
dealt with President Buchanan for four years, and to some extent with Lin-
coln only last year, he had come to know that presidents get to the point in
their own time.
"What about Beauregard?" Davis wanted to know.
"You were wise to relieve him. Bory is a sick man, and his spirit is broken
he cost us the victory at Shiloh. I'm not too sure Braxton Bragg was a wise
choicehe's a martinet, and the last thing our men need is spit and polish."
"What do they say out West about Lincoln's new favorite, John Pope?"
"I think he's a lot of talk. Grant and Sherman are butchers, but at least
they're quiet about it. Halleck showed himself to be no general at all1 had a
rear guard of five thousand men, and made Halleck fairly crawl to Corinth.
We held him to less than a mile a day."
"You distinguished yourself, Breck, and now you're both a military and
political leader. The Senate confirmed your nomination as major general in
three days, record time."
Judah Benjamin walked in without knocking; Davis and he evidently had
that sort of relationship. The soft-spoken man had been the Confederacy's
first Attorney General, then stepped in as Secretary of War when Davis's first
choice had turned out to be almost as bad as Lincoln's Cameron; Benjamin
now served as Secretary of State.
"Let me tell you how the war is going, General," Benjamin said after the
amenities. "We're broke. We cannot replace equipment. We've suffered enor-
mous losses in the West, and the enemy is at our throat here." He smiled. "I
think we're going to win."
Breckinridge began to wonder if he had been wrong to dismiss the informa-
tion from the sergeant. Was a counterattack actually in the works? An air of
expectancy and urgency was everywhere; military couriers were bustling
about and all the traffic was headed east and north. It seemed that everyone
in Richmond knew about the movement and was heartened by the prospect
of seizing the initiative.
Breckinridge knew Benjamin from the mid-fifties, when they had served in
the Congress together. He admired the ease with which the Jew, born in the
West Indies, dealt with Davis, the Baptist turned Episcopalian from Ken-
tucky. The controversial politician was no stranger to attack: years before,
while Benjamin was representing Louisiana in the U.S. Senate, Ben Wade had
characterized him as "an Israelite with Egyptian principles" because of his
defense of slavery.
"Our greatest mistake," the urbane lawyer was saying, "a really mon-
strous mistakewas to think we could force England and France into recog-
nizing the Confederacy with our cotton embargo last year." Judah Benjamin
looked at Davis, who had been blamed for the mistake. "As a result, we
reduced cotton production from five million bales to five hundred thousand.
Having a cotton bonfire was considered the patriotic thing to do."
Breck was surprised by the admission that the economic distress of the
Confederacy was a self-inflicted wound. Like most, he assumed that the Yan-
kee blockade was to blame for the shortages of money and equipment.
"What about the Yankee blockade?"
The smile that usually played around Benjamin's lips disappeared. "Purely
paper. The United States Navy had three ships to blockade a thirty-five-
hundred-mile coast. No, it wasn't the Lincoln blockade that crippled our
economyit was our own foolish embargo."
"Explain to me, then," said Breckinridge, "how we're going to win." He
was not swept up in the counterattack euphoria.
"Assume for the moment," said Benjamin, more to Davis than to him,
"that General Lee, with Lincoln's help, is able to lift the siege of Richmond.
Now make a second assumption. Let us say that General Lee is able to drive
McClellan all the way back down the Peninsula to where he originally
landed, cutting his army to pieces as he retreats. That would lead to the
Union Army's capitulation."
Breckinridge remembered how close Sidney Johnston had come to demol-
ishing the enemy army at Shiloh, nearly driving Grant's force into a river. If
the Confederate counterattack here was successfulifthen it might be pos-
sible for Lee to destroy McClellan's hundred thousand in retreat from Rich-
mond. If McClellan were forced to retreat, he would have to be a military
genius to shift his base in a flank march while under attack; it was unlikely
that he could remain anywhere near Richmond in some secure position, still
able to menace the capital and tie down Lee's army. Unable to change base
and set up a secure line of supply, went the Confederate hope, McClellan
would be forced to surrender to save his army from slaughter.
"Such an event would shatter Northern morale, which expects victory any
day," Benjamin continued. "I can read Greeley's headline now'Erring sis-
ters, depart in peace.' The pressure on Lincoln to stop the killing and settle
the war would be irresistible."
"Lincoln is a harder man than you think," said Breckinridge, recalling his
talks in the President's house in Washington.
"The only thing holding back recognition by England," said Benjamin, "is
the anti-slavery sentiment among the working people, and a smashing Con-
federate victory at Richmond now would vitiate that sentiment."
Breckinridge was amazed at the way intelligent, ordinarily realistic politi-
cians could build a towering house of cards on a single premise: that their
untried general, with an outnumbered army, could assault the enemy in his
works and not only lift the siege of Richmond, but destroy or capture the
entire Federal expedition. All their dreams were based on that hope. If that
could be done, then it would follow that the British would recognize the
government at Richmond, and trade and loans would flow and the war would
be sustained until the North gave up hope of conquest.
"It's important for my purposes for Breck to meet Lee," said Davis, rising
and picking up his hat. "Come along. I visit him at the front every day."
"This may not be the best day," Benjamin offered.
"Nonsense. He seeks my military judgment." Davis was a West Pointer,
Breck knew, and that sort always thought of themselves as soldiers first.
"Unlike his predecessor, Robert Lee shares everything with me."
That told Breck something about the command structure: Joe Johnston,
probably like George McClellan, did not like the civilian authority to know
everything; apparently Lee felt it necessary to take Jeff Davis into his confi-
dence.
Nine Mile Road, leading to General Lee's headquarters near the front, was
clogged with wagons and soldiers moving up for the offensive. The troops,
glad to be out of their bulwarks and trenches, delighted at not having to fall
back and wait for the Yankee artillery onslaught, shouted and waved at them.
Other politicians and civilians quickly joined the President's party, and by the
time they approached the headquarters after a brief ride, the group had swol-
len to thirty.
"Our main force, under Powell Hill," Davis explained, "is to strike at the
Union troops under Porter north of the Chickahominy. Jackson's troops will
move down at the same time to threaten McClellan's supply line. Lee thinks
that McClellan, to avoid being cut off so far from home, will fall back."
"What if he doesn't?" The obvious occurred to Breck. "What if his force
south of the Chickahominy just walks into Richmond? You don't have that
many defenders left."
"I know that," said Davis, elated. "It's a great chance we're taking. But if
McClellan makes that move, Lee assures me that those of us defending the
city will just have to hang on a few hours until he gets back. I'm not Lincoln,
I'll take that chance." In a few moments, he added, "McClellan's an engineer,
so is Lee. He thinks McClellan will worry about logistics first."
On that judgment Lee apparently was ready to gamble the capital. Breckin-
ridge noted that Lee's headquarters was hardly a model of military efficiency.
Eight pole tents, pitched with their backs to a stake fence, were situated on
rocky ground. Three wagons were drawn up in front of the tents, and unteth-
ered horses wandered about the field. Breckinridge looked for sentries or at
least aides-de-camp; none were visible. A large farmhouse stood nearby, the
obvious choice for a general's residence, but Lee, evidently determined to set
an example of respecting civilian property, lived in a tent.
As a politician, Breckinridge was curious about the touted and deprecated
son of "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, the Revolutionary hero who died a debt-
ridden exile. The South's new commander was a soldier who had distin-
guished himself as a captain in the Mexican War under Winfield Scott, but
that was a lifetime ago; what had he done since to justify his growing reputa-
tion? Yet Scott had offered him command of the Union Army; Jeff Davis,
after watching Lee flail about with no special distinction in the opening
months of the war in western Virginia, brought him in to be his personal
military adviser and nowwith Sidney Johnston dead, Joe Johnston injured,
and Beauregard sick and discreditedto be defender of Richmond.
Why such trust in the man? To some, the aura of trust was created by Lee's
marriage to the granddaughter of George Washington's adopted son. They
lived in a good Washington family home in Arlington; to them, Lee had
become the living spirit of Washington. Breckinridge, who had profited from
his own distinguished lineage, granted that Lee had a fine background for a
military leader of a new American revolution, but his record in battle so far
was nothing to justify all the faith placed in him now.
The general, a severe look in his eyes, rode toward them, drew up, and
saluted frigidly. He pointed to the entourage with Davis.
"Mr. President," Lee asked, "who is all this army and what is it doing
here?"
Davis looked around at his crowd of followers. "It is not my army, Gen-
eral."
"It is certainly not my army, Mr. President, and this is no place for it."
Davis appeared stunned. "Well, General, if I withdraw, perhaps they will
follow me."
The President turned his mount. Breckinridge, like the others, turned to
follow him, but Lee caught the eye of the man with two shiny new stars on
both shoulders and beckoned him to come with him. Breck assumed that
getting to know Lee was what the President wanted him to do, and trailed
Lee's white horse to the headquarters tent.
Lee's tent looked like the othersthere was safety in anonymity, Breckin-
ridge supposed. The commander offered Breckinridge a firm, gentle hand,
and covered it over with his other hand as he looked into his caller's eyes.
Breckinridge, three inches taller than Lee, looked downward at a man older
than he expected. His graying hair and stiff white beard and, more than that,
his gravity and bearing gave the impression of a man who had long passed his
mid-fifties.
"You were with Sidney Johnston at Pittsburg Landing," said Robert Lee.
"A good man and a great soldier. He must have been an inspiration to you, as
he was to me."
Lee struck Breckinridge as wholly different from Johnstonserene instead
of vital, dignified rather than dashing. "Had he lived," the Kentuckian
agreed, "we would not have lost to Grant at Shiloh."
"What sort of general is Grant?" Lee asked. "Our paths never crossed in
the army."
"Sloppy. No interest in maneuver. Willing to take impossible losses. A
butcher. That was the word Sidney Johnston used about himbutcher,"
"The opposite of McClellan," Lee observed. He looked toward the front.
"A careful general, inexorable in his advance. To his credit, he cares about his
troops. They all have shoes." He sighed and said, "I mean no disrespect to
our War Department, but it is disconcerting, after a fight, to watch our men
remove the shoes of the dead."
Breck said he had been shown Lee's General War Order No. 75, and asked
about the plan of attack.
"My object is to draw McClellan out of his works to defend his line of
communications. Ultimately, the object is to disrupt his prearrangements and
thereby change the character of the war."
"But if Porter's division holds, and McClellan then moves on Richmond?"
Breckinridge had become expert in the movement of reserve corps.
Lee shook his head. "I'm depending on him to follow the pattern he has
set. McClellan is overcautious and Lincoln is overanxious, and between them
we should be able to save this city. That, and the spirit of our men, and the
help of Providence."
"We have had some trouble with discipline in the West," said Breckinridge.
How did Lee handle the deserter problem? Bragg was shooting too many of
his men.
"Our men have a certain natural aggressiveness that is a military asset,"
Lee said. "Discipline is not the problem. When men are defending their
homes, the job of a leader is to give them a sense of direction and unity. These
are Virginians, fighting for their native land. They do not need drill. They
need a sense of unconquerability."
That stopped and impressed Breckinridge; he had not heard this approach
from the generals he worked with.
"They say you put a great deal of faith in your commanders," Breckinridge
offered, thinking of how Halleck had hamstrung Grant and Sherman.
"My interference in battle would do more harm than good," Lee replied. "I
have to rely on my brigade and division commanders. I think and work with
all my power to bring the troops to the right place at the right time; then I
have done my duty. As soon as I order them forward into battle, I leave my
army in the hands of God."
