map and asked his Secretary of War for the latest on the whereabouts of
McClellan and Lee.
"Our army has finally put all its units across the Potomac into Virginia,"
Stanton reported. "It's been seven long weeks since Antietam."
Lincoln nodded and asked for specifics. McClellan's headquarters was in
now Rectortown, near Warrenton; the general was complaining of lack of
shoes for his men, and wanted more carbines and muskets, but he was un-
doubtedly on the move to engage the enemy. Lee's army was again separated
by the Blue Ridge Mountains, with Jackson's corps on the western side in the
Shenandoah Valley and Longstreet's troops down at Culpepper Court House.
Apparently McClellan planned to strike down the east side of the mountain
range at Longstreet, driving him back on Gordonsville before Jackson could
unite with him. From there, Mac could take the Fredericksburg route to
Richmond or try to talk Lincoln into letting him try the Peninsula route
again.
The President noticed something as Stanton was talking; strange, how
maps could speak to you about armies. If Longstreet was in Culpepper, that
meant he was in McClellan's front; no longer could Lincoln hope that the
Federal forces could cut off Lee's army from the rear. A case could be made,
then, and would readily be understood by the public, that Lee's army had
"escaped." Although he could no longer relieve McClellan on the grounds
that he was not actively pursuing Leeindeed, McClellan seemed in the
process of making a major attackhe could relieve the general on the
grounds that he had allowed Lee to slip his army between McClellan and
Richmond, to escape. The President could say that had always been his crite-
rion for replacing his field commander.
Because replace him he must. The victory of the Democrats in the elec-
tions, combined with what Schurz rightly recognized was the West Point
crowd's unhealthy dominance of the army, had flung down a gauntlet. Lin-
coln knew he faced a stark choice: either back away from emancipation, ease
up on the Democratic dissidents, woo the Republican conservatives, and ac-
cept the policy laid down in McClellan's Harrison's Landing planor do just
the opposite; ignore the election results, crack down on the agitators, lay a
strong hand on the colored element by using them as soldiers, fire McClellan
and root out the West Point mind-set in the army.
The President crossed to the desk, took out a quill and ink, rummaged in
the drawer for paper, and composed a message.
"Take this to Halleck," he told Stanton, knowing the Secretary would
approve without hesitation. "I want this under his signature, not mine or
yours." That was what Halleck was for: professional military coloration.
, Stanton read it aloud: "By direction of the President, it is ordered that
Major General McClellan be relieved from command of the Army of the
Potomac; and that Major General Burnside take command of that Army."
Stanton nodded vigorously. "Leave it undated," he said. "We want to give
Halleck some discretion in sending it. It should be taken to Burnside first by a
high-ranking officer, then to McClellan in person only after Burnside says he
is willing to do his duty. I would not trust this to the telegraph; it may be that
McClellan will listen to the traitors around him and try to march his army to
take control of Washington."
Lincoln agreed, glad that Stanton had not tried to make an argument for
Chase's choice, General Hooker; Burnside seemed more solid than the flam-
boyant "Fighting Joe." Also, McClellan was a longtime friend of Burnside,
and that choice of a successor would be less likely to ignite an army coup.
Stanton gave Lincoln another suggestion: "Perhaps you should relieve Por-
ter in the same order and give his command to Hooker. If Burnside gets an
attack of modesty, Hooker and not Porter would be next in line to take
command, and we need somebody like Hooker to stop what the West Pointers
call 'a change of front to Washington.' And then I want to court-martial
Porter for not supporting Pope back at Bull Runthat will break the back of
the whole cabal."
Lincoln saw the wisdom in that and wrote it out: "That Major General
Fitz-John Porter be relieved from the command of the corps he now com-
mands in said Army; and that Major General Hooker take command of said
corps."
That was the sort of tough-minded response to the election needed to whip
the North into line. Lincoln knew it was not his usual way, of pushing others
out ahead of him and appearing to be led in their direction, but sometimes a
sharp blow needed a more forceful return blow.
Stanton said he would dispatch a general in his office to carry the secret
order to Burnside, and then to McClellan, putting a new man in command of
the 142,000 well-organized troops of the Army of the Potomac. "No one else
is to know," Stanton sternly adjured him, "no other member of the Cabinet,
Blair especially. This must not get out to McClellan through any source but
the general I send to him."
Lincoln pledged absolute secrecy; it would be hard playing shut-pan with
Old Man Blair, who was coming to see him that night at the Soldiers' Home,
but it was clearly necessary.
"We'll have to inform Chase," Stanton said, adding with what struck Lin-
coln as an unfortunate note of vindictiveness: "Chase has an officer who will
make sure we get the right verdict in the court-martial of Porter."
Lincoln was fairly sure that the only way to overcome electoral defeat
and a loss of thirty-two seats in the 179-man House was surely a defeatwas
a show of renewed authority, followed by military victory. The place would
be the gateway to Richmond, perhaps in the vicinity of Fredericksburg, and
the man of the hour would be Ambrose Burnside.

CHAPTER 18
1
PLAYING SHUT-PAN
Francis Preston Blair drove his carriage the short distance from his Silver
Spring home to the Soldiers' Home, where the President was staying. Lin-
coln, sitting on the porch in the crisp early winter evening, seemed curiously
relaxed for a man whose party has just been trounced in an election. He
congratulated Blair on his son's victory amidst the general Republican deba-
cle in the House, and allowed as how the election result was largely caused by
the absence of good Republicans who were away from home fighting the war,
and the baneful effect of the newspapers.
The Old Man did not argue. Above all, he was determined not to become
an I-told-you-so on the effect of emancipation in New York, where Greeley
now looked the fool and Weed and Seward the wizards. Presidents, he knew,
did not welcome advisers to tell them why they had been wrong. At times like
these, presidents needed sympathetic listeners to the lame excuses, and men
who could offer sensible advice as to what to do next to ameliorate the losses.
"I would like to make the case for retaining McClellan," he said at the
appropriate moment. "Monty tells me you're on the verge."
"I have tried long enough," Lincoln replied, "to bore with an auger too
dull to take hold."
"A certain torpidity of McClellan's must be infuriating at times," Blair
admitted, rolling with the President's evident distaste toward the com-
mander, "but consider the difficulty, as I am sure you must have, of finding
any other general capable of wielding so great a force and so complicated a
machine."
"He has got the slows, Mr. Blair."
"You're right. That is why it would be important to send some common
friend of yours and his to reach an explicit understanding with him. Tell him
what the President expected him to do and when, and tell him that absolute
and prompt obedience was the tenure by which alone he held his command."
Lincoln looked at the night sky. It seemed to Blair that the President felt
his talks with McClellan at Antietam obviated the need for an intermediary.
Those talks had produced merely a six-week delay, at a time Lincoln needed a
pre-election military victory.
"I'm not qualified to make the military argument," said Blair, he hoped
disarmingly. "Maybe it took too long, but he's now across the Potomac,
aggressively seeking out the enemy. He surely has a plan to divide the forces
of Lee and Jackson and defeat them in detail, but I understand he has been
unwilling to share that plan with you. That should be rectified right away."
"You're giving the military argument," Lincoln reminded him.
"Let's talk politics, then. What would be the political result of your super-
seding McClellan? You would be seen as yielding once more to the ultras in
our party, and acting in defiance of the majority that just spoke in the elec-
tion. That would weaken you at a time you cannot afford to be weakened."
"No doubt the bottom is out of the tub," the President said.
"If, on the contrary," the Old Man continued, "McClellan could be pushed
hard now, on the line he has taken, and compelled to make a vigorous winter
campaign, what political effect would that have?"
, The President just listened. Blair took that uncharacteristic response to
mean that Stanton and Chase had persuaded him to get even with the voters
by ridding himself of McClellan. Why? It was illogical, on the basis of the
facts in hand; the Old Man sensed that there must be another element in all
this of which the Biairs were in the dark. Ever since midsumme.", when
Lincoln returned from his meeting with the general at Harrison's Landing,
the Blair espousal of McClellan's cause had been met with a certain numb-
ness. Had the general said anything insubordinate or overtly political?
"Consider for a moment what your strong support of McClellan would
mean," he went on, squinting at the expressionless face of the President. "The
Democrats in the Congress, who are in heart on the side of oligarchy and the
South, would be compelled to make war on McClellan. In turn, McClellan
would be compelled to take sides with you, bringing to your support in the
Congress the real War Democrats."
"Interesting theory, Mr. Blair."
The former adviser to Jackson warmed to his theme. "After that, those
trying to resuscitate the Democratic Party to carry the presidency in 1864
would necessarily take an anti-McClellan man for their candidate. That
would split the Democrats and enable you to win again."
"And if, as a general, McClellan fails?"
"He fails as a Democrat and the Democrats fail with him. At least your
cause would best be served by retaining him until he failedand I do not
believe he would, given a new impetus."
The President slowly shook his head. Blair, losing him, tried one last time:
"If you replace him now, on the very eve of battle, and his replacement fails,
then the Democrats will unite behind a formidable ticket in sixty-four: Mc-
Clellan and Seymour. That could beat you, and everything we all stand for."
Lincoln seemed on the brink of confiding something, then held back. He
rose, stretched his arms, and closed the discussion with, "I'm sorry to play
shut-pan with you."
Let Lincoln keep his own counsel; it would not be the first time that
advisers who had been all too accurate in their dire predictions were snubbed
by a President stung by the consequences of not listening to good advice. On
his way back to Silver Spring, the elder Blair focused on his goal: the best
route for his youngest son to the vice-presidential nomination in two or six
yearsas either Republican or Democrat. A partnership with Lincoln would
be best. If that did not work out, there was always the possibility of an
alliance with Horatio Seymour.

CHAPTER 19
BLOODLESS WATERLOO
"Pinkerton reports a special train from Washington arrived at Rectortown a
couple of hours ago," Colonel Thomas Key told McClellan abruptly, "with
Stanton's aide, General Buckingham."
"Secure the flap," McClellan said, motioning toward the tent entrance,
"the snow is coming in."               ,
Key moved to the entrance, but backed away as Captain Custer struggled
in out of the storm.
"Buckingham is not coming here," Custer added to Key's report. "He's
ridden to Bumside's headquarters at Salem, about five miles from here."
"That's worrisome," Key told McClellan. "If Stanton is dealing directly
with your corps commanders, it could mean a change of command is in the
works."
McClellan nodded understanding. "Judge, I have been told about your
young nephew's gallant death at Perryville. I've written to your brother
John"he interjected sadly"the former Major Key. He must be doubly
crushed."
Key took off his greatcoat before answering and moved near the stove for
warmth. McClellan noted his pallor, and the film of sweat on his face; he was
ill, perhaps the typhus, picked upjust after the fighting at Antietam. "Sixteen,
the boy was," Key replied. "Picked up a regimental flag and led a charge. I
suppose that balances the family disgrace."
"Mightn't that change the President's mind?"
Key said with sadness that his brother's appeal, notwithstanding the death
of the boy, had been turned down. Evidently, to President Lincoln, a lesson
was a lesson: there could be no mercy in the setting of an example to the
military.
"I can imagine what they're conspiring in Burnside's tent," said Custer,
getting to the central issue. "But the army won't stand for it."
"Don't talk that way, Captain," Key snapped. "The Secretary of War has
the right to send an aide to see any commander in the army. It's no conspir-
acy."
"Stanton is doing his best to sacrifice this army again," Custer replied
hotly. "For God's sake, Colonel, just one week ago, Lincoln telegraphed how
pleased he was with the movement of this army. Why is Stanton sending
messengers to talk to Burnside behind the general's back?"
"It could be that we haven't taken Washington into our confidence suffi-
ciently, General," Key said to McClellan.
"That isn't the problem," McClellan said. He felt at the peak of his powers
more sure of himself, satisfied with his line of supply from Harpers Ferry,
no complaints about needed reinforcementsand confident, after Antietam,
that he could defeat Lee again. He had won two in a row, counting the last
battle on the Peninsula. He knew how to take advantage of Lee's rashness
and over-reliance on Jackson.
"Halleck certainly knows how I intend to interpose my army between
Longstreet and Jackson," he explained. "Mr. Lincoln may not agree with my
strategy, but he surely knows what it is."
"Lincoln needed a military victory so he could win a political victory," said
Custer flatly and, McClellan thought, accurately. "Simple as that."
"Just as we think the President wanted us to speed up the battle to take
place before the elections," Key said carefully, "the radicals think we have
been waiting until after Election Day to launch our offensive."
The general found some truth in that suspicion, too; it was easy to sit in
Washington and order a tired and bloodied army of 140,000 men, short of
shoes, to march immediately. Experienced generals knew that it took at least
sixty days to reprovision and reorganize between major engagements.
"You don't understand," said Custer urgently. "They're planning to court-
martial us all. The black Republicans cannot admit that their darling Pope
lost at Second Bull Run, and that the man they hate won at Antietati. They
have to prove that Pope's loss was our fault, and blacken our names forever.
They'll court-martial McClellan, Porter, you, meeverybody who isn't a
damned abolitionist."
Key's shudder told McClellan there was something in what Armstrong
Custer was saying: rumors were rife of a court-martial board aimed at Mc-
Clellan, Fitz-John Porter, and other unnamed "West Pointers" unsympa-
thetic to abolition. Lincoln's personal cashiering of Key's brother John was a
deliberate signal; now that the elections were over, and the radical defeat
blamed on McClellan's "inactivity," Wade and the rest would be going after
the scalps of all those at the top of the Army of the Potomac.
But Bumside was exempt, as was Hooker, both outspoken abolitionists.
The charge of treason would probably be leveled at McClellan, surely at
Porter, and perhaps others who had failed to get Pope out of his scrape. Small
wonder, the general thought, that the reaction of a portion of the officer corps
to the beheading of McClellan's army would be to demand that McClellan
march on Washington. If the officers were to be denounced as traitors any-
way, why notas Patrick Henry once put itmake the most of it?
"Lincoln and Stanton and Halleck have fought you every step of the way,"
Custer was pressing on. "At the Peninsula, when reinforcements would have
enabled you to take Richmond from the rear, they brought McDowell's forty
thousand men back to sit in Washington to guard the Mansion."
The general nodded. "In the end, whoever is in command will have to
follow my plan," he predicted calmly. "From Games' Mill, Cold Harbor, the
Federal forces will have to move to the James River to make Richmond
untenable."
"Then they abandoned the only way to take Richmond," Custer said, "and
put their favorite abolitionist, Pope, in charge of a doomed campaign. And in
that disaster, not only do they blame you for not coming to his rescue but, by
God, Lincoln was willing to surrender Washington rather than give the com-
mand back to you!"
"Stanton, Chase, and Halleck," McClellan corrected him. "Not Lincoln.
Be fair."
"Halleck was wrong every step of the way toward Antietam," Custer went
on. "I have all the telegrams warning you against following Lee north into
Maryland. If you had listened to that nonsense, Lee would be in New York
today. You were the only one who could organize this army, and the only one
who saw where it had to move to stop Lee from defeating the North. Lincoln
and his crowd were all wrong, first to last. Now they want to disgrace and
maybe hang you, take the army into battle with a damned incompetent who
couldn't get his men across a bridge at Antietam all day longand all be-
cause the damned politicians want to be sure you don't emerge the hero of the
war!"
"Take care not to talk treason," warned Key, mindful of his brother's fate.
"You know as well as I do what Stanton said to the radical senators,"
Custer shot back. "He said, It is not on our books that McClellan shall take
Richmond.' I say that is the real treason. General, the radicals hate you and
they fear you, and they are willing to sacrifice this army rather than see it
victorious under you."
McClellan looked to his older aide, a man of the law and a good Democrat,
albeit an abolitionist, to counter Ouster's passion.
"Armstrong, we do not know what message it is that General Buckingham
bears, if any," said Colonel Key. "We also know that General Bumside, who
may be irritated at the moment because of our criticism of his inaction at
Antietam, knows his limitations."
"That's fair to say," judged McClellan. "He turned down the command
before, when they gave it to Pope. Burn knows better than anybody that he
cannot command the entire army in the field."
"He'll follow political orders," disagreed Custer, "and take the Army of
the Potomac to bloody disaster."
"Let's hope Bumside asks Buckingham for a delay," said Key, speaking his
hopes. "We only need a few days, then we'll be out of telegraphic contact with
Washington and into battle."
"We'll see," McClellan said. "I don't have to make any decision yet."
"General," Custer pleaded, "this army loves you. You have a responsibility
to save tens of thousands of these brave men from certain death. Do not
submit to an order that history will condemn as the most brazen injustice
ever motivated by politics. Lead us, Generalthe Army of the Potomac will
follow you."
McClellan studied the pen he had been using to write to his wife. The post-
election dismissal of a general on the eve of battleespecially a general loved
by the troops, to be replaced by one distrusted by the troopswould send a
wave of anger through every corps and regiment. The army knew it was
ready to fight, and about to fight, and the injustice, not to say the danger, of
firing a commander on the pretext of not being ready or about to fight would
profoundly affect the main body of troops. All it would take would be one
moment of anger, and in twenty-four hours the coup d'6tat would be accom-
plished.
"History does not remember Cromwell kindly," Key said.
"It remembers Caesar kindly enough," countered Custer.
"This is the United States of America, a republic," Key said. "For nearly a
century we have abided by a constitution, as no other nation in history ever
has. General, do you want to be the man remembered as the one who shat-
tered that tradition of political stability?" When McClellan remained impas-
sive, Key put in a practical point: "Besides, Lincoln will never get Burn to
agree to replace you."
The general, ever the tactician, smiled ruefully: "Unless he threatens to
appoint Hooker instead. Burn couldn't stand that."
"I am unfit for the command," Bumside told Stanton's messenger unequiv-
ocally. "Do you have any idea what it is like to try to figure out what Bobby
Lee and Thomas Jackson are about to do? And then to be responsible for the
lives of thousands of men who trust your judgment, when you do not trust it
yourself?"
In Ambrose Bumside's tent, snow swirling outside, Brigadier General
Catharinus Putnam Buckingham began what he knew to be the only impor-
tant military mission of his life: to persuade the man Lincoln had chosen to be
commander of the Army of the Potomac to accept the assignment, clearing
the way for the relief of George McClellan.
"I taught a little topography at West Point thirty years ago," Buckingham
said. "Ever since, I've been a professor of mathematics at Kenyon College in
Ohio. Couple of years ago, I built a grain elevator; that's my only accomplish-
ment. I wear this star because Stanton thinks his adjutant should have one.
I'm not a military man, sir. I can't answer your question."
Burnside sighed. "What does Stanton expect me to do that McClellan
cannot do?"
"The Secretary of War has no confidence in McClellan's military ability."
"He's wrong. If he thinks I am a better general than McClellan, he's out of
his mind. Ask the officers, ask the men. Ask me."
"Moreover," Buckingham carried on, "he has grave doubts about McClel-
lan's patriotism and loyalty."
"Just as George doubts Stanton's, but that's a personal dispute between
two men. Surely President Lincoln does not subscribe to the Secretary's harsh
indictment of a loyal soldier's patriotism."
"The President doesn't take me into his confidence, General, but I know
this: Mr. Lincoln has said that if McCleHan permitted Lee to slip away, he
would fire him."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"I was hoping you'd know."
"But that's nonsense."
Buckingham biinked. It seemed to make sense to most of those who heard
it.
"Don't tell the President I said this," Burnside reasoned, "but that cannot
be the reason he wants to remove McClellan. General Lee is not a fool. He is
not going to let any Union army get behind him to attack Richmond. There
has never been any chance of thatnot right after Antietam, not now. Every
time McClellan moves South to threaten Lee's communications, Lee retreats
South. Pete Longstreet just isn't the sort to let us run around behind him. To
think that is justsilly. Is that what Stanton expects the commander to do?"
"No," Buckingham said hastily. "Not nowthat chance to stop Lee's
escape has passed. Lincoln and Halleck have a plan to drive Lee down to the
Rappahannock, cross on pontoon bridges, and strike him near Fredericks-
burg."
"McClellan has a better plan," said Burnside. "To catch Lee much sooner,
near Gordonsville, with Jackson the other side of the Blue Ridge."
"Lincoln's plan would offer more protection to Washington," the mathe-
matics professor said, "I think. But General, I cannot really argue strategy. I
must know if you are willing to do your duty and accept command."
"I have always done my duty. Sometimes duty demands that you inform
your superiors of a mistake."
"But you don't understand, Burnsideunless I have your agreement, I
cannot deliver the order to McClellan relieving him of command."
"Why not?"
Buckingham decided that Burnside might just be as thick as he made
himself out to be. "Because if we do not have a man immediately in place
when we dismiss him, McClellan might just take the army to Washington
tomorrow and proclaim himself dictator. That's why."
Burnside thought that over. "Lincoln complains that McClellan has the
slows. And yet we are now on the eve of battle, if McClellan stays. If I were
to take over, I would need at least a month to organize staff, to get into
position. More likely six weeks before any major engagement."
"The President and the Secretary are aware of that. You won't be rushed."
Burnside frowned, stroking his strange whiskers. "Then delay is not Lin-
coln's reason either, is it?"
Buckingham was on the verge of giving up. He played his last card. "My
orders, General, are first to obtain your agreement, and secondly, with you at
my side, present General McClellan with his dismissal. But if you fail to
accept your responsibility, my orders are to proceed to General Hooker and
make the same arrangement with him. I am told he is sufficiently recovered
from his wound to take command."
Burnside snorted. "Some 'wound'! If Joe Hooker had had the courage to
stay and fight at Antietam, I would have carried that bridge early in the day
apd Lee would have been routed and the war over. Hooker's appointment
would be a disaster."
"In effect, you are ceding the command to him."
Buckingham let Burnside agonize in silence. Finally Burnside said, "My
appointment is merely a mistake. Hooker's would be a catastrophe." He
sighed. "Let's go and tell George."
A half hour before midnight, as he was writing to his wife, McClellan
heard a tap on the tent pole. He called out for whoever it was to enter, and
was not surprised to see Burnside and Halleck's adjutant, the mathematics
teacher.
He greeted them cordially, ignoring the solemn looks on both faces, and
engaged them in conversation to show his lack of concern at their mission.
"I think we had better tell General McClellan the object of our visit,"
Buckingham told Burnside, who nodded glumly.
Stanton's adjutant handed over the orders signed by Halleck: "General: On
receipt of the order of the President, sent herewith, you will immediately turn
over your command to Maj. Gen. Burnside, and repair to Trenton, N. J.,
reporting on your arrival at that place, by telegraph, for further orders."
McClellan saw that both men, especially Buckingham, were watching him
most intently as he read the order and the attachment making the removal
official. The mathematics teacher in a general's uniform from Stanton's office
surely knew McClellan had the power to reject the order, to protect himself
and his leading officers from courts-martial and possible execution, and to
make himself commander in chief. Poor Burn was probably hoping McClel-
lan would do just that, saving him from the terrible choice of taking un-
wanted command or handing this fine army over to Hooker.
McClellan knew what he had to do because he had no doubt about what he
was: an officer of the United States Army and a loyal American citizen. He
handed the papers to his unhappy and fearful friend with a brief, "Well,
Burnside, I turn the command over to you."
He said it as if no other course were thinkable; George McClellan hoped
that never again would a military officer of the United States be faced with
the temptation presented to him that night.
Buckingham closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as if the other course
had been narrowly averted. Stanton had probably poisoned the man's mind,
McClellan assumed, causing him to expect a loyal soldier to turn traitor and
usurper.
"I will leave in the morning, Burn. You have been as near as possible to me
on this march, and I have kept you closely informed on the condition of
affairs. You ought to be able to take the reins in your hands without a day's
delay."
McClellan had planned for this eventuality, assuming that Lincoln would
turn to Burnside, who was acceptable to the radicals, rather than to the
respected Fitz-John Porter, the only general other than himself capable of
facing Lee. He wondered which of them would face court-martial, Porter or
himself, or both. The trial of George McClellan would certainly be dramatic,
but perhaps too divisive; the radicals would probably go after Fitz instead.
He had hoped for more from Lincoln, especially after that last message of
encouragement. Surely the President knew the next battle would be decisive,
and it was less than a week away. Had he shown the commander in chief the
proper respect? On mature reflection, he had to admit not always, certainly
not in the beginning. But now that McClellan was showing his willingness to
work in tandem with the civilian side, his service was rejected. He could see
an irony in that, a belated justice that became injustice.
"I beseech you," Burnside said, "stay a few days, settle the officers down. I
need you to transfer their loyalty over to me, as much as possible."
"To stay a revolt," Buckingham put it plainly.
Poor Burn; again, McClellan would have to try to save him, at least loni
enough to stumble into an engagement planned by Lincoln himself. Stayin.
on as the replaced commander would be painfully demeaning, but McClellai
would do his duty. He consented. His two visitors shouldered their way out o
the tent into the driving snow.
He took up his pen and continued the one comfort of his life in the field, i
letter to Nellie. "Another interruption, this time more important. It was ii
the shape of Bumside, accompanied by Gen. Buckingham. They brough
with them the order relieving me from the command of the Army of thi
Potomac. No cause is given.
"Alas for my poor country! I know in my inmost heart she never had i
truer servant. Do not be at all worried, my dear Nellie1 am not. I havi
done the best I could for my country; to the last I have done my duty as
understand it. That I must have made many mistakes, I cannot deny. I do no
see any great blunders, but no one can judge of himself. Our consolation mus
be that we have tried to do what is right."
What would have been wrong was to seize the presidency. What he ha(
come to see was right was to challenge Lincoln legitimately, in two years
time, as the candidate of the Democratic Party.