More, Breckinridge said to himself, in the hands of his division com-
manders. If Stonewall Jackson's "foot cavalry" did not strike at precisely the
right moment tomorrow at the Union supply lines, the battle could turn into
a disaster. Lee's hands-off philosophy of battle sounded good, but Breck re-
membered how Sidney Johnston had saved the Tennessee Brigade by person-
ally leading a charge. Then he thought of how the battle was lost by the
absence of a general who had exposed himself unnecessarily.
Breck sought to ascertain Lee's political views. "It looks as if Lincoln is
moving toward abolition," Breckinridge said. "You heard about the Confisca-
tion Act? What effect"
"If the slaves of the South were mine," said Lee fervently, "I would surren-
der them all without a struggle, to end this war." He caught himself. "But
that is a political matter. I must not wander into politics, a subject I carefully
avoid. And you, Breckinridgewhat brings you East?"
"I wish I knew. President Davis sent for me without a word of explana-
tion." He shrugged. "I should get back with my Orphan Brigade, where I
belong. Frankly, General, I wish I could be as optimistic as Secretary Benja-
min, or even as"he searched for the word"serene as you. But since Shi-
loh, something has gone out of me. I thank God I found my son. I fear there
is not much more good that will come out of this war."
"Nearly a hundred years ago," said Lee, standing erect and looking over
the wagons toward stacked arms, "there was a day of remarkable gloom and
darkness, a day still known in Connecticut as 'the Dark Day'a day when
the light of the sun was slowly extinguished as if by an eclipse."
Breckinridge had to lean forward to hear.
"The legislature of Connecticut was in session," Lee continued, "and as its
members saw the unexpected and unaccountable darkness coming on, they
shared in the general awe and terror. It was supposed by many that the Day
of Judgment had come. Someone moved an adjournment."
Lee signaled to an aide for his horse, Traveller, and went on with his story.
"There arose an old Puritan legislator, Davenport of Stamford, who said that
if the Last Day had come, he desired to be found at his place doing his duty,
and therefore moved that candles be brought in, so that the House could
proceed with its work.
"There was quietness in that man's mind," Lee concluded. "The quietness
of heavenly wisdom and inflexible willingness to do present duty. You will do
your duty, General Breckinridge; you cannot do more. You should never wish
to do less."
The horse was brought around, not shying at the sudden sound of artillery
in the distance, and Lee swung easily into the saddle. A rider came in to say
that A. P. Hill had engaged the enemy at Mechanicsville, but Jackson's
troops were not yet in place.
"Are we going to win?" Breckinridge asked.
"I'm not concerned with results," said Lee surprisingly. "God's will ought
to be our aim. I'm contented that His designs should be accomplished and not
mine. I hope we meet again, Breckinridge. I'd like to have the chance to vote
for you again."
The Kentuckian did not move for a moment or two after the Virginian left.
The man's words seemed unduly reverent in a military camp, but Lee's voice
resonated with sincerity, and brought to the chaos of war a certain quietude
and certainty. This general would not agonize over decisions. Breckinridge
found himself concluding that there was indeed something of General Wash-
ington about Leethe leader in battle and yet above the battle, with the
remoteness that created a sense of mystery; sure of himself and his destiny
and unshakable in his fundamentalist faith. Not fierce or fanatic, the way they
said Jackson was, but secure, perhaps too secure for a man whose decisions
determined the death of thousands. He deserved the aura that was forming
around him; despite a concern about Lee's detachment, Breck felt some of his
own listlessness lift.
Now all Lee had to do was win; only winners become heroes, and fathers of
countries. For the first time since his arguments with the implacable Lincoln,
Breckinridge felt the stirrings of hope. He knew a good deal about the quali-
ties of leadership, and the man he had just met was a leader.
The army of the new nationand Benjamin had pointed out that the
British leader, Gladstone, had told Parliament that the Confederacy had in-
deed "made a nation"was not led only by the dashing Johnston, the faint-
hearted Beauregard, the bullheaded Bragg, the acquiescent Buckner, the
reckless Morgan, the doubting Breckinridge. The man selected to conduct the
war had what the Quakers liked to call peace at his center.
Breck found President Davis not far from headquarters, watching the
troops come up to the line, giving them awkward words of encouragement.
He did not seem put out by the dismissal from the field by his commander,
nor had he left the field. Breckinridge remarked on the essential goodness of
character that General Lee impressed on him.
"Unusually calm and well-balanced judgment," added Davis, "and he is
instinctively averse to retiring from his enemy. He may turn out to be a great
general, though he tends to think only of this army in Virginia rather than the
total war."
"I like the way he calls it the Army of Northern Virginia," observed Breck.
He advertised his intent to carry the war to Yankee territory in the name of
his army, which seemed a paradox in a man who so exemplified humility.
Together in the carriage on the road back to the capital, passing tobacco
warehouses that had been converted to hospitals, Davis came around to the
reason for his summons. "You're doing well in the field, Breck, but your
talent is that of political leader. I'm having difficulty finding a suitable Secre-
tary of War. Judah upset everybody last year, and now George Randolph has
been trying to act without taking me into his confidence."
Here it was: Life in the capital, at the "heart of Secessia," as the Federals
called it, with a return to the political life on the grand scale. But Secretary of
War in the Davis Cabinet was a winless proposition: Jeff Davis was his own
Secretary of War, as three men in the past two years had discovered. Now the
military judgment was also in the hands of a general who, if he beat McClel-
lan, would soon be General-in-Chief. To be War Minister in Richmond would
be the same as being Vice President in Buchanan's Cabinet in Washingtona
man waiting to profit when something terrible happened. He knew that Jeff
Davis did not want, and could not abide, a Stanton, or anyone else who
would try to take charge; Lincoln was willing to put up with a great deal to
get an efficient organizer, and Jefferson Davis was not.
"I'll try to make a good suggestion, Mr. President. It's an important post.
Not for me, of course"
"Why 'of course'?"
Breckinridge could not say his reason for denial was that he wanted to get
lost in the army, or that he wanted only to protect his boy until it was over
and then to quit politics forever, or that he wanted no part of being a figure-
head in an administration that had a President acting as Secretary of War.
He said instead, "I'll do my duty, whatever it is. I'll never wish to do less.
But I think my duty is in the field." He added an afterthought: "I have a plan
to recapture Baton Rouge, which should take some of the pressure off Vicks-
burg."
Davis sighed. "I'll stick with Randolph awhile. Jefferson's grandson, you
know. Let's discuss Baton Rouge when we get back." They drove in silence
for a time. "If I need you here, Breck"
Breckinridge remembered Lee's departing words, and replied, "I'll do my
duty."
CHAPTER 12
THE NEWSPAPER WAR
Adams Hill, second in command of the New York Tribune's Washington
office, was well aware that he was no favorite of Horace Greeley. Scrawny,
nervous, nearsighted, the newsman was unable to turn out the soaring prose
or biting political commentary that Greeley expected his Washington corre-
spondents to mix into their news reports.
Instead, the studious Hill cultivated his acquaintance with men like young
Stoddard, third secretary at the Mansion; General Grant's sponsor, Wash-
burne, in the House; McClellan's advocates, Thomas Key at headquarters
and his brother John in the War Department; Count Gurowski, a Seward-
hating translator at the State Department; the innocent Homer Bates at the
telegraph office, and the conspiratorial Sumner in the Senate. These were
among his wellsprings of information, and while the reporter could not please
the boss with readable copy, he could provide the newspaper with the stuff of
newssometimes, even better, the background on which news judgments
could later be made.
Senator Sumner, only a few days before, had told Hill about his talk with
the President, urging him to make July 4, 1862, Emancipation Day, and the
Lincoln answer, "too big a lick." The reporter had passed that on by letter to
New York in strictest confidence, knowing it would be of great interest to
Greeley. He included, for verisimilitude, Sumner's characterization of Lin-
coln's idea that such a decree of freedom would be a brutum fulmen. Hill
enjoyed adding that the Latin phrase meant "futile threat." That was not
dramatic copy, worthy of initials of the reporter added to the end of the story,
but it was "inside" stuff. Hill's concession to the need for drama in newspa-
pering was in setting aside a small room in the Tribune's cramped quarters in
Washington for what he told the managing editor was "secret copying of
documents and stolen interviews."
Hill dreaded Greeley. He dealt only with Sydney Gay, who had replaced
Charles Dana as the Tribune's managing editor, and never with Greeley him-
self. Hill reported only what happened, or what he had learned was about to
happenbut never what should be happening, as the top editor wished. In
addition, he had offended Uncle Horace, who had a habit of treating the word
"news" as plural. When Greeley once telegraphed, "What are the news?" Hill
had innocently cabled back, "Not a new." Since then, Hill had been dealing
only with Gay.
With Sam Wilkeson, chief of the Tribune's Washington office, off to the
Peninsula with McClellan's troops, Hill was in charge of the office. Wilkeson
was the star reporter whose initials almost always appeared at the end of his
stories, and he liked to call the office "the Washington bureau," but Hill,
behind his back, thought of it as the office. When Wilkeson wired from the
field demanding another man on the battle scene to match the competition
Henry Raymond of the Times was down there himself with six reporters, and
Bennett's Herald team outnumbered them allAdams Hill took a chance,
hired a clerk in the Auditor's Office of the War Department who was aching
to be a war correspondent, bought him a bay horse, and sent him down to
help out.
"The last assistant you sent," Wilkeson had cabled from the front on a dull
news day in June, "came to me with his lifeless drawling whine about the
impossibility of getting accommodations and buying forage for his horse.
Enough! This work needs first-class men: men of physical courage, intelli-
gence, tact, patience, endurance, DEVOTION."
The new man was doing better: Charles Page went into action on June 27
at Mechanicsville, dodging Mini6 balls with notebook in hand, teaming up
with the artist for Harper's Weekly, Winslow Homer, to give the color that
Greeley liked while Wilkeson filed the news of McClellan's victory, or defeat,
or whatever was happeningit was hard for Hill to tell.
Hill, reading copies of the telegrams his newest reporter was sending on to
Gay in New York, liked Page's eye and ear. "There are both cheers and
yells," the young man had written, "for our men cheer and their men yell. "
That was perceptive; Hill had never seen that observation about the shouting
qualities of each side made before, and he hoped the editors in New York
would not cut it out. Another line of Page's that impressed Hill was this
macabre report: "During the stampede to the rear, for a moment the atten-
tion of hundreds was attracted to a horse galloping around carrying a man's
leg in the stirrupthe left leg, booted and spurred. It was a splendid horse,
gaily caparisoned." Hill admired that, since he could not write that kind of
copy himself, and urged Gay to run the young reporter's initials after his
dispatches.
The trouble was, that was the last dispatch anybody had received out of the
Peninsula. Hill wished Page had put a little more news in the story: which
army was stampeding to the rear, Union or rebel? That was the trouble with
new men, they tended to get wrapped up in the gory details without bothering
to mention who was winning.
The telegraph wire from Fort Monroe had been cut; for two solid days,
nobodynot even Stanton's War Departmenthad any word from the front.
The city of Washington was ready to root in its garbage cans for news. The
President was said to be having fits, and worse, Greeley kept sending mes-
sages to Hill through Gay to find out what was happening to General Mc-
Clellan. Had Richmond finally fallen? Was it time for the great celebration?
Not a new.