CHAPTER 20
IN JACKSON'S CHAIR
Darkness fell early in late November and Lincoln nodded gratefully to Wil-
liam for lighting the gas lamp on his desk. Hill Lamon was running a political
errand; Nicolay and Hay had gone to eat at Willard's.
William asked if he would be taking dinner at his desk and he nodded; Mrs.
Lincoln was in New York on one of her shopping trips. Angry at him for
refusing to appoint one of her most unworthy favorites to an undeserved
position, for three days before she left for Boston and New York she had
refused to sleep in the room next to his. These petulant moods of hers came
and went.
Stoddard, the third secretary, came in with a couple of pins to put in the
map on the table. The pins with blue sealing wax on their heads signified
Union battalions. After both William and Stod left, Lincoln rose from his
desk chair, studied the map, and was pleased to see that Burnside was moving
south toward Fredericksburg where the Union troops could fall upon Lee's
<army.
Burnside, though not one to inspire confidence, at least did what he was
told. A year ago, Lincoln had been intimidated by the general officers, partic-
ularly the West Pointers, persuaded by his ignorance of military maneuver to
rely on them for decisions in the war. Now he felt that he knew as much as
any of them, and Hallecka first-rate clerk and nothing moreWould serve
to reassure the public that well-trained military minds were in charge. But he
had concluded that military men never understood the political dimensions of
military strategy. Sometimes action or just activity, even if premature in
purely military terms, was needed to enable the government to spur the peo-
ple to raise troops and money. Ambrose Burnside might cavil at a point of
tactics here and there, but he showed a refreshing humility when it came to
sharing plans and carrying out orders.
Rocking back and forth in his shoes, looking at the pins in the map, Lin-
coln was glad he had not been forced to choose Hooker to replace McClellan.
Too rash, just as George was too cautious. Had he been wise to relieve the
Young Napoleon on the eve of battle, after he had finally begun to move on
Lee's army? Lincoln thought that over again and decided he had been right.
With the elections over, the Peace Democrats who had been using McClellan,
along with the West Point element that wished to settle the war, had to be
dealt with firmly. Besides, the radicals were desperate for an excuse for the
Republican election defeat, and McClellan's tendency to delay was as good a
reason as any.
Lincoln could not deny a personal affection for George, despite the man's
fits of arrogance. He felt a twinge of conscience when he recalled the way the
young general had stepped forward to defend the capital when Stanton and
the others were ready to evacuate, and the way the general had manfully
accepted his dismissal, showing none of the mutinous inclinations that Stan-
ton and the others had feared.
But McClellan's goal in this war was not Lincoln's goal, as the episode
with Major Key had demonstrated; moreover, the Collector of the Port of
New York, Hiram Bamey, Chase's man, had reported to him the discussions
McClellan had been holding with Barlow, the New York Democratic leader.
Barlow had told Bamey, and Bamey passed it along to Lincoln and Welles,
that General McClellan planned to pursue a policy line of his own, regardless
of the Administration's wishes and objects. Lincoln, remembering, shook his
head at such perfidy. Yes, the evidence was hearsay, but he believed it because
it was of a piece with the Harrison's Landing letter.
Perhaps if George had taken on Frank Blair as his chief of staff, as old
Francis Blair had wanted him to, communications between field headquarters
and the Executive Mansion would have been much improved; but no, Mc-
Clellan had seen that as an effort to put a Lincoln man in his tent, and had
rejected the idea. In retrospect, Lincoln assured himself, firing McClellan
after his organizational\usefulness had ended was inevitable; the Union could
not remain whole with a commander more inclined to peace than victory.
Grant, out West, had been a possibility as a replacement, but he had a way
of being away from his troops at critical moments, and the drinking was a
problem. Even Congressman Washburne, whose prot6ge Grant was, was now
having his doubts: Chase had come in with a letter from Washburne's
brother, a general in Grant's command, printing a disturbing picture of con-
ditions at Grant's headquarters. Not merely drinking and carousing, but
commercial corruption. Grant was a fighter, and Lincoln respected that, but
he could ill afford to take a chance with the most important command in the
nation. Bumside, whose only personal quirk was a pair of silly muttonchop
whiskers, offered the least risk.
Thinking of Chase reminded him of a worry. He went back to his desk,
reached in the drawer, and took out a new greenback. The signature of the
Treasurer looked real; that was the trouble, it looked too real. Did that not
suggest infinite possibilities of fraud and embezzlement? Lincoln had to sign
every commission of every assistant paymaster for it to be legal, and his hand
hurt from signing sometimes; he was aware, too, that all government bonds
were signed by hand by the Treasurer. That the paper currency seemed to be
so signed, but was instead engraved, troubled him. He would have to talk
with Chase about that in the morning.
Nor did he relish the likelihood that the Executive Mansion would be
accused of mismanagement of funds. "Honest Abe," he was called; he hated
the "Abe" but he intended to keep the "honest" part. He wished he could fire
Watt, the gardener, but Mother protected him fiercely; it was all Lincoln
could do to keep the stationery fund out of his hands. And he was the one she
had taken with her to New York.
He walked out of his office, through the anteroom that served as the office
of Nicolay and Hay, across the dark hallway to Stoddard's mailroom, hoping
to find the young writer from Springfield. Stod had lent a helpful hand in the
early political campaigns. He was a bit on the stuffy side, but was a fair writer
and a good listener; Lincoln liked to try out speeches and important letters on
him. Nicolay and Hay treated Stod like dirt, so Lincoln compensated from
time to time by taking him along at night to visit Seward across the park.
Nobody in the office. Lincoln turned up the gaslight and looked at the
mountain of mail on the deskmostly, he knew, from conservatives com-
plaining about his dismissal of McClellan or from radicals complaining about
his failure to dismiss Seward. "Billy Bowlegs" was the new target of the
radicals, Wade and Chandler stirring everyone up, Stanton and probably
Chase quietly encouraging them; to their taste, Seward was insufficiently abo-
litionist. To Lincoln's taste, his Secretary of State was just right on slavery,
and had supported a gradual approach from the start. The radicals, having
tasted blood on McClellan, were now lusting after Seward. Lincoln had been
prepared to toss them McClellan for his own reasons, but he was not about to
sacrifice the man he was most comfortable with in the Cabinet.
His gaze lit on Andy Jackson's chair. Placed near the fireplace in Stod's
room was that strange-looking chair, unlike any other item of furniture in the
Mansion. Designed for reclining, it sloped backward, the slender mahogany
frame held together by finely tooled leather. The Mexican-made chair had
been in the Mansion since it had been sent to President Jackson; Mother
didn't like the looks of it, and Lincoln preferred his cushioned couch, so the
historic chair had found its way into the third secretary's office. Lincoln
decided to try it out. He sat his long frame in it, gingerly at first, and found to
his surprise that it accommodated him nicely.
Perfect for contemplating the ceiling, the Mexican recliner was conducive
to rumination. Wiggling himself comfortable, Lincoln concluded that An-
drew Jackson must have used it rarely. Jackson, a military man of action, had
known how to enlarge his powers to fit his responsibilities; that could have
had much to do with the fact that he was the last American President to have
been reelected. Strange that he should understand Jackson's needs now; for so
many years, as a Whig, Lincoln like his political allies had denounced the
monarchic hunger of "King Andrew the First."
"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" he said aloud into the
silence, stretching out as far as he could and preparing to recite the entire
poem. Then he changed his mind: the lines that came to him were from
Shakespeare's Richard II, and he closed his eyes to visualize the monarch's
cry of despair:
"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been depos'd, some slain in war . . ."
Lincoln groped for the next lines, could not remember them, and skipped
ahead:
"All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antick sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humor'd thus
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!"
Lincoln's fingers held the imaginary pin and twisted it through the castle
wall to dispatch the king. That reminded him of the blue-headed pins on the
map in his office; he frowned, breathed deeply, and allowed himself to feel
guilty about avoiding work on his second message to Congress. He had to
write his portion of that in the next week.
He would give the border states one last chance to join with the Democrats
and conservative Republicans in preventing the drastic action contemplated
in the proclamation of emancipation. The more he thought of it, the more
that proclamationto take effect five weeks from now unless the South re-
lentedseemed not merely radical, but revolutionary. The Biairs and Weed
had been right about the voters' reaction to an act that Lincoln knew was so
clearly unconstitutional. He had struck back hard at that reaction, cleaning
out the army and letting Stanton go to work on the disunionists in the North;
now, having demonstrated his willingness to use the stick, perhaps it was time
for the carrot.
He had little doubt that once carried out on January I, the edict of emanci-
pation would make impossible any negotiated settlement of the war. Jeffy D.
would see that as the final challenge to the South, the political lunge for the
jugular when the North's military campaign was not succeeding. But having
issued the threat, could he now not offer a stay of its execution? There was no
magic in the date of January 1, 1863; the date of final emancipation might just
as well be January 1, 1900, provided everyone agreed the day of slavery's
demise would surely come. He thought it only fair that the large portion of
the body politic that was not represented by the radical Republicans had a
final opportunity to embrace gradual, compensated emancipation.
Jackson's chair was growing uncomfortable but he did not want to change
position while a new approach was forming in his mind. The only way to
make abolition constitutional was by amending the Constitution.
The amendment he had in mind would put off the abolishment of slavery
until the year 1900, which would mitigate the opposition of those who held
slaves today. It would provide just compensation, with a bond issue to finance
the purchase of freedom. And it would provide for voluntary deportation in
congenial climes when new homes could be found for negroes in lands of their
own blood and race. What could be more reasonable? If the Congress or the
states in rebellion wanted to stop his emancipation edict set to come on
January first, all they had to do was to adopt the amendment and then
appropriate the money to buy up and manumit all slaves by the start of the
next century.
He had worked out the figures: Since the revolution, the nation had been
growing at the rate of 35 percent every ten years. By 1930, if the present trend
of growing by one third every ten years continued, that American family
would be over 250,000,000 peoplegreater than that of Europe, provided the
nation did not split up or otherwise inhibit the natural growth of its popula-
tion.
Nobody could say he had failed to try. The case, thus put, was new; per-
haps the Congress, too long held in thrall by the slavery issue, could be made
to see that it had to think anew and act anew. In giving freedom to the slave
four decades hence, the amendment would assure freedom to the free in the
meantime and after. By paying hard cash for every slave, it would not offend
the Founders' compromise; by encouraging the freedmen to emigrate, it
would not upset white workers.
Lincoln would have no trouble with the peroration of such a message: it
should exhort the Congress to nobly save the last best hope of earth, lest
inaction cause the Congress to meanly lose it. That thought could be put
more positively.
He asked himself, as a practical politician: would the amendment idea be
accepted or rejected by the Congress? As matters stood now, probably the
radicals would holier that he had sold them out and the conservatives would
still not seize their last chance, and the proposal would fail. But his con-
science would be clearer in usurping property rights on the first of January
and more to the point, if Bumside was able to whip Lee's army at Fredericks-
burg, his amendment would suddenly look much more attractive to the states
in rebellion, and the loyal slave states too.
With another Union military victory, and the path to Richmond opened,
little "military necessity" for unconstitutional emancipation would exist. In-
stead, a political necessity might well be created to reunite North and South
under terms that would guarantee the abolishment of slavery, but by constitu-
tional means and not until the next generation. Lincoln resolved to meet with
General Bumside at Aquia Creek, near his headquarters, at dark tomorrow
night. Nothing was more urgent than a triumph at Fredericksburg soon. He
would go over every detail with the man; the army would have everything it
needed this time.
Lincoln was pleased with his amendment alternative; it was a way to re-
state his central idea of majority rule, with a practical and absolutely consti-
tutional solution to the matter that was more on the minds of the people. He
slid down even farther in the Jackson chairbetter for his back but his feet
overhung the end. The chair, he decided, was better left here in Stod's office
than moved to his own.
He saw the occasion to be piled high with difficulty. But it was surely as
difficult for the Southern leaders, now faced with squabbling within the Con-
federate states as Georgia resisted the dictates of Richmond. Was he doing all
he could to make it easier for voices of reason and reunion to be heard down
there? The finality of his promised January I edict troubled him as that date
approached all too quickly. He did not want to give at least half the North
cause to criticize him for closing the door to peace: in New York, for example,
Fernando Wood was passing the word that only an amnesty from Lincoln was
needed to enable Southern leaders to return to the next session of the Con-
gress. Did Mayor Wood and Governor-elect Seymour have any secret contact
with like-minded men in the South, or were they making mischief?
Lincoln turned his shoes overhanging the chair inward and outward, as he
could do without pain since his corns had been miraculously attended to.
Zacharie. The Israelite had family in the South, had volunteered to make
contact with Southern leaders, and pointed out that Judah Benjamin was a
co-religionist. Lincoln knew that General Nat Banks wanted the Israelite
along in New Orleans when he relieved Ben Butler, to help with the unofficial
gold exchange. It might seem slightly ludicrous to send Dr. Zacharie south to
attend to the feet of the Union Army, and while he was at it, to see if the
rumors about Southern interest in amnesty had any foundationbut it would
do no harm. Certainly the corncutter would arouse no suspicion and his real
purpose could readily be denied, even laughed off.
Generals Grant and Sherman, Lincoln was aware, believed fiercely that
Jewish peddlers in their command were a cause of the army's corruption, and
the President had heard that there was an unofficial ban on admitting any
more Israelites to the area, but that would not apply to anyone with a pass
from him. He strongly doubted that the men in Richmond would be ready to
talk peace until Bumside was at the gates and Lee whipped, but he wanted to
be sure.
Lincoln pulled himself out of Jackson's chair to return to his office and
write out a pass. But more important than sending an unlikely agent on what
was likely to be a wild-goose chase, it was time for him to get started on the
draft amendment in the message to Congress. The beliefs of the past were
inadequate to the present, he would exhort them; rewriting in his head, as he
walked back through the dark hall to his office, he added "quiet" to the past
and "stormy" to the present, for the emphasis of contrast. And "beliefs" did
not have the negative connotation he sought; "dogmas" was the word.
CHAPTER 21
JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER
A man Chase recognized as Lincoln's bodyguard, Marshal Lamon, showed
up at the do8r df.the house at Sixth and E before breakfast.
"The President is worried about the integrity of our financial system," the
broad-shouldered Westerner told the Treasury Secretary. "He wants you to
come as soon as you can."
Chase looked hard at the man. His portion of the annual message was not
due until the next day. Was Lincoln trying something to make him look
dishonest? Had anyone been poisoning the President's mind about the deal-
ings with Jay Cooke? "I'll be in to see him before the Cabinet meeting."
"Sooner would be better," Lamon replied. "Right now would be best."
Chase turned to Kate, who appeared behind him. "The imperial sum-
mons."
"If Mr. Lincoln is so worried," she asked Lamon coldly, "why didn't he
come over with you this morning?"
That irritating thought had crossed Chase's mind too; when Lincoln
wanted to see Seward, the President did not send for him; rather, he strolled
across Lafayette Square to the Secretary of State's house. Seward was ever-
more Lincoln's eminence grise; now that McClellan had been driven from the
scene, the man who next needed removal was the Secretary of State.
"I'm sure the President knows I'm always available to him," Chase said
through his daughter to Lamon. With a twinge of conscience troubling him,
Chase did not want to appear to stand on ceremony; perhaps Lamon, who
was as much crony and confidant to Lincoln as bodyguard, knew what the
President had on his mind. On the ride over, Chase could frame the answers
about Cooke's exclusive and lucrative representation of the Treasury in the
sale of its notes.
Climbing into the carriage, Chase asked, "What's bothering the Presi-
dent?"
"The greenback currency. Up to last night, he thought that Spinner was
signing each bill himself,"
Chase rode to the Mansion in silence, relieved that the integrity being
questioned was the system's and not his own. Surely Lincoln could not be so
naive as to think that old Spinner signed every single greenback issued; that
was the way it had been done at the start, and the poor fellow had found
himself scribbling his signature twenty hours a day. Engraving the signature
was the only way to keep up production. Lincoln must know that; what was
really going through his suspicious mind?
At the entrance to the Mansion, Lamon reined in the horse and tui.aed the
reins over to the black man at the door, offering Chase a hand down from the
carriage. The Treasury Secretary declined the help.
"Chase, there are not sufficient safeguards to afford any degree of safety in
the money-making department," Lincoln said at once, no offer of coffee or
anything.
The President expressed his worry that some unscrupulous operators could
run off thousands of greenbacks and no one would be the wiser until the day
of redemption, when a huge fraud would be discovered and his administra-
tion would be covered with shame.
Chase tried to reason with him. "In the nature of things," he told the
nervous Lincoln, "somebody must be trusted in this emergency. You have
entrusted me, and I have entrusted Francis Spinner, the Treasurer, with un-
told millions. When he was a Congressman, they called him 'the watchdog of
the Treasury.' We have to trust our subordinates."
The President was not in a trusting mood. He wanted to know exactly how
Chase was protecting the public from the counterfeit printing of millions in
excess greenbacks. As Lincoln's words waxed warmer, Chase began to won-
der about his own lack of concern; could Lincoln be onto something? Who
was actually counting the money that was being printed?
"It strikes me that this thing is all wrong, and dangerous." Lincoln had
never before taken such an interest in the Treasury operations. "I and the
country know you and Mr. Spinner, but we don't know your subordinates'
who have the power to bankrupt the government in an hour."
Chase was nonplussed; he had gone along with the idea of greenbacks at
Lincoln's urging. Indeed, when he had expressed his reservations on constitu-
tional grounds, the President had told him that he was prepared to violate the
Constitution to save the Union. The idea of paper money had worked, amaz-
ingly so; public trust was such that the paper was treated like real money, and
was in effect a huge, interest-free loan from the people to the government.
"Spinner has been hiring women," Chase blurted, so that he could not be
accused later of concealing anything of moment from the President.
"As employees of the government?" Lamon was surprised.
"They're very good at counting money," Chase explained. "Nimble fingers,
good on the close detail work, and they never miss a day's work. I am
prepared to take whatever criticism the policy causes." Chase was well aware
that the potential for scandal existed when men and women were placed in
close proximity, with the advancement of the women employees in the hands
of male supervisors, but skilled money counters were in short supply. Now
the unprecedented employment of women was Lincoln's problem as much as
his.
"Perhaps we can protect ourselves by involving the Congress," Marshal
Lamon offered. Lincoln nodded, and urged Chase to talk it over with his
friends in the Senate.
"Yes, in particular Senator Sprague," Chase suggested. "Very sound on
this. And he can keep financial matters to himself, which we need." He added
a warning about the matter that had originally triggered the President's con-
cern: "Not a word of your worries about the engraving of signatures on
greenbacks, Lincoln, must get to the public. Jay Cooke and I have enough
trouble maintaining confidence. Don't you start a run on the bank."
The President, with a pained last look at his own face on a greenback,
nodded agreement.
Chase took his leave and walked across the street to his Treasury office,
satisfied that Lincoln's fears could be handled, but worried about discovery of
his relationship with Cooke. He was also vulnerable to misunderstanding on
his dealings with Hiram Barney, Collector of the Port of New York. What if
Thurlow Weed and Seward, who resented the way Chase had snatched away
their New York patronage, found out and made a fuss in the newspapers? His
chance at replacing Lincoln on the Republican ticket in 1864 would be
ruined.
It was awkward for a man in his position, dealing in millions, to be person-
ally short of funds. Nor was the problem likely to disappear in years to come;
if anything, it would grow worse with the need to entertain potential dele-
gates and keep up appearances. And every time the President sent Lamon
over on some silly worry, Chase knew his own too-sensitive conscience would
afflict him with the fear that somebody was impugning his integrity. That
thought depressed him further.
Kate was at the office when he arrived. He shook his head to the unasked
question, saying only, "Just some foolishness about Spinner's signature being
engraved on the paper. If Lincoln knows as little about military affairs as he
does about finance, the country is in worse trouble than I feared."
She closed the door to the office and faced her father across his desk. "I
suppose the time has come when we have to make some sacrifices."
"You've been very good, Kate, about making do with last year's ward-
robe," he began, and would have gone on in a fatherly way, but her grim look
told him she had more far-reaching sacrifices in mind.
"Bill Sprague and I had a quarrel last week," she said. "I didn't like the
way he was drinking, and making a mess all over himself in public. I told him
I wouldn't put up with it any more."
Chase winced, hoping his daughter had not pushed Sprague too far. His
support was absolutely essential to their plans. The Rhode Island Legislature
had accommodated its state's richest family by electing the former governor
and general to be senator; Sprague now had control of future convention
delegates, and his influence reached into Massachusetts. "I'm certain your
good advice will encourage him to reform. He adores you, as you know. He's
told me that often."
"He tells that to everybody when he's in his cups," Kate said sourly. "No,
he won't reform. He's a drunkard and always will be. Let's not fool ourselves
about the boy governor."
Chase's heart sunk; would she never see Sprague again? Would she throw
herself away on the effete Lord Lyons or the defeated Roscoe Conkling, or
indulge her desires with young Hay, or become scandalously involved with a
married man like Garfield? Sprague had his faults, but there were compensa-
tions, and his redemption from an unfortunate tendency toward a reliance on
John Barleycorn might be possible under the influence of a good woman.
Chase could not bring himself to say that. If Kate intended to put her
selfish interests ahead of their mutual dream, he would not try to dissuade
her. Any such suasion he judged to be morally wrong. He thought of the
biblical general Jephtha, who vowed if he won a victory to make -a burnt
offering of the first living thing that came through his door; to his horror, his
daughter and only child was first, and she expressed her love by willingly
becoming his sacrifice. NoChase told himself that Kate had her own life to
lead; he had hoped their ambitions were parallel, but the painful compromises
demanded by politics were better understood by those who had suffered as he
had.
"I am aware," he began, drawing a deep breath, "that you have been
brought up to enjoy the company of men of substance and temperance. Lord
Lyons. Senator Sumner"
"And Salmon Portland Chase, who has the strength of character never to
make a fool of himself. Father, you've spoiled me for men the likes of
Sprague."
He hardly knew what to say to that, except, "Perhaps you underestimate
him."
"Bill Sprague is impossible to underestimate. John Hay is quite righthe's
a small, insignificant youth who bought his place." She seated herself and
looked at her father levelly. "When would the announcement be most advan-
tageous?"
He had been looking at the portrait of Alexander Hamilton over the fire-
place, thinking of the cruel shortening of the first Treasury Secretary's career.
He did not quite comprehend the import of his daughter's question. "An-
nouncement?"
"My betrothal to Senator William Sprague of Rhode Island," Kate said,
seeming to test the words for a printed invitation, "savior of our nation's
capital in the early days of the rebellion, gallant general in command of his
state's fighting men, confidential adviser to the President and Treasury Secre-
tary on financial affairs, darling of the social salons of Washington, and well-
known drunkard."
"Kate, are you serious? If you are, you must not act in a spirit of hypocrisy.
Marriage is a sacred covenant before God"
"I am deadly serious, Father. Becoming President is a serious business, and
I am prepared to make the necessary sacrifices. And never, never speak to me
of hypocrisy."
He was torn between delight at her sensible decision and his dread of
sacrilege. After a moment, Chase was able to dismiss the latter as unworthily
judgmental; who was he to dismiss a long tradition of marriages of conve-
nience, which so often led to warm lifelong companionships, based as they
were on shared interests rather than youthful passion? His own first marriage,
to the unforgettable Katherine, had been a love match that had ended with
her death of childbed fever; his second wife was also the object of his love,
and died giving birth to Kate; but the third time he had been more prudent,
selecting a judge's daughter of strength and health and social background,
who served as a fine, if necessarily stern, stepmother for seventeen years
before her death. If Kate could show the maturity in her early twenties that it
had taken him much longer to attain, so much the better.
"I'm very proud of you, Katie. I know you will be happy."
"I'll be happy as the official hostess in the Executive mansion," she said
with what he felt was unnecessary calculation, "with the country in the hands
of President Chase."
He hoped his expression bore the proper humility. She drummed her fin-
gers on his desk. "The spring would be the best time. We have the household
money to hold out till then. Sprague's mother is a smart old lady, and she
likes me; I can talk to her about the finances of a big wedding without
involving you or the boy gov."
"I do not think that a proper sobriquet for your chosen husband-to-be,"
Chase said disapprovingly. "He is familiarly known as Bill. Or you could now
call him 'the senator.' And you should not go ahead with this with avarice in
your heart, Katie, I won't allow anything of"
"Don't tell me what should or should not be in my heart," she snapped.
"It's not love and it's not avarice. I don't need fancy clothes and expensive
furnishings, you know that. I want to amount to something, and I want you
to be all you should be."
He nodded, understanding that her decision was, if not based on love for
her prospective husband, at least rooted in love for her father. He reproved
himself for thinking her at first selfish and later calculating. She was a good
daughter and, he was certain, would make an excellent wife. He went around
the desk, assisted her to her feet, and embraced her with pride and tender-
ness. "You have my blessing, Katie."
She bugged him tightly for a moment, the way she had when she was small
and had fled from her stepmother, and then stepped back to look directly up
at him.
"I want more than a blessing, Father. I want a promise. I'll do my part."
"And I'll do mine," he said, hoping she would not become specific.
"You know what I expect," she said.
He knew exactly: no more letters to the office from Adele Douglas, no
more visits at home from Anna Carroll, no possibility of remarriage until
after the presidency, if then. The sacrifice was realprolonged celibacy
would be new to himand he could not avoid the feeling that her demand
was somehow unnatural. But her own sacrifice was at least as great, and the
thought of his dutiful and self-assured daughter as hostess in his White House
appealed to him. Kate would be far better received than Mary Lincoln.
"I hope always to live up to your expectations, Katie," he said, hoping she
would find a meaning in that beyond his words.
She kissed him lightly on the cheek and made ready to leave. She drew on a
vest espagnole, which he presumed to be the latest fashion since he had seen
Addie Douglas in one recently, and the black-embroidered Moresco cloak
brought down the week before by Jay Cooke. She had adorned her bonnet
with wood violets and ties of lilac ribbon. "Say nothing for the time being,
Father. I have some loose ends to tidy up. Perhaps you do too. Wait a week,
and then arrange for thefor Bill to be summoned to Washington."
As she left, it occurred to him that hers would be the most glittering
wedding that wartime Washington had yet seen. He began to think of a guest
list.  Which of their acquaintances would be most likely to determine the
delegates to the next Republican convention?
CHAPTER 22
JOHN HAY'S DIARY
DECEMBER 7, 1862
Dr. Zacharie, our favorite foot man, is back from a couple of months at Fort
Monroe, where he says he operated successfully on the feet of 5,000 of our
soldiersor 5,000 individual feet, I don't recall which. After uprooting these
vast cornfields, he has returned to Washington to check on the impedimenta
of the President.
I should not make sport of his profession because he brought both the
Prsdt and the SecState great relief. The Tycoon used to hobble about in the
King of Morocco's huge gift slippers because he could not stand shoes. No
more; thanks to his friend Isachar, with whom he has these extended conver-
sations after his treatments, the Prsdt bounds about as I have never seen
before.
The Israelite came into the office devastated that word of his ministrations
to the President had leaked. The Israelite assured us that the editorial in the
New York Herald last week was not of his doing, and was anxious lest the
notoriety impinge on his confidential relationship. Isachar did not know his
man. I had put the cutting on the Prsdt's desk, and he read portions aloud to
the somewhat uncomfortable foot surgeon with great glee.
"Says here, 'we have a cornucopia of information' about your activities,
Doctor," Lincoln grinned, reading on: " 'The President has been greatly
blamed for not resisting the demands of the radicals; but how could the
President put his foot down firmly when he was troubled with corns?' That's
pretty good. Says the bickermg in the Cabinet has beenhere'caused by
the honorable Secretaries inadvertently treading on each other's bunions un-
der the council board.' "
"Not a word of any of this came from me," Zacharie said, looking misera-
ble.
Lincoln positively cackled at the editorial. " 'No human being could be
expected to toe the mark under such circumstances, which originated not so
much with the head as with the feet of the nation.' " The Tycoon gave one of
his great hee-hee laughs, hardly able to finish with " 'Dr. Zacharie has shown
us precisely where the shoe pinches.' By jings, that's all right."
Zacharie perked up as it became clear that the Tycoon was amused and not
upset by the public notice of his corns. Foot doctors must be sensitive to the
way people poke fun at their profession, but Zacharie, I am sure, is torn
between fear of ridicule and desperation for recognition. Well, he has claim to
fame now. He is without doubt the most famous Jewish foot doctor in the
world.
I suspect the President is pleased with the publicity for another reason. He
intends to use the Israelite as an agent to get information from the South. The
corn cutting that all of us are so quick to mock has the virtue of removing all
suspicion from his clandestine activities.
"I see that you are sending General Banks to replace Butler in New Or-
leans," Zacharie said. Lincoln nodded; Banks had been a better governor of
Massachusetts than a general in the field against Stonewall Jackson, but Lin-
coln trusted Banks to manage our biggest Southern capture more honestly
than "the Beast."
Zacharie looked at me, wishing I were out of the room, I suppose, and said,
"I think the time is ripe for my mission." Since the Prsdt did not throw me
out, I looked at the ceiling, and Zacharie went on with his half-concealed
plans: "The sister of the gentleman in Richmond is in New Orleans now, and
in some distress. I should intercede on her behalf with the new Union com-
mander."
I presumed "the gentleman in Richmond" was Judah Benjamin, the rebel
Secretary of State and Zacharie's co-religionist. I doubt that we are planning
to get any military information out of Jeff Davis's Cabinet; could it be that
Mr. Lincoln has in mind a roundabout exploration of the peace rumors? He
wants to do something before January first.
"I'll need a personal letter from you to Banks," said Zacharie, "telling him
to take me to New Orleans with him."
Lincoln nodded. "While there is nothing in this which I shall dread to see
in history, it is, perhaps, better for the present that it should not become
public." That was putting it mildly. Zacharie could pass the word broadside
about his corn-curing prowess, but on checking into supposed peace probes,
the Tycoon expected great discretion.
"The pass," Zacharie reminded him. Lincoln went to his writing table and
wrote a note to General Banks. When he finished, he read it aloud to the two
of us: "Dr. Zacharie, who you know as well as I do, wishes to go with you on
your expedition. I think he might be of service, to you, first, in his peculiar
profession, and secondly, as a means of access to his countrymen, who are
quite numerous in some of the localities you will probably visit."
"There's the problem of the prohibition of my people," Zacharie put in.
"Grant and Shermanfine officers, don't misunderstand me, but they don't
want any Jews in their area. They blame us for all the trading with the enemy
not true, I assure you, and not fair, but such a feeling exists. We all know
it."
Lincoln was aware of Grant's policy to make it difficult for Israelites to
come near his command. The Prsdt did not want to involve himself in the
general's efforts to stem corruption, however, and as long as the anti-Israelite
policy was unwritten, and unapproved by the President, it posed no constitu-
tional difficulties.
He added in his note to Banks: "This is a permission merely, excepting his
case from a general prohibition which I understand to exist." That acknowl-
edgment of Grant's tacit prohibition may be putting too much in writing, but
no other way presented itself.
"My desire is to serve you," Zacharie said, picking up the pass, "in such a
manner that my services may redound to your honor." That was Old-World
style, but Lincoln seemed to appreciate it. I took the doctor into my office,
put the pass in an envelope, and while I was at it handed him the latest
cutting from the New York World: "The President has often left his business-
apartment to spend an evening in the parlor with his favored bunionist."
"Mr. Hay, believe me, I had nothing to do with this notoriety." Zacharie
tucked the clipping in his wallet and set off on his perhaps impossible assign-
ment. What is there in that fellow that makes the President want to spend
long hours talking with him? What do they have in common? Mystifies me.
I went back in with some newspaper reaction to his annual message; most
of the radical press, like the Evening Post, said that Lincoln's idea of freeing
the slaves by installments was like cutting off a dog's tail by inches to get him
used to the pain. The conservatives and Democrats pretty much ignored it;
Browning says there's no hope for a two-thirds vote in the Congress for such
an amendment. Curiously, this does not upset the Prsdt; he did what he felt
he had to do to show his willingness to make a deal.
The Tycoon, feet on the desk, smiling at his shoes, waved off the tut-tutting
about his message. The editorial in the Herald about the cornucopia was still
tickling him. "I tell you the truth, John," he told me, "when I say that
genuine wit has the same effect on me that I suppose a good square drink of
whiskey has on an old toper. It puts new life in me."
The Tycoon is in fine whack. I have rarely seen him more serene and busy,
managing the war, foreign relations, the rambunctious Cabinet, and the ma-
jority of the country that needs to be dragged along on emancipation. With
McClellan gone, and a more loyal general now actively pursuing Bobby Lee,
Lincoln is at last fully in charge. I remember his saying back before Antie-
tam, "if what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there
would not be one cheerful face on the earth"; ISO-degree turn. A. Lincoln
would never be cocking an ear toward any peace talk if he weren't sure he
was on the verge of a great victory. I think he senses a turning point.
He sent for Halleck. "I had a long conference with General Bumside," he
told the general-in-chief, who was scratching only one elbow today. "He
believes that General Lee's whole army is in front of him at or near Freder-
icksburg."
"He's right," said Halleck promptly. "Bumside has one hundred and ten
thousand men to Lee's sixty thousand. Does he say he wants more men?"
Lincoln shook his head, "No, he could not handle them to advantage."
That was a far cry from McClellan. "Bumside thinks he can cross the river in
the face of the enemy. But that, to use his own expression, is somewhat risky.
I wish the case to stand more favorable than this."
He suggested a plan of attack to Halleck that did not rely so much on a
frontal assault. Lincoln's scheme was to delay an attack until a second force
could cross the Rappahannock, and then a third force swing around via the
Pamunkey River to cut off Lee's line of retreat toward Richmond.
Halleck listened to what seemed to me to be a brilliant maneuver, and
shook his head. "We cannot raise and put in position a force behind Lee in
time. If we don't strike him now, he'll get away. That's what Bumside thinks,
too, I'm sure."
The Tycoon nodded uneasily. Curious; Lincoln was in the McClellan role
now, not wanting to risk Union lives on a single assault across a river,.prefer-
ring a three-pronged attacknot unlike Antietam, which might have been
more successful if all three of our corps had attacked at the same time. Now it
was Bumside and Halleck who wanted to strike massively, quickly, before
Lee could get reinforcements.
"Can't waste time," concluded Halleck confidently. "You gave Bumside
the command, his army is in fine shape. We can't fight the war from here."
The Prsdt nodded again; Bumside did not have the McClellan slows.
"What news from Tennessee?"
Only a few months ago, with Lee invading Maryland and Bragg invading
Kentucky, the war was one gigantic Union retreat. But after Antietam in
Maryland and the standoff at Perryville in Kentucky, the tide turned. Bragg
lost his nerve and pulled back.
"Bragg's army in Tennessee doesn't threaten Kentucky and Ohio any-
more," said Halleck. "He's trouble for Grant out West, though, who cannot
turn his back completely and attack Vicksburg, not with Morgan's raiders
storming around his supply lines. Soon our forces under Rosecrans will move
on Bragg's headquarters at Murfreesboro, on Stones River."
I asked why Bragg had wilted. Halleck shrugged that off with, "His com-
manders hate him, I hear, and only Jeff Davis backs him up. We should not
underestimate Bragg. He cut loose from his base, marched two hundred miles
and beat an army of ours twice the size of his."
Lincoln asked for a detailed plan on the Rosecrans move on Murfreesboro
in Tennessee, but we could see that his mind was on the more important
battle impending between Bumside and Lee at Fredericksburg. That could be
decisive. The war could be over by Christmas and then the question of an
emancipation proclamation might become moot.
Which reminds me that I had better think of getting into uniform before it
is over and I have no heroic answer to "What did you do in the war, Daddy?"
But Washington has its compensations: Kate has never been so warm and
winning as she has been in the past week. I shall soon have to put out some
feelers of my own to see what sort of family life I shall be building when the
war is over.