At last the telegraph in the Tribune's Washington office on that night of
June 29 clacked with a message from Baltimore. Hill hurried to the machine;
the message was from C. C. Fulton, editor of the Baltimore American, and an
agent for the Associated Press, who sometimes went into the field himself.
Hill read each word as an editor's advisory came over the wire:
"I am writing for the American a detailed account of events before Rich-
mond and on the Peninsula during the last four days . . ."
Fulton had the story: Hill felt his heart palpitating and closed his eyes for a
few moments, taking deep breaths, relieved that Fulton was writing for the
AP and not one of the Tribune's competitors. Greeley did not like to rely on
the service set up by all the newspapers, but he did not demand that heads
roll as he did whenever the Tribune was beaten by Raymond's Times or
Bennett's Herald.
".  .  . including facts obtained from Washington," Fulton continued, "hav-
ing been sent for by special train to communicate with the President. If you
desire it, I will send it to you. It should make four or five thousand words."
The AP agent added a sentence to make every Northern heart not only cheer,
but yell: "We have the grandest military triumph over the enemy, and Rich-
mond must fall."
That was a first-class scoop. Not only had Fulton been the first to return
from the fighting with the story, but the Presidentas much in the dark
about developments as anybodyhad apparently sent a special train for the
AP's man to report to him directly about the battle. Now the reporter had
two storiesthe victory of McClellan at Richmond, and the only firsthand
account of the reaction of President Lincoln.
Hill fidgeted, waiting for Fulton's accounts to come over the ticker. No
story emerged. Hours passed, Hill staring at the machine.
Finally, the machine chattered: "The Secretary of War decides that nothing
can be telegraphed relative to affairs on the Peninsula. Have tried our best to
get it off."
That was ominous; why should Stanton suddenly impose censorship on
this story? McClellan's Richmond campaign was to be a grand triumph,
according to Fulton; was his first flash mistaken? Had anything happened at
the front since Fulton's return to Baltimore that made his conclusion mislead-
ing?
A copy of a telegram to the President from the AP agent came in that
made Hill's jaw drop: "Sir1 find myself under arrest and on my way to Fort
McHenry. I appeal to you for a hearing and prompt release. Respectfully,
C. C. Fulton."
With that troubling development weighing on his mind, Hill hurried over
to the War Department and went straight to Stanton's telegraph office. He
spotted Homer Bates running down the hall and stopped him.
"Why was Fulton arrested? What's happening on the Peninsula?"
"Our line is still out, we don't know," said the distraught young man.
"And I'm not supposed to say anything about Fulton. You better ask Colonel
Sanford about him. The colonel is the one who saw the President."
Hill went looking for Sanford, superintendent of the military telegraph,
and found him surrounded by the competition. The colonel posted a telegram
he had sent to Fulton that Hill copied: "Your arrest was not made for pub-
lishing the statement, but upon your statement that you were preparing a
detailed account of facts obtained from Washington. This is regarded by the
President and the War Department as a flagrant violation of confidence. Pub-
lication of such facts is a high military crime."
"Is this order from Stanton," Hill asked, "or from Lincoln?"
"I am authorized to send it," the colonel replied carefully.
"On whose authority?"
"The highest."
Hill took that to mean that Lincoln himself wanted the editor jailed. The
Tribune man hustled across the street and found Stoddard, the third secre-
tary, working in the President's outer office with Nicolay and Hay. Hill mo-
tioned urgently for him to come outside into the hallway.
"Why did Lincoln arrest the man with the news? For God's sake, Fulton is
the only Union-screaming editor in Baltimore."
"The President hit the ceiling when Stanton showed him that message,"
Stoddard said, looking over his shoulder. "Lincoln didn't talk to Fulton to
give him an interview, he talked to him to find out what was going on. So
when Fulton sent that telegram about facts obtained from Washington, he
told Stanton to clap him in jail."
"Was Fulton's story about what he saw on the Peninsula wrong?" That was
what counted, not the arrest of a newspaperman. "Does Lincoln have con-
trary news?"
Stoddard, nervous, grew circumspect. "Stanton thinks Fulton got his news
from McClellan, and left before the battle was over."
"Well, are we advancing on Richmond, or what?"
"We started to, and took some strongpoint at a place called Oak Grove, but
then there was something about a counterattack. McClellan thinks Jackson's
army has come down from the valley and threatens his rear." Once Stoddard
started talking, as Hill knew, he could not stop. "Before the line went out,
McClellan had been demanding reinforcements to get him out of a dangerous
position."
"So will he get them? McDowell is just standing around"
"No, the President can't send themI'm getting up an order right now,
calling for three hundred thousand more three-year men. We just don't have
the troops. Can't tell you any more. Stay out of jail yourself."
Hill knew he had one big story, about the call-up of more men, which
would come as a blow to Northern hopes after Stanton had stopped recruit-
ment earlier. But the demand from New York, the starvation for news every-
where, was for word about what had happened to McClellan's big push on
Richmond.
Hill had a hunch that Stanton had more than a hunch that the general was
retreating. He ducked back over to the War Department and found telegra-
pher Bates having a cup of coffee downstairs.
"Your Colonel Sanford is an idiot," he told the earnest young man, "arrest-
ing the only loyal editor in Maryland. That is a blunder he will pay for the
rest of his life. Going to cause a hell of a stink in Baltimore. I'll bet Sanford
did it on his own."
Bates did not rise to the bait. Sipping his coffee, he said only, "The colonel
is a good man. Saved McClellan from being tried for treason."
"Go on. How so?"
Bates took out a telegram. "You won't print this?"
"Promise."
"Here's the telegram we got from McClellan a half hour ago, just as the
wire came back on from Fort Monroe," said Bates, who would not let Hill
read it for himself. "Says, 1 have seen too many dead and wounded comrades
to feel otherwise than that the government has not sustained this army. If you
do not do so now, the game is lost.' "
"He's in retreat," Hill said.
"Sure, but listen to this," said the telegrapher, "coming from a general to
his commander in chief: If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe
no thanks to you or any person in Washington. You have done your best to
sacrifice this army.' "
"McClellan sent that to the President?" Such insubordination was hard to
imagine, unless it came from a man overwhelmed by bitter disappointment.
"What did the President reply?"
"The President doesn't know about the last two lines," Bates confided.
"Colonel Sanford said it was infamous and treasonable, and was meant to
reach the public as a means of shifting the blame for defeat. So the colonel
just cut those two lines out. We never gave it to the cipher operator, and
nobody knows, and you better not say or you'll be in the jugheap too."
Hill did not let the story of the insubordinate lines sidetrack him, since
everybody knew what McClellan thought of Lincoln; the big news was what
was happening in the Peninsula battle. "What did the President reply?"
Bates felt in his pocket and took out the cipher. " 'Save your army, at all
events. Will send reinforcements as fast as we can. We protected Washington
and the enemy concentrated on you. Had we stripped Washington, he would
have been upon us.' That's all Lincoln sent1 wonder what he would have
said if he'd known what McClellan accused him of."
"Yes, that's pretty mild," Hill said, to reassure the telegrapher. "No news.
Maybe you can give me a story someday."
"Sorry," the young man said. "I have to keep these confidences, or I'll get
in trouble." He went for more coffee.
Hill had the guidance he could give to New York, although he could not
put it in a news story: McClellan in defeat, Lincoln promising reinforcements
to help save the army from annihilation. He decided to ignore the part about
McClellan's insubordination, because he did not want to wind up as Fulton's
cellmate, or dry up a source in Bates.
The Tribune man checked upstairs at the telegraph office, and was shown
the official statement from Stanton: "Nothing has been received to warrant
the belief of any serious disaster." That confirmed it: the use of the adjective
"serious" meant that there had been a little, non-serious disaster, which
would likely turn out to be pretty damned serious.
He hurried back to the Tribune office to get off what he could that would
get past Stanton's telegraph censorship, and to await a copy of the report
from Wilkeson in the field to New Yorkor from young Page, if he had not
panicked and run. Hill scribbled a private note to Gay and sent it up to New
York by overnight train, informing him that no matter what anybody else was
saying, or any newspaper was headlining, this was "the bluest day since Bull
Run."
In the Tribune building on the corner of Nassau and Spruce streets in New
York, Sydney Gay did not know which way to go with the Peninsula story.
For two days, fragmentary reports from the front had been contradictory;
nobody knew what was really going on. Apparently this was not one grand
battle, but a series of daily battles that might last a week.
He would not ask Greeley for his judgment; when Charles Dana left to
become Stanton's spy in the West, Gay had made it clear that the news
operation on the Tribune was to be his own. Greeley, as editor-in-chief, had
the right to criticize, but the "managing" editorDana's original titlewas
in charge of the news operation of the paper. That left Greeley time to write
editorials, to travel and lecture and politick.
At the moment the old man was closeted with James Gilmore, a shadowy
character with a close connection to Lincolnprobably through Robert
Walker, the railroad man. Gay suspected that Gilmore was the go-between
for both Greeley and Lincoln, with the President trying to influence public
sentiment and the editor trying to influence public policy. Better Gilmore, a
writer, than Thurlow Weed, Gay thought. Getting in bed with the likes of
Weed led to no good; Greeley had once prevailed on Weed to pass a law
requiring the placement of state banking department statements in one paper,
which became a nice source of advertising income until the political world
turned, Weed and Greeley fell out, and a new banking commissioner steered
the money to Greeley's former assistant, Henry Raymond at the Times.
Gay looked out the window, to draw his daily inspiration from the statue
of Ben Franklin. A crowd was gathering on the Nassau Street side of the
building, reading the latest newsless bulletins in the Tribune window, waiting
for the casualty lists. It was nearing the moment to make his decision on the
front-page headline and to put the paper to bed.
The early edition of the Times was already out, spread on Gay's desk.
Henry Raymond had whipped his correspondent Bill Church, still lame from
a leg wound a month before, into a report on a series of battles near Rich-
mond that covered the entire front page. To judge from the account in the
Times, which Gay studied again, McClellan had backed into a great victory.
"General McClellan and his staff all agree," the Times story ran, "that the
present position of our army is far more advantageous as a base of operations
against Richmond than that hitherto occupied." That was putting a good face
on a retreat; Harrison's Landing, where McClellan's army now rested, was on
the bank of the James River, about ten miles farther from Richmond than at
the start of the fighting. "In spite of all that the army peddlers and other
skedaddling croakers have to say, the terrific battle which has been raging for
the past week has exhibited the most masterly strategy on the part of McClel-
lan and bravery in himself, his officers and men."
Maybe so. Gay took a hard look at the competition's headline: "Immense
Losses on Both Sides/Gen. McClellan Safe and Confident in his New Posi-
tion." He assumed that the Herald, which was anti-Lincoln and had been
hinting at a McClellan run for the presidency, would be similarly positive.
Raymond was being patriotic and letting that color his dispatches, and James
Gordon Bennett's Herald would be partisan but would come out the same
way.
Against the weight of that opinion molding, Gay had to place the message
from Adams Hill about the bluest day since Bull Run and the ominous tip
about the new call-up of troops. Tomorrow was the Fourth of July; the people
of the North needed a lift. Could the Tribune carry a wet-blanket story while
the other papers were hailing McClellan's victory? The editor wondered how
much to trust the judgment of Adams Hill, who was nowhere near the scene
of the fighting.
"Do we have a good night or anything from Wilkeson?" Gay asked the
copy boy, and was told no, the correspondent had not filed, nor had the
assistant, Page. Gay could use an AP story and fill with a rewrite of the
Times, hailing a costly victory, but Adams Hill's pessimistic judgment
nagged.