CHAPTER 23
FIRING SQUAD
"You must not execute this boy, Bragg. He's no deserter."
General Braxton Bragg, standing at the window facing the courtyard
where the execution of Corporal Asa Lewis was to take place, did not look at
Breckinridge. "He had a fair court-martial. He deserted. The firing squad will
send a message to every troublemaker in your brigade."
"He went home to help with the planting," Breck pleaded, "to put in next
year's crop. He was coming back; he did the same thing last year."
"You should have shot him last year, then. Kentucky blood is a little too
feverish for the health of the army."
Breckinridge, steaming, held his temper. He was certain that Bragg had
been driven from Kentucky by his own lack of zest for battle. The Mississip-
pian was a maneuvering general, a fine marching officer, a classic disciplinar-
ian, but not a commander of men in battle. When the citizens of Breck-
inridge's state failed to welcome the Confederate troops, and even went so far
as to deny them supplies, Bragg directed his hatred at all Kentuckians. Breck
knew that Bragg bile was especially directed at him, because the little chim-
panzee had assumed that the Breckinridge name would rally all residents of
the bluegrass state to the Southern side. Now that Bragg was conscripting
any Kentuckian who fell into his hands, he would soon have plenty of desert-
ers for hanging.
"If you won't listen to me," Breck pressed, "General Clebume has asked
to"
"Waste of time. Don't you belong out there when the sentence is carried
out? They're your men."
The Kentuckian withdrew, mounted, and rode into the courtyard where
the condemned corporal was being blindfolded. The tall boy declined the
blindfold at first, but the lieutenant told him that the men of the firing squad
preferred not to have him looking at them when they did their distasteful
duty.
Breckinridge dismounted. He walked to the corporal and told him his final
appeal had failed, but that all his Kentucky comrades knew he was no de-
serter. He suggested that the condemned man say something to the soldiers
about to carry out an abhorrent order.
Corporal Lewis complied. "Do not be distressed," he called out from be-
hind his blindfold. "I beg of you to aim to kill, it will be merciful to me.
Goodbye."
Breckinridge, who had seen so much death in the past year, was swept by
an unaccustomed sense of dread. He went back and remounted. General Pat
Clebume, muttering Irish curses, moved his horse next to him. The clicking
of the hammers could be heard in the morning cold on the command of
"Ready." The men of the Orphan Brigade, drawn up in three formations to
the rear of the firing squad facing the condemned man, tensed. Breckinridge,
sweating, shuddered in the cold.
As the order to fire was given, Breckinridge started to lose consciousness.
He felt Clebume's hand grabbing his arm as he was falling off his horse. His
aide, the boy who had replaced Cabell, ran up and helped the commander of
the Orphans to the ground. He leaned against his horse, breathing deeply,
until consciousness returned. That had not happened to him before; only
women fainted. Breck was mortified that it had happened in front of the
entire brigade; at Clebume's suggestion, he remounted and they rode off
together.
"Bad business. Bragg's a vindictive fool," the Irishman said. "This will
cause more desertions than it will discourage. You all right now?"
"I never saw us shoot one of our own before," Breck said. The corporal
had given him his comb and pocketbook to pass on to his mother, and he
could feel the presence of the dead man's effects in his pocket.
"No news about your son yet?" Clebume was trying to change the subject
with a duller, deeper pain.
"He isn't on any of the prisoner lists." Breck was fighting off the sense of
certainty that the boy was dead. Cabell was about the age of the corporal just
executedin fact, the same height and build. He shook his head and gulped
the cold air.
"There was a Yankee nurse named Breckinridge we captured in Lewis-
burg," General Cleburne said, trying to be helpful. "I figured you all must be
related, so I sent her up to Louisville to tell your Union relations to look out
for him."
"Her name?"
"Margaret Elizabeth; said her father was Judge John Breckinridge."
That was Uncle Robert's kin; if the girl got to that famous Union loyalist
with a question about Cabell, he would know to get in touch with Anna
Carroll in Washington, and she would press General Dix to search the prison
camps. The possibility existed that the boy was still alive, his memory
shocked out of him; or perhaps he was afraid to reveal his identity as the son
of a man condemned as a traitor by the U.S. Senate. False hopes, probably.
"You were right about Lincoln and the slaves, Pat. He's going to enlist
them in his army, maybe hundreds of thousands."
"That's what we should be doing." The Irishman was off on his favorite
forbidden subject. "Lincoln was willing to take a gamble, and stand up to the
hollering of most of his own people. That's the difference between him and
Jeff Davis."
Breck was not sure. Lincoln's proclamation promising emancipation to the
slaves of rebels was a stunning political act, wiping out all hope of ending the
war by compromiseif he went through with it at the end of the month. But
maybe Lincoln was searching for an excuse to delay the edict: his message to
Congress last week, reported with some interest by the newspapers in the
South, mentioned the proclamation only as something to be stayed. Was he
trying to elicit a peace offer?
"The question is," Cleburne was saying, "why is Lincoln gambling now? Is
he convinced the North is losing, and he must enlist black troopsor is he
convinced the North is winning, and he can afford to challenge us to a fight to
the finish?"
That was the question that had been nagging at Breck ever since late
September, when he had read the news of Lincoln's two proclamations free-
ing the slaves and jailing the dissenters. Was Lincoln acting out of weakness
or strength? Was the reason what he said it wasmilitary necessity, which
would mean weaknessor was that a pose, and Lincoln's ulterior motive to
whip up the war spirit in the North to subjugate the South once and for all?
He remembered his arguments with Lincoln in the White House eighteen
months ago. The man was then torn between his disgust for slavery and his
solemn promise not to strike at the peculiar institution where it existed. The
stunning way he resolved that dilemma had surprised Breckinridge, who had
thought of his former presidential rival as a born compromiser. This was a
decision, coming down hard on one side.
The war must have changed Lincoln, made him more certain of his tenta-
tive ideas, just as it had changed Breckinridge, making him unsure of what he
was fighting for, or why he was fighting at all. Not for independencehe had
always opposed disunion; not slaverythat was no cause to inspire a willing-
ness to die; and not even individual liberty, since Richmond was now just as
eager to suspend habeas corpus in the name of national security as Washing-
ton ever had been. For Kentucky? The people of his state had just been given
the chance to rise to greet its liberators, and had decided against that; their
apathy or indecision was as authentic a plebiscite as could be conducted. His
only certainty at the moment was that the picture would never leave him of a
Kentucky firing squad killing a Kentucky boy for the crime of slipping away
to do some planting. The Breckinridge family was on both sides, and so, in a
sense, was he.
Cleburne brought him back. "Maybe we'll sound out some of the hi-muck-
a-mucks about recruiting the slaves at the Morgan wedding." John Hunt
Morgan, the hothead turned heroic cavalry raider, was to be married the
following week. His forays behind enemy lines had disrupted Union logistics
and provisioned Confederate soldiers with Yankee supplies, the leaders of the
army and the government would assemble for that wedding. "He's the only
Kentuckian who gets along with Bragg."
"They can have each other," Breck said sourly. "But maybe a good woman
will settle John down."
"Or take the fight out of him."
"Is that why you're a bachelor, Pat? You want to keep your fighting edge?"
When Breck was Cleburne's agethirty-threehe had been married a dozen
years. Breck now wished he had spent more time with Cabell. That notion
was a dead weight on his line of thought and he shook it off.
"I'll find the colleen one of these days, but not when I have to worry about
leaving her a widow every time the moment comes to lead a charge. You have
to be a little crazy to be a good raider like Morgan or Forrestbloodthirsty
too. You suppose Jeff Davis will come to the wedding?"
Everyone in the command, including Bragg, assumed that Breckinridge
knew the President's plans. The Kentuckian never disabused anyone of that
thought, because it helped him stand off the insufferable martinet of a com-
manding general. He shrugged and said he hoped so.
"Sure and we could use a council of war here in Murfreesboro," Cleburne
said, slipping deep into his brogue. "The new Union general, Rosecrans, is a
tad more headstrong than Buell. He'll be coming after us, because if he
doesn't he knows Lincoln will be coming after him. Bragg had better be ready
to fight. He can't keep blaming us for his own damn cowardice."
"I hear Lincoln paid a visit one night last week to Bumside at the Virginia
front," was all Breck could say.
Cleburne nodded. They left unsaid their feeling that the Yankee general
might be getting the better advice and greater inspiration.

CHAPTER 24
THE PRESIDENT VISITS
Jefferson Davis was glad of the chance to get out of Richmond, even for a few
days. The wedding of Colonel Morgan, the dashing cavalry raider (why was
"dashing" the only word to apply to a horse soldier?) to a young :voman
known throughout Central Tennessee as the belle of Murfreesboro offered an
occasion to reaffirm his support of his good friend, Braxton Bragg.
Such a visit would also show the men of the Army of Tennessee that their
commander in chief in Richmond considered the Central theater every bit as
important as the Eastern, despite the likelihood that a great battle was im-
pending on the banks of the Rappahannock near Fredericksburg.
Even as he prepared to meet Bragg, President Davis found it hard to shift
his concentration from Robert Lee in Virginia. General Lee wanted to fall
back thirty miles, drawing the Union forces away from their water base at
Aquia Creek, in hope of destroying Bumside's army completely if the Union
attack failed; Davis had overruled that, recommending entrenchment on the
heights overlooking the river, hoping to draw Bumside into a hopeless uphill
charge.
The leader of the Confederacy did not believe it necessary to destroy the
Army of the Potomac; at this crucial post-election time a decisive repulse,
with heavy casualties, would be more than even the unreasonable Lincoln
could stand. Copperhead sentiment was obviously on the rise in the North,
and needed fuel for its orators' fire. A stunning defeat of the army that
expected to march on Richmond, coming just after Lincoln had staked all on
the removal of McClellan and taken personal responsibility for this cam-
paign, might well trigger angry uprisings in the North. A military defeat
coming on the heels of a vote of no confidence might finally convince the
English people that the North could not win, and that the South, as Glad-
stone had said truthfully, had made itself a nation.
Davis had more in mind with this visit to the West than assuring the
soldiers of the Army of Tennessee of the importance of their task. Earlier that
year he had chosen February 22, birthday of George Washington, to be inau-
gurated as the permanent President of the Confederacy; like General Wash-
ington, Davis saw the need for military daring designed for political effect.
He was planning a mission for Colonel Morgan and his raiders that tran-
scended the usual military tactics. Davis wanted to tell Morgan in person
about that great raid, even as he promoted the gallant and fearless Ken-
tuckian to brigadier general. The promotion would serve as a wedding pres-
ent from the Confederacy in gratitude for the bridegroom's fervor in dis-
rupting Union logistics by destroying railroads and bridges.
The Richmond that the President left behind was turning, he was sad to
admit, into a cauldron of bickering interests. The newly revered Robert Lee
was the one who had advised Davis to press for conscription to offset the
weight of numbers in the North, but the blame for this extension of the power
of central government had been placed on Davis. When the President recog-
nized the need to have the power to impose martial law in those Southern
cities in danger of attack, the treacherousDavis did not feel that treacher-
ous was too strong a wordeditors of the Richmond newspapers had vilified
him for imitating Lincoln in suspending the privilege of habeas corpus. He
found that comparison odious: it should have been clear that Lincoln had
seized the power of arbitrary arrest illegally while Davis had obtained it
lawfully, by seeking it through an action of the Confederate Congress.
He had some constitutional advantages over his Federal counterpart: Davis
was serving a single term of six years, no reelection permitted, which put him
above the maneuvering to maintain control that must trouble Lincoln; and to
counterbalance the South's presumed shift away from national authority, the
Confederate Constitution gave the President the power to veto specific items
within legislation. But there were disadvantages to rejection of central power:
Lincoln might have his critics in the North, Davis mused, but at least he did
not have his Vice President stabbing him in the back at every opportunity.
"Little Aleck" Stephens was becoming impossible. The President found it
hard to believe that Stephens, that emaciated gnome, was giving public politi-
cal support to the Governor of Georgia, a states' rights fanatic who not only
had been resisting conscription but refused to run military trains on Sunday.
Davis had been told, on good authority, that Vice President Stephens had
been saying of the President of the Confederacy that he was "a man of good
intentions, weak and vacillating, petulant, peevish, obstinate but not firm, and
now I am beginning to doubt his intentions."
Davis remembered every slight from an opponent and every insult from the
press. His wife Varina kept telling him that his inability to forget an insult
was a flaw in a political leader, and Davis knew he was more thin-skinned
than he ought to be, but such sensitivity to slights had been part of his
character since he had been a boy in Kentucky and nothing could be done
about it now. His daughter Maggie had the sunny nature that allowed her to
smile away people who snapped at her; Davis marveled at the way she had
the forbearance to turn away from the cats as well as the snakes, but such
charity was not in him. He felt every jab and remembered everyone who
wounded him, but the Confederate President consoled himself that he also
remembered those who loyally spoke up for him in times of trial. His old
Mexico comrade Braxton Bragg was one of those, especially when that
French popinjay Beauregard tried to blame Davis for failing to capture the
Federal capital after First Manassas.
Seated in the room of the Murfreesboro Hotel, preparing for the prerecep-
tion visits of Bragg, Breckinridge, and the others, Davis wondered whether
Lincoln was afflicted with the same sensitivity to criticism. Probably not; he
and Lincoln had been born in the same Kentucky county within a year of
each other, but the Davises were a distinguished and wealthy family, the
Lincolns a poor and uneducated lot. Lincoln had campaigned hard for the
presidential nomination, trading promises for support, and been elected by a
minority of the people; in contrast, Davis had not sought the leadership of his
nation, had even chosen not to attend the convention in Montgomery that
selected him unanimously. Out of a sense of duty, he had accepted the re-
sponsibility to lead the seceded states.
To Davis's mind, there was a coarseness to Lincoln, part and parcel of an
innate hunger to triumph over his betters. Davis was a West Point graduate,
experienced in command in the Mexican War, Secretary of War in the Pierce
administration, and could deal knowledgeably with military affairs; Lincoln's
military background was practically nonexistent, and yet he presumed to
consider himself a great strategist and was known to meddle in the planning
of campaigns.
Worst of all, thought Davis, Lincoln's coarseness had turned to sheer sav-
agery in the crucible of war. His toleration of General Pope's barbarism was
indicative, but his proclamation of abolition revealed a man so desperate to
keep his dominion over the states that he would actually seek to incite a
servile rebellion. For drawing that weapon of terrorisme, Davis was certain
the Union leader would be remembered in history as a man capable of the
most monstrous acts.
Lincoln's sly recommendation to the Southern blacks "to abstain from
violence unless in necessary self-defense" was particularly infuriating, since it
was an unmistakable hint to encourage the assassination of their masters.
Every slave being disciplined now had the "right" from the President of the
United States to strike out at his owner. Davis detested Lincoln for putting
forward the most execrable measure recorded in the history of guilty man,
and was fearful that it might have the effect intended of setting slaves on a
path of rapine and murder on thousands of undefended plantations. He was
convinced that Lincoln's protestations of the past two years that he had no
intention of striking at slavery where it existed were a sham; the man was an
abolitionist at heart, determined to impose his ways on an independent people
just as had George III on the American colonists.
Braxton Bragg was the President's first caller. Davis assumed that the
general, in constant strife with his subordinates, wanted to be sure that the
President understood his side of any disputes before he heard them from the
likes of John Breckinridge. Bragg was an irritating fellow, Davis was aware
as U.S. Secretary of War, he had accepted Bragg's angry resignationbut
when General Beauregard failed, it was the abrasive but effective Bragg that
Davis had turned to, and the stern disciplinarian had justified that faith with
his march northward into Tennessee and Kentucky.
"You have not been receiving the praise you deserve in Richmond, Gen-
eral," Davis told him, going to the heart of what must be bothering his friend.
"The venal press want you to remove me from command," Braxton Bragg
announced. "The Richmond Whig says the Kentucky campaign turned out to
be a fizzle."
"I ignore the press completely," said Davis, wishing he could.
"A fizzle is exactly what it was," said Bragg, surprising him, "thanks to
Breckinridge. If he had been with me a month sooner, when he should have
been, he might have helped with those damned Kentuckians. Selfish, misera-
ble people, wouldn't volunteer a crust of bread to the army. And our Ken-
tucky Brigade is a joke, thanks to Breckinridge's coddling."
"I was born in Kentucky," Davis reminded him. "We Kentuckians have an
independent turn of mind." He suppressed his irritation with Bragg's congen-
ital derogation of his own subordinates, because the unfortunate man's simian
looks and dyspeptic demeanor denied him friends and followers. Certainly he
had too few supporters in the press: in his invasion of Kentucky, Bragg had
accomplished as much as Lee in his invasion of Maryland, at less cost, yet it
was Lee who was hailed by his countrymen as a hero while Bragg bore the
brunt of criticism as a retreater. The pity was that both Confederate generals
had been forced to fall back; valor was no match for railroad lines of supply
to bring up ammunition and new shoes.
As Bragg launched into a series of complaints about his other officers,
Davis interrupted to ask whether there were any men in Bragg's command
worthy of promotion. He had in mind that day's groom, who, Davis had been
told, would be married by General Polk with a bishop's robes worn over his
uniform.
Bragg submitted a list for promotion. Davis saw the name of a colonel,
recommended for general of a brigade, who had recently written a letter
critical of the Davis administration that had been published in the newspa-
pers. He struck that name off the list, along with several others he knew to be
overly outspoken. Bragg did not always understand that the need for disci-
pline also had to include political reliability. He came to Patrick Cleburne's
name.
"You like the Irishman?"
"Young and ardent, but sufficiently prudent," Bragg nodded. "A fine drill
officer. Has the admiration of his command."
"So does Breckinridge," Davis observed, knowing it would get a rise out of
Bragg. "Popularity with the troops does not always mean good generalship,"
he said, adding, "although Breck is a superb commander and, like you, a
colleague of long standing."
"Breckinridge is soft," Bragg said. "And he drinks."
Davis frowned, not wanting to hear this, but Bragg would not desist. "He
came into my tent the other night and I could tell he was drunk. Mumbling
something about his damned 'orphans,' and tried to get me to pardon a
deserter. He's been drunk in the presence of the troops, too. Fell off his horse
at a formation, dead to the world, made a fool of himself. As far as I'm
concerned, you can send him back out West, along with his brigade of riff-
raff."
"I'm glad you can spare the troops," said Davis, ignoring the serious
charge. "I want you to detach Morgan's raiders for a mission I have in
mind."
"I cannot spare Morgan's cavalry," Bragg said abruptly. "He has five thou-
sand fighters under him. I expect an attack from Rosecrans soon, and I need
every man I can get, excluding the shirkers under Breckinridge. You should
not split my command more than it is already."
"I must. You are to send one division," the President ordered, "full
strength, ten thousand men, to Mississippi right away. We must stop Grant
from taking Vicksburg."
Nothing was more important to Davis, not even the defense of Richmond,
than the continued denial of the Mississippi River to the North. He fervently
hoped that the importance of Vicksburg would not assume an overriding
significance in Lincoln's war strategy. He counted on Lincoln to remain
transfixed with the battles along the Potomac.
"And you're taking Morgan's cavalry," said Bragg. "That's quite a loss."
Davis knew what he was doing with Morgan's force. He would take For-
rest's cavalry raiders from Bragg as well, to harass Grant in the West and
thereby prevent an attack on Vicksburg, but that could wait a few days.
"Fight if you can," he told Bragg, "and fall back if you must, beyond the
Tennessee River." He drew himself to his feet. "I expect you to work together
with Breckinridge and General Hardee. I will promote Cleburne to major
general, as you suggest, and will promote Colonel Morgan to brigadier. We
will now attend the festive occasion."
"They'll come at us right here at Murfreesboro," said Bragg. As Davis
expected, the general did not argue further; it was for him to try to work out
what he could do with the forces remaining with him. "We don't have much
of a natural defense at Stones River, but if we can stop them here, we can
chase them up past Nashville."
Davis liked that spirit, and resolved to protect this faithful soldier from the
wolves of Richmond. He cautioned Bragg to use entrenchment whenever
possibleneither Bragg nor Lee liked that device, thinking that it robbed the
men of their warlike spirit and undermined their discipline, but Davis was
persuaded that earthworks and trenches improved the prospects of successful
defense.
"I must do all in my power," the President told him as they walked out
together, "to overcome the impression that I am an austere and unfeeling
person." When the general demurred, Davis pressed the point that pained
him, but was true: "No, that is an unfortunate burden I bear. That is one
reason for my coming to the wedding, General, to show the officers and the
troops that I am not the cold and distant person I am made out to be in the
press."
He was telling Bragg this not merely because it was true, but to suggest
subtly that the general suffered from a similar reputation. Some political men
could succeed without appearing warm and outgoingGeorge Washington
was the outstanding example of one who had maintained his reserve and
dignitybut on the whole, Davis felt, men like Bragg and himself were weak-
ened as leaders by a modesty or taciturnity that made it hard for them to let
their inner natures be seen by their countrymen.
"There's going to be a lot of drinking at this wedding," said the general,
"and a temptation to become lax in discipline. Your presence here will
counter that, Mr. President."
Davis sighed; Braxton Bragg would never understand human relationships.
Better Bragg in command than Beauregard, however; the ambitious little
Frenchman wanted to be President. Bragg had his sick headaches that crip-
pled him for days on end, Davis knewmigraines, they were being called
and his relationships with his fellow officers left much to be desired, but he
would not run out on his President. One thought troubled President Davis,
however: "About General Breckinridge. You realize that he is a braver man
than either of us."
Bragg looked up sharply, as Davis knew he would. "You are a resident of
Louisiana," said the President, "a state that seceded legally from the Union. I
am the former United States Senator from Mississippi, also a state that se-
ceded. If we should lose this warand we must recognize that our maximum
strength has been mobilized, while the enemy is just beginning to put forth his
mightyou and I have an unassailable legal defense against vindictive
charges of treason."
He let that sink in. "Breckinridge, on the other hand, is from Kentucky.
That state, unhappily, did not secede. If we should lose this war, or if General
Breckinridge fell into enemy hands in the course of battle, he would surely be
tried as a traitor. The likes of Tad Stevens and Ben Wade would settle for no
less than the most severe punishment. And the likelihood is that Mr. Lincoln
would see him hang."
"That's a chance he takes," Bragg said coldly. "No excuse for drinking."
CHAPTER 25
THE BANDIT TAKES A BRIDE
Breckinridge could not understand what had come over John Hunt Morgan.
The hothead of Lexington, the reckless risk-all raider, the Yankee-hating
swashbuckler who had been loosely attached to the Orphan Brigade since the
start had undergone a transformation. Morgan was moonstruck.
To be in love was a fine thing, Breckinridge conceded, and let himself recall
the innocent early days with Mary and the later days in Washington jousting
and loving with Anna Carroll, but none of those experiences had intrinsically
changed him; Colonel Morgan, in contrast, seemed positively lovesick.
"You know what Mattie said last year, when a Yankee officer asked her
name?" Morgan asked him, as he asked everyone on his wedding day. "It was
a year ago, we hadn't met. She told him, 'Write down Mattie Ready now, but
by the grace of God, one day I shall call myself the wife of John Morgan.'
There's a woman for you."
"She knows her mind," Breckinridge said to the groom, "for someone that
young. And she's a lot better-looking than some of those women you've been
slipping into camp."
"At least all my men are men, Breck," the cavalryman responded merrily.
Breckinridge smiled; in his brigade, as elsewhere in the army, there were
more than a few young women masquerading as boys. These volunteers usu-
ally buddied up, concealing their sex from the officers but not from the men
in the ranks, for whom they performed their services profitably and well.
Some of the disguised girls even charged nothing, considering it their contri-
bution to the Cause. In battle, these hardened young women in soldiers' garb
were among the steadiest under fire, and the noncoms passed the word up the
line that it would harm morale if their services day or night were withdrawn.
Breckinridge pretended to know nothing about it.
He sloshed around some of the purplish fluid that had been put in his glass.
"What kind of God-awful wine is this?"
"Scuppemong," said the cavalryman, "and over there you can find all the
applejack and peach brandy you want. I suppose they can break out a little
bourbon for you, Breck."
Morgan looked across the large reception room of the house of the bride's
father at the figure of President Jefferson Daviscadaverous, pale, almost at
the edge of infirmityentering at the side of Braxton Bragg. "I think I rate a
honeymoon with this incredible girl," Morgan was saying in a lower tone,
"but we've been told to be ready to set out on a raid right after the wedding."
He seemed sorry for himself; that was the first time Breckinridge could
recall that Morgan had not approached action with the eyes of a man who
loved war more than a man should. Morgan was not the only Southern
hotblood who was becoming more sober about the game of war, Breck had
observed; the fighting was lasting too long and the adventure was losing its
piquancy. He could not fault Jeff Davis on that. His former colleague in the
United States Senate had warned of a long war from the start; Breck had
agreed, remembering his conversations in the Executive Mansion with Lin-
coln, who was obsessed with what he insisted was "an oath registered in
Heaven" to prevent Southern independence at all costs.
Breck stayed away from the bar, moving instead to a table laden with quail,
doves, and roast pork. Supplies were plentiful in Murfreesboro, a city
crowded with wives and sweethearts of officers. He wished Mary had been
well enough to come; it would be good to be with her in this soul-wrenching
time of uncertainty about Cabell. No word about the boy in a month; the
longer there was no news, the more the likelihood of never seeing him again
grew. His name had not appeared on any of the prisoner lists.
The gaiety of the party, the whooshing of silk skirts, and the laughter of
Morgan's raiders oppressed him. How many of these reveling raiders would
come home across the backs of their horses after the next foray, and how
many brides and sweethearts would soon be searching for replacements, just
as generals demanded replacements that so seldom came? That led to-another
thought: why was Morgan's force being sent on a mission when the likelihood
was that Bragg would be called upon to defend this area any day now?
Cavalry provided an army its eyes, and the talent of Southern horsemen in
scouting and harassing an approaching enemy provided the Confederacy an
edge of supremacy that sometimes made up for the Northern advantage in
artillery. General Breckinridge hoped Davis had a good reason for stripping
Bragg's army of Morgan and his men at a critical moment.
At a nod from President Davis, who seemed unusually convivial and atten-
tive to the guests this afternoon, Breckinridge went into the study to await his
audience with the leader of the South. He was surprised and glad to see Pat
Clebume waiting there already, poking the fire, complaining about the bone-
chilling dampness of these rambling mansions.
"I'm either going to be promoted or cashiered," General Clebume told him
quickly. "I'm afraid I couldn't keep my Irish mouth shut, Breck. I didn't take
your advice."
"You didn't put anything in writing about recruiting and freeing slaves, I
hope."
General Clebume shook his head as the President entered. Jefferson Davis
took their hands and motioned them to chairs before the fire.
"My friends, with constant labors in the duties of office, and borne down
by care, I have had such little opportunity for social intercourse," the Presi-
dent saidit seemed to Breckinridge stiffly, like a politician incapable of
warmth even among his closest supporters. "I hope the time may come when,
relieved of the anxieties of the hour, we may have more social intercourse."
"The war is not going well, then," Clebume probed.
"On the contrary, I see nothing in the future to disturb the prospect of the
independence for which we are struggling." Breck knew the President had
been profoundly troubled by the setback at Sharpsburg, but knew also that
Davis would brook no defeatist talk. "Have you spoken to the bride and
groom? With such noble women at home and such heroic soldiers in the field,
we are invincible."
"Sure and you're a man of great faith," Clebume replied, "but we just lost
Kentucky. And with all respect, Mr. President, our glorious invasion of the
North, by both Bragg and Lee, is a thing of the past. If we're to win, we need
some radical changes."
Davis biinked, rubbed his bad eye, and changed the subject. "Breck, first
let me say I have nothing to report to you about your son. The official
channels, through the exchange commission, say he is not listed as a pris-
oner."
Breckinridge nodded numbly and said he was grateful for his concern.
"We have an informal means of communication with the North," the Presi-
dent continued. "Judah Benjamin's sister in New Orleans is in touch with a
doctor of some sort attached to the headquarters of the Union occupiers.
Some inquiries are being made through that channel, which was initiated by
Mr. Lincoln, I suspect, when he replaced that madman Butler. Perhaps he is
coming under pressure to see if negotiations for peace are possible. We will
telegraph you immediately if there is any news of your gallant boy. Our
prayers"
"Send news about peace negotiations, too," said the irrepressible Clebume.
"The only basis for talks would be a recognition of the Confederacy's
independence," Davis said with great firmness. "The possibility that the
North is interested is encouraging. It may be a sign of weakness. Demands for
peace are growing every day in the North."
But not in the South, Breckinridge noted, and wondered why. Possibly
because the North was the aggressor, striking against an attempt at peaceful
secession; the way Lincoln had goaded the South into firing the first shot had
been a transparent trick. More likely, peace talk was muted in the South
because it was equated with a suggestion to surrender. Life in the two sections
was surely of a different character (lending some credence, Breck would
grant, to the idea of independence), and part of that difference was the incli-
nation of the Southerner to consider a defeat of his cause to be a loss of
personal honor. If a Yankee thought of losing the war, he did not worry about
the occupation of his land by Southerners; but every Southerner had to con-
sider the personal humiliation in store when the Yankee overlords came down
to see that the slaves were in the saddle.
And then Breck felt another, unstated, slowly smoldering reason that peace
talk was not heard in the South: not every Southerner was partial to the
peculiar institution, particularly when slavery did him no personal good. To
talk of peace was to doubt the necessity for slavery, which was to attack the
aristocracy, and you didn't do that if you knew what was good for you. But
plenty of poor Southern soldiers resented having to fight to help the planta-
tion owner keep his slaves; Cabell had taught him that. And Breck knew that
at least some well-bred officers felt that slaverywhich might be justified on
abstract economic grounds, and was surely permitted by the writers of the
Constitutionwas not the sort of cause that made its justifiers proud.
"Independence, then, is the Southern cause," Clebume was saying to Da-
vis, "the very essence of the war and the reason for the glorious struggle. Not
the preservation of slavery."
Davis nodded unhesitatingly. "Abolition is merely the excuse for the war
on the part of some Northern zealots," he explained, as if this were a lecture
he had given often. "The real design of most of the Yankee bankers and
politicians is to subjugate the South totally, dominating our economy and
imposing their culture upon our own. The abolition of slavery was merely
their excuse, and a device to keep foreign nations from recognizing us."
"If they're not really fighting to end slavery," said the Irish-born general in
seeming innocence, "and we're really fighting for independence and not to
save slaverythen why don't we emancipate the slaves ourselves, and use
negro troops to fight for our independence and their own freedom?"
"There's been some talk of that around," Breckinridge put in, to soften the
sound of Cleburne's heresy. "It's not disloyal in any way, Mr. President. Just
take it as a suggestion to help swell our ranks."
"How would we pay for it?" Davis asked. Breck biinked and Clebume
smiled; that practical reaction was a surprise. "The Confederacy would have
to buy the slaves to use in the army, at eight hundred dollars a head for a
good field hand, and then free those who served honorably. Where's the
money for that? We hardly have enough to pay for ammunition, for shoes
even, and could not think of affording a million slaves."
"Is that all that stands in the way?"
Davis smiled his bleak smile. "Tell me where to find eight hundred million
dollars for the first million slaves. But of course that is not the only drawback
to the scheme. Some of our states would try to secede from the Confederacy
to protect the peculiar institutionGeorgia, South Carolina."
"We're outnumbered in every battle, sometimes two to one," Breckinridge
put in. "The North outnumbers us three to one in men of military age avail-
able for the draft." As an experienced politician, Breckinridge was not pre-
pared to endorse Clebume's idea at this early stage. But that the notion
evidently did not trigger automatic rejection by the President of the Confed-
eracy was encouraging.
"Until our white population shall prove insufficient for the armies we re-
quire, to employ the negro as a soldier would scarcely be deemed wise or
advantageous. Certainly not now, and the less said the better," said Davis.
"The notion is quite premature."
"But if recruitment fell off," Cleburne pressed, and Breck wished he would
not keep assaulting the position, "and we really needed the men"
Davis shrugged. "Should the alternatives be subjugation of the South or the
employment of the slave as soldier, there seems no reason to doubt what
should then be our decision. We are not, of course, faced with those alterna-
tives."
Breckinridge was stunned. Here was the President of the Confederacy
coolly facing the prospect of ending slavery in order to maintain an indepen-
dent state. Hundreds of thousands of men were dying for whatfor indepen-
dence? He would have to think hard about the politics of that, because he had
not departed the Senate of the United States, to be branded a traitor by his
peers, because he favored disunion; on the contrary, he had done his damned-
est to avoid disunion, short of war. Nor was he an advocate of the property
rights that enshrined human slavery.
Then what was he fighting for? What was the "cause"? Was resentment at
the Republicans' political insistence that slavery not be extended to the West-
ern territories worth this fratricidal war? His young cousin Margaret, Uncle
Bob's daughter, intruded on his thoughts. She was a nurse for the Union,
swabbing blood off the injured in hospitals that no belles like the girl mar-
rying the lovesick Morgan had ever seen. Margaret Breckinridge had a pur-
pose, simple, clearthe abolition of slavery, the end of the degradation of a
race, the fulfillment of the American revolutionary promise that all men were
created equal. That was something to drive her to serve in ways that no well-
bred Kentucky girl would ever have considered in peacetime. What opposing
cause gave strength to John Morgan's bride? Resentment of the majority's
iron rule? Independence from an already independent Union? It was under-
standable for proud and sensitive Southerners to despise the arrogance of
individual Yankees, but something else entirely for Southerners to hate the
Union their fathers had helped create.
As these thoughts crowded in, Breckinridge felt as if his roots were rotting.
He wished he could have a long talk about the underlying motives of North
and South with Anna Carroll, who might have the wrong answer but would
at least understand the question.
"As general officers," President Davis was saying, "you are both undoubt-
edly concerned about my decision to remove men from this command in the
face of an impending attack on Murfreesborowhy, particularly, I am send-
ing Morgan north for a long foray. I realize that your relationship with
General Bragg is not close, and he is unlikely to explain my rationale."
Breckinridge broke away from his disturbing line of thought and looked up
sharply: had Bragg been complaining about him again? The leader of the
Orphan Brigade felt a surge of anger at the martinet willing to trouble the
President of the Confederacy with petty squabbles.
"The copperhead movement is gaining strength in the North," Davis ex-
plained. "Horatio Seymour has been elected Governor of New York, the
largest state in the Union, on a pledge to end the war with 'the Union as it
was.' Clement Vallandigham of Ohio has introduced a resolution in the
House of Representatives accusing Lincoln of trying to establish a dictator-
ship. Rumors are rampant that Seward intends to negotiate a peace on the
basis of separation"
"How did Val's resolution do?" Breckinridge wanted to know.
"Voted down seventy-nine to fifty, strictly according to party lines," Davis
said.
Breck was impressed; when the leader of the copperhead faction of the
Democrats in Congress could impose party discipline to support a calumni-
ous attack on Lincoln, that meant the opposition was hardening. The South
had no such opposition in place; no two-party system had been given time to
develop. That made the Northern political system stronger in the long run, in
Breck's reckoning, but vulnerable now.
"This is the time to do all we can to contribute to copperhead sentiment in
the North," Davis said, "particularly in the fertile Western groundOhio,
Illinois, Kansas." The President lowered his voice, requiring his generals to
lean forward to catch his words. "I have been visited by men hatching what
they call the Northwest Conspiracya rising of the copperhead secret societ-
ies, a riot in Chicago, open agitation to free our prisoners and negotiate an
end to the war. That is where Morgan, and perhaps Forrest in a few weeks,
can fit instriking north and west, making the message plain that the war
cannot be won by the Union."
Breck looked at Clebume; did Davis know something about Northern mo-
rale that they did not know? He had no feel for the depth of support of the
peace movement in the North, but if the movement could turn out every
Democrat in the House to denounce the President of the United States as a
dictator, perhaps Davis's faith in the value of raids in the Northwest was well
placed. He wondered if Lincoln would be rattled by an explosion of peace talk
in Ohio and Illinois; somehow, he doubted it. He could not be wearied of
making war, because he was sustained by his obsession with Union and ma-
jority rule. The only way to defeat Lincoln was to beat his army.
"This is the critical time," said President Davis. "Now, this month. Our
victory could come not so much from our strength, but from weakness in the
Northern will. Do you agree, Breck? You have a surer grasp of politics than I
do."
"We need more than successful raids," was his judgment. "We need some
victories in the field here in Tennessee, leading back up into Kentucky, threat-
ening Ohio. And we need General Lee to crush Lincoln's army at the Rappa-
hannock in the East."
"Defense is the key," the newly promoted Clebume put in. "If there is
anything we've learned, 'tis the effect of the rifled barrel on all warfare. The
guns can start killing at over five hundred yards, not one hundred, and that
means the attackers are at a terrible disadvantage against prepared positions.
That should be our strategy here, if you can get it through Bragg's thick
skull."
"It is the plan of General Lee at Fredericksburg," said Davis, ignoring the
slight to his local commander.
"That is the way to weaken Lincoln's resolve," Breckinridge concluded.
"The removal of McClellan was all his doing. The next battle is his defeat or
his victory, no matter who the Union general is. A military setback there,
followed by a repulse of the Federals here, would force him to listen to the
Democrats and settle the war. Only then would he make a deal for 'the Union
as it was,' with slavery."
"Which I, of course," said Davis, "will never accept. We are two nations
now."
The practical Irishman made Breckinridge's point. "First let's get him to
make us an offer."