The chief of his telegraph room burst in. "It's like a dam is breaking. This
fellow Page is filing three days of dispatches that were held up by McClellan
or Stanton. Going to be eight thousand words, too much to use, and he's still
writing."
"Headquarters reports, or eyewitness?"
"He was right in the thick of it, and the first page of the first reportthat
was five days agois about McClellan's retreat, the burning of stores, panic
among the Pennsylvanian regiments"
He would go directly against the play of the story in the competition.
"Bring it to me, page by page," Gay said. "We're going to run it all, seriatim.
As soon as I get his most recent dispatch, I'll write the headlines for the
whole paper."
"We have a Washington dispatch, too," said the telegrapher. "From Hill,
passing along a War Department statement that we beat the enemy badly.
That doesn't seem to fit with what Page is sending us from the field."
The managing editor paused: Maybe Page had seen a losing skirmish and
extrapolated it into a false story of the battle; the Tribune had to be careful.
"Anything else from Fort Monroe? If Page could file, so could others."
"An Associated Press story dated last night, saying we lost twenty thou-
sand men."
"And the rebel losses?"
"Don't know yet."
Gay winced; almost as bad as Shiloh, and without Shiloh's tail-end re-
demption. "We'll lead with the AP figures and the War Department claims."
That would take care of the Fourth of July spirit, and keep Stanton from
getting after Greeley. "Then run all of Page."
The makeup man shook his head. "That would take the whole front page,
and a jump. And the kid hasn't stopped writing."
"Set it all," said Gay. "Give me half the first column for headlines." He
would play the story down the middle, between the government claims and
the truth, in direct defiance of the Herald and the Times. He had a responsi-
bility not to cause panic in the North, and would balance the stark, bad news
with brave statements of the damage inflicted on the enemy.
As they brought in Page's copy and the AP reports, Sidney Gay wrote the
headlines: "From General McClellan's Army. The Enemy Still Press On. Our
Gunboats Repulse Them. The Rebels Retreat in Disorder. Remarkable En-
durance of Our Troops. Our Right Wing Swung Round Thirty Miles. 185,000
Rebels Against 95,000 Union Troops. Great Slaughter on Both Sides. The
Work of Evacuation."
He paused at one page of copy by Page from the landing on the James
River, seventeen miles below Richmond, to which McClellan had retreated.
"Huddled among the wagons were 10,000 stragglers"that would tell any
reader of the extent of the Union disaster"for the credit of the nation be it
said that four fifths of them were wounded, sick, or utterly exhausted, and
could not have stirred but for the dread of the tobacco warehouses of the
South." Those were the hellhole hospitals and prisons. Page's copy went on in
the style Greeley was looking for, and in this case, that Gay agreed was
needed: "The confusion of this herd of men and mules, wagons and wounded,
men on horse, men on foot, men by the roadside, men perched on wagons,
men searching for water, men famishing for food, men lame and bleeding,
men with ghostly eyes looking out between bloody bandages that hid the face
turn to some vivid account of the most pitiful part of Napoleon's retreat
from Russia, and fill out the picturethe grim, gaunt, bloody picture of war
in its most terrible features."
Gay swallowed, and at the bottom of the four days' dispatches added the
reporter's initials: C. A. P.
CHAPTER 13
JOHN HAY'S DIARY
JULY 4, 1862
McClellan has failed. Lee has lifted the siege of Richmond, and our army has
scurried for shelter beneath the naval guns on the James River. The Tycoon
and all here are heartsick.
The largest army ever assembled on the North American continent, over
100,000 men, better equipped than any army in the history of the world,
trained and drilled and practiced to a fare-thee-well, has been turned away
from the gates of Richmond by a ragtag army of rebels who attacked and
outfought the Union forces over seven grueling days, took our new guns and
stole the shoes off our dead.
The Young Napoleon's apologists are talking about "a change of base" and
"a strategic withdrawal," claiming the greatest shift of base in the history of
warfare. Some of the papers are loyally swallowing that, but the fact is that
McClellan retreated and Lee advanced. With all Mac's brilliant maneuvering
and everybody agrees it was brilliant, saving the army and all thatRobert
Lee drove him away from his object: the enemy capital.
Now Pinkerton and Key and that bunch are putting out the word it was all
Lincoln's fault. How those lickspittles to a popinjay can claim a victory in
retreat, and in the next breath put the blame on the Tycoon for McClellan's
own cowardly failing to storm Richmond is hard to grasp.
General Randolph Marcy, McClellan's chief of staff and father-in-law (we
don't know which title makes him more important) came in this morning
from the front to beg for more reinforcements. He does not realize that only
yesterday I took a message from Lincoln over to the telegraph office to Gov-
ernor Morgan of New York asking for more troops in a hurry: "If I had
50,000 additional troops here now," the Prsdt pleaded, "I believe I could
substantially close the war in two weeks. But time is every-thing." The defeat
on the Peninsula, coming so soon after Stanton's confident ending of all
recruitment, embarrasses us terribly.
"Unless you give us more men, and soon," Marcy told the Prsdt, who has
not been sleeping the past few nights and looks terrible, "I would not be
astonished if the army were obliged to capitulate."
"General," Lincoln said, as coldly furious as I've ever seen him, " 'capitu-
late' is not a word to be used in connection with our army."
When McNapoleon's father-in-law apologized, the Prsdt told him, "I re-
peat what I have twice before said to your commander: 'save the army, at all
events.' Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir. But you have at least fifty thousand men you do not need in this
area, and with that number the general can retrieve our fortunes. Sent at
once, they would enable us to resume the offensive."
"You surely labor under some gross mistake of fact," the Tycoon said. "I
have not seventy-five thousand men east of the mountains. The idea of send-
ing you fifty thousand is simply absurd."
Marcy could not challenge that without being insubordinate. He lowered
his head and looked miserable.
Lincoln then relented and said, "If in the general's frequent mention of
responsibility, he has the impression that I blame him for not doing more
than he can, please be relieved of such impression." That was a mild reaction
to an offensive telegraph message from the front. "I only beg than in like
manner, he will not ask impossibilities of me."
"We recognize, Mr. President, that you have ordered some reinforcements
sent to us from Bumside and Hunter," Marcy responded in kind, "and Gen-
eral McClellan will do the best he can with the force he has."
"I do not see how I can send you another man within a month," Lincoln
told Marcy, the cold edge gone from his voice now that the dread word
"capitulation"which would mean the loss of the war, and charges of trea-
sonwas no longer in the air. "Under these circumstances the defensive, for
the present, must be your only care. Save the armyfirst where you are, if
you can; and secondly by removal, if you must. But I repeatsave the army,
at all events."
McClellan's man said he thought they could stay put with safety, pending
reinforcements for a new assault on Richmond. Marcy also offered the Presi-
dent the cold comfort that in the seven days of battles, Confederate casualties
had outnumbered our own significantlytwenty thousand to fifteen thousand
was his guess. That was because Lee was doing the attacking. (Ordinarily,
such a terrifying exchange was exactly what Lincoln wanted; engagements
that bled the South would bring the war to an end, considering our over
three-to-one advantage in population. McClellan did not want to exchange
heavy casualties, but was forced to; Lincoln was ready to trade the suffering
though he would never admit it publicly, and yet is unsatisfied with the result.
I see an irony there.)
To cheer up McClellan, whose latest dispatches have been almost incoher-
ent with grief, Lincoln handed Marcy a copy of a telegraph message just
received from one of our people in Fredericksburg, where the Richmond
Examiner is still distributed. "It censures the confederate generals severely,"
the President said, "for failing to capture General McClellan and his army.
And here, he'll like this: the rebel paper pronounces McClellan's whole move-
ment a 'masterpiece of strategy'."
As Marcy took his leave to return to the front, the Prsdt added a post-
script: "If, at any time, you feel able to take the offensive, you are not re-
strained from doing so."
In the midst of this misery, we had a caller on the other great topic on
everyone's lips these days, the Confiscation bill. Miss Anna Ella Carroll ar-
rived with a great sheaf of papers under her arm, to discover Lincoln half
under the desk, rubbing some blacking on his boots. He had gone out looking
for a newspaper early that morning, and the mud of Pennsylvania Avenue has
a special way of clinging to leather.
"Why, Mr. President," she said, ostensibly shocked, "do you black your
own boots?"
"Whose boots did you think I blacked?" Lincoln shot back.
Miss Carroll was in the process of writing a pamphlet entitled "A Reply to
Sumner"she likes titles like thatdemolishing his position on the Confisca-
tion bill, with no little encouragement from us. Nico and I knew it was this
lady's research and legal arguments that were the basis of the Attorney Gen-
eral's withdrawal from the world for the past few days, to sweat over a veto
messageLincoln's first, but the decision to veto is not final.
"Thank you for your note," were her first words to the Tycoon. "I inter-
preted it as an apology."
"I shouldn't wonder," he replied. (I have often wondered about that fre-
quent locution of his: what does "I shouldn't wonder" mean? He uses it
whenever he wants to make a noise that sounds like a response but is not, and
it is for the listener to read whatever he wants into it.) He motioned her to a
chair, which is more than he ever did for Jessie Fr6mont.
"I'm here to urge you to veto the Confiscation bill. It will be passed any
day now, I'm told on good authority"
"Wade?"
"Yes."
"Then he has the tickets. This setback of our army on the Peninsula will
help him."
"If you sign that abolition bill," she declared, giving "confiscation" its real
name, "it will be as if you added fifty thousand men or more to the rebel
army."
"Tell me why," the Prsdt asked. "Sumner was just in here telling me it
would reinvigorate the North, put the war on a high moral plane"
"Rubbish. It will unite the South as it has not been united before, and will
protract the struggle indefinitely. That means the European powers will rec-
ognize the Souththey must, they need the cottonin which event, the
ocean will swarm with rebel privateers. France will help Mexico regain
Texas"
"Seward is sending money, quietly, to Benito Juarez," Lincoln said
quickly, referring to the revolutionary who was giving fits to the Emperor of
Mexico. "We want Maximilian off balance."
"Mr. President, I wonder if you realize that Senator Sumner"she pro-
nounced his name to give the impression she thought he was an oleaginous
blowhard"is telling one and all that he has been assured by you that you
will act out the will of the abolitionists."
"He's saying that, is he?"
"You have to do something to antagonize the abolitionists. A veto here
would give heart to the moderates."
She is a purposeful woman, Miss Carroll, and she has the good of the Prsdt
and the Union at heart. Lincoln is unhappy with this Confiscation bill, and
with the way the Congress is trying to snatch back the war power to free the
slaves, but he is not in a strong position these days. He may have to throw
McClellan to the Jacobin wolves, or else sign their cherished Confiscation
bill.
"I understand your reasons for signing the D.C. emancipation," she con-
ceded. "You have been in favor of that since you came to Congress as a Henry
Clay Whig. As for signing the bill for abolition in the territories, you took
that side in your debates with Douglas."
The Prsdt nodded; he is always pleased when somebody remembers his
record on slavery.
"But now you have to tack the other way," she said. "Otherwise, you will
change the whole moral tone of the waraway from preservation of the
Union, and toward the subjugation of the Southern states. I cannot believe
you intend to destroy the social system of the South, to go back on your
pledged word and the platform of the Republican Party."
"Circumstances change," he said, but not decisivelyjust keeping the door
open.
"You would make Davis and his co-traitors look like patriots struggling for
constitutional liberty against a revengeful government. If you approved Con-
fiscation, you would make yourself look like George the Third."