CHAPTER 26
ALONE AGAIN

Governor Chase had never before come to see her at her flat in The Washing-
ton House. Her lodgings, Anna Carroll assured herself, were respectable
enough, and the bedroom-work office had a certain genteel seediness attribut-
able to the war. Certainly the quarters were not as grand as he was accus-
tomed to at the Chase mansion at Sixth and G, but her sitting room had been
host to a parade of Congressmen and office seekers. Not a month ago, she had
made the final arrangements in this drab room with Senator Henry Wilson
for the appointment of a middle-level assistant in Chase's Treasury Depart-
ment, which did nothing to pay the rent but at least enhanced her reputation
as a person of some influence. That reputation, in turn, led to writing assign-
ments. She wished the War Department would pay the $6,500 she was owed,
or at least made an offer to settle the bill.
Anna was flustered when the bellboy arrived at the door with the Chase
calling card, but she was not about to waste the governor's time by plumping
up the pillows or brushing her hair. She wished she had bought a Christmas
wreath to put on the door to show her piety. She also wished she had not
worn her high-necked blouse but now was no time to change. She sent the
boy down to the desk clerk with word to escort the Secretary of the Treasury
upstairsshe was eager for the management to know that her visitors were of
the first rankand ordered tea.
"I trust I am not coming at an inopportune time," Chase said formally,
handing her his hat and heavy overcoat, damp from the snow. She was in-
clined to say that of course the time was inopportune, she and her apartment
looked a mess, and she was glad to have him here in her own domain without
his possessive elder daughter looking on. Instead, as she did whenever she felt
nervous, Anna let herself pour forth a cascade of small talk about grand
strategy.
She took his wet hat and coat and heaved them up onto the brass hatstand,
chattering about the likelihood of a battle on the Rappahannock, which
struck her as being blown out of all proportion by the war correspondents.
"They should be out West with Grant, focusing attention on Vicksburg. Why
is Lincoln sending John McClemand, a hack politician playing general if
there ever was one, down the Mississippi with a force to assault Vicksburg
from the river side? That's doomed. The fortress can only be taken from the
back, on land, by siege."
"I'm sure you know more about that than anyone, my dear lady," he said
heavily, sinking into the only chair in the sitting room suitable for a big man.
"As you know, the war appears to be drawing to a successful close. Even
Seward admits that."
That was news to her; Anna doubted this would be a war lasting less than
two years. The emancipation policy had not worked, and Lincoln seemed to
be backing away from it; Orville Browning told her he hoped a way would be
found to delay the proclamation's effect past the New Year's deadline.
Chase's hopes for a quick Northern victory seemed misplaced to her, but
Anna did not want to argue; perhaps he had come on other business and was
making preliminary conversation.
"With McClellan finally gone, and some new spirit finally in our troops,"
Chase was saying, "we should be in Richmond in a matter of weeks."
She wondered about his optimism; did Stanton agree? That was not what
she was hearing from young Bates at the telegraph office. The operator re-
ported that "Hosanna"that was the Union code name for Jefferson Davis,
although the operators were more accustomed to hearing Lincoln call his
counterpart "Jeffy D"was confident enough about the defense of Richmond
to make a visit to Murfreesboro to attend a wedding. The thought of that
Tennessee city reminded her of "Old Rosey" Rosecrans, the new Federal
commander facing Bragg and Breckinridge there, and she was glad to be able
to pass on a tasty piece of political gossip to Chase.
"Whenever the war ends, Governor, I hear the Democrats intend to run
every general they can lay their hands on for every major office in the North."
"I've heard those rumors about McClellan for President"
"I've heard the Democrats want Rosecrans for Governor of Ohio." She
knew that thought would worry him; Ohio was home territory for Chase, his
base of political power, and she had this information from no less an Ohioan
than Senator Ben Wade. She sat back to hear what it was he had come for,
telling herself to restrain her tongue and to remain self-possessed, as if pro-
posals of marriage came regularly. The fact that the governor had come
calling without notice was a hopeful sign; maybe he did not wish to hold back
an overdue impulse.
"As the war ends, I must give serious thought to how best I can serve the
nation," he said. "The Republican convention is no more than eighteen
months away. Mr. Lincoln, happily, is not likely to be given much consider-
ation for renomination. Seward must be stopped at all costshe and the
Biairs would subvert the cause for which the war has been fought.,"
She nodded, forcing herself to listen without comment to a dubioas analy-
sis, wondering what would bring him around to a more personal subject.
"As Senator Wade has undoubtedly confided in you," he went on, "there is
talk of urging Lincoln to remove Seward. Perhaps of precipitating a resigna-
tion of the Cabinet en masse, and reconstituting it with myself as a sort of
Premier."
She remembered that was what Secretary Seward had tried and failed to do
at the start of the Lincoln administration. Didn't Chase realize that Lincoln
was too smart, or too strong-willed, to permit anything of the sort? Perhaps
he thought Lincoln had been weakened by two years of war. But now, evi-
dently, a great victory on the road to Richmond was expected; the prospect of
impending peace would hardly cause the President to panic and turn over the
reins to his strongest Republican rival. Just the opposite: victory would end
the military necessity for sudden emancipation, allow Lincoln to regain his
popularity as a man of moderation, and ensure his renomination. Anna
frowned at the flaw in Chase's analysis, then caught herself, lest a frown be
construed as disapproval, and smiled brightly.
"Whatever happens, the next year or two will be a time of great political
activity for me," he was saying, "and because of that, I am duty-bound to
curtail all other interests and activities."
She nodded. A busy time it would surely be for everyone.
"Which means, my dear lady, that I will have to curtail all social activi-
ties," he said, shifting in his chair. "I will be working later than ever. I will be
traveling more. I will not be able to avail myself of the comfort and the
stimulation of social intercourse that other men may indulge in."
What was the man getting at? She looked at him sharply. "Say what you
mean."
"What I mean is that we cannot see each other as often as before. It means
also," he added, as if in reassurance, "that I will be seeing none of the other
friends who, unlike you, have little interest in public affairs." Anna took that
to mean that Adele Douglas and a few other women friends of Salmon P.
Chase were to be cast aside totally, along with her. Small solace there.
"I would think that at such a time," she countered, "you would need more
than ever the companionship and counsel of someone who cares for your
future and cares for you."
He shook his handsome head gently but firmly. "I have always conducted
myself as a man of honor. I cannot honorably suggest to any woman, espe-
cially one for whose intellect I have the greatest respect, the possibility of
sharing a life that, in the end, cannot be shared."
She was about to engage that argument and then stopped herself. This was
not a discussion in which intelligent refutation of an opposing position would
do any good. He was announcing a decision, and it was not the one she had
hoped for. She took a deep breath, gave him the benefit of the doubt, and said
only, "I do not understand."
"Let me be frank, then. If we were to continue to see each other as in the
recent past, we would surely reach the point of considering a more formal
and lasting relationship."
She nodded for him to go on.
"Of course, I have no way of knowing what your decision would be to my
suit, but I cannot honorably allow matters to go that far. I will let nothing
not my personal happiness in a life that has seen such grief in marriage
nothing cause me to swerve from my path of duty."
Chase had buried three wives, she knew; certainly that affected his thinking
about marrying again. But couldn't he see that in her case, she would be a
political help, not a hindrancean active and useful ally, not a dead anchor?
The thought occurred to her that his daughter Kate had pressed him to stop
seeing his women friends, but celibacy was an unnatural state for a virile man,
especially one determined to compete for power. She knew he wanted her
completely, as she did him.
What path of duty was he talking about? He was strong enough to deal
with a possessive daughter. Instead of analyzing all he said for some hidden
motive, she told herself to consider another possibility: it could be that this
man, unlike all the others she had known in political life, was being sincere in
seeking not to hurt her as others had. She would feel better if that were the
reason, and she badly wanted to feel better.
"I will support you in every way I can," she said, "and if that has to
include not seeing you, so be it."
Well put, she said to herself; she had a lifetime's experience in farewells
without acrimony. She would not let herself think his withdrawal from imme-
diate contact was final. At least this was not a bitter occasion; after Chase
succeeded and was President, or failed and was not, perhaps there would be
time for being together. She had learned not to close doors; men in public life
suffered great changes in fortune that caused greater changes in mind, or else
they found other ways to redress their emotional wrongs.
"The Native American Party people" he began, and she smiled that
away.
"I'll talk to my old friend Millard Fillmore in New York," she said. "He
hates Seymour and cannot work with Seward. I think you can count on our
Know-Nothings." She put her finger alongside her nose and then touched
thumb to forefinger, making a zero, the old signal for "nose-nothing."
After the Treasury Secretary left the room, a tender kiss on her forehead
his only expression of regret, Anna Carroll shook her head in wonderment at
the gentleness of her own reaction to her latest disappointment. She actually
felt more sorry for the man than for herself. She would miss a great deal, but
he would be missing more. The pity was, he might find out too late to do
either of them much good.
She looked out the window at his carriage pulling away in the snow and
hurried to put on her overcoat, the good one that Lizzie Keckley had de-
signed three years ago. Since her job was now apparently to be her life, she
had to plunge into it with new zest: the first place she wanted to visit was the
War Department. Reverend Bob Breckinridge had written her with news
passed on by his daughter, Margaret Elizabeth, the Union nurse who had
been captured and released in Tennessee: John Breckinridge's son was miss-
ing in action and the family was looking for some word of the whereabouts of
the body, if hope had gone that he was a prisoner.
Anna Ella Carroll was a personage in Washington, she reminded herself,
one of the few women who knew whom to see and what could be done and
how to ask for it. Being busy on important work always helped dispti disap-
pointment, as would the realization that her loss of a married future was
small compared to the loss being felt by the Kentuckian she had known so
well so long ago.
CHAPTER 27
JOHN HAY'S DIARY
DECEMBER 12, 1862
I could not believe the words I was hearing.
"Everything can be the same as before," she said, as if she had not just
turned my world inside out. "We can remain friends, perhaps be closer than
ever."
"You are becoming another man's wife," I told her, as if explaining a
mistaken step to a child, "and you are doing it for money, nothing else. For
the money, and the position that Sprague family money can buy. Nothing will
ever be the same, for you or for me."
"And who are you to talk about selling your soul for an illustrious future?"
she demanded, hating herself through me. "You're an able-bodied young man
hiding behind your desk in the Executive Mansion while brave men your age
are fighting and dying. You'll stick close to your beloved Father Abraham
until the war is almost over, writing your Uttle diary that you can use later to
twist history to suit your ends and make your fortune. And when the rebels
are on the run, then you'll rush into uniform, with a high rank and a safe job,
so that you can pretend to your children you were in the War when the
bullets were flying."
I told her, I regret to say, that my children would not be sired by a drunk
who had bought his wife. In the heat of the moment, I thought she deserved
my cruel riposte; she cannot compare her unnatural attachment to her father
to my respect for a great man. But then she started to crynot the sniffles
and tears from a child, but great sobs from a woman unaccustomed to crying,
shaking her head in mortification at her weakness, forcing herself to face her
shame.
"It isn't so terrible," she insisted when she could speak again. "It's a mar-
riage of convenience, to help the family; the French do it all the time. If you
loved me, you'd understand the sacrifice I'm making."
I will give her credit for composing herself quickly, lest some of the pas-
sersby in Lafayette Park notice a blubbering young lady amidst the statuary
of General Washington's foreign helpers; she extended her gloved hand and
gathered what was left of her dignity to bid me goodbye. "I wish you success
in your chosen profession," I said coolly, a remark as cruelly accurate as it
was felicitously phrased. Now I wish I hadn't said it.
She walked eastward in the late December afternoon, with that gait of
independence and grace that I will not soon forget, the heavy woolen skirt
concealing the long, slim, muscled legs that some damnable sot will soon
know better than 1. I have the memories of the kisses and suppressed love
cries, the sketches in my mind that one day I will transcribe to poetry or
prose, and the comfortable weight of melancholy that only the savored expe-
rience of rejection can bestow. And what does Kate have? Sprague, servants,
and a bite at the apple of discord.
I suppose I might have frozen to death, sitting on the bench in the park
across from the Mansion for an hour or so of such wallowing in my misery,
but for the sight of Anna Ella Carroll bustling along Pennsylvania Avenue
past the Mansion on the way to the War Department. I hallooed and waved
to her to join me; she hallooed back and pointed straight ahead. I ran to catch
up to her.
"You always told me Kate was a shrew and a vixen, entirely unworthy of a
boy from Illinois," I said, with an attempt at lightheartedness, "and I want
you to know that I was wrong and you were right."
She immediately slowed her pace and listened to my news. It affected her
more than I thought it would; evidently this fine woman has more of an
affection for me than I had hitherto believed. Women are not universally
betrayers; Anna Carroll is a good egg.
"When did you learn of her engagement to Governor Sprague?"
"The boy governor is now the boy senator. She told me the happy news of
her engagement an hour ago."
The timing seemed to mean something to Anna. She smacked her gloved
fist into her palm and muttered some imprecation that, had Miss Carroll been
a man, I would have taken as "that son of a bitch!" I assumed she meant that
Kate had been acting the bitch in heat, which was all too true, and I agreed
that the young lady had used me badly.
We ducked inside the front entrance of the War Department and remained
downstairs, out of the cold but in a spot where we could talk privately. I told
her the only saving grace of this dismal experience was that it had happened
behind a screen of discretion; at least nobody would know of my rejection
when the world learned of Kate's infamous match. I had not even told Nico-
lay. Anna's response was curious: "Tell me how Kate broke the news to you.
Was she cold, or genuinely upset? Could you tell?"
I recounted the conversation in some detail as I have put it down in this
diary, perhaps with more detail about her looks because the pain was fresher
in my mind. When I finished, Miss Carroll startled me with a wholly unex-
pected reaction.
"You'll get over this in a week, Johnyour pride is hurt, and that's not all
badbut my heart goes out to that poor young woman."
I stood agape, wondering if I had explained it all wrong, or left out the
most important part.
"He's letting her do this for him," she said with great conviction. "The
impetus comes from Chase. He needs the Sprague fortune, and he induced his
daughter to do this."
When I suggested the idea more likely originated with her, and her father
was merely the bystanding recipient of good fortune, Anna Carroll shook her
head with the certitude that makes her difficult to argue with. "Kate is a
bright, ambitious girl. But Governor Chase is a grown man who knows right
from wrong. He could have stopped her from ruining her life for him. He
chose to encourage this."
"How can you be sure it wasn't her doing?"
"I know exactly the bargain he offered." She did not reveal the information
that might have been so fascinating, and I did not inquire. "John, it is really
most important that President Lincoln know how desperately Chase is trying
to undermine him. I know for a fact that Chase hopes to enlist the Senate in a
push to make Chase the dominant force in the government."
"Mr. Lincoln likes to say that when the presidential grub gets in a man, it
hides well," I told her.
"What's a grub?"
"Some sort of chigger, I think, gets under your skin and you can't get it
out." (I hate it when people ask me to explain some of the Tycoon's Kentucky
figures of speech and I don't know them.) I asked her if Chase had hinted
when and how he would make his move for this rather unlikely coup.
"It will be aimed at Seward," she said slowly, "but Lincoln will be the
target. Now that the radicals have McClellan's scalp, they want more. Essen-
tially, they want Seward and the Biairs out, Lincoln turned into a eunuch,
and Chase in charge. If you think the West Point clique around McClellan
was a problem, you may find the radicals behind Chase a real threat."
Something about the way she spoke took my mind off my pain and gave the
strange scheme weight. Miss Carroll is an intimate of the Wades, and had
been close to Chase; she ought to know whereof she speaks about radical
cabals. I resolved to tell the Tycoon about this right away, or as soon as he
can get his mind off the battle he has caused to be joined at Fredericksburg.
Of late, when we turn to talk of politics, he has been worrying about the peace
movement on one flank more than the radicals on his other flank. His prob-
lem may be more Chase in his own backyard than Seymour up in New York.
"Tell the President that Seward took the blame for ending the Chiriqui
deportation plan," she told me. Miss Carroll had been assigned to work on
that scheme for months, to assuage the worry of Northern workers that
Emancipation Day would inundate the North with blacks. "Seward elicited
an objection from the ambassadors from Central America to the colonization
there of our negroes, and wrote back to them saying the whole deportation
plan was off. Lot of people are angry at his high-handed ways. Chase and
Wade will use that."
Anna beckoned me to follow her upstairs to help on an errand, and I hoped
it was not to present her bill for pamphleteering services rendered because I
have been told to stay out of that. Fortunately, her quest was to find out
whether some secesh soldier had been identified as dead by any of our grave
details. I went in with her to one of Stanton's aides, and my presence led him
to believe the Prsdt was interested in Miss Carroll's quest, but even in that
cooperative state the lists he provided could corroborate nothing. She asked
to see our prisoner lists, looked through the B's, found nothing. Nobody was
much interested in helping, what with the battle shaping up at any moment in
Virginia.
We walked back slowly and she left me in front of the Mansion. I told her
of my gratitude for her understanding and her absolute confidence, and she
had some advice for me.
"You're too quick to condemn women, John. You call Mrs. Lincoln 'the
Hellcat,' and you may not mean to be cruel, but you are. She is a troubled
woman who needs help, not scorn. And with Kate"she saw my warning
scowl and ignored it completely"count yourself fortunate you never misled
yourself into thinking that you and she might share a life together."
To make myself feel better, I said maybe Kate had been too old for me.
That may not have been the right thing to say to Miss Carroll, because she
snapped, "Then it's for you to grow up. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, John,
you're enjoying it too much."
We walked along in silence until she added, "And when you see Kate
again, be a man. A boy can be mean, but a man should be kind. She will
learn, in good time, that the husband she chose is a disaster, and the father
she is throwing away her life for is a sanctimonious fraud. As she grows older,
Kate will see your success, and that will be all the vengeance you needand
by then, if you're like a good strong man I used to know, you won't need
any."
She said she had another idea about the prisoner lists and whirled around
to return to the War Department, leaving me with food for thought: I really
should withdraw my first-flush-of-anger oratory. Perhaps a nice note is called
for, showing real maturity and wishing her well, which will remove my sense
of petty recrimination even as it makes her feel worse. Good idea. Meanwhile,
my new philosophy: the sins of the daughters shall be visited on the fathers.

CHAPTER 28

FREDERICKSBURG I
WITH LINCOLN
Lincoln was well aware that these last two weeks of the year could make or
break the Union and his administration.
In sixteen days, if Burnside pushed back Lee and if Rosecrans pushed back
Bragg, he would be standing in the East Room at the New Year's reception,
shaking the hands of thousands of admiring countrymen, seeing in their eyes
the approval that could come only from military success. Perhaps that suc-
cess would be swiftly followed by some response to the proposal, in his annual
message, to amend the Constitution to bring about abolishment by the year
1900, with full compensation to owners. In that case, he would have to con-
sider postponing the January I emancipation edict to see if the South was
ready to end the rebellion on suitable terms. With military success, his would
be the whip hand.
Or that day that would begin 1863 might be draped in defeat. In that case,
the gloom following setbacks in Virginia and Tennessee would be exaggerated
by the holiday period if the generals he had hand-picked failed him and
brought the wrath of public sentiment down on the head of the commander in
chief. Following so soon on the rejection of his party at the polls, military
defeat would cause conservatives to demand he postpone the date of effect of
the proclamation for a different reasonlest the Northern resentment of his
radical act topple the government and defeat his entire purpose. If he acqui-
esced to that and stayed the political blow at the South, he would be ~bowing
weakness everywhere, unable to carry the day in the field or carry-out his
threat in the political arena.
So much depended on at least a modest victory somewhere. To achieve his
central purpose, Lincoln knew he had first to overcome the pervasive weari-
ness of war; now as never before, he needed the infusion of optimism that
only a military excuse for a political thunderbolt would bring.
Of that central purpose Lincoln was in no doubt. The nearly two years of
war had shaken him, drained him, aged and hardened him, but he was dead
certain that he was right in his basic idea: if the experiment of this republic
was to work, the majority had to ruleall the time, with no exceptions. That
was the essence of self-government. If a city, or state, or section that was in
the minority on any question could just pick up and go when the majority
ruled the other way, then there would be no hope for democracy here or
anywhere in the world. And if democracy could not take root in the New
World, where the people had shown they had the will to overpower kings,
then government by the people would stand revealed as an absurdity. Con-
stant subdividing would lead to anarchy, followed by a return to monarchs,
dictators, and despotism. He was certain of that in his soul.
The success of the American experiment rested on the willingness of the
minority to acquiesce in electoral defeat. True, the Republican candidate in
1860 had been the choice of a plurality and not a majority, but Abraham
Lincoln had been duly elected according to the Constitution, and was bound
by more than his oath to beat down the notion that the losers could set up
shop for themselves. He was certain that if he failed to hold the Union intact,
using its blood as its glue, not only would the dream of the nation's founders
be dissipated, but the cause of human freedom throughout the world would
be set back for centuries. The stakes in this struggle could not be higher or the
core idea clearer: upon the outcome of this war of brothers hinged the ability
of people to be their own masters.
He rolled out of bed, took up the pitcher, and poured it over his head into
the basin. That need to enforce the rule of the majority, he reminded himself,
justified bending the Constitution occasionally. That justified opposing aboli-
tion last year when such restraint helped win the war, or supporting abolition
this year when such radicalism helped win the war.
He had plunged the nation into war to put the flag back, not to put down
slavery. Last year, to have undertaken abolition would have smacked of bad
faith and weakened the cause of the Union. He had told his closest supporters
that abolition's thunderbolt would keep. Now he needed a thunderbolt to
energize and save the Union.
Certainly it took a load off his mind to be able, finally, to use that thunder-
bolt in a way that served rather than harmed the central goal: now he was in
the happy position of being able to advocate both the preservation of the
Union and an end to slavery. His previous position of promising not to strike
at slavery where it existed, merely to prevent its extension, had not overly
troubled himhe had been carrying out the contract of the founders and his
own campaign promises. But his preliminary proclamation had opened a new
vista: he was at last persuaded that his personal wish to end slavery would
advance and not retard the saving of the Union. After the disastrous elections
and the rise of Seymour and the peace movement, however, Lincoln needed at
least a modicum of military progress to be sure.
He finished dressing and straightened his hair with his fingers, ignoring the
mirror. He thought about looking in on Mary in the bedroom across the hall
and decided against it. She needed her rest, which came best in the mornings
for her, and the sight of her ashen face these days with its pursed-lipped
mouth made him sad.
He remembered back to the days in Springfield, when her women's prob-
lems that came just after the birth of Tad had ended their passion, such as it
was, and they had agreed it would be safer and more comfortable to sleep
apart. The year he ran for the Senate against Douglas, and lost, they had the
house remodeled and separate bedrooms put in. In those days she would
come in and wake him, sometimes with coffee; now he rarely saw her in the
mornings, and he worried about what went on in her troubled mind after
those late sessions with mediums and seers, or after the debilitating bouts
with the sick headaches. Mary was usually a burden now, but not always;
sometimes she was a source of strength, when he was afflicted with the hypo
and could talk to nobody else. And he would not forget that when he was an
awkward and woman-fearing young man, the well-bred Mary Todd had
helped civilize and socialize him.
On the way down the hall to his office, the President banged on Nicolay's
door; though it was not yet six o'clock, his first secretary was already half
dressed. Lincoln told him to get a horse and ride down to Fredericksburg to
see if General Burnside had finally got his pontoon bridge across the Rappa-
hannock. The damned pontoons had been delayed and Burnside would not
consider any other way of getting his men and wagons across the river.
Lincoln told his senior secretary he was worried that the general was going
to be too busy to keep the War Department informed of the attack on Lee.
"Maybe Chase was right," said Nicolay, stuffing his shirt in his pants.
"Maybe Joe Hooker would have been better."
"Burnside is better," Lincoln said with more certainty than he felt, "be-
cause he is the better housekeeper."
The expected look of puzzlement crossed Nicolay's serious face. Nicolay
was better than young Hay when it came to predictable reactions. "Do you
need a housekeeper or a general?"
"I tell you, Nicolay, the successful management of an army requires a good
deal of faithful housekeeping. More fight will be got out of well-fed and well-
cared-for soldiers and animals than can be got out of those that are required
to make long marches with empty stomachs."
"Yes, Mr. President. I'll write a pass for you to sign."
Lincoln strode to his office and wrote the pass himself: "Major General
Burnside, My dear Sir: The bearer, Mr. J. G. Nicolay, is, as you know, my
private Secretary. Please treat him kindly, while I am sure he will avoid
giving you trouble." He signed it and soon sent Nicolay on his way with an
admonition to stay out of the line of fire. Lincoln hated these days when a
battle was raging nearby and he had to depend on busy or uncaring generals
to send him news. He would likely spend the day and night at the telegraph
office, hearing nothing. If the newspapers could afford a correspondent on the
scene, so could the President of the United States.
He put his fists on his hips and stretched his long body, wishing he could
get some exercise. So much rested with Burnside, more daring than -McClel-
lan, more cautious than Hooker. He had chosen the fellow with the weird
whiskers partly because he was known to be a McClellan man, not eager to
replace Little Mac, and thus would be least likely to provoke an army coup.
Lincoln knew that Burn had had more than his share of disappointments in
life; he had even brought a girl to the altar of marriage, only to hear her say
"no" at the crucial moment; the President shook his head to clear it of doubt.
He had provided Bumside with every available man and gun, more than he
had ever done for McClellan. The Union force was said to be 170,000, more
than double the size of Lee's army and, thanks to the preceding commander,
far better equipped.
Lincoln could not put the Young Napoleon out of his mind; the ousted
general had planned to attack Lee in a place that might have had Stonewall
Jackson's division far from Longstreet's; Bumside preferred a direct assault
across the river. Was that wise? Lee surely was aware of the impending at-
tack, delayed by the damned pontoons, and might have ordered Longstreet to
dig in on the heights. Lincoln shook that thought off, too: Bumside could be
counted on to smash the rebels now, before the end of the year.
Nothing to do but wait for news from the front. He contemplated the
papers on his desk. The Sioux had risen in the West, massacring white set-
tlers; the order to hang three hundred warriors was prepared for his signa-
ture. He wrote a note to the general asking him to select only those Indians
who had actually participated in the killing of innocents in a massacre. That
way, he estimated, he would approve the hanging of only about thirty.
The North was poised for a victory. Halleck was confident; General Haupt,
the quartermaster, was equally certain of victory, and had gone down to the
front to observe the battle after promising to hurry back to Lincoln with news
of the first decisive engagement. The rebels under Lee had already been
beaten a few months ago; the Army of the Potomac had never been better
prepared for the strike that would have them eating Christmas dinner in
Richmond. Then, on New Year's Day, he would sign the proclamation free-
ing the slaves under his war power.
He looked in the outer office for Hay or Stoddard; neither was at work yet.
Lincoln trotted down the stairs and went to the front door to see if the
newsboy had arrived yet with the Intelligencer.

CHAPTER 29

FREDERICKSBURG II
NOT A CHICKEN ALIVE
General James Longstreet, on his horse atop Marye's Heights, looked
through his telescope down on the city of Fredericksburg, now being invested
and looted by Federal troops. Behind them was the Rappahannock, which the
men in blue had crossed on a pontoon bridge, taking some casualties from
Confederate sharpshooters. He could see flashes of artillery from a wide arc
facing him, as the Federals laid down one of the largest and longest barrages
of the war. The incoming balls were not doing much damage to the Confeder-
ate position, where the troops were properly entrenched, but the barrage
announced that the Army of the Potomac was massing for an assault up a
long, sloping field toward the butternut troops on the heights.
"Pete, does our artillery cover that field?" General Lee asked him.
"My artillery chief assures me, sir," Longstreet replied, "a chicken could
not live on that field when we open on it."
Never had the Confederate forces been in a more advantageous position to
punish an attacking force. On Jeff Davis's orders, Lee had ordered entrench-
ment; beyond that, a sunken road ran parallel to the expected line of attack,
providing invisible cover for defending infantry. The field guns were ready
with canister to inflict maximum casualties.
"That sure isn't McClellan over there," he observed to General Lee. They
had seen the order relieving their old adversary, replacing him with Burnside.
The inventor of the best saddle had been replaced by the inventor of the best
breech-loading rifle, and it apparently made a big difference in the way the
battle would be fought.
"In a way, I regret to part with McClellan," said Lee. "We always under-
stood each other so well. I fear they may continue to make these changes till
they find someone I don't understand."
"The men don't like digging in, sir. They think it's cowardly work, unfit for
white men. They call you 'the King of Spades'."
"My army is as much stronger for these new entrenchments," Lee said
evenly, "as if I had received reinforcements of twenty thousand men."
They would need that advantage, because the oncoming Union Army was
a sight to behold, massing as the morning fog lifted, for the onslaught up the
long hills. Longstreet did not need his spyglass to see the polished arms and
bright blue uniforms in array, battle flags fluttering, as on a holiday occasion.
"They are massing very heavily," Lee said, which Longstreet took to be his
commander's way of noting that the opposing army outnumbered the Con-
federate troops by two to one.
"If you put every man in the Union Army on that field," Longstreet re-
plied, "to approach me over the same line, and give me plenty of ammunition,
I will kill them all before they reach my line. Jackson over there may be in
some danger, but not my line."
He wondered why Burnside would be so foolhardy as to step into this trap.
McClellan would never have put himself in this position, and if he found
himself there, would have had the good military sense to swing around and
concentrate his assault on Jackson's position and then try to roll up the line.
Burnside was coming straight ahead, the whole of his army against the whole
of the Confederate line.
Maybe the Union general was acting under direct orders from Lincoln. If
Jeff Davis ever gave him an order like that, Longstreet vowed, he would
resign rather than try to force his men to commit suicide against the enemy in
its stronghold. Or maybe Burnside was acting on his own, trying to make up
for his indecision and delay at the bridge over the Antietam; whatever the
reason, the result was command stupidity on a scale never before seen in this
war.
"They're coming," General Lee said.
That was not an order to fire; Lee left such decisions to his lieutenants.
Longstreet waited until the massed blue troops came forward into the open
field, almost within range of the 2,500 men in Cobb's brigade, hidden in the
sunken road behind a long stone wall. He raised and dropped his arm, order-
ing his artillery to open fire. A sheet offlame seemed to lash down the hill and
the carnage began.
"It is well that war is so terrible," General Lee observed; "we would grow
too fond of it."
Longstreet watched the decimated ranks of blue resolutely march forward,
maintaining a steady step and closing up broken ranks with more determina-
tion than he had ever seen in battle, until they came within range of General
Cobb's muskets. A storm of lead swept through the advancing ranks from
Confederates hidden behind a long stone wall.
No army, no matter how valiant, could long maintain discipline in the face
of such crossfire. The massed muskets and artillery blasting grapeshot were
chewing up the Union front and flank, while other artillery was devastating
the rear. Longstreet thought ahead; if the Army of the Potomac kept sending
wave upon wave of men to their death, the war could be ended today; if they
fell back, perhaps a Confederate bayonet charge down from the heights could
pin the remaining Federals against the river behind them. He wanted to talk
to Generals Hood and Pickett about that. It was just possible that Lincoln
and his new general had, in a gamble against impossible odds, thrown away
the war.
"I wish," he heard Lee say, in a kind of justification of the slaughter but
also an offhand summary of his personal goal in the war, "I wish these people
would go away and let us alone."

CHAPTER 30

FREDERICKSBURG III
WITH NICOLAY
John Nicolay was frightened. He had cheerfully accepted the assignment to
come down to Fredericksburg to observe the battle and to keep the President
informed, but he had not realized the extent to which it might mean risk of
life.  He was a lawyer, not a soldier, and was willing to risk his eyesight
studying late nights for his admission to practice before the Supreme Court,
but physical exposure to enemy fire was not in his line.
The city of Fredericksburg was in Union hands but that offered no comfort
because rebel guns were in position on the heights facing the city. It was
Sunday morning, gray and foggy, but no church bells were ringing: the
churches were closed. Most of the Virginia city's inhabitants had fled, and
many Federal soldiers not at the front were busy stealing valuables from
Virginian homes. A bombardment could begin at any moment if General Lee
saw fit to destroy Southern property occupied by Federal forces. Nicolay saw
no need to stay for the shelling.
The day before, he had learned, a great battle had begun. Late Saturday
night, when the President's secretary arrived at Bumside's headquarters from
Washington, he had found it difficult to determine the outcome. The Federal
opening attack had been beaten back, and the talk was of terrible losses on
both sides, but General Burnside was undaunted, which Nicolay supposed
augured well. The secretary wondered whether he should have sent a tele-
gram to the President, who was probably famished for news, but Nicolay
could not figure out, in all the confusion and disagreement at headquarters,
who was winning. It had been hard to tell anything from Bumside's head-
quarters, located north of the Rappahannock across from Fredericksburg and
out of sight of the fighting. Better to remain silent, he had decided, than to
transmit a wild guess that might later come back to haunt him.
When the thunder of artillery woke him at dawn, he had hurried to the
telegraph operator to see what Bumside was reporting to Washington. The 4
A.M. dispatch was encouraging: "I have just returned from the field. Our
troops are all over the river. We hold the first ridge outside the town, and
three miles below. We hope to carry the crest today."
But at a pre-breakfast council of war that Bumside allowed the President's
representative to attend, a wholly different picture emerged.
"Any movement to my front is impossible at present," General Franklin
told his optimistic commander. "The truth is, my left is in danger of being
turned."
Franklin had been a McClellan favorite, Nicolay knew, and was not one of
the more aggressive generals. Eyes swung to General Hooker, but "Fighting
Joe" had as httle taste for more battle. "I lost as many men yesterday as your
orders required me to lose," he said bitterly. "There has been enough blood
shed to satisfy any reasonable man, and it is time to quit."
Nicolay had understood from Stanton that no love was lost between
Hooker and Bumside, rivals for the command of McClellan's army. Nor was
Hooker a Lincoln man"Fighting Joe" was famous for his frequent calls for
a dictator, and his visits to the Chase home. Bumside was unlikely to heed
Hooker's advice, even when it was the opposite of rash.
The crushing statement came from old General Sumner, leader of the
Third Grand Division of Bumside's force. He had been in the army when
Bumside was a child, and his reputation as ajoyous warrior was approaching
legend. Nobody doubted his courage or zest for combat; Bumside, it was said,
had ordered him to remain at headquarters the day before lest the old man
get killed leading charges.
"General, I hope you will desist from this attack," said Sumner. "I do not
know of any general officer who approves of it, and I think it will prove
disastrous to the army."
That shook Bumside for a moment, but he evidently knew what Lincoln
had appointed him to do. "Assemble my old brigade. They know me, they
will follow me anywhere. I will lead them myself in a charge against the
center, against the sunken road, and I will break Lee's line or die in the
attempt."
That struck Nicolay as foolhardy, even crazy, but he knew it was more
than bravado; Bumside made it clear he had not come this far for a standoff,
and was willing to do what none of his subordinates was ready to do. The
others disagreed with the commander's desperate plan, and Bumsid<- agreed
to reconsider; the council broke up with no decision made.
The telegraph operator came in with a message from Lincoln to Nicolay.
Five stem words: "What news do you have?" With that impetus Nicolay
summoned what personal courage he had and rode across the pontoon bridge
into the city of Fredericksburg. The town had been badly battered, the streets
streaming with men carrying the wounded on litters to the chamel houses
that the schools and churches had become. Nicolay stayed long enough to
ride through two of the principal streets and to find a place where he could
observe the heights from below. An officer lent him a small spyglass and
angrily pointed to the area in front of the sunken road and low stone wall.
Nicolay, to his horror, saw a long mound of blue bodies, with rebel soldiers
creeping among them, pulling shoes off dead men's feet.
The officer invited him into one of the larger houses, its roof partially caved
in, for a cup of coffee with some of his comrades. Nicolay asked them what he
should report to the President, hoping they would hurry and let him go
before the bombardment began anew.
"Tell Lincoln we might as well have tried to take Hell."
"We've lost more than two men to their one," said a lieutenant from Ohio.
"If we have to go up that hill again, we'll lose the whole damn army. At least
with Little Mac, we had a chance. We were on the attack at Antietam, but
Lee lost as many men as we did, and he had to leave the field."
"Lincoln doesn't give a hoot how many of us he loses," a man with a
bandaged hand told Nicolay. "He figures there's more of us than of them, and
after a few years we'll grind 'em down. Burnside's his boy, and he'll shovel us
in again today or tomorrow."
"That's not the worst of it," said the first officer. "If Bobby Lee finds out
the shape we're in, he'll send Jackson's division down here and catch us up
against the river. The whole army will have to surrender, and there won't be a
blue coat between here and Washington."
Nicolay nodded quickly and headed back across the bridge, past the heavy
artillery emplacements near the headquarters, back to Washington. He de-
cided against answering the President's telegram with one of his own, because
he could not legitimately advise whether Bumside was crazy or the rest of the
generals were, like him, afraid for their lives.

CHAPTER 31

FREDERICKSBURG IV
JOHN HAY'S DIARY
DECEMBER 14, 1862
Poor Nico got back from the front at dusk Sunday, much the worse for wear,
to have the Tycoon bark at him, "What news do you have?"
My rattled associate brought forth some isolated details about the battle
scene and some second-guessing of the military commanders by low-level
officers in a bar that was about to be blown to smithereens by rebel artillery.
Maybe he was not the right observer to send. I might not have been much
better.
At times like these, the Prsdt is especially short-tempered because he
thirsts for information. Strategy can be obtained in great dollops from Hal-