"Hold on, now"
"Where in the world are you going to send four million Africans?" Now
she had him on the weak point. "You know that on no other condition than
colonization can they be made free. If you free them and leave them in the
South, you will confer no benefit on them, but incalculable injury."
I asked what she meant by that. "John, you're from Illinois. You know
there aren't a quarter million blacks in the entire North, a population of
nineteen million. Not one person in a hundred in the North is black, because
the North won't have themand if abolition came, the South would never be
able to afford to hire them."
She stood up, dropping a few of her papers, which I retrieved. "The blacks
are human beings, and they may be docile now, but they won't starve in
silencethey'll riot and rebel. And Abraham Lincoln and the Confiscation
Act will be blamed rightly." She let that sink in, and it did. "But by your
veto, the Republic may yet be saved."
"You make a case, Miss Carroll." His face took on that melancholy look. I
am concerned that the losses in the Peninsula, the dashing of his hopes to end
the war quickly, have put him in danger of getting an attack of the hypo.
"I'm to see the border state Congressmen next week, to try again on gradual,
compensated emancipation, which you and I favor. Perhaps we can get our
radical friends to change the worst parts of the bill, so I won't have to use the
veto."
"That is all I ask. Either a clear veto, which the Senate will surely sustain,
or some threat from you to get the bill moderated, which would be seen as a
defeat for the radicals. Or as John Hay calls them, the Jacobins."
I thought it would be a good time to put in an argument for Miss Carroll to
shoot down. "There's some logic to confiscation," I offered. "It was General
Ben Butler's idea, and it was ingenious. He said that he was already empow-
ered to seize the enemy's ammunition, uniforms, food, every bit of military
property. Then he said that the enemy considered its slaves to be property,
too, and he happily agreedso he could seize them too. And since he wasn't
in the slaveholding business, he could set them free."
"Slaves used by rebels to build fortifications or carry weapons are legiti-
mate contraband of war," Miss Carroll said, ready for that. "But this bill goes
further. This reaches behind the lines, into civilian areas, using powers to take
away property. No Congress or no executive has ever claimed that power on
this continent."
"I liked your war powers pamphlet," Lincoln put in. "A little expensive,"
he could not resist adding.
"But there are limits to the war powers," she said with some passion. "Just
as there are limits to war. It is one thing to destroy the enemy on the battle-
field, or even to strike behind the lines at his military supplies. It is something
else entirely to treat his civilian population as if it were part of the army.
That's what this unbridled confiscation does; that's what abolition does. If all
slaves are contraband of war, how about all other property? How about food
are you prepared to burn farms, on the theory that some of the food goes to
rebel soldiers? Are you ready to call for a slave uprising, with murder and
pillage? Are you prepared to shell hospitals, set fire to entire cities, deliber-
ately kill women, children"
Lincoln was shaking his head; such totality of war was uncivilized, un-
thinkable. He would never let it come to that.
She pressed her point. "That's what this bill is a long step towarda kind
of war the world has never seennot just armies against armies, but a nation
against a nation. Are you prepared to take this Union into such an orgy of
destruction?"
With a look of pain, Lincoln rose to his feet. He managed a wan smile:
"Say, Miss Carroll, do you work over Ben Wade and Zack Chandler like this?
I hope so."
"They are both patriots, and my close friends," she replied seriously, "but
they are hopelessly wrong. Their radical policy would destroy the Union.
Your current policy will save it."
This time, on the way out, she took my arm and we walked down the stairs
together. She was thoughtful, probably going over in her head all the things
she did not say. We who have the Prsdt's ear all day long forget that others
must make each moment count.
"I hope he doesn't think I'm in favor of slavery," she said. "I'm not."
I assured her he knew about her manumission of her own slaves, and the
financial sacrifices she made to pay for that purchase of freedom for others.
"I wasn't too pushy, was I?" Fascinating, the sudden change in her; in
Lincoln's office she was totally in control of her arguments; afterward, self-
doubt takes over and she responds to all compliments and reassurances with
"I hope so." Frankly, I like her better this way. I told her I could not abide
pushy women, and she immediately smiled and said, "You're having your
troubles with Kate."
"How do you know?"
"The governor told me."
Aha. It's no longer "Secretary Chase"; it's "the governor."
"Be careful, John. She may be using you."
"I wish she'd try," I said. "One day she can't get enough of me, the next
month she won't see me, she's too busy with her drunken Governor of Rhode
Island, or Roscoe Conkling in the House. Both in their mid-thirties, old
men."
"The governor tells mein absolute confidencethat she's genuinely at-
tracted to you, John. He says her affection for you is causing her great diffi-
culty."
"You believe that?"
"I believe what he tells me." She paused. "I don't know that I believe what
she tells him. Well, go after Kate, if it's important to you. But remember, her
loyalty runs to Chase, not to Lincoln; don't get caught in a conflict of loy-
alty." When I said that could never happen, she added, still with that beguil-
ingly doubtful expression, "I suppose that goes for me, too."
I returned to the office upstairs two steps at a time. Nico was fretting,
looking for me. It seems that Lincoln does not like this business of dealing
with McClellan through intermediaries, and cannot abide this warring-by-
telegraph, which makes a record but no progress.
He has decided to sail down to Harrison's Landing, the new base on the
James River, Stanton in tow, to survey the military situation for himself. It is
intolerable that McClellan's 100,000 could have been stopped by a force of
fifty it's size. If need be, he will confront the general whose political ambition,
or lack of soldierly heart, has lengthened the war. Either he will reinforce the
man and approve a new offensive to take Richmond from there, or he will tell
him to pack up his army and its vast herd of cattle and come back to Wash-
ington, where a more sensible campaign can be once again launched, this time
without gambling the loss of Washington. Such a campaign would be com-
manded by John Pope, he of the portable headquarters, not by George Mc-
Clellan, who in avoiding decisive defeat gives up the hope of great victory.
I was going over the details of the trip with Hill Lamon, the marshal-
bodyguard, when the Tycoon came out of the inner office. Thank God, with a
physical movement in store, his haggard aspect and gloomy demeanor had
been replaced by his reminds-me-of-a-story look.
"Seems to me McClellan was wandering around and got lost," he said.
"He's been hollering for help ever since he went southwants somebody to
come to his deliverance and get him out of the place he's got into.
"He reminds me of the Illinois man who visited the state penitentiary. He
wandered everywhere on the tour and got separated from his friends and
couldn't find his way out. He came to a place where he saw a convict behind
the bars of his cell door, and he said to the convict, 'Say! How do you get out
of this place?' "

CHAPTER 14
HELL OF A FIZZLE

Edwin Stanton felt secure: Harrison's Landing, a tiny river port on the James
less than twenty miles from Richmond, was now fortified by the presence of a
hundred thousand Federal troops, under the further protection of naval bat-
teries. The USS Ariel had conveyed the presidential party down the Potomac
first to Fort Monroe and a visit with General Dix, and overnight to the estate
that had been the property of President William Henry Harrison. Now this
site of great Virginia plantations had become the impregnable fortress of the
Army of the Potomac, with abundant bathing and recreational facilities; a
good place for weary soldiers to rest after a hellish week of fighting, and as
good a place as any, in Stanton's view, for Lincoln to decide to rid himself of
the scoundrel-general who stood in the way of an aggressive prosecution of
the war against the slavocracy.
The Secretary of War made it a point to see McClellan privately before the
general and the President met alone. Stanton did not want McClellan worry-
ing Lincoln with tales of the perfidy of his War Secretary. He assumed it
would be typical of the whining McClellan to complain that Stanton had kept
vital messages from the President or had otherwise undercut or demoralized
generals in the field.
"I meant to send a personal message to you by General Marcy," Stanton
told McClellan, "but I was in the country that morning." The War Secretary
put on his most mournful expression. "I wanted to be with Mrs. Stanton to
see one of our children dying."
The general, who had been cool, was instantly sympathetic. "I trust your
baby's illness may not prove fatal."
Stanton felt a rush of emotion that added sincerity to what he was about to
say. "In this brief moment, I can only say that there is no cause in my heart
for the cloud between us."
As he said the words, Stanton almost believed them himself; that had
happened to him before juries, when he was suddenly swept away in the
emotion of pressing his client's case. "That cloud of suspicion was raised by
wicked men for their own base purposes. No man had a truer friend, General,
than I have been to you."
McClellan was taken aback. "When you were appointed, I considered you
my intimate friend and confidential adviser."
"I was and am."
"But your concurrence in withholding a large portion of my force," said
the general, still puzzled, "which spelled the difference between victory and
defeat, led me to believe your mind was warped by a bitter personal prejudice
against me."
"Wholly untrue," Stanton assured him. "I have been ready to make any
sacrifice to aid you. I have been praying to Almighty God to deliver you and
your army from all peril." His own words brought tears to his eyes.
"Well, I'm relieved. Obviously I've been mistaken about your real feelings.
As you used to say, together we can save the country."
Stanton, choked up, nodded vigorously. The general would believe any-
thing; no wonder he had been so easily fooled by Lee, unless it was McClel-
lan's own traitorous inclinations that stopped him short of Richmond.
"Last summer," McClellan said in a confidential tone, "you and I talked
over the way the war should be fought, and the ends to be achieved. I have
put those views on paper, in a confidential letter to the President. I cannot
show it to anyone, but I am sure the President will discuss it with you. My
critics might say it goes somewhat beyond my purview as a general, but we
cannot disconnect military means from political goals."
"On to victory," Stanton said, grasping the general's strong arm and
squeezing it hard. For a moment, he felt a wave of genuine affection for the
beleaguered soldier. That wave receded when Stanton considered how the
deployment of this huge army in this backwater left Washington undefended
from assault by the bulk of the Confederate Army. McClellan would be
finished soon, if Stanton had his way and Lincoln could see the light; the right
general to win the war was John Pope.
Together, they joined the President for a review of ten thousand of McClel-
lan's men: hardy, healthy, well-equipped soldiers, who Stanton thought must
be amused at the sight of Lincoln's long legs dangling from a horse in con-
trast to their general's impeccable bearing. Stanton did not like military re-
views; he thought the men should be fighting rather than parading.
Lincoln, ever the politician in Stanton's eyes, could not resist dismounting,
climbing up on a rail fence, and addressing the troops.
"Be of good cheer," he called out in his high, piercing stump-voice, "all is
well. You have, like heroes, endured, and fought, and conquered. Yes, I say
conquered; for though apparently checked once, you conquered afterward
and secured the position of your choice. You shall be strengthened and re-
warded. God bless you all!"
Stanton supposed that hogwash went down well; Lincoln needed to say
something to compete for the love this army displayed toward its conserva-
tive commander. Then the Washington group got down to what Stanton
considered the business of the visit: preparing the way for a transfer of the
army from this spot back to the fortifications around Washington.
In a meeting with McClellan and his staffincluding the "Dukes and
Princes," several foreign-born dignitaries the Young Napoleon liked to have
near himLincoln, notebook in hand, closely questioned the military men on
the army's current position. "What amount of force have you now?"
"About eighty thousand," said the general.
"What is likely to be your condition as to health in this camp?"
"Better than any since we left for the Peninsula," McClellan reported
stoutly; Stanton knew he wanted to stay in this spot to fight again.
"Where is the enemy now?"
"About five miles from here. No force in our vicinitythey suffered terri-
ble losses in their last attack."
"If you desired, could you remove the army safely?" That was the crucial
question; if Lincoln ordered McClellan to remove his army from the Penin-
sula, that would be the end of the campaign, and the general's career would
be finished. Stanton knew that Pope, a favorite of Chase and Wade, was
prepared to take over McClellan's army and add it to his own force near
Washington.
"It would be a delicate and very difficult matter," McClellan told the
President, putting on him the danger of an attack during an evacuation.
"Is the army secure in its present position?"
"Perfectly so, in my judgment," McClellan said. "Gentlemen, do you
agree?"
Most of the other generals, even two of the anti-slavery men that Stanton
had put in McClellan's camp, agreed. One of the generals, Fitz-John Porter,
whom Stanton considered a McClellan sycophant, added, "Not only are we
secure, but we are ready to move forward on Richmond."
"With adequate reinforcements," the commanding general added.
Lincoln, making notes, made no decision, and it became apparent that the
President intended to take under advisement whether to order an end to the
campaign.
"Right here, in front of Richmond," McClellan argued, "this is where we
can win the war. My army is ready to fight. We have punished the enemy in
the Seven Days and shown that Lee and Jackson can be beaten. It would be a
terrible mistake to remove the army, a tremendous blow to morale."
"Move the army and ruin the country," added Porter. Stanton made a
mental note to cashier him the moment McClellan was out of the way.
McClellan asked to see the President in private; the generals left but Stan-
ton stayed.
"Mr. President, my private letter to you is in your hand, but let me tell you
and the Secretary what is uppermost in my mind." He looked at Stanton, who
made an effort to return his glance with some sympathy.
"We are not fighting a war looking to the subjugation of any state. This
should be a war against armed forces, not civilian populations."
Lincoln listened, noncommittal.
"Neither confiscation of property, nor political executions, nor forcible
abolition of slavery should be contemplated."
Stanton was secretly delighted at the general's presumption; this was cer-
tain to offend the President. Ben Butler's iron rule in New Orleans, John
Pope's somewhat excessive order aimed at rebel guerrillas, and David Hunt-
er's emancipation were what McClellan obviously had in mind; this was one
general criticizing what other military officers were doing, but that was Lin-
coln's prerogative, not his.
"All private property taken for military use should be paid or receipted
for," McClellan went on; "pillage and waste should be treated as high crimes;
military arrests should not be tolerated except in places where actual hostili-
ties exist."
Stanton suppressed a smile; McClellan was proposing a kid-gloves war,
implicitly criticizing the "abuses" that congressional Democrats so often de-
cried. He was writing the 1864 Democratic platform, and Lincoln would see
through that in a minute.
"I mean this respectfully, sir. I believe you understand the impact the
political climate has on the raising and holding of troops."
"By my count," said Lincoln, "nearly fifty thousand of your men have
simply disappeared."
"Morale affects defections." McClellan took a deep breath. "Sir, I am con-
vinced that a declaration of radical views, especially upon slavery, would
rapidly disintegrate our present armies."
Stanton glowered, but in fact could hardly contain his glee; he was per-
suaded that the general had, in that last statement, ended his military career.
"You need a General-in-Chief who possesses your confidence," McClellan
concluded. "I do not ask for that place for myself. I am willing to serve you in
such position as you may assign me, and I will do so as faithfully as ever
subordinate served superior."
The President said only "All right," and the meeting was over.
On the boat back to Washington, Stanton played on Lincoln's considerable
pride. How dare this young upstart, who could not mount an offensive
against an inferior force, tell the civilian leadership of the nation what the
policy should be on slavery!
The political threat was real. Stanton had recently been in touch with
Samuel Barlow, the Democratic leader in New York. No longer was Stanton
being thought of as a potential Democratic candidate in 1864; he had been
informed politely that George McClellan, whose views on "the Union as it
was" were closer to the thinking of most Democrats of all factions, was the
likely candidate.
Worse, with Lincoln's compromising approach, there was always the
chance that the President might bring the popular Nathaniel Banks in to head
the War Department, or worse yet, bring McClellan into the Cabinet in
Stanton's place, as a uniformed Secretary of War. Little Mac might not be
much of a fighter, but he was indisputably the nation's best army organizer.
And Stanton was accumulating enemies, particularly in the Blair-Seward set;
he had to beat them or be beaten.
The Secretary of War leaned on the railing of the gunboat and studied the
Potomac shore. Passing Kettle Bottom Shoals he could see the canalboats
loaded with stone, waiting to be sunk to prevent the Memmacksince scut-
tledfrom coming upriver. That was an unwelcome reminder of Stanton's
overreaction to the rebel threat; why didn't some idiot send the canalboats
back where they belonged?
"They call them 'Stanton's navy,' " said the President, standing alongside.
"Very funny. I wonder if you have grasped the degree of insubordination
we have just witnessed?"
"He did get a little into our business," Lincoln allowed.
"That letter he gave you, supposedly private. I know all about it; there are
copies everywhere. It's the future Democratic platform."
Lincoln looked perturbed at that. Stanton's accusation was untrueMc-
Clellan apparently intended to keep the letter privatebut Stanton exploited
the opening. "He doesn't want to stay down there to take Richmond; he'll
never attack Richmond unless we send him the whole population of the
North. He only wants to be down there with all the troops who love him to
expose Washington to Lee's attack." The Secretary of War decided to go all
the way. "It is in McClellan's interest for us to lose the war. He's either a
coward or a traitor, and I don't think he's a coward."
"That's a lot to say." Lincoln was playing what he liked to call "shut-pan,"
and Stanton hated that. "This letter is platform-ish. You think we ought to
bring the army back?"
"Under John Pope," Stanton promised, "that army will fight. And take
Richmond without jeopardizing Washington."
Lincoln said he wanted to hear what General Burnside had to say: they
would dine with him on the steamer back to Washington that afternoon. A
long silence, then, "Reminds me of a story."
Stanton closed his eyes in pain; another one of those interminable, unfunny
anecdotes that required the listener to laugh heartily at the conclusion and
tell the world of its pertinence and profundity.
Lincoln launched into a dreary tale of an Illinois blacksmith who heated a
piece of soft iron in a forge and tried to make it into a claw hammer. But the
iron wasn't small enough, so he heated it again and tried to make an ax, but
that didn't workStanton became convinced that the story would never end
so the blacksmith took a forgeful of coal, pumped the bellows and made a
tremendous blast, bringing the iron to white heat, and then lifted it high with
a tongs and threw the glowing iron into a tub of water, exclaiming, "If I can't
make anything else out of you, I'll make a hell of a fizzle, anyway!"
Since Lincoln's point was that McClellan had made a great fizzle of the
Peninsula campaign, Stanton drew his lips back and made chuckling noises.
He was ready and willing to play the courtier, to contort his face at anything
that cast derision on the soldier he had come to despise with heart and soul.
A terrible scraping noise roared through the gunboat, soon followed by
gongs and bells) followed by a red-faced captain explaining that they had
misjudged the depth of the shoals and were aground. Told that they would be
delayed two hours until the tide lifted the ship off the river bottom, Stanton
growled, "Damned navy."
Lincoln reacted quite differently; capriciously, he said that it was a hot day
and a perfect time for a swim. He borrowed the captain's bathing suit and led
a small detachment down the boat's side into the fresh water. Stanton re-
mained at the rail, sweltering but clothed in dignity, frowning at the sight of
the incredibly lanky Chief Executive splashing and cavorting at a time of
grievous difficulty.
Then it struck the War Secretary that Lincoln was acting like a man who
had put a decision behind him and didn't want to think about it anymore.
Stanton wished he could be sure that the President's decision was to dump
McClellan and bring the army back to Washington.
George McClellan, with the presidential party gone, sat down at his desk
late that night and took pen in hand to confide his thoughts about Lincoln's
visit to Nellie.
"His Excellency was here and found the army anything but demoralized or
dispiritedin excellent spirits." Lincoln and Stanton wanted to find an army
beaten and at bay, McClellan was certain, to remove at once back to Wash-
ington to begin all over again with a more savage and abolitionist com-
mander. But this was a newly confident and battle-tested army, which took
the worst the rebels could throw at them; an army that was victorious at
Malvern Hill, the final battle of the Seven Days, and would be ready to take
Richmond soon with a modest number of reinforcements.
"I do not know to what extent he has profited by his visit," the general
wrote the woman he loved, "not much, I fear, for he really seems quite
incapable of rising to the magnitude of this crisis. I enclose a copy of a letter I
handed to him. Preserve it carefully."
He was proud of that letter, so closely reasoned beforehand with Thomas
Key, but written mostly by himself. True, it was political, but the talk of the
officers and men of his army was political, and if they believed the Union
cause had been replaced by abolition, the effect on moralethe desertions en
massewould have a most military result. McClellan was glad he had added
a point urging the manumission of slaves in the border states, after proper
compensation. The slavery interests would not like that, but it made good
political and military sense for the government to buy slaves in loyal states to
employ for war work.
Strange, how Lincoln had not reacted at all to the letter, couched in the
most respectful terms. He had said only "All right" and put it in his pocket.
Perhaps he was ultrasensitive to his political prerogatives. That was the mark
of a small man and an insecure leader.
"I did not like the President's manner," he wrote. "It seemed that of a man
about to do something of which he was much ashamed." It reminded him of
that day when Lincoln all but accused him of treason. "I do not know what
pretty trick the administration will play next. A few days will show it, and I
do not much care what the result will be. I feel that I have always done
enough to prove in history that I am a general, and that the causes of my
want of success are so apparent that no one except the Chandler Committee
can blame me hereafter."
That was untrue, and Nellie would know it. "I have not done splendidly at
all," he admitted, looking at the words he had written and knowing them, as
Nellie would, to be the truth. "I have only tried to do my duty and God has
helped me, or rather He has helped my army and our country and we are
safe."
But why had God denied him victory? An answer came to him and he
hurried to share it with his wife. "I think I begin to see His wise purpose in all
this. If I had succeeded in taking Richmond now, the fanatics of the North
might have been too powerful, and reunion would be impossible."
Colonel Key pulled back the flap of the tentMcClellan, after his pledge
to Nellie, would not sleep in the large brick houseand entered, followed by
Lieutenant Custer. The young lieutenant clutched a sheaf of papers.
"General," the young man said tightly, "we have commenced receiving
letters from the North urging you to march on Washington and assume the
government."
"Put those away," Colonel Key told him, annoyed, "they're from a bunch
of troublemakers. General, you should know what I have heard from people
around Secretary Stanton."
Key's brother worked at the War Department. McClellan motioned for
Custer to put the letters on the table, where he would look them over at his
leisure for his amusement, and said to Key, "His attitude seemed to change
toward me. Perhaps the illness of his child"
"He has said that your private letter was an act of insubordination, a
political platform from which you intend to oppose the President."
The general controlled his anger for a moment; then, among his closest
aides, he let it out. "That man is the most unmitigated scoundrel I ever knew,
heard of or read of. I do not wish to be irreverent, gentlemen, but had our
Secretary of War lived at the time of the Savior, Judas Iscariot would have
remained a respected member of the fraternity of the apostles, and the rascal-
ity of Edwin M. Stanton would have caused Judas to have raised his arms in
holy horror and unaffected wonder!"
That explosion was not like him, but it made him feel better. With awe on
the face of young Custer at the display of irreverence and insubordination,
McClellan went on, "I hate to think that humanity could sink so low. He has
deceived me oncetwice; he never will again. Enough of the creatureit
makes me sick to think of him! Faugh!"
His aides bid him good night and left. The general of the largest army ever
assembled on the North American continent thought for a moment of Mar-
shal Jornini, the great military tactician whose works were studied by both
Lee and himself. Jornini, McClellan judged, had turned out to be mistaken in
his scorn of earthworksa not very good soldier, well dug in, backed by
some artillery, and armed with a gun with a rifled musket, could hold off
three times his numberbut Jornini was surely right about the nature of war.
Battles were to be fought by soldiers against soldiers, commanded by profes-
sionalsnot fought by a people against a people, with hatreds whipped up by
bloodthirsty politicians.
He had done the best he could with the army at his command. Though he
had no faith in this administration, he had served it honestly. Now he sus-
pected Lincoln would deprive him of the means of winning and then dismiss
him for failing to attack.
He was convinced that history would judge McClellan right and Lincoln
wrong, that here was where the great battle would have to be fought, not all
the way overland from Washington through ninety miles of hostile territory.
Perhapsthe thought crossed his mind for the first timehe should have
taken the President more into his confidence from the start, won his support
away from Stanton and Chase and the other radicals. If he had built political
earthworks in his rear, perhaps God would not have had to deny him the
capture of Richmond while the radicals held sway in Washington.
Now it was up to the President, to win the war or to extend it, until some
other general with Lincoln's trust put forward McClellan's plan. It was up to
Lincoln to resist the pressure for abolition that would make peaceful reunion
impossible; at least he had been warned of its effect on the army. McClellan
would have to think about writing his financier friend Aspinwall for a job in
industry, and passing the word through Key to Horatio Seymour and Fer-
nando Wood about his interest in Democratic affairs.
He picked up the pen. "In this weary world, I have seen but little happiness
save what I have enjoyed with you," he wrote Nell, finding his greatest com-
fort in his correspondence. "So the baby has more teeth! When will she begin
to say a word or two? I suppose when I come back home I will find her
handling a knife and fork . . ."

CHAPTER 15
FIRST DRAFT
Homer Bates gave up his desk to Major Eckert, who had given up his larger
desk in the telegraph office to the President, just returned from a visit to the
Richmond front. Bates was familiar with the regular procedure for a presi-
dential visit: when Mr. Lincoln chose to spend time near the flow of cables,
the desk under the Maltese Cross on the wall, with a chair at one of the
windows that looked out on Pennsylvania Avenue, was made available to Mr.
Lincoln.
But the presidential presence in the telegraph office was expected only
when a battle was imminent or under way. Bates, working on his ciphers on a
makeshift desk in his lap, knew of no major engagement going on at the
moment. In Kentucky, rebel cavalry raider John Hunt Morgan was causing
trouble, as he often did. A flurry of cables had gone back and forth when
Lincoln appointed Halleck General-in-Chief, putting Grant in command out
West and subordinating both Pope and McClellan in the East to "Old
Brains," but no urgent military activity had taken place since the end of the
Seven Days' battles. That was over a week ago.
Lincoln asked Eckert for paper. The major procured some foolscap and
handed it to him, along with a small barrel-pen made by Gillot, such as were
supplied to cipher operators. Lincoln had begun these visits to work on some
writing project just after the Seven Days, before he went down to see McClel-
lan at Harrison's Landing. The President had explained then that he was
interrupted too often at the White Housethat's what people had taken to
calling the Mansionand he thought the telegraph office would be a good
place to work undisturbed, without being out of touch.
Bates watched him look out the window for a while. Lincoln then put pen
to paper, not writing much at once. He would think a bit, put down a line or
two, then sit quietly for a few minutes. Apparently he was in no hurry to
finish this particular piece of writing, which Bates presumed was some mes-
sage to Congress.
The key began clattering. When the fresh dispatch had been received and
deciphered, the young operator took it over to the President: Nathan Bedford
Forrest and his rebel raiders had captured a Union garrison at Murfreesboro,
near Nashville. General Lee was reported by one of Pinkerton's men to be
moving some of his men away from Richmond and up the valley toward
Washington; that could be trouble.
Stoddard, the President's third secretary, who was a man Bates called a
friend, came from across the street to get Mr. Lincoln's signature on an act
carrying into effect a treaty made with Great Britain for the suppression of
the African slave trade. The President signed the measure and went back to
looking out the window; Bates assumed the act just signed into law could not
have been all that historic.
What struck Bates as an overly long message moved on the wire from
General Pope, announcing to his new troops, "I have come to you from the
West where we have always seen the backs of our enemies." That would not
sit so well, in the telegraph operator's judgment, with the Union's Eastern
soldiers. "I hear constantly of lines of retreat' and of 'bases of supplies',"
went Pope's odd greeting. "Let us discard such ideas. Success and glory are in
the advance, disaster and shame lurk in the rear."
Bates grinned; he suspected that Stanton himself might have written that
bombastic message, to take a poke at McClellan, and the unintended result
would be that Pope was going to be a laughingstock among the men. Bates
thought of showing the Stanton-Pope pronouncement to the President but
decided against it; Mr. Lincoln came to the telegraph office to work on his
writing, not to be interrupted with minor business.
"Big spiderweb," said the President idly.
The major had left for a moment, so Bates answered. "You noticed, sir.
That's an institution of the cipher room." The large web stretched from the
lintel of the portico to the side of the outer windowsill. "Please don't open
that window," he told the President, "you'll destroy the web. In a while, you
may get to see Major Eckert's lieutenants."
Lincoln put down his pen and looked closely. "Where are they?"
"The lieutenants will soon report and pay their respects. They always do."
In a few moments, a large spider appeared at the crossroads of the web and
tapped several times on the strands. That brought five or six other, smaller
spidersthe lieutenantsout from different directions.
"There seems to be a great confabulation taking place," reported Lincoln
delightedly. "Now they're all going back. How often do they do this?"
"Now and then," said Bates.
Lincoln went back to work for a while, writing a line or two. The major
returned with some work for Bates to get started on, which he promptly did.
It felt good working in the same room as the President. After a half hour or
so, Lincoln looked at the clock on the wall and rose. Eckert was back and
stood at attention, but Bates remained seated because his lap was full.
"Take charge of this," the President said to the major, handing him the
single sheet of paper. "Put it with the others, and don't let anyone see it." He
added he had more to do on it, but was not pressed for time.
"With pleasure, sir. I won't even read it myself."
"Well, I should be glad to know that no one will see it," Lincoln said
mildly, "although there is no objection to your looking at it, Major, or you,
Bates. Keep it locked up until I call for it tomorrow."
"I'll lock it here in the safe, Mr. Lincoln. Either Bates or I will have the
key. One or the other of us is always here, or sleeping down the hall."
"Good. I have to go see some border-state Congressmen, now. Judge Biair's
got them all lined up in the office, and I have to sell them my way of think-
ing."
"Compensated emancipation," Bates piped up. "Four hundred dollars a
head."
"That's the best way," the President nodded, with that sad smile that made
Bates feel he was family. "I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of a
decision at once to emancipate gradually."
"Where you going to put 'em all, sir?" Bates asked. "That's what my folks
always ask."
"Room in South America for colonization," the President replied, as if
practicing his lines for the border-state men, "can be obtained cheaply, and in
abundance. And when numbers shall be large enough to be company and
encouragement for one another, the freed people will not be so reluctant to
gO.))
He made it sound so simple; Bates assumed that if the President said so,
that was the way it would be.
Lincoln bent down and tapped lightly at the window in farewell to Eckert's
lieutenants.
"That's the best way," he repeated. "But not the only way."
CHAPTER I
SMALL CHANGE

"Do you have change for a dollar, Father? I want to pay the boy for the
Intelligencer. "
"Not you too, Kate," Chase muttered in irritation. "I've had enough of
that today."
His daughter looked at him in genuine surprise. "What do you mean?"
Chase instantly felt guilty at his reaction. Kate, despite the education he
had given her in the finances of government, could have no inkling of what
the failure of McClellan's Peninsula campaign had done to the value of gov-
ernment paper; suddenly everyone was demanding payment in specie. As
confidence in a Northern victory ebbed, the price of gold and silver had
spurted upward, and the value of the greenback against gold declined. The
silver in coins was now worth more than the face value of the coin, which was
why small change seemingly disappeared.
"Tell the boy to come back when you owe him a dollar," the Secretary of
the Treasury said, "and then pay him with a greenback. The whole country is
out of small change."
She sent the boy away and returned. "What are you going to do about it?"
"The first thing is to issue paper bills for ten cents, a quarter, and a half
dollar."
She looked at him quizzically. "Ten-cent bills?"
"We'll call them stamps, but people won't use them to stick on letters;
they'll use them for change. We'll make them directly convertible to green-
backs."
He watched his official hostessno longer his little girlthink that over,
and waited for the inevitable question.
"Why won't people use them for stamps, Father?"
"No glue on the back," he said triumphantly. That had been one of the
more practical ideas to come out of the Treasury staff.
His daughter looked dubious, and Chase could not blame her; the Treasury
Secretary himself did not like the idea of paper change, but it was either that
temporary expedient or coining zinc and other cheap metals, which would
make the nation seem permanently penniless.
"That's the easy part of my problem," he told her. "The hard part is
paying the new soldiers. I had the accounts more or less current after we went
to paper money. We were all set to win the war this summer; Stanton stopped
recruiting. Now it looks like a longer war, the President has called for three
hundred thousand men, and I can't find the money to pay them."
"Raise taxes?"
He gave her a stern look; she was not putting to good use the long hours he
had spent explaining finance to her. "The people are paying three percent of
theii income to taxes already. I went along with the tax on incomes last year
as a war measure, but it would be madness to be associated with raising it
further."
"Youll have to borrow it, then."
He swallowed. "Yes." He did not like to consider the possibility of failing
to sell the government's bonds. "Either borrow, or issue more greenbacks."
"But that would lead to inflation of the currency, panic, collapse" She
was smiling. That was what he had said a year before. Kate had an unfortu-
nate ability to remember everything a man said, and a tendency to turn it
back at him, which he suspected would not help her in life.
"I've been surprised by the success of the greenbacks," he admitted. "I
thought people would act sensibly1 expected them to use the greenbacks,
which draw no interest, to buy government bonds, which pay six percent.
Instead, they just hold on to the greenbacks." He shook his head in wonder-
ment at the ignorance of the people. "The government has a hundred million
dollars in greenbacks in circulation out there, and we don't have to pay any
interest. It's amazing. The private banks used to do that, issuing paper notes,
and they must have made a fortune."
"I hope you don't say that in Cabinet, Father. The Biairs would use it
against you."
He smiled his thanks at her political protectiveness, then turned serious
again. "It is amazing how little we know about the political arithmetic, or
what they call 'economics' now. This war is costing a million dollars a day;
we are going deeper and deeper into debt; by all rights, the credit should be
drying up. But somehow, because we're acting as one nationnot as a collec-
tion of states and local banksthere doesn't seem to be a bottom to the well.
Extraordinary what we can do, acting as a nation, in borrowing money. Pity
it took a war to teach us."
"Do you suppose Lincoln understands any of that?"
"Of course not. He keeps talking about 'the Union' as if it had some
mystical influence, but I don't think he has the foggiest notion about what
this war is demonstrating in terms of national power."
Vast changes, it seemed to him, were taking place without anybody think-
ing them through. Chase suspected that Stanton's demand for national con-
trol of the telegraph was overreaching, and he had even more doubt about the
constitutionality of the government's takeover of the railroads, which was a
seizure of private property from loyal citizens in "the public's" interest. His
own Western faction in Congress, led by Ben Wade, put over the Homestead
Act, granting free soil to settlers and guaranteeing the stretching westward of
the nation's labor force; the Easterners countered with passage of the land
grant to set up agricultural colleges, by which the national government
threatened to replace sectarian churches in the sponsorship of higher educa-
tion. Would all this centralization lead to monarchism? Chase hoped that
federalist principles would emerge, with states running the new institutions
being set up by the national government, but nobody could be sure. It was all
happening so fast.
"Are you saying, Father," Kate's voice drifted to him, "that we should.
create one central bank and control the money from here?"
"In a way, yes." He struggled with the power and the danger of his own
contribution to the great new changes. "Yes. I should have the power to
charter all banks. I should be able to tell them what their reserves sho;uld be,
how much should be lent to the federal treasury. I suppose we could, run the
entire country from right here in Washington."
"Will Lincoln go along? Will the Congress?"
"Who knows?" he shrugged, although he would not admit such ignorance
to anyone but his daughter. "There are no experts in this. Plain paper seems
to be as good as gold. I think we can get a national bank. We can get any-
thing, provided we get McClellan out and a general in who restores the
people's confidence."
"So that's why Bill Sprague had to go to Corinth to see Halleck," she said,
"to put more pressure on Lincoln to kick out McClellan."
Chase liked the way her mind leaped ahead, but it troubled him that his
daughter's quick intelligence was too willing to attribute some ignoble motive
to his actions.
"Exactly," he told his daughter. "The President has unfortunately commit-
ted the management of the war almost exclusively to his political opponents.
If this continues, the public confidence that supports the paper money will
disappearnobody will take greenbacks, nobody will lend us gold, and we
will not be able to pay the contractors or the troops. I've explained all that to
Sprague."
"Yes, the boy governor told me."
Such a display of personal disrespect toward Sprague, her lovesick beau,
and her admission that she had wheedled the most confidential information
out of him with such ease, troubled the Treasury Secretary.
"There is nobody in this world I trust more than you, Kate, but I wish you
would not wring every last secret out of Governor Sprague, who is torn by his
obligation to confidence and his love for you."
"He was drunk," she replied with the sort of insouciance that irritated him
more, "and he would have told anybody anything."
He ignored that. Sprague was the wealthiest man in New England, said to
be worth $25 million, and had followed his purchase of a regiment by buying
a Senate seat for next year. He would make a superb son-in-law and a useful
supporter in a race for the presidential nomination. Chase checked himself;
such thoughts, in combination, were unworthy of a dutiful father.
He noted the frown on his daughter's lovely face. Perhaps he should not
burden her with the problems of high finance; it was not one of the subjects
taught at Miss Haines's school in New York. "But don't bother your head
with the financial ramifications of military politics, my dear," he sighed.
Still frowning, she gave him a sharp look. "I'm bothering my head, as you
put it, wondering how we can make some money to meet the household bills
out of all this. Thurlow Weed would know how to turn a profit out of what
we know."
"Don't talk to that man," he ordered. "Weed is a scoundrel, a wirepuller,
no sense of the public morality at all. Does Seward's dirty work, and he'll be
conniving against us at the next convention. Stay away from him." Seward
and Blair, probably with Gideon Welles, were forming a conservative clique
in the Cabinet and might soon dominate the vacillating Lincoln. Chase pic-
tured Weed at the center of such an intrigue.
"John Hay says that Lincoln keeps a special cubbyhole in his desk just for
communications with Thurlow Weed," she replied, ignoring his advice in her
headstrong way.
"Hay is another one you're seeing too much of," Chase told her. Kate had
claimed originally she was cultivating a contact close to Lincoln, to learn
what could be useful, but Chase knew she was attracted to the young man.
Young Hay struck him as a high-living and a sharp-witted fellow who could
turn the tables on Kate's use of him. Chase did not want the President to
know of plans to garner support for Chase's candidacy, or of Chase's widely
expressed low opinion of the way Lincoln failed to use his Cabinet: In this
Administration, a Cabinet session had degenerated to nothing more than a
meeting of department heads. The Treasury Secretary deplored both the lack
of central direction and the sense of moral fervor. In addition, as a father,
Chase had the obligation to warn his daughter of the occasion of sin, which
the mustachioed bachelor so obviously presented.
"I will see whom I please when I please," she flashed. "Who are you to tell
me whom to go out with?"
"I am your father," he replied, with what he thought was eloquent simplic-
ity.
"When it's convenient."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"I suppose you've forgotten that you sent me away for eleven years," she
blazed with what he feared was a reversion to the tantrums of her childhood.
She had been four years old when her mother died, and he had remarried
quicklytoo quickly for the child, who had refused to speak to her step-
mother. That was when he sent her to Miss Haines's school in New York.
"From five to sixteen, I did very well alone," she said, defiance growing.
"Mind your tongue, young lady."
"You never visited me," she went on, stinging him, "or wanted me home at
Easter or Christmas. Finally, when you needed a respectable hostess again,
after you buried your third wife, you saw that you had a beautiful, well-bred
daughter. Suddenly I fit in. And nowyou dare to tell me whom I cannot
see?"
"I did not leave you destitute for eleven years, as you seem to think." He
was furious, as only Kate could make him, and felt his self-control slip from
him. "What ingratitude! You could not bear to be at home with your new
mother, who was a fine and loving woman, and I had to go without proper
clothes to make it possible for you to learn your fine ways in New York."
"How you must have suffered, Father."
"Do you remember a bill for three hundred and five dollars for new clothes
that you sent me one day?" He had a picture of that invoice in his mind's eye.
"As governor of Ohio, I was making eighteen hundred dollars a yearthat
little extravagance of yours was nearly three months' pay. And I paid the bill
without a word."
"There is more to raising a daughter than paying bills."
"There is more to being a daughter than running around with corrupt
lobby agents and handsome young men who are your father's political ene-
mies," he thundered, hating himself for losing his temper, which he rarely
did. Only she could bring out the rage in him. All her life, the girl had been
afflicted with an unreasoning jealousyrooted in jealousy for her father, he
understoodbut she had an insidious way of making him, the most upright
of husbands three times over, seem almost unfaithful.              '
Chase was certain Kate's jealousy was none of his doing; his younger
daughter, Nettie, was sweetly dutiful, proving that the fault lay in some
strange dark urges in Kate wholly unrelated to any heritage of his. Now that
he had given her all she wantedan education that enabled her to flirt with
the British ambassador, an official position in Washington society second only
to the wife of the PresidentKate was as headstrong as when she spat at her
stepmother, rest that woman's saintly soul.
Now that it was her turn to repay some of her debt to him for her high
station in life, Chase was determined to call her to account. "I am going to
the office," he announced. "When I return, we will discuss your obvious need
to leave this city for a time." That assertion of parental authority seemed to
bring her up short; he could still control her physical whereabouts. "Perhaps
this is the time for a trip to Buttermilk Fallsyou can use the simple farm
life; it's good for a short temper."
"I am planning to dine tonight with Roscoe Conkling," she said icily, "the
Congressman who introduced the confiscation bill in the House. Tomorrow I
shall go riding with your good friend Major Garfield of Ohio. Is their com-
pany politically suitable for me?"
"Conkling is an adventurer and Major Garfield is married," he replied,
ignoring her sarcasm. "Neither has much of a future. Start looking to the
future." He took a deep breath and made a show of searching for his hat. "I
refuse to continue this discussion. I confess that you have made me pro-
foundly angry."
"Go to the office, then, where you can get your mail."
That was a low blow; he felt a new surge of anger mingled with guilt.
Against his better judgment, he was impelled to ask again: "And what does
that mean?"
"The postman who brings the mail, thanks to Postmaster General Blair,
tells me you have directed him to deliver the mail that comes here from your
lady friends to the Treasury Department."
He did not let himself express his outrage.
"Dear Father, I don't mind your correspondence with Adele Douglas, a
cultivated lady and respectable widow," she said, as if the subject was any of
her business, "even though she is Rose Greenhow's sister-in-law, and sus-
pected of trying to help that spy avoid the hanging she deserves. And Carlotta
Eastman worships you, an attitude you especially admire in your women
friendsyou left one of her letters lying on the table in the den, probably for
my edification."
She was getting the better of this discussion. Chase wished he had not been
irritable or so easily provoked, but he could not back down now. "Your
blessing is appreciated. I take it," he said, "that there is one correspondent to
whom you do object. I wish you would get to the point."
"Anna Carroll is the one you're seeing too much of," she said, in what he
Si'aw was a deliberate parallel to his stricture against John Hay.
He rose to go. "And what makes Miss Carroll especially offensive to you,
my dear daughter?"
"Certainly not her figger, which would delight a voluptuary," Kate said,
putting a suggestive hand to her own somewhat meager bosom. "No, my
objection is purely political. She's a Know-Nothing at heart, and on record as
one of their leaders. She's pro-slavery, anti-confiscation, against everything
you stand for, and probably in the pay of the Biairs. Your association with her
is a political embarrassment."
"Miss Carroll has made no secret of her views," he answered slowly, "and
her recent pamphlet, which I commend to you, unfortunately makes a fool
out of Sumner."
He put in that dig at Charles Sumner because the Massachusetts senator
had made frequent trips to New York while Kate was at Miss Haines's,
befriending the girl, who had undoubtedly professed her loneliness; Sumner
still retained what he claimed to be an avuncular affection, which Kate recip-
rocated. The foppish senator from Boston was a fellow radical in the Republi-
can ranks, but his manner put Chase off. Too often he had seemed to be
willing to make Chase feel inadequate as a father.
Chase had a subtler reason for reminding his ungrateful daughter about her
friendship with the senator who flattered her at all the best parties. If the
Senate radicals succeeded in getting Lincoln around to abolition, Sumner and
Wade would remove Chase's key moral issue in wresting the nomination from
the inadequate President. However, if Anna Carroll, in her obscure alliance
with the Biairs and Seward, succeeded in blocking an opportunistic shift
toward abolition by Lincoln, Chase would be well positioned to make his
move on an anti-slavery platform in 1864.
That was a political thought that Chase considered unworthy of greatness;
he felt a twinge of guilt in thinking it, and assured himself that its intricacy
escaped his daughter. He assuaged the twinge with the conviction that in the
long run a Chase presidency would be best for both the nation and the slaves.
"Miss Carroll is a spinster in her late forties," his daughter went on, now
on weaker ground, "and she has been rejected by two presidentsFillmore
and Buchanan. She's damaged goods and would make you a laughingstock."
"I am fifty-six," he replied. He had always been pleased to be in Anna
Carroll's company, stimulated by her strong mind andhe grudgingly admit-
ted itattracted by her delectable figure, but had not until this moment given
any serious thought to romance. Certainly she would bring him political
support where he was weakest, among the party's conservatives. He admired
her self-reliance. Stanton had told him the modest little lady was the origina-
tor of the Tennessee River plan, which if trueyou could never tell with
Stantonled to the Donelson victory and the successful flotation of the bond
issue in April. If Kate suspected she was more than a political ally, let his
jealous daughter think it. The shift in Kate's accusation from emotionally
abused daughter to unjustly competitive woman lessened his sense of guilt.
He could now feel better about her odious outburst; it was none of his doing.
He looked forward to Sunday and the cleansing of his soul.
With even more than his usual dignity, Chase put on his hat and walked
out into the July humidity. He did not deign to bid his daughter farewell. He
could hear Kate's parting shot: "And worst of all, she's smarter than you!3;,
That stung him.